Chapter 116: who are you

The trees around them blurred into a smear of green and brown as the fallen Inquisitor sprinted through the woods, carrying Yuki under her arm like a rolled-up rug.

Even with his weight—not that he weighed much—her movement was shockingly fast, a true testament to her Rank 1 swordmaster physique. But beneath them, the ground vibrated with a low, rhythmic thunder. The vanguard of the Mountain Kingdom was closing in, knocking down ancient pines as their heavy cavalry trampled through the border forest.

"Can’t you run any faster?!" Yuki yelled, his head bouncing against her hip. "If we get caught in the middle of a seventy-thousand-man advance, my sealing collar is going to be the least of my problems!"

"Shut up! I’m moving as fast as I can without blowing my essence reserves!" she shot back, leaping over a massive fallen log. "And since when can you sense an entire invasion force from miles away?!"

Before Yuki could answer, his senses flared up violently. A sharp spike of ice-cold, murderous intent pierced the back of his neck and his system dinged of danger.

"DROP US!" Yuki screamed.

She didn’t hesitate. Reacting purely on combat instinct, she threw herself sideways, slamming both of them into the mossy dirt just as three pitch-black energy blades sliced cleanly through the massive oak tree ahead, reducing its trunk to splintered ash.

BOOM!

The heavy tree crashed down, blocking the path forward. Smoke billowed through the clearing as six figures stepped out from the shadows of the forest canopy. Each wore long white-and-black robes adorned with a striking obsidian cross across their chest.

At the head of the squad stood a tall man with hollow, sunken eyes and pale, lifeless skin. A heavy, dark aura clung to his broadsword like a parasitic mist.

The fallen Inquisitor scrambled to her feet, drawing her longsword with a sharp metallic hiss. Her eyes locked onto the leader, her posture stiffening in absolute shock.

"Raven...?" she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "No... that’s impossible. What happened to you?"

The man called Raven didn’t answer with emotion. His eyes were milky white, lacking any trace of human warmth.

"Target secured," Raven spoke, his voice sounding double-layered, like two people speaking at the exact same time. "The Goddess’s plaything... and the disgraced Inquisitor."

"He’s not Raven," Yuki grunted, pushing himself up despite the collar suppressing his power. He stared at Raven’s hollow eyes, his chest tightening as his System glitched wildly in his vision.

[WARNING: HIGH-TIER ENTITY DETECTED]

[HOST / SOUL MISMATCH DETECTED: RANK 4 SOUL PILOTING RANK 1 VESSEL]

[RECOMMENDED ACTION: RUN.]

"Yuki... what are you talking about?" the Inquisitor demanded, taking a defensive stance in front of him, her blade humming with a bright silver aura. "That’s him! That’s the man I’ve been looking for!"

"That thing isn’t Raven!" Yuki insisted, glaring at the empty false vessel. "My System would have notified me if it was! One of my main missions is to find him, and the mission is still active—so I’m telling you, that thing is not Raven!"

The Inquisitor’s eyes widened in horror. "What...?"

The fake Raven tilted his head, a sickening, mechanical smile spreading across his pale face. "Clever little rat. Your System really is a nuisance. It matters not. My Lord requires your vessel, boy. Hand yourself over peacefully, or we will remove your limbs and drag your torso back to the sanctuary."

"Over my dead body!" the Inquisitor snarled, stepping forward as her silver aura flared into a blazing pillar of light. "I don’t care what kind of monster you are, no one touches the boy unless I say so!"

"I’m a grown man! Why does everyone keep calling me a boy?!" Yuki muttered, thoroughly annoyed. "And take this collar off me already!"

"Eliminate the woman," the fake Raven ordered flatly, pointing his dark blade forward. "Bring the boy alive."

The five Black Cross operatives drew their weapons in unison, surging forward at terrifying speeds to surround them.

The Inquisitor moved in to meet the five men. She slipped beneath their blades with a fluid motion, gripped her sword tight, and sliced through the incoming attackers in a single clean arc. But the moment their bodies fell, a thick, toxic white smoke seeped from their wounds, engulfing her completely.

She dashed backward out of the haze, her body burning from the corrosive gas. Before she could catch her breath, a hidden blade whizzed past her throat, nearly cleaving her head clean off.

"Hey! Put me down!" Yuki’s voice shouted out from the fog.

She spun around just in time to see another operative snatching Yuki up by his collar and sprinting off into the treeline.

"Hey!" she screamed, lunging forward—but before she could pursue, dozens of pale, hollow-eyed figures emerged from the shadows to block her path.

Soon, over thirty walking corpses converged on her position, trapping her in a grueling melee and making it impossible to follow Yuki.

"Who are you?!" Yuki demanded, hanging upside down as the masked man carried him through the woods.

The man said nothing, maintaining a silent, relentless pace.

As Yuki bounced against his shoulder, a translucent System panel flickered into view before his eyes:

[MISSION FAILED: ELIMINATE THE FALLEN INQUISITOR]

[ACTIVE MISSION UPDATED: LOCATE THE ’REAL’ RAVEN]

What the hell is going on? Yuki thought, staring at the glowing UI.

"Hey!" Yuki shouted at his captor. "Take me to Raven! The real Raven!"

The masked man suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. Dropping Yuki unceremoniously into the dirt, he drew a black shortsword and dropped into a low combat stance.

Taking immediate advantage of the distraction, Yuki scrambled to his feet and bolted into the thickets, heading directly toward the glowing quest marker pulsing on his radar map. The Goddess had tasked him with finding Raven, and that was exactly what he was going to do.

Unbeknownst to Yuki, however, the real Raven was already nothing more than a puppet—the physical body was genuine, but the soul inhabiting it had long since been replaced.

Before Yuki could make it more than twenty yards, a hand reached out from behind a high boulder and snatched him up by the back of his shirt.

"You’re alive?!" Yuki blurted out in shock, looking up at the Inquisitor.

"That I am," she panted, her attire singed and her silver aura flickering faintly. "And those bastards back there weren’t the real Black Cross. Wrong emblem, wrong attire, wrong weapons... They were fakes. I don’t know who or what they are, but we need to get out of here right now."

She paused, setting Yuki down on a flat rock and staring at him with deep, intense suspicion.

"...And who exactly are you?"

"What do you mean?" Yuki asked, blinking.

"Why are there so many high-level factions coming after you?!"

"I have no idea!" Yuki said, throwing his hands up in frustration. "I’m nothing special for them to want!"

"Nothing special?!" she snapped, her eyes narrowing dangerously. "They called you ’the Goddess’s plaything’! Who are you, Yuki? And don’t lie to me—no simple kid is hunted by the real Black Cross, pursued by shadow impersonators, and on first-name terms with an actual deity! Who are you?!"