Chapter 121: Avallion Devil

"What was his name?"

Darian eyebrow raised in interest as Eleanor asked, her eyes locked on his as she waited for him to answer.

There was a chance that who she heard about was probably who she was looking for. The chances were slim, but they were present.

All she could do was hope that whatever answer that would leave this man's mouth would be reasonable enough for her to work with.

Darian laughed before his gaze settled on her again.

"You're looking for something?"

Eleanor nodded, her expression from.

"Everyone's looking for something these days." Darian pocketed the coin, settling back into his seat in a slow, deliberate movement.

"Well, the person, like you said, had a fire ability, glitched system, golden eyes and dark hair."

Something shifted behind Darian's expression. "Lucas," he said, "Lucas Kane." He repeated the words slowly, letting it sink into Eleanor's ears

Eleanor's breath caught entirely, her eyes widening.

"You know him?"

"Know him? I fought beside him. He watched me take down an Avalion that had already put three of my fighters in the ground before he ever showed up."

Darian's mouth curved into something almost admiring. "Fascinating man. Powerful, in a strange, unpredictable way." A pause. "A glitched system?" He asked, placing his hand on his chin as he thought for a moment. "He didn't tell me about that…"

As far as he knew, the only other thing about Lucas he knew aside from his fire ability was his Modifier, which his own system warned him about when Lucas first stepped foot into his halls.

Eleanor spoke, her voice steady. "He didn't tell you about it?"

Darian nodded. "Yes. The only other thing I knew about him was his Modifier, which, if you asked me, is a bit exaggerated given the fact that his ability is flawed." He laughed as he said this, but Eleanor asked again.

"What was his Modifier?" She held her breath.

Darian looked at her and replied. "The Terror."

"It's him." She said.

"Yeah, I don't think I've met anyone quite like him though." He stayed silent for a moment before asking again. "If you don't mind, do you have any idea as to why the system calls him that?"

"He's never lost a fight." Eleanor replied.

Darian's eyes widened. "Really?"

"Really. Not once."

Darian exhaled before speaking again. "A part of me believes that he's only been in easy battles—"

"No. He's been separated from us all the times we dropped. And every one who was with him said that he had never lost a fight, no matter how tough it looked."

Darian was surprised. He really didn't expect to hear this about a man who came to him injured and unable to do much a few days ago.

Darian himself had never lost a fight. So he was supposed to understand how much that actually meant…

But that was different.

Where Lucas had never lost a fight he found himself in, Darian had never lost a battle he chose to fight.

Those were two entirely different things…

Before he could say anything else, Eleanor asked again, urgency bleeding through her voice this tim. "When did he leave? How long ago?"

"A handful of days, now. He arrived injured — badly, actually, a fractured arm he'd apparently been walking around with for far longer than he should have. Yor patched him up properly, and he stayed to heal for a short while before moving on."

"Where did he go?"

"Chasing a Gateway. Same as everyone else out here, one way or another" Darian's expression sobered slightly. "I gave him a direction, best guess based on what my scouts had mapped. Can't promise he actually reached it, though. Gateways reset position with every new Edgewalk, and depending on how much time passed between his leaving and the cycle turning over—"

"He might not have made it in time," Eleanor finished, dread settling in her stomach.

"Possibly not. I genuinely don't know." Darian studied her a long moment, something shifting behind his grey eyes. "You said you were separated from your group. That was what Lucas said, almost exactly. Are you—"

"I'm one of the people he was looking for," Eleanor said, before he could finish the question. "We built a Faction together. He got separated from us at a Gateway crossing, and I haven't had a single confirmed sighting of him since."

Something bright and genuinely delighted broke across Darian's face at that, as he spoke in pleased surprise.

"Well," he said, "isn't that a stroke of luck. The odds on that are considerably better than I would have guessed." He leaned forward, interest sharpening further. "I can show you the direction I sent him. Might not lead anywhere useful anymore, given how much time's passed, but it's more than nothing, and—"

**BOOM**

The explosion cut him off entirely.

The sound moved through the compound like physical force, walls shuddering, dust raining down from the ceiling overhead, and Darian was on his feet instantly, all trace of his earlier ease gone.

"That came from the eastern wall," he said, already moving toward the door, Eleanor falling into step beside him.

They burst out into the courtyard to chaos — survivors scrambling in every direction, guards shouting conflicting orders, smoke rising in thick and black columns from a section of the eastern wall that had simply ceased to exist.

Something vast moved within the smoke, wings unfolding wide enough to show its mass, and Eleanor's stomach dropped at the sight of it. It was an Avalion, but wrong. It was larger, its hide a deep crimson rather than the dull grey she remembered, its eyes burning as its head snapped into their direction.

[Ding!]

[Warning: Avallion Class Entity detected.]

"That's new," Darian said grimly, already reaching for his coin with his jaw clenched. "And considerably worse than anything we've faced here before."

Eleanor took a battle stance, her blade of fire igniting in her grip as the system pinged again.

[You have encountered an Avallion Devil.]

[Objective: Saly the Beast.]

[Survival Probability: 35%]