Chapter 45
“Huff, hahh….”
The man gasped for breath as though he had just emerged from deep underwater.
His legs buckled, and only after leaning against the wall and catching his breath for a long while was he able to lift his head.
In his frantic casting of the teleportation spell, he had arrived at the wrong place instead of his office.
Still, at least it seemed he had landed somewhere inside the Sorcery Bureau.
The man pulled back the hood that had completely concealed his face and removed his robe.
In his hand, the robe burst into flames and vanished without a trace.
He changed out of his bloodstained shoes and stepped through the door.
Just then, sorcerers passing by caught sight of him.
“Chief?”
There was only one man they could be referring to.
The head of the Sorcery Bureau, known as Marquis Hashur—Baneshion Hashur.
Their startled faces made it look as though he had appeared where he shouldn’t be.
“What brings you down here, sir…?”
Baneshion gave no reply. Instead, he surveyed the corridor.
On either side of the narrow passage, wooden doors clustered densely together like an anthill.
The lowest floor.
There was no need to waste words on insects.
Ignoring the stares directed at him, Baneshion strode toward the center of the hall.
When he stepped onto the magic circle engraved in the middle, he was instantly transported to the top floor of the Bureau.
The first thing to greet him was a ring of fire conjured by sorcery.
It blazed, scattering sparks, but despite its fierce glow, it gave off no heat.
Beyond the fire lay a corridor overrun with brambles.
On white marble flooring, scarlet roses bloomed amidst the thorny vines, creating an atmosphere more eerie than beautiful.
As he walked, the brambles slowly drew back, parting as if to make way for him.
At the end of the passage stretched the massive trunk of a great tree.
The very skeleton of the tower was this ancient tree, thousands of years old.
The lower floors had the trunk hidden behind masonry, but only here, at the top, was it left bare.
Between the roots was a lone door.
Baneshion pushed it open, and his eyes glinted dangerously.
His hands still trembled, perhaps from the aftereffects of expending so much sorcerous power.
He had never expected to encounter someone at the auction house with skill equal to his own.
In truth, had he been a little slower, he might have been the one defeated. But Baneshion refused to admit it.
He told himself it was only because he had been caught off guard. Had they fought head-on, he surely would have won.
Once in his life was enough to experience defeat at another’s hands.
“…But how did he undo my spell?”
Though lightly woven, it was by no means a spell so easily dispelled.
Not once, but twice….
“Don’t tell me.”
Baneshion’s face hardened as he recalled something from not long ago.
A few weeks earlier, one of his direct subordinates had suddenly burst into his office.
“Chief! The spell placed on the Crasseum Grand Duke’s estate has been broken!”
The subordinate coughed violently and spat blood as he finished speaking.
By Baneshion’s command, he had spent the past year weaving a forbidden enchantment over the entirety of the Crasseum mansion.
Layer upon painstaking layer had been stacked, creating a massive spell so intricate that even top-class sorcerers would have struggled to tamper with it.
Yet it had suddenly shattered by force, the backlash wracking the subordinate’s body.
“It must have been the work of a sorcerers’ guild.”
There could be no other explanation for its instant collapse.
Forbidden arts that used blood and flesh as mediums were overwhelmingly powerful.
For an ordinary sorcerer to undo such a spell, their life would be the price.
And this one had been built up over a year’s time. One or two lives would not have been nearly enough.
“So, the Grand Duke must have realized and brought in sorcerers.”
But no Bureau sorcerers had been dispatched to the Crasseum mansion recently.
That meant they were unaffiliated—but to think such people could break a forbidden spell was unthinkable.
Had the Grand Duke realized and deliberately avoided contacting the Bureau, or was it coincidence?
“Still… they lived surrounded by a forbidden spell for a year. It must have left its mark.”
But that alone was not enough to satisfy him.
Everything had to be tied off, perfectly, without question.
So Baneshion began investigating who had broken his spell.
Surely, when the spell collapsed, it had sent out a ripple. Someone must have witnessed it.
He tried bribing those who worked at the Crasseum estate, but they all remained tight-lipped.
In the end, Baneshion resolved to finish what his subordinate had failed to accomplish.
For that, he needed to make his mind-control sorcery stronger.
So he went to the underground black market, searching for test subjects.
Amid the refuse of humanity gathered there, he picked out a few whose deaths would raise no suspicion.
Blending in among the crowd, Baneshion discreetly cast his spell.
It was so subtle that even skilled sorcerers would have difficulty detecting it.
Soon, one of his targets succumbed and obeyed his command.
“Walk outside and kill yourself.”
He implanted the order and waited.
But in an instant, the connection snapped, like a string cut by scissors.
Startled, he thought perhaps he had cast the spell too lightly.
He tried again with another target, and the same thing happened.
Only then did he realize the truth.
Someone was deliberately interfering.
From then on, he had clashed repeatedly with the mysterious interloper until, at last, he had been forced to retreat.
“Could it be the same one who unraveled the mind-control spell I placed on the Grand Duke?”
Baneshion’s face grew grim.
There could not be several people capable of breaking through forbidden sorcery.
Someone with that level of skill could not have remained unknown to him—unless they had dropped from the heavens themselves.
Again, in his mind, he saw that blinding white light, flashing before his eyes like lightning.
Who was it that wielded such pale sorcery?
Suddenly, a name rose unbidden in his thoughts.
Theodore Rohan.
“…It can’t be him.”
That cowardly fox would never leave his den.
And yet, no other came to mind who wielded white sorcery of such power.
Above all, Theodore was the man who had dealt Baneshion his first defeat.
Staggering, Baneshion made his way toward a bookshelf.
He switched the positions of the third and eighth books and murmured a spell.
The shelf sank into the floor, revealing another space.
Baneshion leapt down into a chamber overflowing with vials and papers.
It was the most secret place within the Sorcery Bureau—the chamber for forbidden magic research.
Forbidden sorcery had long been outlawed by imperial law, their grimoires burned long ago.
But it had not been entirely eradicated; remnants remained, hidden in places like this.
Baneshion had stumbled upon this chamber and quickly fallen into obsession with forbidden arts.
He had wished to keep it to himself, but the research was too vast for one man alone. So he had entrusted it only to a few loyal aides.
Baneshion picked up a sheet of parchment strewn on the desk.
The forbidden spell he had cast on the Grand Duke was mind control.
It was not done on a whim, but through a secret transaction.
That man had wanted to control Jenox like a puppet.
In exchange for a Fox Marble, Baneshion had agreed to help.
The first attempt had been successful.
Growing arrogant, he had pushed for a second.
At the time, he had never imagined that a year’s work could be undone in a single instant.
“I’ll have to make contact.”
The thought made him grimace with distaste.
In his life, Baneshion had met many people, but never one so sinister.
Just recalling what the man had done to the Grand Duke was enough to make his skin crawl.
He had to claim the Fox Marble quickly and sever ties.
He dipped a pen into an inkwell.
The nib absorbed a thick, crimson liquid that reeked of iron.
It was not ink, but human blood.
On parchment made from flayed human skin, the letters soaked up the blood as he wrote.
Soon, the counterpart parchment held by the other party would show his message.
Originally meant for curses, he had discovered this method could be used for communication as well.
He brushed aside the parchment, now drained completely of blood.
Before long, new letters surfaced on its face—his correspondent’s reply.
[I will move personally.]
