It took me two days to get back to the palace and meet my sworn enemy, who I happened to forget about. I felt a bit unnerved, but I was also confident in my own abilities. It was rather strange because I had memories pertaining items, social skills, the way to use my weapon, my battle skills and a few other things. But I remembered only common things.

As if my memories served nothing but a way to navigate through my daily life. I shouldn’t think too deeply into it. My memories should return one day anyway.

Seeing the guards in front of the main door kneel down upon my arrival, I simply entered. After thinking about Elena’s description of the palace, I made my way towards the throne room. The guards in front of the door stepped aside this time as well, which proved my high standing in the palace.

Elena didn’t tell me about this, but I probably didn’t share every little thing with her either. Let’s see. “Could you tell me where is Padinyss?” I asked.

“I’m here,” he stepped out from behind the throne, holding two people by the head. Both of them had blonde hair and green eyes and horns.

“Who are they?” I asked, not really concerned by them. He is a dragon god, so I should feel different in front of him, but I don’t. Is this because I’m an undead? I guess must be it. I’ll ask Elena about this later.

“Hehe, let me cancel their spell,” Padinyss smirked as he let go of the two. The one on his right turned bald and his skin seemed to be ragged. He had stitches in his face and his horns were nowhere to be seen. The other one had brown hair and was around a hundred and eighty centimeters tall.

Wait, their description fits Cor and Jake. She did say they were on a mission in the palace… were they caught?

“Cor and Jake?”

“Yeah. These bastards were trying to free Khax and Cor wanted to do something with Shin as well. I’ll have to find out what they wanted, though.”

I should help them somehow, but how?

“You, call Inhe. I just found the right job for her,” he pointed at one of the servants who returned with a blonde haired woman. She looked rather nice, but the way she looked at me told me she hated me. I guess not everyone is fond of me in the palace and if she dares to make those sort of faces, she must have a high-standing.

“My lord?” she bowed in front of Padinyss and then stepped closer to hug his arm, also stepping on Jake’s back as if he wasn’t even there…

“Wait until evening,” he pushed her away. “Look down. Are they familiar to you?”

“AH! These two! How did you catch them? As expected of your highness!” she gasped, seemingly happy to see those two.

“Your task is to try and pull out their masters’ location or anything related to Elena and Dred. In most cases, cutting off the head of a snake isn’t enough, but if we’re dealing with blood-bonded creatures… hehe, it’s another matter.”

“As you wish! Can I hurt them?” a devious smile formed on her face.

“I’d be glad to see them in pain for all the trouble they caused me. But don’t kill them, we need them to lure in Elena and Dred,” he put his hand on her face.

“Understood!”

She must be his concubine or something of the sort. But hell, are they seriously going to torture my supposed friends? But I can’t even feel bad for them since I don’t remember them. Damn it, this is so frustrating! I clenched my fists as I followed Inhe and Padinyss without saying a word. We entered a grassy plain in the palace, which had nothing but a small house in it.

They carried Jake and Cor to the house and put them on the ground. Padinyss put his palms on their faces and closed his eyes. The green lines among his scales lit up and I felt a huge amount of mana being sucked away from our surroundings. A minute later, he stood up and a dragon-shaped black marked appeared on Jake’s and Cor’s faces.

“This is going to seal their mana and make them unable to move. They can probably devour it, but it’s going to be impossible if it’s me who makes the seals,” Padinyss explained. “If for some reason I still need them but I can’t renew the seal, you should do it,” he looked at me.

“Okay,” I nodded.

“Now then, let’s wake them up!” Padinyss shot a part of his mana into Cor’s and Jake’s bodies and both of them sat up due to the sudden pain. Or so I believed, but they just seemed surprised. I guess they can hide their pain well.

“Why can’t I move?” Jake grumbled as he tried to move, but his limbs failed him.

“I sealed your mana and blocked a part of your nerve system. You can’t move your arms and legs now, but I assure you, you’re going to feel pain at other places,” Padinyss explained.

“My, I should run away in that case.”

“You won’t laugh for long. Inhe!”

“Ah, I was barely able to restrain myself,” she smiled as she stepped closer to Jake and knelt down in front of him.

She grabbed his forehead and then his chin and forced his jaws apart. “Let’s see, which tooth should I start with? Let’s pull out this one,” she grinned and grabbed one of his fore-teeth. She slowly started to pull it out, visibly anticipating a painful scream, but Jake didn’t make a single sound. She soon pulled out his tooth and Jake’s blood dripped onto her fingers.

Shit, what should I do? I can’t help them or my cover is going to be blown! I’m sure I can’t beat Padinyss alone either, not to mention Inhe and the others servants in the place.

“Let’s get the next one~ You know, just because you don’t scream, I know it’s painful enough!”

“Haha, take this!” Jake laughed as he headbutted her and saw her fall on her butt. “What would a bitch like you know? I went through a torture even when I was a human. You can’t break me!”

Inhe looked up at Padinyss with panic-filled eyes and quickly got up. “You little shit, let me show you true pain!” she raged on and started to torture Jake with one method after another. By the time she finished, Jake had no fingers, teeth, and his chest was filled with cuts, but he didn’t reveal anything about Elena and Dred.

Since Cor was an undead, they knew he didn’t feel pain, so they didn’t even bother with him.

“Tsk, he won’t talk. As expected of a blood servant… but we can still use them. Tie them to a pole in front of the palace and send fifty royal guards to guard them. There is no way they could take care of my servants and get away before I got out of the palace,” Padinyss laughed.

These people seem to be rather awful… Elena’s words must have been true. Should I blow my cover and free these two? But that’s probably not something they’d want after going through all that pain. It’d be great if I could contact Elena, but I can contact only Padinyss since he has the Orb of Seers. I should take it from him somehow.

“Why the long face, my friend?”

“Oh, I’m just sad to see that they didn’t talk. I’d be happy to finally catch the devourers,” I smiled back.

“I know how you feel, but I’m sure we’ll get them soon. Go and tie them-”

“No! Let me do it!” Inhe cut into his words.

“She can do it,” I shrugged my shoulders and when she left, I added, “Less work to do for me!”

“Hahaha, true. Don’t leave the palace for now. We’ll wait for a few days and see their reaction. The alliance is going to be happy to see that we have some results. They’ve been restless since we never caught sight of our enemies.”

“Indeed, it was unnerving,” I shook my head and then turned around to leave. “I’ll return to my room if you have no more commands.”

“Alright. Just make sure to be ready if the devourers were to come. I might need your help.”

“Got you. Oh! I’ve just remembered something. I wanted to contact a lovely girl, but now I can’t. Could I borrow the Orb of Seers? I’ll give it back-”

“Hahaha, why that seriousness? Here,” he took it out of his storage space and threw it my way.

“Thanks,” I nodded as I caught it and then made my way towards one of the empty rooms. Thank god, it worked. If I said I wanted to contact a servant, he could have asked why I didn’t do so in front of him.

---

I sat down on the bed and closed my eyes. As my mana entered the orb of seers, I thought of Elena and everything turned dark. “Can you hear me?”

“W-Who is it?” her surprised voice returned.

“I’m Ekrok. I borrowed Padinyss’s orb of seers, but let’s ignore this for now. I’ve got some terrible news.”

“Yeah? You aren’t alone… We’ve just learned from Jake’s message that due to a higher being, we have only one week and three days of time to kill Padinyss and since I don’t plan to get stuck in here, we also have to break the seal at the same time.”

“Elena! Jake and Cor have been caught!”

“What?!”

“Like I said, they’ve been caught and were tortured. But they didn’t reveal anything. What should I do? Should I free them and run away?”

“Uh, can we think about it?”

“I don’t have much time,” I replied.

“What’s going on right now?”

“Inhe is about to tie them to two poles in front of the palace. Due to Padinyss’s seal, they can’t move their limbs and they can’t devour it anytime soon either. They plan to lure you and then kill you.”

“So Padinyss doesn’t plan to kill them, right?”

“Not until you two come.”

“This day is getting better and better!” she grumbled.

“I’m sorry. Do you plan to tell Audrey?”

“Of course, I will talk things over with her and call everyone over. On a side note, I’m going to send a lesser servant in the form of a dragonkin. He’ll tell you that he overheard us in a pub in a city where we said we’d go and save Jake and Cor. I’ll specify the details, of course.”

“When should I expect this person?”

“In two to three days. Make sure you won’t reveal him accidentally… I don’t want to lose our people. In case it still comes to that, just act angered and surprised to see that one of your servants had been caught,” she said.

“Okay. Now I’ll cut the connection if you have nothing else to say.”

“Take care and don’t worry, we’ll free our friends.”

Hearing her confident voice, I cut the call and sighed. She seemed to worry about Jake and Cor, while here I was not feeling anything. I felt so empty inside. As I held the orb in my hand, I was surprised to see Elena appear in it. She was facing me with a smile on her face and I smiled back, but in the next moment, she raised her hand and I fell to the ground.

A sense of fear filled my heart seeing this little movie, which seemed unreal. Why would I collapse? I should ask Padinyss later. Even if it means something bad, Padinyss is their enemy, so he won’t realise that I’m not his servant.

I stood up from the bed and left the room, only to see Inhe in front of the door. “What were you doing in my room?” she furrowed her brows.

Oh, so this was her room… whatever.

“I just contacted my lover,” I raised the orb.

“And why did you do it in my room?”

“Because this was the nearest room, but let me give this back to Padinyss,” I stepped to the side to avoid her and made my way towards the throne room. After asking a few servants, I found Padinyss in the yard, sitting in a meditating position.

“Uhm, my king, can I ask you something?”

“My king? Since when do you call me so?” he opened one of his eyes as I sat down in front of him.

“I felt like it,” I laughed.

“Sure. What do you want to know?”

“As I finished talking with my lover, a strange scene appeared in the orb.”

“Oh? What did it show?”

“Elena was facing me and for some reason, I collapsed…”

“If you inspect it, you can see that the orb shows life-threatening dangers as well. I too have seen her and Dred in the orb before, but it seems like they’re a threat to your life as well. You should work hard to avoid your fate,” he patted my shoulder.

Name: Orb of the Seers

Rarity: Epic

Effects: You can see events that will threaten your life ahead of time through this orb. It also has a storage space of a hundred cubic kilometers, and you can use it to connect with anyone in the world and talk with them in your mind. Be warned, you could be attacked by mind-attacks while in effect.

“I- I understand,” I nodded my head. What the hell? This makes no sense. Why would they be a threat to my life? Maybe they aren’t a threat directly. Maybe the orb showed it because Padinyss will learn about me because of Elena and then kill me. Yeah, that must be it, they saved my life and have been helping me reach my goal for who knows how long.

I must change my fate, I can’t die by the hand of my enemy, I thought as I glared at Padinyss. Since his eyes were closed and we were alone, I didn’t have to mind our surroundings. I want to go back to the dark scars. They were so nice to me, I pulled up my legs and closed my eyes. I’ll definitely survive.

--- Padinyss’s POV ---

Why did the orb show me that Ekrok was a threat to my life if Elena and Dread are a threat to his life as well? This makes no sense… could it be that the orb isn’t working? I’ve got it more than a thousand years ago, maybe it’s gone wrong.

Or does he have plans against me? But that can’t be, he is a first-ranked dragon and I’m a dragon god. He should love and respect me instinctually. Tsk, I’ll have to be careful around him, just in case. I don’t believe that my friend and a lesser dragon at that would conspire against me. It’s simply impossible.

I hope Elena and Dred will come. I need to open the seal, kill them, and then the legendary symbiote will be mine!

Opening my eyes, I looked at Ekrok who decided to follow my example and meditate. Shaking my head, I closed my eyes once again and started to gather mana. I knew I’d need it against those two. Thanks to Inhe, the rumour that we’d publicly execute two devourers has started. It’s only a question of time before those two would appear, hopefully.