Chapter 209: Chapter 209

That was Lake’s first thought upon returning.

Explosions had left the ground pockmarked with craters, tents lay shredded, and splintered logs jutted from the earth like spears. Nearby, a pile of corpses caught his eye.

He exhaled sharply, scanning the survivors. More than half bore injuries—some minor, others severe. Nearby, a patch of grass had been repurposed as a makeshift infirmary, littered with torn tent fabric and the groans of wounded hunters.

Lake paused for a moment, observing the injured hunters before striding toward the command tent—the only one still standing.

He paused outside, letting his presence seep into the surroundings, alerting the group inside of his arrival. Then, he pushed the flap aside.

Inside, Liam and Gwen stood with the remaining group leaders, hunched over a map. Of the original 12, only 6 group leaders remained. Conversation died as Lake entered. Eyes locked onto him, wary and tense.

Lake noticed the suspicion in their eyes but paid it no mind, focusing on Liam.

Liam, however, didn’t look up. He spoke with an emotionless expression, his voice flat.

Lake nodded as he stepped forward. "I found the missing hunters’ remains."

A beat of silence. The air grew heavier. Some of the group leaders sighed at the news.

Liam finally lifted his gaze. "Good work. Anything else?"

He didn’t seem to care about the deaths of the hunters, and Lake didn’t dwell on it either. Instead, he was more curious about what had happened while he was gone.

"I’d like to know what happened here first."

Lake’s eyes flicked over the group, but their recent fates were too chaotic for him to learn anything.

’Prestige must’ve struck while I was gone.’

"Gwen," Liam suddenly called out, "brief him."

He commanded simply, causing Gwen, who stood at the sidelines, to step forward. Her brilliant silver hair was a mess, blood and dirt splattered across her face and staining her uniform.

Her jaw tightened, but she relented. "We were ambushed. Three of the missing hunters returned with robed strangers and caught us off guard. You can guess the rest."

She didn’t say much, her expression dark.

Lake slowly nodded in acknowledgement. He recalled the sight he had seen outside that had caused him to pause. Lying among the injured hunters, surrounded by her teammates, was Hana’s unconscious body.

’If only I had arrived sooner...’

Lake clenched his fist but his expression didn’t change.

He had uncovered Prestige’s plan to attack the base camp through the purified fate, but he was still a step too late in returning to prevent the disaster.

Gwen continued, voice strained with emotion. "We only drove them off after the commander stepped in, but by then, the damage was done."

Lake’s eyebrow rose at her words.

He was slightly taken aback, his curiosity growing even stronger. He studied the man, but Liam’s expression gave nothing away.

"Your turn," Gwen pressed. "What did you find?"

Instead of answering, Lake glanced at Liam, who gave a slight nod. "Go ahead. No point in hiding it now."

With Liam’s permission, Lake began recounting his experience in the woods.

The eight bodies buried beneath the ground and intertwined with bloodsucking vines, the encounter with the member of Prestige, and the intel he’d extracted from him.

"Their base is underground, beneath the giant mountain north of camp. I estimate their remaining numbers to be below ten, and after the few fights we had with them, even fewer." He paused, letting the information sink in before revealing the last and most important piece of news he had uncovered. "All of their members are at least peak Martial Warriors, with the possibility of several Masters among them."

Someone swallowed audibly. "A Martial Master?"

"And multiple of them?" Another voiced his concern.

Murmurs spread as panic and fear slowly enveloped the hunters present. This was supposed to be a routine raid—go in, cull the beasts, loot any relics or material, and then leave. Not fight terrorists with Masters in their ranks.

At that point, all eyes darted to Liam. They’d all seen him move during the attack, and that fleeting glimpse of his power had left a lasting impression on them. Although some of them secretly questioned why he hadn’t made a move earlier, nobody dared confront him. Right now, he was their best hope at surviving this ordeal.

But the options available to him weren’t that great either. Hunker down and wait for the rift to collapse—letting Prestige remain unchecked and possibly having to defend against another attack. Or strike first, despite their wounded. Carry the injured as dead weight, or leave them behind and vulnerable to another attack.

Liam sighed, not liking the options available to him, and after a few moments of silence made his decision.

Liam was about to give the order to bunker down but suddenly made eye contact with Lake, causing him to pause. He recalled an earlier piece of information he had stored away in the corners of his mind.

Of a video of a lone student facing fifty other students and receiving a grievous wound to his chest...and how in the next instant, that wound rapidly healed.

Suddenly, a smile began to creep up on the corner of his lips as he called out to the student.

"How effective is your healing ability?"

Sitting on the branch of a large tree atop a hill, a woman dressed in a tattered jester outfit swung her feet as she hummed a strange rhyme.

"Hehehe, to think someone like that was hiding among the fertilizers~" She giggled playfully, recalling the earlier spectacle.

All of her puppets had fallen in an instant. As if the Grim Reaper had passed through, claiming their lives and cutting her connection to them with a single swing of his scythe.

"Hehehe, but this just makes it more fun~!" She suddenly leaned forward, her legs wrapping around the tree’s branch as she hung upside down. Her hands outstretched formed a square with her fingers.

She gazed through the window she had created with one eye squinted—in her sights was a small clearing in the middle of the woods with a few small ant-like figures moving about.

"With a big boy like him amongst them, I’m going to need to mobilize stronger puppets~"

As she watched the ants continue to move around, she noticed something that caught her gaze.

"Oh~?? What’s this~?"

Among the many dots scattered across the clearing, one particular black ant was moving among the injured ones. He extended a hand to the injured ones, a soft light spreading from them as it enveloped the injured.

What happened next was nothing short of a miracle.

"Is he healing them~?" Harlequin’s eyes went wide beneath her mask. However, her surprise didn’t end there.

As she looked at the strange black ant, she happened to make eye contact with him.

Harlequin’s humming stopped. The two of them were separated by more than a dozen kilometers. It didn’t make sense for the black ant to be able to see her, who was actively using mana to enhance her vision.

As the two continued to stare at each other, she suddenly saw the man look away as if nothing had happened, returning to his task.

She questioned but didn’t linger on it for too long. It wasn’t in her nature to think deeply about these types of things.

"Oh well~ I guess I’ll need even more puppets~"

Her humming resumed as she dropped from the tree, performing a spinning flip midair before landing on her feet, her arms extended to the side in a dramatic flair.

She looked like she was performing on a stage, but unfortunately no audience was there to applaud her stunt.

Still, she didn’t let it dampen her mood as she knelt down, her palms pressed against the ground.

Soon, threads of mana began to extend out of her fingertips, seeping into the ground and reaching the roots of the trees around her.

A few minutes later, a small earthquake shook the hill as the once silent forest came alive.

In the spot atop the hill, Harlequin’s figure, which had been kneeling a few minutes ago, had disappeared.

Lake frowned as he continued to heal the hunters around him. His healing abilities weren’t as good as Sylph’s, who could practically regenerate limbs, but it was enough to seal the wounds and alleviate their condition enough to move again.

That wasn’t what disturbed him, however.

Just moments ago he had sensed a gaze trailing on him. It was barely perceptible, but thanks to his advanced senses, he picked up on it and quickly located the source.

It was then that he met the gaze of his unwelcome stalker. His vision, which had been honed to perfection, was able to see the strange jester-like woman hanging from the tree.

She was too far for him to do anything meaningful, and his mana eye showed her mana signature clear as day.

It wasn’t something he could confront easily on his own.

Hardening his expression, he continued to heal the hunters one by one, eventually reaching the last one.

Even with his abilities, he lacked the necessary mana to repeatedly cast healing spells, so the whole process took him a little under twenty minutes.

As he approached the last hunter, his gaze shifted to those gathered around her.

They didn’t speak. They just watched over their friend with worried gazes while trying to ease her pain and discomfort.

The silver-haired one among them glanced toward him, giving him a small nod.

The man kneeling next to the woman, his hand gripping hers, looked over to him with a haggard expression.

Seeing him left even Lake feeling a little thrown off, yet he didn’t say anything and approached the group.

He knelt beside Hana, the injured woman and his senior, who he had grown somewhat close to during a hunt together. He carefully unwrapped the bandage wrapped around her, exposing her back.

A long slash going from the side of her shoulder ran all the way down to her waist. The cut was deep and was bleeding a dark red.

Hana groaned in pain from the exposed wound. At some point, she had woken up, but the pain was too unbearable even for her.

Landur whispered, patting Hana’s hair as he held her hand tightly in his. He turned to face Lake as if asking him to hurry up.

Seeing how bad her condition was, Lake wasted no time and quickly cast the spell. Soon, he could feel his mana draining from him quickly.

Hana’s wound was among the worst of the hunters, so he expended far more mana to completely seal the wound.

As time trickled by, her body began to rapidly repair itself, new cells growing to replace the damaged ones, and the gap gradually narrowing until the wound had sealed completely into a faint scar.

At that point, he had expended more than half of his limited mana; however, he wasn’t done yet.

Although he had sealed the wound, the inside was still far from perfect and needed further repairs.

After a few minutes, he had completely emptied out his mana reserves and finished the healing process. He didn’t have to use all his mana to heal her, but he still did anyway. He wasn’t worried about running out since his mana heart made sure he would be back to full in less than ten minutes.

"I healed most of her wounds, but she’s still going to need rest to fully recover."

Lake explained as the group turned to face him, grateful looks on their faces.

Landur had a relieved smile on his face as he held Hana in his arms, his haggard look fading back into his usual relaxed expression.

"Urgh...I feel like shit."

Hana groaned, causing the nearby Jayce to laugh.

"Looks like you recovered well if you could already afford to joke around."

"Grrr..." Hana growled in displeasure, but strangely she seemed to be moving quite well, especially with how she snuggled into Landur’s lap.

"Ahem." Landur coughed awkwardly, but Hana showed no signs of moving, burying her face deeper into his embrace.

Seeing how comfortable she looked resting, Landur didn’t have the heart to push her away and decided to just let her be.

Instead, he turned his head to face Lake and thanked him once more.

"Thank you. We don’t know what we would’ve done if you hadn’t been here."

"Hahaha! You can say that again!" Jayce suddenly smiled, patting Lake on the back in a little too ’familiar’ action.

Gwen also smiled, her gaze softening.

"Thank you. I’m glad you were here," she spoke, her smile blossoming into a gentle expression.

Lake didn’t know why, but he felt a strange sense of dissonance at their reaction. Almost as if they knew something...

"Truly, we’re grateful you were here," Landur spoke again as a wide grin spread across his face.

In the next instance, almost in perfect sync, the three of them called out in unison.

His identity had been exposed.