Minutes after entering the village unescorted, Lauren was inside the Fuller estate, while the men near the house lay unconscious on the outskirts.",

The family home was untouched. As much as Vicente's men worked there every day to take care of the family business, the people there mostly just used the area for work. But the decorations, the furniture, and everything else about the property were exactly as it had been just over 10 years ago when this woman had last left.

The pictures of Andrew, Kate, Lauren herself, Vicente and Nina were here and there. Unfortunately, the 26-year-old woman couldn't see any of them.

Miss Death could see by using her mana to map her surroundings. But she couldn't understand the details that would distinguish a woman's face from a man's, for example.

To her, humans were nothing more than piles of flesh and bone with minor variation in shape. Some were taller, others had more volume in certain parts of their bodies, but she couldn't understand differences in eye color, or whether there were specks in people's hair, etc.

As she used her mana to map her surroundings in 3D, the paintings on the walls or the portraits on the furniture in the living room of the Fuller residence were nothing more to her than decorative items that added volume to the walls.

She couldn't tell what was drawn on them.

But even though she couldn't see the pictures of her family, of whom she remembered absolutely nothing until a few weeks ago, she couldn't help but smell something familiar.

She moved with little thought and soon found herself in the double bedroom of the residence, where Andrew and Kate's clothes and things still lay.

Vicente had kept everything. He had left instructions for his staff to dust the area at most, but not to do anything else in the bedroom.

As soon as she entered it, Lauren smelled the scent of her parents and couldn't help but feel connected to the surrounding.

'Why?' she didn't understand. She could sense that this was Vicente Fuller's house. Why did she feel connected to this place?

Was she in love with the man? Was that what made her feel this way?

Her expression hardened as she clenched her fists. 'No way! He's my enemy. I'll kill him, eventually!'

She couldn't recall exactly what had happened after the appearance of the Throne of Darkness, but she had a vague impression that Vicente had issued her an ultimatum similar to the one she had given him years earlier.

This only intensified her resentment towards him, and she yearned for a reunion to end the life of the bastard who had rejected and possibly threatened her.

'Miss?'

She picked up the mental communication from one of her companions waiting outside the village.

'Miss, we must leave. Don't forget our plans for the capital. We need to act urgently or we won't be able to achieve our goals.'

She heard it as she paused beside her parents' bed, touching it with one hand and feeling the soft, sweet-smelling sheets that Kate had so often cared for.

'Okay,' she said after a second, before leaving the Fuller estate as quickly as she had entered.

...

Ten days later, in The Hungry Canyon...

In the small, ancient ruin where Vicente's group had halted days earlier, Onyx still slept in the spot he had chosen to attempt advancing to the 5th stage, while the group had seized several opportunities in the area.

Ten days were sufficient for Vicente and his companions to gather all the artifacts available in these ruins, ranging from spatial rings to weapons and armor.

Most of the items were of the 4th-gradeneither life- changingly good nor worthless. However, there were two 5th-grade items!

Besides these artifacts, which Vicente and his companions worked hard to collect, they had taken advantage of other opportunities in the vicinity.

These opportunities were not akin to those that Lina and Casey had encountered in the ruin Vicente had shown them. Nonetheless, they were sufficient for some of them to enhance their elemental affinities and improve the quality of their first pentagram.

Only Vicente wasn't able to improve much, as the quality of his first two essences was already very strong, requiring more for any noticeable improvement.

He was already at the peak of the 4th stage, so he hadn't benefited from mana. He had only slightly improved his elemental affinity in this area, as his elements weren't as common or abundant there.

Still, the group was much stronger after ten days in the place Torne had showed. Lina and Casey had completed their short seclusion, with her becoming 8% stronger and him raising the quality of his first pentagram to the orange grade.

Layla and Sarah had got 5th-grade artifacts compatible with them, items that would improve their defense or attack in subsequent confrontations.

As for the other resources, they would mainly be of value to the family when they returned to the Seidel Kingdom.

For now, Vicente had saved some interesting things to take back to his family, but he used about 40% of the metal items he had got during these days to produce new 4th-grade artifacts with 100% efficiency.

Besides making more robotic armor, he also made ammunition and firearms, as well as special artifacts he had never made before.

Among them was a repellent bracelet that could mimic one of his manipulations of his abilities, creating an electromagnetic field that could repel things that came close to its wearer.

This was a defensive item that could really help someone like one of his companions after all his other fighting methods had gone wrong!

Anyway, Vicente's companions were already armed with the group's new artifacts, while three robotic armors without wearers were at the group's side, serving as lookouts.

Vicente's armors could do some things and even fight without their wearers, so it was valuable to have them in this form.

Now the group just waited for Onyx, having enjoyed everything there was to enjoy in this ruin before his departure.

"How much longer is he going to be?" Rory asked Vicente while the two of them looked at the building where the black crow slept underground.

"It won't be long. I feel he's about to make his move," Vicente murmured, feeling his connection to Onyx tells him such a detail. "We better get ready. Let's activate all mana suppressors in the area."

A mana suppressor was the name given to an artifact capable of repelling mana from both sides, creating a kind of invisible vacuum barrier that basically made it impossible to sense what was happening in the area protected by such devices.

Such a thing could hinder Onyx's progress, but since he was already about to advance, Vicente felt it wouldn't cause any problems, but would play the important role of protecting his beast's advance.