The Seredums led squad was very quickly moving along the trail. Changing many disguises along the way, they reached Tatoi Forest, in Greece, nearly 10 hours later. The Keeper’s trail became obscured inside the forest due to the presence of so many natural elements. The already weak trail was now even tougher to follow. But the search party was determined.

Eventually, they felt the presence of a dozen individuals. Their Ki was rushing a bit faster than the average human, but not too fast. They were correctly identified as Cultist wizards.

“Use caution,” Erina said, looking at the squad. “If it is them, then remember – these people took down a Keeper. We don’t know what we are dealing with here.”

“And do not play your cards until we can come to an understanding of the enemy,” Neil added.

In agreement, the squad, masking their Ki, began moving closer. 11 p.m. at night, the weather was much more pleasant there in the forest. Temperatures at a moderate 77 degrees Fahrenheit, the hunting party moved steadily, accompanied by the howls of owls and other night creatures.

At a plane area surrounded by trees and bushes, sat the group of twelve, unaware of the impending threat. They were having a meal. The Zeta Squad and the Seredums were stopped nearly 25 meters from them. Neil, Ella, Gina, and Eira circled around to check for any traps. There were none.

Neil gave a nod.

The Zeta Squad attacked.

Assisted by the Seredums, they were way too strong for the weak wizards to handle. The 12 – 7 men and 5 women, were very quickly captured and tied down for questioning.

The wizards had all donned green robes which had insignias at the back with writings in Greek.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Neil asked.

One of the wizards said, “We are from the ‘Fotisménos Laós’. You Masters of the Eye have no business here.”

Fotisménos Laós was a millennia old European Cult of Wizards residing in Greece.

“You are out of your jurisdiction,” Gina quickly said. “This area is prohibited for members of Cults. The Parliament has given you clear instructions to keep away from plebeians.”

They did not reply.

Neil, putting a hand on her teammate’s shoulder, said, “We don’t have time for this.” He looked at Ella and gave a nod. She moved up to one of them and clutched his head with both hands. Chanting the spell, ‘REVUM-NOVUM-ELIPTUS’, she tightened her grip. A faint turquoise flame engulfed her hands and the wizard’s head. His eyes fell wide open.

“Were you in the United Arab Emirates earlier today?” she asked.

“I told you they knew!” shouted one of the tied-up men and, with a quick sweep of sharp winds, he cut the ropes on their wrists freeing them all.

“Ella! Don’t lose your grip,” Neil exclaimed. “Zeta Squad, take them down!”

The squad engaged the wizards while the Seredums stood guarding Ella who continued the questioning.

“Answer me,” she said, calmly, tightening her grip further. This time the wizard’s eyes, ears and nose began to bleed as he screamed, “YES!”

Erina quickly turned around and said, “Ask him where our Lord is.”

Ella nodded and said, “Tell me. Where is she? Where is the Keeper?”

He began to shake and scream in pain. Veins became visible all over his body and even inside his eyes. “Tell me,” Ella said once more.

A loud crack was then heard, and the yelling stopped.

The Seredums looked back.

“What happened?” Erina asked. “What did you do?”

“His skull cracked!” the Sokidu replied. “It wasn’t me! The Ki cluster inside his brain exploded!”

“What?!”

“Something’s not right. This man was spelled. His internal Ki restrictions and my Ki release became too much to bear. A human mind can only take so much.” She looked at the trio and said, “Make sure you capture at least two of them alive!”

The wizards were now putting up a decent fight. Four against eleven, Neil, Marcus, Gina, and Camille were initially being matched almost equally, but it was not to last long.

While Neil and Camille preferred to fight with their fists, Gina preferred long range spells and Ki attacks. And Marcus loved to show off. He whipped out his staff and fired up his Ki to maximum charge very quickly. His aura became visible like a bright red flame encompassing the body. Channelling it into the staff, he got ready to attack.

The wizards were all continuously throwing force fields for defensive purposes while using charms and spells to attack. They were even attempting to command the natural elements around them.

However, the Master Martial Artists of the Eye were more than capable of confronting these tactics. They themselves were quite apt at commanding elements of nature. Avoiding spells and Ki attacks was what these people were trained for from the beginning and the wizards’ defensive shields were nowhere near strong enough to defend against their attacks.

Marcus drew first blood. The last of the Bernthals, his family was famed as the greatest manipulators of the fire element, with some of his predecessors even capable of summoning the infamous dragons of fire. With just a swing of his staff, he sent a wave of flames countering the water coming his way turning it into a huge cloud of smoke. Visibility dropped to zero between him and the wizard. Sensing the enemy’s Ki to pinpoint his location, he leapt forward, vaulting on the staff, and kicked the floating man in the gut hard!

Taking the full force of the blow, the wizard flew many paces before crashing into a tree and falling down. Marcus then released a fire blast burning his entire body to a crisp.

To his right, the siblings had engaged four of the wizards simultaneously. Neil was definitely stronger, but Camille was just as skilled. And together, they were considered Zeta Squad's best when it came to hand-to-hand combat, only second to Hugo himself.

With one strong blow after the other they kept breaking every shield put up by the wizards. Avoiding every attack from the quartet Neil finally found an opening when the shockwave from one of Camille’s attacks disbalanced a witch. Bent low, he leaned in and took a couple of jabs at her abdomen. The following massive uppercut flew her high in the air and Camille, leaping over her brother’s head, swivel-kicked her into the bushes.

Before the Sokidu could land, Neil grabbed her feet, swung her around and threw her in the direction of another two. The momentum gave here enough an edge to not just break the shield but also knock both of them down.

The last one tried to move in to help his teammates but was rammed by Neil into a tree so powerfully that he went through the trunk and landed on the other side with his body twisted painfully and awkwardly in many places.

The two knocked down ones were able to get up but could not stay up for long. They were quickly taken out by Neil and Marcus just as easily and dismissively.

Gina engaged the two witches in a long-range battle alone. The duo, commanding the elements and the trees attacked the Sokidu. As a Master of Magicism, Gina was able to summon Celestial shadows which took the shape of many different animals – known as Evocations. She summoned a flock of a dozen phoenixes and assisted them with her elemental manipulation. With the help of the birds and her superior Ki charge and control, she comfortably countered both the witches’ spells.

Then, she released a giant mud wave drowning them. Fire from the phoenix’s wings dried the mud trapping the witches inside. And the following bombardment with balls of fire dropped from their beaks reduced the duo to ash.

The last five moved towards the Seredums but, about six feet from them, stood frozen. Their bodies were no longer left in their control. Forging swords out of thin air, Eila and Eira very easily beheaded three of them, leaving two alive for questioning.

“We can do this in two ways, boys,” Ella said, walking up to them. “The easy way, or the hard way…”

With her arm stretched in front, Erina released a tiny surge of Ki which latched onto the wizards. Soon, their legs got bent and they came kneeling down while their arms got bent back as well.

“Tie them up,” she said, and her sisters quickly did.

“It is no use, Seredums,” one wizard cried. “We are spellbound to keep that secret. We couldn’t tell you even if we wanted to.”

“Every lock has a key,” Ella replied, kneeling in front of him. “And every spell has a reversal.”

“Not this one.”

“We’ll see.”

‘SERAVAS-NORAM-MEVAS’ was the enchantment this time. With closed eyes and a bowed head, she kept sitting still for many moments. She was searching for the binding spell.

“Well, they are telling the truth,” the Mystic eventually said, as she got up. Looking at the squad she pointed at one wizard’s head and added, “They are spellbound in the temple cluster.”

Neil looked at Gina. “There’s got to be a spell that works,” he said.

Gina leaned closer and replied, “If a Mystic can’t do it, then a Magicist can’t either. You’re enough of a Magicist as well. You should know that.”

“Let me try,” Erina said and moved closer. She placed a hand on one of the wizards’ foreheads and closed her eyes. The man began to shake a little then became dizzy and eventually fell unconscious.

“What are you doing?” Neil asked.

“She is trying to retrieve the information directly from the brain,” Eila replied. “Binding spells of this kind are usually targeted on the brain not on the specific information.”

Just moments later, some lines began to appear on Erina’s forehead.

“What’s wrong, sister?” Eila asked.

The frowning Seredum formed a tight fist with her left hand and punched the wizard in the face so hard that he crashed into the ground forming a crater, two feet wide, with his flattened head.

“What happened?!” Neil exclaimed as Eila fell on her knees and Eira turned away.

“They killed her!” the weeping Seredum replied. “They killed our Lord!”

“Did you find out how or why?”

She looked at him and said, “Something blocked me before I could find that out.”

Eira quickly moved towards the other wizard and grabbed his head with both hands. “You will give us what we need!” she said and pressed tightly.

The man screamed in agony.

“It’s no use,” Erina said, taking a few steps back. “It seems to be the work of an enlightened spirit. There are defences in place that even I can’t bypass.”

But Eira did not let go. She numbed the wizard’s senses and kept searching through his mind.

The Zeta Squad stood dumbfounded. As far as their knowledge and understanding of Magicism went, there was no spell superior to the Mystic spell Ella used in reading someone’s mind. So, what were the Seredums doing? It was no spell. They never used any Ki charge.

“Are you using some form of magic?” Gina finally asked.

“Sorry,” Erina said, standing arms akimbo. “We are entering the realm of their mind through a metaphysical link. There, data and information, memories, stand accessible and retrievable. But here, something is blocking us.” With a shake of the head, she added, “And only an enlightened spirit can block another one.”

“What do you mean?”

“A being who never learned to escape the physical cannot block something metaphysical.”

“Fotisménos Laós, their Cult’s name,” Neil said. “It translates to enlightened people, I believe.”

“Indeed, it does.” The Seredum nodded. “But rest assured, Master Zaatsu, they are not enlightened by our standards.”

“Then who was it? Maybe one of their more powerful members?”

“The Cult has nothing to do with it,” Eira explained. “There is a metaphysical membrane keeping me from entering. There is even a proxy memory in place to force me on a wild goose chase.”

Erina moved ahead and said, “Then let’s give it one final shot.”

The trio sat in the lotus position right in front of the two wizards. This time, the Zeta Squad felt a Ki surge radiating from their bodies. They remained motionless and kept their eyes closed.

Many moments passed before Marcus whispered, “Man… are they just gonna sit there?”

Neil shook his head with raised eyebrows and wide-open eyes, and replied, “Beats the heck out of me…”

A further minute later the trio opened their eyes and looked around. Neil, Marcus, and Gina were standing together, while Camille and Ella were sitting on the other side. The sisters then looked at each other. Erina glanced at each member of the Zeta Squad once more, one by one.

“They didn’t do it,” Erina explained. “Our Lord had already met her maker by the time they got there. They were merely supposed to take the body.”

“Then who did it?” Gina asked.

“We cannot say for sure. But whoever it was, knew trans-dimensional metaphysics better than any Martial Artist or Cultist. Or they knew something that even we don’t know.”

The sisters slowly got up and walked over to a tree and stood right in front of it. Erina stretched her right arm out in front with the first two fingers and thumb extended, and the other fingers folded. The tree began to fade.

Wide eyed, his mouth fell open as Marcus whispered, “What the…” stunned by what he was witnessing. The Zeta Squad watched as the tree completely vanished and a casket appeared, standing where the trunk was. They gently placed it flat on the ground.

The sisters sat around the casket, kneeling with heads bowed low. Erina sat at the foot, Eila and Eira on either side. They prayed for their Lord, the Keeper, Suraiya Badawi, and the forgiveness of her sins. And they also prayed for the forgiveness of those who needlessly died in the awful occurrence.

“They’re actually praying for the ones we killed, man,” Marcus commented, and Neil chuckled.

“Justified,” Camille said. “They were forced into it.”

“I agree,” said Ella, nodding at Camille. “It never felt like they wanted to do it as just confirmed. The poor people were forced into it.”

The Seredums, after finishing their prayers, opened the casket and found the corpse inside. Many a tear of sorrow and grief was shed. The Zeta Squad moved ahead and joined the sisters in grieving for their Lord and master.

“These heinous crimes need to stop,” Neil said, in an almost whisper. “Too many lives are being lost needlessly.”

Erina nodded and said, “We couldn’t agree more, young master. You need to get to the bottom of this mess and from here on out, we will assist you any way we can in all efforts to find the perpetrators of the attacks on the Keepers.”

“But why?” Camille said, looking at the dead body. “Why go through so much trouble to guard a dead person?”

Everyone looked at her, but no one had an answer. It did not make sense. Whoever orchestrated the attack went to great lengths to keep the Seredums from finding out about it and to hide the trail. But why? Killing of the Keepers was always linked to the Dark Art Scriptures stealing White Bolt. But when this attack on Suraiya Badawi occurred, he was either locked in battle with the Zeta Squad or sleeping inside the Atramentum. Then who could be behind this?

And then why would they want a Cult to transport the remains?

None of it made any sense.

“It doesn’t add up at all,” Neil commented. “Let’s hope Master Baylis is having better luck.”