The two of them continued towards the Lostfon Palace in silence. The people had all unequivocally moved out of the houses closest to the Lostfon Palace, and given the immense power and pressure that Claud could feel as he continued towards it, he could very well understand why. The Lostfon Palace itself was shrouded with immense levels of energy, shimmering powers that were far denser than that of mana.

  Divine power.

  Claud stared at the fog of divine power that shrouded the Lostfon Palace just enough to render it into a silhouette, and then at the shimmering, golden eye that hung above it.

  “Really goes against the aesthetics of the great Dark, eh?” Claud gazed at the golden eye. “The greater eye, visible only from up close. I suppose this thing was another reason why all the residents here fled until they couldn’t see it any further.”

  He shivered. Was this golden eye the true form of Greater Half? Or was it the shadows that it cast? Light and shadow were intertwined; only with radiance could one know darkness. Claud didn’t know what Lesser Half represented, but he could tell that Greater Half was probably the manifestation of both the blinding light and the blinding night.

  “It’s scary, I suppose. If it was moving every few seconds, it would have been better, but this eye is just unmoving. Frozen.” Lily shook her head. “It’s like we have no privacy here.”

  “Be more confident,” Claud replied. “No one has privacy here.”

  The two of them continued onwards. All the houses, from this point on, had been entirely vacated by their human occupants. To the great Dark’s credit, however, these houses were only guarded by Shadowed soldiers and not occupied; it seemed that Greater Half still had an understanding of property rights or something.

  He swallowed. None of these guards were pushovers; they, too, were radiating presences that ranged from bi-folders to tetra-folders. Were they elite troops of the Dark, the royal guards for the two rulers of shadow? Or were they just foot soldiers, an inkling of what was to come as the war continued to escalate?

  Claud could only fervently hope that it was the latter; humanity would stand no chance against these mid-ranked mana-users. Furthermore, the actual elite, the familiar spirits of the Dark, hadn’t made a move yet. While these familiar spirits also varied in strength, he knew that the strongest of them all rivalled the might of the Chromatic Lords, and then some.

  “Now what?” Lily asked. “We’re already within eyeshot of the palace.”

  “We’ll go and scope it out,” Claud replied. “We need to be careful of mechanical traps, though. While most mana-based detection methods would completely miss us, we still need to obey the laws of physics and common sense. Kicking a stone by accident and sending it whizzing to some poor guard’s face is not going to help us much here.”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, then…”

  Claud and Lily strode boldly into the palace. The gates, though guarded, were wide open. It would have been a touch harder if the doors were all bolted up and kept under permanent watch, and to be honest, Claud himself would have done just that. However, for some incomprehensible reason, Greater Half had chosen not to close the doors or anything, allowing the two of them to waltz in freely.

  Unbelievable, but there it was.

  The Lostfon Palace was still as brightly decorated as ever, although this only served to heighten the contrast between the current circumstances and the partially delusional inner décor of the palace itself. The servants that had been a fixture of sorts were gone, however, and the place now felt more like a preserved site rather than a palace where someone had lived in.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “It’s lonely here,” Lily muttered. “Where is the count and his family?”

  Claud frowned. “I don’t have the maps of this place, but a good shot would be a dungeon or something, right? The only question is whether there’s a dungeon here. If not, we can start looking at the more normal places.”

  “What do we do after we find those places, though? We can’t talk to them. Greater Half will notice us instantly. And even if we break them out of their current prison, what happens next?” Lily shook her head. “It’s impossible for us to save them. We’ll need to bring them back all the way to Grandia, but if you do that, they’ll know all your secrets.”

  “We’ll need to blindfold them when the time is right, I suppose.” Claud frowned. “Or we can knock them out. I’m not worried about them.”

  “I suppose there’s no need to be this worried if you’re taking such an approach, then,” Lily replied.

  “Exactly. Just knock ‘em out and we can move on. I’m more worried about Lesser Half. Even if his sister runs off the frontline, what can we do? We’ll need to stay here for some time, and Greater Half…well, she’s going to have to be a bit busy.”

  “We need to talk to Lesser Half first, and then figure out where to go from there, right?”

  “Yeah.” Claud made a face. “And…I’m also a bit cynical. Maybe this is a ploy or something by Greater Half to nab me. I hope that isn’t the case, but I’m operating based off some very presumptuous assumptions…”

  “We can still turn back now, though.” Lily made a face. “But I don’t think any of us would want to abandon a friend, right?”

  “Friend…” Claud shook his head. “Yeah. You know, ever since we’ve grown stronger, I can’t help but think that our recklessness has also grown. Normally, we wouldn’t be this reckless, marching into the base of a hostile divinity to rescue her little brother that may very well be hostile too. I wonder if we’re crazy or something.”

  “We’ve done quite a lot of crazy things recently, though,” Lily replied. “I mean, you started by stealing the stuff lying around the inverted Goddess of Hope, and then we decided to climb up what could be very well be the platform where the Black God ascended.”

  “Well…”

  “And we’re thinking of exploring more ancient battlefields to see if we can get more of these primordial divinities, armour and weapons.” Lily patted the armour pieces on her body, as well as the sword hanging off her waist. “It’s weird, wearing both the armour of the Goddess of Hope, as well as the weapon that put her to rest.”

  “You’re very well protected that way, so it’s fine. Put aside that guilt that has no business being there, alright?” Claud chuckled, and the two of them headed into the depths of the palace.

  For the life of him, he couldn’t quite remember the layout of the Lostfon Palace, but he had a feeling that there was actually a dungeon of sorts. After all, it was a staple for palaces to have them, right? Losers of family feuds, assassins that were captured…all sorts of familial dramas revolved around the dungeons, in a sense.

  “Well, it feels like desecrating her corpse, though.”

  “We did leave just about everything else, so I don’t really see the problem,” Claud replied. “We didn’t take her clothes, which seem like a divine item, for instance, and we didn’t butcher her body either.”

  “Oi.”

  “I’m speaking from the perspective of a tomb robber. We only took her armour and the weapon that had killed her,” Claud replied. “I mean, it feels like we’re doing her a favour, in my opinion. We removed the heavy armour on her and took the weapon that had killed her from her body.”

  “How can you manipulate your words so smoothly?” Lily muttered. “But I somehow feel less guilty, thanks to these words. Huh.”

  “Because I’m right, yes?”

  “Yeah, keep trying to lie to me and yourself.” Lily rolled her eyes. “Now, then. Where would we find a passage to a hypothetical dungeon? Or should we head to the throne room, where Lesser Half is probably imprisoned?”

  Claud pondered for a moment. “I’d like to confirm Lesser Half’s location first, if nothing else. It’ll be a good thing for us to know where he is, in the off-chance that Greater Half is forced to depart earlier than my calculations. After all, the Dark isn’t the only party in this war that has gone insane. The Moons might decide to take the field randomly.”

  “Well…” Lily made a face. “Everyone’s gone mad. So it’s not as if your arguments don’t have merit...”

  “Right?” Claud tapped his feet. “Let’s head to the throne room first. We’ll try to figure out where the others are being held at the same time too.”

  “I’m sure I can work something out,” Lily added. “I’m the pro at this?”

  “At what?”

  “Palace architecture!” Lily grinned. “I’ve always wanted to have a nice palace for myself, to be honest.”

  Claud noted down that little statement in his mind, and then returned his attention to their current goal.

  The Lesser Half of the great Dark.