Sign In To The Body Of Chaos At The Start-Chapter 82: Investigation!

It was still early morning, yet it was a much different atmosphere than Damon expected. The daylight filtering into the war chamber felt muted, as if even the sun was reluctant to shine over the scorched remnants of the night before.

The outer rings of Bastion Sanctum still smoldered. There were craters everywhere, with multiple buildings being completely obliterated. Claw marks were also engraved all across the fortress, and the abyssal residue hung heavy in the air.

The stench of charred Abyssal flesh had not yet faded.

Yet inside the central sanctum, past a dozen layers of spatial reinforcement and detection formations, Damon stood before the elevated dais of command. His cloak, ragged from the night’s battle, still bore streaks of blackened blood, not his own.

Lady Syllana stood at the edge of a conjured map, arms folded, her brows furrowed in grim thought.

"You’re certain?" she asked, her voice taut.

"I saw it myself," Damon replied. His tone wasn’t cold, but it was measured, exact, like a blade honed on the truth, "The rift didn’t form naturally. It was tethered to an internal spatial anchor, a structure rooted within Bastion itself."

He gestured, and a flicker of space magic rippled around his fingers, casting an illusory replay of the collapsing gate and the tethered rune beneath the statue.

"From my understanding, this anchor wasn’t placed recently either. It was embedded into the outer wall, concealed beneath formation glyphs. This would’ve taken months of planning, and the person who did it knew exactly where to hide it, and had access to do so."

As Damon finished explaining, Syllana’s knuckles withered with frustration, continuously knocking against the table as she thought.

"If what you say is true... then someone within these walls betrayed us."

"It’s the only logical conclusion," Damon said. "A rift of that scale can’t be summoned through our defenses without precise spatial clearance. Coordinates are too volatile. The gate wasn’t opened from the outside, it was allowed in."

There was silence. The council chamber, once used for strategic briefings, was now empty save for them. Everyone else was tending to the wounded, reinforcing barriers, or burying the dead.

Syllana turned from the projection, her eyes flashing with restrained fury as she gathered her thoughts and finally spoke, "Only a handful of individuals have knowledge of our spatial node arrays. That anchor should have been impossible to forge without deep-level clearance."

"Then we know which group of them is compromised," Damon said simply.

"But they’re not just random staff," she snapped, tone briefly sharp, "They’re key personnel. Coordinators. Officers. Couriers. These people are the lifelines of this city."

"Exactly," Damon said, "Which means the infiltrator wouldn’t raise suspicion coming and going, especially during frequent supply runs."

Syllana exhaled and pinched the bridge of her nose, understanding what Damon was saying.

"Stars above... we’ve been bleeding and scraping together every last mana crystal and spirit herb just to survive, and now I have to suspect my own people?"

"You don’t have the luxury of trust right now," Damon replied, "Not until we know for sure who built that anchor."

"And what do you propose?" she asked, voice cooler now, more composed.

Damon didn’t hesitate, "You said you were planning a resource run to the outer ridges today."

She nodded slowly, "A convoy of warriors and storage mages. Escort detail from our fourth perimeter division. Heading to an abandoned Aether mine south of the Cratered Fields."

"Let me join them," Damon said, "You said the anchor was constructed with precision. Whoever placed it has likely done this before, or at the very least, knew how to move past the fortress’s eyes. A field run offers the perfect chance to observe them. Maybe even catch them making a mistake."

Syllana considered it.

"You’ll be outnumbered."

"I have my own backup." Damon said, his shadow rippling and immediately covered the entire floor, the eyes of his shadows opening and staring directly at Syllana.

Her lips twitched slightly, "Those are certainly backup. Fine, go with them."

There was a pause. Then Syllana stepped closer and lowered her voice.

"One of the convoy officers is named Captain Bren Ardan. Human. Former defensive architect. He was among those who helped update the outer formation lines last year."

Damon’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"You suspect him?"

"I trust him." She said, "Or at least I did." She responded.

Then, after a beat, "Which means I need to be absolutely sure he’s clean."

"Then I’ll keep an eye on him."

Syllana extended a folded scroll, sealed with a shimmering mana glyph, "Official deployment writ. Use it if they question your presence. I’ll have my assistant ensure you’re slotted onto the escort roster."

Damon took the scroll and tucked it into his ring. "When do we leave?"

"Midday," Syllana replied, "Two hours. Take what time you need."

He nodded and turned to leave.

But her voice stopped him just before the doorway.

"Damon."

He paused, half-turned.

"I saw you last night," she said. "I saw what you did. What you summoned."

Damon raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"The people are talking," she continued. "Some are terrified. Others think you’re a god in mortal flesh. I don’t care which is true, but know this: if even one child survives this hell because of you, then you’re already more than what most before us ever managed to become."

Her words hung in the air for a moment. Then Damon nodded once. Quietly. And disappeared into the hallway.

Later That Day

The gates of Bastion Sanctum yawned open once more. But this time, Damon wasn’t slipping out under cover of shadow or chasing Abyssal monsters through ruined alleyways.

He was walking beside a column of seasoned scavengers. There was 15 people in total. Six guards, seven resource specialists and two carries with specialized Spirit Beasts who carry mounted storage spaces.

Among them was Captain Bren Ardan who Syllana had told him about. The Captain was a rugged man who looked to be in his mid-forties, at least by Earthly aging.

He was a rugged man, mid-forties, with a squared jaw, thick grey-streaked hair, and a long coat reinforced with elemental threading. His mana was calm, layered, like someone who had lived through more battles than he cared to count.

Bren gave Damon a sideways glance as they passed through the outer barrier, "You weren’t on the original roster."

Damon handed him the scroll without a word.

Bren broke the seal, read the contents, and grunted, "Orders straight from Syllana, huh?"

"Is that a problem?" Damon asked.

"I’ve been doing this since before she grew her first braid. I know how to run a team." Bren said.

"Then let’s just say I’m here to make sure you keep doing that."

Bren frowned but didn’t argue, "Fine. Stay out of my way."

Damon fell into step near the rear guard, his gaze drifting across each member of the team.

The two carriers joked quietly as they double-checked the mana seals on the crates. One of them, a young mage with sky-blue gloves, glanced his way nervously.

The guards were more relaxed, chatting in low tones, but their hands never strayed far from their weapons.

But it was the middle ranks, the ones responsible for surveying, mapping the surrounding area, and retrieving resources, that Damon paid the most attention to.

Of those, three individuals stood out.

Ila Venshar, an elf specializing in spatial mapping arrays. Considering his job, Damon had him as one of the major suspects, as he had more than enough understanding on how to manipulate space to create that portal.

Next was Hargo Lin, a human with mechanical gauntlets used for excavation. Seemed twitchy. Overcompensating. According to the information he had obtained, Hargo had gone on the most resource runs of anyone in the past 6 months, meaning he had the most chances to scope out the defenses of the base.

And a quiet drifter named Syne, who didn’t speak much, but always walked with her head down and her hands gloved.

Damon let his Eyes of Oblivion activate just beneath the surface, silently mapping their mana fluctuations and heartbeat patterns. He gazed at each of them for a couple seconds to see how they reacted, but they neither had any mana fluctuations or changes in heartrate.

For the first hour, it was uneventful.

The group moved through rocky terrain, descending toward the Aether-blasted badlands that once served as a mining colony before the Abyss had swallowed it whole. freewёbnoνel.com

The environment was hostile. Cracked earth. Mana storms on the horizon. Wild gravitational pulses that made footing treacherous in places.

Perfect ground for an ambush.

Or a setup.

Damon stayed vigilant, pretending to inspect the environment while letting his shadow soldiers spread out across the terrain, jumping through various shadows secretly to gather information.

They remained unseen, and Damon remained aware, although the soldiers hadn’t picked up on anything as of yet.

Not yet.

Bren called for a halt as they reached a crescent ridge overlooking a shattered chasm. Below, the old mine complex gleamed faintly with residual minerals, still potent, if harvested right.

"We camp here for the night," Bren called, "We’ll enter the mine at dawn."

Syne, the quiet girl Damon was keeping an eye on earlier, frowned and spoke up, "We’re staying exposed?"

"The ground’s too unstable closer to the mine. If something’s still alive down there, we don’t want to wake it in the dark."

Damon said nothing. But he didn’t like it.

Still... this gave him time.

He moved a little way from the group and began forming a seated stance on the edge of the plateau, staring out at the mine.

Time ticked by silently as Damon expanded his spatial senses, trying to pick up on anything. Seconds turned to minutes which turned into hours, and 3 hours had passed.

Damon hadn’t picked up on anything. The group had mostly spent their time chatting, eating and preparing for rest, and no signs had been given so far that any one of them was the traitor.

But then, Damon felt it.

A mana signature. It was extremely faint, most likely from someone very experienced in sending out the signature, as they managed to limit the exposure to the absolute minimum to avoid being sensed, leading Damon to believe they’d done this many times before.

The signature was carefully masked and was actually a spatial beacon.

However, that masking wasn’t enough for Damon, his eyes narrowed and he didn’t react immediately, instead allowing another shadow to detach from his heel and snake through the rocks like a phantom. It circled the group, coiling beneath their boots, slithering like smoke across the chasm edge.

And there, yes was the culprit, it was Ila Venshar, and he sent out the signal silentl once more. He was standing alone, half-shielded by the cliff’s edge, palms behind his back.

He shifted ever so slightly, then brushed her fingers against the rock and Damon immediately felt it, a signature going out.

Coordinates etched in Abyssal rune, woven so subtly into the stone that even Bren would’ve missed it.

But not Damon, his senses were too attuned to miss anything at this point.

He stood up and went to get a bite of the food prepared. It wasn’t time to fight as of yet, but now he had a target.

The next phase of this trial wasn’t about surviving beasts.

It was about surviving betrayal.

And Damon... was ready to hunt his prey.

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