Chương 202: Chapter : 202

"That is not all," the leader continued, his voice growing grimmer.

"My sources tell me that Lancelot has spies everywhere. They are watching us right now. They are watching our supply lines, our messengers, our contacts in the border towns. Every move we make, he seems to know about it before we even make it. His intelligence network is like a spider web that covers the entire continent, and we are the flies struggling in the threads." The young magician swallowed hard.

"Then... what do we do? If Lancelot knows about us, if he is watching us, then are we not already doomed?" The leader stood up from his stone seat. He paced slowly around the altar, his dark robes trailing behind him on the wet floor.

"We are not doomed yet," he said.

"But we must act carefully. Breaking Lancelot's spy network is the absolute key to our victory. If we can blind him, even for a short time, we can move our forces into position and begin the awakening ritual before he can stop us. That is why I called this meeting. We need a plan to dismantle his eyes and ears." The room fell into tense, worried silence. The five Black Magicians looked at each other, their glowing purple eyes flickering in the dark. They were powerful, dangerous people.

They had killed without hesitation, tortured without mercy, and plotted without conscience. But the name Lancelot hung over them like a dark cloud, and no amount of dark magic could blow it away. It was the woman who finally broke the silence.

"I have a contact in the eastern intelligence division," she said carefully.

"He may have information about how Lancelot's network operates. If we can identify the key nodes, we can target them."

"Do it," the leader ordered.

"But be careful. If Lancelot even suspects that we are moving against his network, his response will be swift and absolute. I have seen what happens to those who cross him. There is nothing left but ash and silence."

And then, without any warning at all, the temperature in the chamber dropped. It was not a gradual cooling. It was not like opening a window on a winter day. It was instant. One second, the air was damp and lukewarm, the way it always was in this underground pit. The next second, it felt like someone had dumped the entire room into a frozen lake. The moisture on the walls turned to ice with a sharp cracking sound. The breath of the five magicians came out in thick white clouds.

The dark purple flames on the altar shrank and sputtered, as if the cold itself was trying to eat them. The leader spun around, his purple eyes blazing with alarm.

"What is this?! Who is doing this?!" The young magician was already on his feet, his long black fingers crackling with dark energy.

"Someone is here! Someone has found us!" This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. All five magicians turned toward the heavy stone doors at the far end of the chamber. Those doors were enormous. They were carved from a single slab of granite three feet thick, reinforced with layers of protective dark magic, and designed to withstand a direct hit from a battlemage battalion. Nothing short of a natural disaster should have been able to open them. The doors did not open.

They disintegrated. One moment, the massive stone slabs were there, solid and unbreakable. The next moment, they simply ceased to exist. They crumbled into fine grey dust that floated gently to the ground, like sand slipping through an hourglass. There was no explosion. There was no impact. There was only a soft, almost gentle sound, like a sigh, and then the doors were gone, leaving a wide, open rectangle of absolute darkness where they had once stood. Out of that darkness, a figure stepped forward.

He was tall and impossibly handsome, with sharp, perfect features that looked like they had been carved by the gods themselves. His skin was golden, his hair was long and dark, and his eyes burned with a calm, terrifying white light. He wore ornate, ancient armor that glowed faintly with a warm, golden radiance, and a long white cape that floated behind him as if carried by a wind that nobody else could feel.

He moved with the effortless grace of a predator, each step silent and precise, as if the ground itself was honored to be walked upon by him. This was Karna. The legendary, lethal spirit who served Ken Eliot. The warrior who existed between dimensions, who answered only to the call of his master, and whose power was so immense that even the gods would think twice before challenging him. And tonight, he had been given a very simple order: eliminate the threat. The five Black Magicians stared at him.

For a single, frozen moment, nobody moved. The purple flames on the altar barely flickered. The ice on the walls crackled softly. The chamber held its breath. The leader was the first to speak. His voice was barely a whisper, and for the first time, there was real, unmasked fear in it.

"Karna... the servant of Lancelot... How did you find this place? This chamber is shielded by the strongest concealment magic in ZulFarah! It is impossible to locate!" Karna did not answer. He did not waste time with dramatic villain monologues. He did not explain his methods or gloat about his superiority. He simply looked at the five Black Magicians with those calm, burning white eyes, and what he saw was not a threat. It was a task. A chore.

Something that needed to be done before he could return to the space between dimensions and rest. In a way, Karna understood his master better than anyone. Ken Eliot hated unnecessary effort. He liked things done quickly, quietly, and with minimum hassle. And Karna, the perfect servant, was more than happy to deliver exactly that. Karna raised his right hand. The air around him shifted. A deep, resonant hum filled the chamber, vibrating through the stone walls and the frozen floor.

From the golden light that surrounded his body, a weapon began to take shape. It materialized slowly, like a painting being created stroke by stroke. First, the curved limbs of a great bow appeared, gleaming with an inner fire. Then, the string, made of pure, concentrated mana, stretched between the limbs with a sound like a thunderclap. Finally, the intricate engravings along the bow's surface lit up, one by one, glowing with a brilliant, blinding light. The Divine Vijaya Bow.

The ultimate weapon of Karna, forged from the very concept of victory itself. It was not just a bow. It was an artifact of pure, overwhelming power, powered by what could only be described as "Anime Logic" energy. It did not follow the normal rules of magic or physics. It followed the rule of cool, and right now, what was cool was absolute, devastating destruction. The leader screamed.

"Attack him! NOW! All of you, at once!"