Awakened: SSS Ranked Soul king

"Yeah, you should do that…" Victoria smiled, looking at Guilliman with a knowing expression.

If she knew this guy well enough—and she believed that she did—he must have sent ghost out long ago and was just messing with her right now.

"You did a great job," she said, patting him on his leather chest armor. Victoria then stood up and looked around.

"Though I'm a bit disappointed—I mean, you beat the kid before, and now you lost? Has staying around us made you grow weaker?" There was a tinge of hurt in her voice. She didn't like the thought of anyone in her cohort losing a fight.

"Who said I lost? I didn't even use my aspect!" Guilliman retorted, desperate to uphold his reputation. He was holding back in the fight; it would be a stretch to say he lost. He just didn't have the opportunity to go all out.

"Yeah, yeah. Sure, if you say so. Try harder next time, though," Victoria mocked in a playful way, then proceeded to walk out of the tent, leaving Guilliman moping in bed.

"Sigh… whatever," Guilliman muttered as he shook his head. He actually did feel like he had lost to Vincent—not because of anything in particular, but because of the sorry state he was in after the fight.

He was starting to understand how terrible it would be if he let that guy become stronger.

While he thought this, a blue silhouette with a furry glimmer strolled into the tent on all fours and stood beside his bed. Its eyes shone with delight as a scroll hung in its maw.

Guilliman's range of connection with ghost was massive; however, it had a limit. Once it was out of bounds, he could no longer feel it or direct its movements—it would become completely autonomous. However, whenever it got back in range, he would be flooded with memories of what had happened while they were apart. This wasn't the same for all shamans; it was an honor preserved for the soul king.

"Hmmm," Guilliman murmured, pulling the scroll from ghost's maw and quickly scrutinizing it. Ghost had found it in a deep gorge created during the fight between the Nu and Aaron.

It was lying deep in the soil and looked extremely old and tattered. His entire scouting expedition had been unfruitful—there were no clues, and it really did seem like a coincidence… the only thing he could find was this old, eerie scroll that seemed too ancient to belong to Carlson.

Opening up the scroll, Guilliman was immediately flooded with incoherent writing and damaged scripts. It was completely unreadable.

Except for one line:

"I keep forgetting that the fog is an ally, all those creepy beasts give me the shivers."

It was written in an old script that Guilliman had been forced to learn in order to decipher the words in his old man's grimoire. It wasn't the exact script, of course, but it was close.

"The fog is an ally? A human wrote this?" Guilliman squeezed his brows.

The fog was by far the most dangerous thing in the godforsaken forest. It had killed probably a few hundred slayers. It was definitely not an ally to humans… unless it was a beast that wrote. However, could beasts write? He didn't think so.

"Hmmm," Guilliman rubbed his chin.

Maybe he was going about this whole thing wrong. Instead of trying to find the truth of what was going on here from the three clans, he should be scrutinizing the actual source.

Yes, what better way to understand the plans of the three clans than to find out what the actual situation they were trying to exploit was?

Guilliman's head panned toward the outpost not too far away from the camp.

That place was off limits for non-Aaron clansmen. That was where the leader stayed and, from what he knew, that guy had not left the place since he arrived.

That would be his first target.

Nighttime came, and Guilliman was still seated on his bed with his eyes closed. He wasn't asleep, though; rather, he was focused on a small flea gently moving through the camp.

Everywhere was bustling with activity. The slayer army would usually hold campfire parties where they drank to their heart's content. As for how they got wine all the way over here… he had no idea; slayers were just like that.

Of course, his goal wasn't here. Soon, the flea flew out of bounds from the bustling camp and went directly toward the outpost far away.

There, several guards could be seen standing around lazily, watching what was going on below. These parties were eye-catching, and they would have loved to join. Unfortunately, they had been given the responsibility of guarding the outpost—a rather tiring responsibility since they didn't even know what they were guarding.

"Did you hear about the Nu encountering Sir Carlson?" one of the guards asked, a smug look on his face.

"Yeah, good for them—always sneaking around. Thank goodness someone finally showed them what's up," the other responded.

Word among those in the know was that Sir Carlson had completely decimated the members of the Nu and sent them packing with only a few arrows.

This was one of the Nu's special strike forces. To be routed by just one man was embarrassing, to say the least.

"Yeah, that old man is getting more terrifying by the minute. I wonder what he's up to," the guards said with smug looks.

This whole conversation had been started so he could boast about knowing who Carlson was. Of course, he didn't really know, but having been in the same vicinity as him, he could pinpoint that he was not young.

Or maybe that was also part of his disguise—who knows?

The other guard smiled bitterly; clearly, this guy was boasting. But so as not to make him feel ignored, he acted like a fangirl, asking him how he knew what he knew and all that bullshit.