Two days and six hours had passed since the ambush.
By then, the surviving convoy had already returned to Velmora.
It entered through the northern gate in a far different state from when it left. Several wagons had to be dragged instead of pulled. Others leaned to one side with broken wheels, burned covers, and dried blood across their frames. The surviving armoured beasts moved slowly, while soldiers walked beside them with bandages around their heads, arms, and chests.
The convoy did not continue toward the rift site.
Too many wagons had been damaged. Too many beasts had been killed or injured, and the formation of the convoy had been completely destroyed. More importantly, the two cases of spatial materials and the stabilisation core were gone.
Black Horn officially ended the field assignment before the convoy reached the city walls.
The surviving recruits were taken to clinics, and once their injuries were stabilised, they were questioned separately about everything they saw before, during, and after the ambush.
Their rewards and evaluations were delayed and none complained since Black Horn never said they would not be given something.
Even the greediest recruits understood that asking about hell stones and artifacts while Black Horn counted corpses would make them look foolish.
Inside his office, Korran sat behind a plain black desk and read the same report for the fourth time.
The room was simple.
Dark stone walls. Two chairs. A locked cabinet containing official records. A map of Velmora and the northern region covered one wall, while a narrow window allowed the fading crimson light into the room.
There were no decorations cause Korran had never needed them.
A list of the dead rested beneath his hand, and near the middle was one name.
[BLACKMOON- DEAD]
Not missing.
Not presumed dead.
Dead.
His War Tag had been destroyed beneath the Furnaceback Centipede’s leg. Recording crystals showed the beast’s jaws closing around him, the rebel disguised as a guard, and the Prime Calamity Crag Hound. More than fifty surviving demons had witnessed the same thing.
No corpse had been recovered, but that meant little when the creature responsible had swallowed him whole and escaped underground.
The conclusion should have been simple.
However Sonya and Akaza had refused to accept it.
Korran remembered Sonya sitting inside one of the treatment rooms with dried blood beneath one ear. Her back and arms were injured, yet her expression had become far more dangerous when the officer questioning her referred to Blackmoon as dead.
"He isn’t dead."
Korran had been standing near the wall at the time.
"You watched the centipede swallow him."
"I know what happened."
"Then why do you believe he survived?"
Sonya folded her arms.
"Because a big worm is not going to be what kills little kitty."
That had not been an answer.
Korran asked again, but Sonya only said that Simon would return whenever he was finished doing whatever he was doing.
Her certainty bothered him more than grief or denial would have.
Akaza was quieter.
He sat with his damaged ribs wrapped and one arm resting across his lap. When Korran asked whether Blackmoon was dead, Akaza stared at the floor for several moments.
"We all saw what happened," he finally said.
"Then you agree with the report?"
"No."
Korran narrowed his eyes.
"Why?"
"Seeing him swallowed is not the same as seeing him dead."
Akaza refused to explain further. When Korran asked whether Blackmoon possessed an unknown escape ability or artifact, Akaza said that he would not discuss his comrade’s secrets.
Neither Sonya nor Akaza mentioned Sunless.
They did not speak about the ancient being inside Simon, the power she had shown in Blackwind Valley, or the fact that she had fought someone far beyond the Furnaceback Centipede.
In their minds, an entity capable of killing Sunless would not allow Simon to die inside a beast that had not even become a true Abyssal Beast.
Korran knew none of that.
All he knew was that two powerful recruits who understood Blackmoon better than anyone in Velmora believed he was alive.
’They are hiding something.’
The members of Assault Core Twenty-Two were questioned next.
Pela gave the most important statement.
She had seen the Velmora guard near Wagon Seventeen after the arrow explosions. The demon was dead. She remembered the broken insignia on his chest and the scar beside his mouth because she had stepped around his body while fighting a Crag Hound.
Minutes later, she saw the same face climbing from beneath Wagon Eighteen.
"I thought the heat or smoke was confusing my senses," Pela said. Her pale sensory strands had curled tightly around her head. "Then I saw him again. There were two of him... He was both dead and alive."
That confirmed the thief had used a disguise.
Joro and Ossun had seen parts of the same scene, but neither noticed the impostor until Pela shouted.
Dessa explained that she had created the steam around Wagon Eighteen to stop two Crag Hounds from reaching the damaged wagon. The thief had simply used the cover before she understood what was happening.
Her answer was believable.
She was burned, injured, and visibly angry that her own water had helped the thief escape. Her statement matched what the other members of her core remembered, and nothing directly connected her to the opened cargo formation.
For now, Dessa remained another recruit who had survived a failed assignment.
Korran placed her report beside the others.
Too many parts of the ambush had gone wrong.
Black Banner had known the correct wagon. An insider had disabled its protection. A disguised rebel had stolen the cases. Then the Furnaceback Centipede had destroyed the road, swallowed the rebel, and escaped with the stolen cargo.
Yet the tracking imprint had continued moving after the beast disappeared underground.
It travelled away from the convoy for several hours before turning toward the north-east.
Korran had already sent a pursuit unit after it,but they were yet to return.
A heavy knock sounded against the office door.
"Enter."
The Biggest Kev stepped inside.
His enormous body made the room feel smaller. Black armour still covered him, although several damaged plates had been removed. The Blood Jaguar helmet remained over his head, and the torn piece of the Furnaceback Centipede’s armour hung from the chain around his right arm.
Korran gestured toward the chair opposite him.
Kev looked at it, but he remained standing.
"The worm began screaming before it ran," Kev said. "And it was not because of anything I did."
Korran leaned back slightly.
"You believe something attacked it from inside."
"I believe something happened inside it."
"Blackmoon?"
Kev’s dull-yellow eyes narrowed behind the helmet.
"He was a Minor Archfiend."
"But his friends strongly believe him to still be alive."
Kev became silent.
Korran looked toward the map on the wall. Somewhere beyond Velmora, his pursuit unit was following the last trace of the stolen cases.
’My trap has not completely failed. Not yet.’
The Biggest Kev folded his thick arms, and metal scraped against metal.
"So," he said, "what do you want to do now?"