In a cave near the headquarters of the relief organization, four fully armed men trudged through the damp ground, heading deeper into the cave.

The man at the head of the group had black hair streaked with silver, combed back into a small braid. His face was covered with crisscrossing scars from past battles. He held a rudimentary map, repeatedly comparing it to the terrain of the cave, choosing a direction to move in the maze-like underground world.

Beside him stood a tall, strong North Island warrior, his body covered in bizarre bones. He said to the man holding the map, "Lord Jerome, can we really trust this map?"

The man called Jerome turned and glanced at the speaker, then remained silent.

The North Island warrior scratched the back of his head and said doubtfully, "What I mean is, this guy who won't even give his name told us that the head of the relief association is going to betray the 'Elders' Council,' and that they plan to hand over the 'Necromancer's' technology to the church. He even gave us this map that looks like a child's scribble. Can we believe him? Or is this just a joke?"

“This doesn’t sound like a joke; it’s more like a trap,” a man in a loose robe behind the warrior said in a deep voice. His skin was covered with tattoos of various colors.

The last of the four was a dwarf, less than 1.2 meters tall. He walked along, toying with a pebble in his hand, shaking his head as he said, “Whether it’s a joke or a trap doesn’t matter. From the moment we received that letter, we had no choice. They assumed we would go to the relief center to verify the information. Am I right? 31? 55?”

The warrior glanced at the dwarf and muttered, "Then why did we choose to infiltrate the relief association? Why not just say 'The Legion of Conflict' and let them let us in?"

The dwarf gave the North Islander a look that suggested he was an idiot: "If the news of the relief association president's betrayal is true, then if we just swagger in, wouldn't we be walking right into a trap?!"

The tattooed man stopped the two from arguing and told them to keep up with Jerome and find out the truth as soon as possible.

The deeper they went into the cave, the stronger the nauseating stench became. The North Island warrior frowned, his face grim, and said, "Gods above! I have a bad feeling..."

Finally, the group of four arrived at a huge, deep pit. The dwarf stood at the edge of the pit, glanced down, then turned pale and quickly retreated.

By the dim light of the torches, the four of them finally saw what was in the pit—it was filled with black, foul-smelling blood, with some human remains floating in the middle…

The soldier's eye twitched, and he stared nervously at Jerome, asking uneasily, "The map... could it be that they want us...?"

The latter pointed to an entrance above the blood pool that resembled a sewage pipe and said, "Climb in from there."

"Damn it! I'd rather die than crawl into that!" The dwarf clutched his robes and loudly repeated his protest.

Jerome tilted his head toward the North Island warrior, who sighed, grabbed the dwarf by the neck, and threw him into the blood pool's pipes.

Twenty minutes later, four people reeking of a foul stench climbed out from the top of the sewage pipe after confirming that the surrounding area was safe.

As soon as the dwarf crawled out of the pipe, he knelt on the ground, his palms supporting his weight, and began vomiting up large amounts of undigested food. Between vomiting, he said, "If I ever find... that bastard who drew the map, I swear! I'll break his neck with my own hands!"

Looking at the room, which resembled a slaughterhouse, the tattooed man kicked the skull on the floor with the back of his foot, then sniffed his own body. He then said to Jerome, "We need to find a way to wash off these stains, otherwise the smell alone will be enough to make our infiltration a complete failure."

Jerome took out a map, carefully examined the directions and orientation, and pointed to a door at the end of the slaughterhouse: "Go that way."

After the four of them finished packing, they followed the map and walked through a long tunnel to a natural underground spring. Clear spring water flowed into a narrow opening through cracks in the ground, and on a blue stone next to the opening, four sets of robes belonging to members of the relief association were neatly arranged.

Jerome used the scabbard to lift the robes and examined them closely. He was surprised to find that the clothes fit the four of them perfectly, whether they were tall North Island warriors or short dwarfs.

The tattooed man moved closer to Jerome, his eyes fixed on the robes, and said, "The way things are unfolding is giving me the creeps..."

The leader of the squad frowned as he looked at the robe in his hand.

The warrior from the North Island scooped up some spring water, first smelled it, then tasted it with his tongue, and finally simply took off all his clothes and began to wash himself thoroughly. The dwarf watched all this quietly, sitting on the ground and waiting patiently. Only after confirming that the spring water was normal did he join in the washing.

Jerome examined the robes repeatedly but couldn't see anything special about them. Completely baffled, he finally gave the order to change the clothes.

The four people, dressed in the clothes of the relief association, followed the patrol route and password given on the map, bypassed the sentry posts, deceived the guards, and finally arrived at the core experimental area of ​​the relief association.

Looking at the 'monsters' imprisoned on both sides of the mountain wall, the dwarf gaped, his face filled with disbelief: "I've heard other people mention 'Necromancer Successors' before, but I always thought it was just a rumor."

The tattooed man observed the experimental subject in the cage and said to Jerome, "The three elders once jointly inquired about the progress of the 'Necromancer Successor' experiment, but the relief society's response was that it was fraught with difficulties and progress was slow. In this light, it seems that Theodore may indeed have betrayed the 'Elders' Council'."

The North Island warrior thought for a moment, then suddenly said something unrelated: "If I remember correctly, Theodore was Lord Jerome's teacher when he was in the 'Dissident Legion'?"

The dwarf rolled his eyes, nudged the burly man's knee with his elbow, and whispered, "Shut up."

Jerome gazed into the depths of the corridor, a hint of confusion in his eyes. After a moment, he gripped the short sword at his waist and walked resolutely toward the door at the end of the corridor.

As the two doors were slowly pushed open, in the vast laboratory, a robust old man with gray hair and beard stopped writing with his quill pen and slowly shifted his gaze from the books on the table to the doorway in front of him.

“Jerome?” Theodore stood up from his chair with a somewhat surprised expression.

The scarred man bowed to the old man in front of him in a standard Taro disciple's salute.

The old man smiled and nodded, pointing to the armchair in the room. Just as he was about to say something, the other person's next words froze his smile on his face.

"I, Jerome Nichols, as the ninth in line to the 'Legion of Strife,' representing the will of the alien race, hereby raise this question: Do you still remain loyal to the oath you took upon joining?!"