The contents were pretty straightforward. It cut straight to the information I wanted and asked for, which was information on where Viron's younger sibling was being held and for what reason.

They had long since began using refugees, whether from other countries or the other continent, in order to further their experiments. Maun didn't want to go deep into detail about what happened when he was held captive, but the report was generous.

I have already heard of this group before—they called it an underground poison syndicate. They began as a small unit of criminals dealing and making opiates. They grew and had expanded into more radical ambitions...like eternal youth and now eternal life.

Now, they had formally labeled themselves as Maghra.

The old legends mentioned Maghra as the elixir of youth, or Heaven's Dew. It was borne of Azurine's tears when Kaliya had his first death in the battle with the serpent. Although there was only one drop of such tear, considering how colossal the dragons were compared with the world, this drop actually formed a large lake in Csidellon. This lake became the beginning of life and was the beginning of humankind.

It was kind of the Garden of Eden. The people then did not know of death.

Unfortunately, they grew out of their naivety and contentment with the continuous passage of time. Immortality, as it would seem, brought endless suffering and torture. They eventually grew mad and brought endless destruction among themselves and upon the world.

Lake Maghra disappeared in all that chaos and humankind forever left the embrace of 'immortality.' But fact was only the corporeal body's immortality ceased to exist. The soul remained constant throughout its succeeding lives.

When Kaliya reawakened into his death and chaos power, he opened the doors to eternal sleep and allowed the reprieve of these worn souls. He took them to the river of forgetfulness and led them across it into a new life.

Eventually, this river became the river of reincarnation.

Therefore, in some philosophical views, Lake Maghra was also synonymous with knowledge of the world. It was enlightenment and transcendence, because immortality of the corporeal body allowed people to accumulate wisdom endlessly. It was just that the mind of freewill and consciousness was too fragile. It couldn't endure the ravages of time and the weight of this knowledge.

And so, the price of immortality was madness.

The river of reincarnation was the opposite of Lake Maghra. It deprived people of knowledge. It cost them their wisdom, but in return, offered a clean start.

With how this syndicate named themselves Maghra...well, it was kind of obvious what they were going after. The brand was quite clear and straightforward. They didn't even need a tagline to tell people what they were all about.

I could not help but feel like this was the version of Illuminati in my previous world. Even then, this would have to be dumbed down a bit for people who weren't well-read.

"Is this of any particular concern to you, Amber?"

"Well, yes," he replied.

"How so?"

"Because I feel like these guys have something to do with why that realm to the afterlife has been torn open."

"The—wasn't that supposed to be my fault?"

He laughed. "Where exactly? Don't you give yourself too much credit? You kicked a fuss when you were reincarnating, but you're hardly the worst offender."

"You told me..." I sighed. "Tell me the truth. Were you just bluffing me?"

"I guess..." I could picture him shrugging dismissively. "I mean you were pretty annoying."

I could feel my rage boiling inside. "Did you just pull me along because you have no one else to help you with your shit?"

"What do you mean? You got pulled along because you didn't drink from the river of reincarnation. And even if you did drink, I'd still have asked you to take part because everything would have been the same save for the part of you having memories. You did save me some effort."

This asshole. Was it fun for this guy seeing me feeling so guilty for something that was actually not within my control? He'd say it was my fault, and then indirectly say it wasn't the next sentence. Was this guy an expert in moral kidnapping or what?

I chanted some mantras under my breath to quell the boiling anger simmering in my veins.

Restraint. Restraint.

We weren't done. Oh, I was going to give this guy a taste of his own medicine someday. Someday.

My revenge would be sweet.

"So Maghra caused all this?"

"Not really. They just happened to have exploited a loose thread in the seams and unraveled the whole thing," he replied. "However, like I told you, our world isn't the only one there is. Other realities are sometimes at war, and the force of these clashing energies often put pressure on the fabrics of time and space. Everything is connected. Hence, the domino effect."

I sighed.

I put a mental note on this topic, marked my grudges, and moved on to the next page.

This time, the information presented before me talked of what experiments were done on the subjects. They most often than not targeted Conduits of Life and squeezed out what meager essence of the element they could.

But the best way to do this...was to put them in stressful situations that roused their survival instincts.

Like a fight, for example.

In this manner, they were able to maximize the harvest, so to speak.

And it made sense. Whenever one used the elements or drew the energies to oneself, there would be an abundance of it in the area. In this way, they captured these energies.

They treated these children like sheep in terms of shearing their wool. However, their practice bordered on deprivation of well-needed energy, which often meant suffocation for the child. They would barely even leave a breath.

I shuddered.

Well, it wasn't as bad as it sounded. What was bad was that they also doubled as gladiator-like entertainment. The children would end up with injuries that left them at death's door.

I remembered Maun and that rough fighting style in the arena—no wonder he was like that. He didn't have much self-control when the battle took over, and he transformed from puppy to rabid wolf within the span of a few seconds.

Anyone who had been forced to endure this situation for a while would be the same. But what I couldn't understand was...why did they have to cut off his tongue?

When I heard—more like eavesdropped on—my Aunt Safia last time, she said this was the only way to kill his kind.

If it was indeed true that Maun was an Azurian descended from a demigod, then it would explain the vitality he had and why he had been taken captive. There were still some questions I had that hadn't been answered, nevertheless. If they weren't solved in the next pages, that could only mean only Maun could tell me himself. He'd done very well speaking up about it, but I didn't want to push him too much.

Unfortunately, if I was to shed light on many things, I would really have to know the painful ones. I wonder if he trusted me enough or was comfortable enough around me to open up some more?

I wasn't rushing. For all I was concerned with, I could do other things for now. He'd told me something, at least. Still, it might help to know.

Was I horrible for asking him because I needed it? Or was I a good person for the exact same reason? I mean, from the moral standpoint, his history never really mattered until now. To be honest, for the past year since we met, I had been contented to never ask the sensitive topic of where he came from or who he was.

I could only hope I wasn't being an ass about it.

I sighed out loud. "Well, moving on..."

How my mistresses tied to all of this was the question. The next page had more details about it. It would seem my mistresses had been experimenting on the hardware they snagged from Maghra, trying to replicate it.

According to the files, my techy Mistress Marga has been working on it and even came up with some preliminary results. There was even an illustration of the prototype.

"Huh?" I pulled the paper closer to my face.

It had been a while, but I remember going down to Mistress Marga's lab under the shed while I was hiding from the guys who attacked the House of Oblivion. I saw something there—no. It was exactly this one. I remembered feeling the same thing as I did from what Amber called a forbidden weapon.

Could Maghra be using forbidden weapons to extract the energy of life? If so...then it made sense. There was a saying that opposites attract, and I suppose the science worked exactly the same.

Should I volunteer this knowledge?

"It wouldn't hurt to try," I whispered, writing down this thought to remind myself.

How to retrieve the child was the next problem, but there seemed to be a proposal attached on how to do just that—and, by the looks of it...they were expecting us to do it?

The best way to go in was to spectate on the matches between the kidnapped victims. To do that, we would sneak into the arena during the schedule. There was already a way to enter, and we'd been given golden tickets to help with access.

How the hell they even managed this thing was beyond me. I was shocked.

"Are they really giving these to kids?" I wondered.

Well...I did ask for information, but that didn't mean the extraction process was already included in it. In fact, I could tell they went above and beyond the service I asked for since they secured tickets for me.

Was this my mistresses' challenge for me or something? Was this some sort of initiation ceremony? Like, 'welcome to the club!' or what?

This was a syndicate, for god's sake. Parents would usually be so frightened and keep their children away at all costs. But my mistresses were even giving me tickets. What the heck.

"Some sick DIY challenge this is," I whispered.

Looking at the golden tickets, there was a logo in the shape of a tear on top of a water ripple. If I didn't know what Maghra was, this would be lost to me.

Minutes later, a knock landed on the door. That should be my expected guest.

First, I cleared the files and shoved them back into the envelope, out of sight, just in case Maun accidentally saw them.

I then stood up and welcomed Maun with a smile. "Come in."

He huddled past me with his blankets and pillows, sporting a huge grin on his face. I made way for him and nudged him inside.

The cold night breeze blew through the open door. I glanced at the star-studded sky.

There was a lot ahead of me. But I had a lot of hope.

As of December 2022: You can now read over 50 chapters (100,000 words) of the next book, Hell Snow on mylovelywriter.co.

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See you in Hell Snow!