Leon had a wide grin on his face as he made his way back to the camp. The entire demonstration that the manticore had put on had lasted for more than an hour, and with so many powerful eyes watching it, and Leon’s antimagic enchantments helping them to analyze the flow of magic around the creature, they were able to figure out just what it was doing when it disappeared and reappeared.

As a result, Leon and Nestor were able to throw together a few spells that mimicked what the manticore did, and when he used the first one, he couldn’t help but grin like a madman.

In short, the entire forest, not just the blatantly warded zone, was under the influence of powerful enchantments. Confirming what he’d tested earlier, illusions upon illusions had been layered upon one another, blocking not only the flow of ambient magic from sight, but also all the local fauna. The reason why the forest seemed so dead and lifeless, yet had so many monsters and other creatures regularly showing up, was because just about every creature in the forest was hidden by these illusions. When monsters appeared as if from nowhere, they were appearing out of this illusion, for it seemed they couldn’t stay hidden when fighting.

When Leon used the first spell, allowing him to see through these many layers of illusion for a short period, it was like finally turning on the lights in a pitch-black room; suddenly, everything became visible.

Or at least, almost everything.

He could see foxes running through the brush, hear the birds chirping in the trees, the bugs buzzing as they went about their day, deer lazily picking through bushes and grass, and all the other normal things he expected to see in such a dense forest.

He also saw plant giants standing like statues in a rough circle around the warded zone. Packs of wolves roamed this perimeter, as did predatory cats, large boars, and huge flocks of eagles. In fact, there was so much concentrated power around the warded zone that he could scarcely believe it—there was more than enough to overwhelm their expedition, and at the very least, force them out of the Prota Forest. The thousands of plant giants that he could count alone would’ve been sufficient, as far as he was concerned, and yet all of this power hadn’t been turned in their direction. Instead, they’d merely been harassed, and while they’d taken some fatalities, it was so far beneath what could’ve fallen upon them that Leon could only stare in disbelief at what he could see.

After a while, when he’d processed what he was seeing, he began to concentrate on what he couldn’t see rather than what he could. Most notably was the warded zone.

The warded zone was even more heavily enchanted than the forest as a whole. These enchantments were like a magical dome covering the warded zone. Leon was still in this zone, letting him see that this dome was, like the illusions on the rest of the forest, multilayered. He could see a thin, translucent barrier surrounding the outer perimeter of the warded zone, which he guessed would’ve been completely opaque from the outside, much like the next layer of wards, which shrouded the inner zone from view in a dome of pure white light.

He couldn’t see the interior of the zone, which included the site with abundant stone at the surface that Cassandra had attempted to investigate a couple days ago.

Less obviously, he also couldn’t see hide nor hair of any more goat men that he’d been attacked by. There weren’t any villages, any sign of civilization hidden within the forest, so the only places that he supposed the goat men could’ve come from were either underground, or within the inner warded zone. Given that the goat men had sank into the earth after he’d killed them, he supposed the former was more likely, but that meant they were effectively impossible to find.

It was a grim thought. It served as a reminder that even though he and Nestor had managed to finally penetrate the illusions enshrouding the forest, there were still things within it that evaded his magic senses. Notably, he couldn’t see any more tree sprites, hidden as they were within trees, nor could he see any more bulbous vines of the sort that had occupied the first stony site that his expedition had investigated.

Still, he’d discovered so much that he still wore a huge grin as he ran back toward the camp. If the theories that he and Nestor floated around were true, then they could penetrate those last wards around the interior of the warded zone and finally get a good look at what all of this magic was meant to hide.

—

“It’s about damn time you got back!” Cassandra shouted as Leon jumped over the camp’s walls. “I almost thought I’d have to head out there to find you and lead you back by the nose!”

Leon just chuckled, in too good of a mood to rise to Cassandra’s challenge. Instead, as his retainers and family came pouring out of his portable villa, he stepped right past the Princess, which she didn’t seem to appreciate, though he didn’t stop.

“Leon!” Valeria shouted as she ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck. After a moment, she stiffened, then released him and stepped back, a quiet, dignified smile on her face as she assumed a more graceful air.

Elise and Maia weren’t so reserved, each pulling Leon into a tight hug, which he was more than willing to return. The rest of his retainers were just as happy, though only Anzu expressed that joy physically, nearly barreling Leon over in his joy at Leon’s return.

Once all of that was finished, Leon hurried everyone inside to share with them the results of his scouting in the warded zone. Cassandra was still a little aggrieved at having been brushed off, but with the promise of information on the warded zone dangled in front of her, she quickly moved on.

In Leon’s dining room, his retinue, along with Cassandra and the leaders of the Evergolden escort, sat down to go over what Leon had found.

Leon quickly informed them of the layers of illusion cast over the entire forest, and the strong likelihood that it was the result of powerful ancient runes within the inner warded zone. His spells that temporarily allowed him to see through these enchantments amounted to a single ancient rune, the rune for ‘truth’. However, even with his eighth-tier magic and skill in enchanting, these spells were only temporary. To get something more permanent would take a little longer.

More concerning, however, were the teleportation enchantments protecting the warded zone. Unfortunately, Leon didn’t have much of a solution for dealing with them, so they were going to have to try and live with them as they came.

With all of that out of the way, Cassandra only had a few more questions.

“What happened to that manticore?” she wondered. Leon was surprised that that was her first question, but he quickly answered.

“It left,” he said. “It wasn’t looking to start anything with me, and neither was I, with it. Once it paid me back for healing it, it departed—I assume to go about its own day, or to find its family, or whatever else a manticore does.”

Cassandra frowned in thought. “It’s curious that these manticores seem to be hostile to the giants,” she said. “Did you find any more information on that?”

“No. As far as I can tell, most of the animals in the forest seem to be left alone, and leave the giants alone, too. It’s only the manticores that appear to resist the giants. Then again, if we’re right about all of this brain mold being evidence of mental domination, then perhaps it’s only the manticores that are strong enough to resist. When I broke through the illusions, I noted that most of the manticores in the forest are around the sixth-tier range, though the giants and many of the other strong-looking animals, had no aura to speak of, even with the truth rune active.”

“Then their lack of aura isn’t an illusion?” Cassandra asked.

“Not that I can tell. It’s more that they all have those power receivers, and only have the power given to them by whatever’s controlling them. So, without excess magic power, they have no aura.”

“… Huh…” Cassandra leaned back in her seat, her eyes glazed over in contemplation.

As the Princess turned that over in her head, Valeria spoke up with a more relevant question. “Do you have any ideas for giving all of us a more permanent ability to see through these illusions?”

“I do,” Leon replied as he gave her a glowing smile. “In fact, it might be something that I add to our armor’s enchantment schemes going forward, depending on how useful it turns out to be.”

As he spoke, Leon retrieved from his soul realm a few rough sketches that he and Nestor had made after the encounter with the manticore. Scrawled upon them were plans for extremely simple iron amulets inscribed with the truth rune, along with modern runes designed to aid in the flow of magic power into the ancient rune.

“These should work,” Leon said. “Assuming we make and use them properly, anyway…”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Gaius asked. “Admittedly, my interest and skill in enchantment has always been limited, but my understanding is that ancient runes are powerful, aren’t they? Is there some reason why their use is limited?”

“Ancient runes aren’t used that often for a reason,” Leon explained. “Modern runes have defined uses that don’t change based on who’s using them. A fire rune will function exactly the same in my hand as it would in yours, assuming all else is equal. Ancient runes, however, can be incredibly powerful, hilariously weak, or somewhere in the middle depending on who uses them. Modern runes basically only require magic power to function, but ancient runes require willpower and imagination. You have to have a clear idea of what you want the rune to do, and have the will to get that rune to impose itself upon reality. Ancient runes can be incredibly powerful, but that unpredictability was a real problem, which is why they’ve been replaced by the much more reliable modern runes.

“So, we get to the real issue, here: how can we use this ‘truth’ rune to cut through this illusion? Well, once we get these amulets forged, we’re going to have do a bit of training with them; since the illusions are also the result of ancient runes, we’re going to be contending with the will of whatever put them there.”

Cassandra started paying attention again shortly into Leon’s spiel, and when he was finished, she leaned forward and said in a rather dismissive tone, “You were able to cut through the illusions without much trouble, I’m sure the rest of us will be fine.”

Leon smiled bitterly at her, his golden eyes narrowing into something like a glare. “As you’ll recall, I wasn’t able to penetrate the deeper wards. We still don’t know what’s waiting for us further in the warded zone. And these ‘truth’ runes won’t do a lick of good against the zone’s teleportation enchantments, let alone those enchantments that are designed to affect and confuse the mind. The difficulty of summoning the willpower to resist the inner wards with darkness magic clawing at your skull and the knowledge that you could be whisked away to who-knows-where shouldn’t be underestimated.”

Cassandra smiled back, her expression more arrogantly confident than worried. “I’m sure we’ll be fine,” she repeated.

For a long, uncomfortable moment, Leon considered arguing with her. However, with the way she stared at him, as if she were daring him to start an argument, he decided to let her and her people do whatever they would.

He did have to acknowledge a hint—or more—of regret in letting her in on the purpose of this expedition, though if the research facility’s defenses were even more robust further into the warded zone, he couldn’t deny the dark thought that maybe that little mistake would just solve itself. He had the dark premonition that the Princess was probably going to lead her people to doom.

After a couple seconds of staring at the Princess, Leon just said, “Do what you will.”

The Princess’ smile widened, and she leaned back in her seat, looking quite pleased with herself.

Leon then turned to his retinue and dismissed them, their meeting effectively over. For now, he and Valeria had a lot of work to do.

—

Leon stared at what had been accomplished in the past couple of days. He’d scraped together enough iron to forge crude arm rings for the entire expedition, and he and Valeria had then inscribed them first with the truth rune, and then with a couple more enchantments to aid in channeling power to the rune and focusing the mind.

It had taken two days to finish, and that was with Nestor aiding Leon in the rings’ design. Valeria had struggled a bit to understand just what the enchantments were doing, though, since she didn’t have Nestor there to directly question, but by the end, Leon was confident that both of them had a reasonable idea of just what they were doing. As far as he could tell, all of the rings had been forged and enchanted as well as could be expected so far from civilization.

During this time, the camp was attacked thrice more, but the results were the same as most of the rest of the attacks, with the plant giants and goat men who participated being slaughtered to the last. The expedition only took nonfatal casualties, and with the strength of their healing magic, they didn’t lose a single person.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t let that lull them into a false sense of security, especially since they still needed some time to practice with their new gear. Using ancient runes was a far cry from using modern runes, which didn’t require much cerebral input on the part of the user. Ancient runes, however, required a focused mind and a focused will.

Among Leon’s retainers, Helen, Gaius, Anshu, and Marcus took to the rune quite well. Elise, Maia, and Valeria all did, too, to Leon’s immense relief. Anna, Alix, Alcander, and Talal all had more difficulty, however, and needed quite a few hours of practice before they were able to reliably use their iron rings.

Something that greatly helped in this regard was the mask that Leon had won from Cassandra following the wyvern hunt. He hadn’t used it much, but it had been enchanted to aid focus, keeping the mind on task. While his retainers were practicing with their new accessory, he’d tested the mask out, finding that it worked fairly well. He considered himself a fairly focused person, though, so the utility the mask provided him was fairly limited. For his retainers that were struggling with their truth rings, however, the mask proved quite valuable, and it was only after passing it around a few times that they were able to get a handle on their new ability.

At the same time, Leon noticed that the Evergolden escorts were practicing with their rings, though not quite as intensely as Leon’s retinue was. For the most part, this didn’t strike him as too dangerous since most of them were still going to remain back at camp, but what was more concerning for him was the fact that he didn’t once see Cassandra practicing with her ring—not that he saw much of her in this time, anyway. She seemed mostly content to remain in her palace-tree, only stepping outside for a couple hours every day to make the rounds and speak with her people.

Eventually, though, the time for practice had to give way to the time for execution, and on the morning of the fourth day after Leon’s return to the camp, everyone who was going along with him assembled before the wall.

Elise and Talal were staying behind, though the rest of Leon’s retinue were going along with them. Of the two Evergolden escorts, one was going to stay behind to secure the camp, while the other was going to accompany Cassandra on this—hopefully—last leg of their expedition. Everyone had their truth rings, and everyone who was going with them could use them with some degree of competence.

Not all of them could completely see past the forest’s illusions, though Leon hoped the sheer number of truth runes guiding them would make things easier on the group as a whole.

Using their runes, they left the camp, everyone now able to admire the forest, now so obviously full of life where before it had seemed so dead and lifeless. The illusions had been peeled back, revealing not only all of the animals that called this forest their home, but the enormous dome of pale blue light in the distance that didn’t give way to their truth rings.

The warded zone, within which lay something that deserved such protection—or so Leon hoped. Within it may even lay the answers to all the strange happenings going on in the forest so far, or just confirmations of what had already been theorized. Regardless, Leon knew that heading in there would likely be exceptionally dangerous, so he called their expedition to a halt near the borders of the warded zone.

“This is it,” he told everyone. “If anyone has any misgivings, or wants to turn around and head back to camp, this it the time to make your voice heard.”

“As if anyone would turn around at this point!” Cassandra excitedly exclaimed, though Leon didn’t see the same enthusiasm in the faces of her people. “Let’s just get in there and see what this damned forest has been trying to hide, already!”

Without waiting for a response from Leon, Cassandra donned her helmet, her escort doing likewise, and started trudging into the forest toward the warded zone.

Leon sighed in exasperation and glanced at his retainers. “Any of you want to back out?”

“Fuck no,” Alcander said, speaking for everyone else.

“Good,” Leon said with a smile, seeing none of the reluctance in his people that he’d seen in the Evergolden warriors. He turned back toward the warded zone and led his people to follow the Princess and the Evergolden escort. “Now, let’s see what we can find…”