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Then he whispered something in Gruu’s ear that made his eyes bulge in his sockets. His body went completely still.

When Xen let go of his hair and stood up, he dusted his hand on his robes thoroughly before catching Evan’s wrist in a gentle but firm grip. He turned back towards the cave. “Come, we need to find your people before someone dies.”

Your people.

The words sounded strange to Evan’s ears.

For years now, he’d had no one in his life to call his own. His mother passed away, his father abandoned his family, and his sister distanced herself until she was more foreign than an acquaintance in his life. Throughout his childhood and teenage years, he was taunted, outcasted, exploited, and abused bypeople for being different, for debt money, and sometimes for their personal pleasure.

Some good people did come into his life, but the ever-prickling scars left behind by his past were not something their company could completely erase.

At one point, he became glad to realize he was as alone in this world as he could be. No family. No lover. If he did, then they’d eventually come to see him for what he truly was.

A failure.

And then probably abandon him like everyone else.

With a backward glance at Gruu, who still seemed shaken by whatever Xen had said, Evan followed Xen into the cave.

“What did you whisper to him?”

Xen cracked a smirk but otherwise remained silent.

Zeev lingered near Gruu for a moment too long before joining the other two.

Once inside the cave, the trio turned to the only opening near the busted wall. It was a little small for three grown men to enter.

Stepping forward, Zeev grazed his palm across the stone wall as if caressing a pet. Pliantly, the opening of the entrance widened, stretching to over three meters wide and tall like a beast yawning.

So, manipulation of rockswasone of a Hellguard’s powers.

Zeev patted the stone as if praising it, then they set out inside.

The route was steeping downward, their pace increasing slightly as they went deeper. After walking for a while, the air grew stuffy and cold, although only for Evan.

They were definitely heading underground now.

The stone walls widened whenever the path became too narrow for the three of them, Zeev’s hand tracing the walls as they went, instructing the stone when to give way. His other hand held a flame that lit their path.

At the end of the stone cave, underground rocks came together and started rolling forward, parting the raw earth for them, their speed measured and energetic. It seemed like they were ecstatic that someone had roused them from their stationary positions in the ground and put them to work.

Coughing a little from the dust, Evan asked, “How much longer do we have to walk? I don’t think I even ran this far when I was escaping the Nightshade freaks, and I’m sure the Tomb of Ascension was nearby.”

If they had traced the same path that Evan and Delos had taken while fleeing, they should have approached the Tomb of Ascension a while ago.

“This burrow won’t lead us straight to the Tomb of Ascension, sir. There are some thick, tangled roots of ancient trees in the way. We must go around them,” Zeev explained. “Also, just to make sure no other Hellguard senses the earth shifting underneath, we have to avoid making a straight burrow.”

Right. There could be other Hellguards out there who possessed the same abilities as Zeev. And if they decided to crash the earth above them, they’d be buried alive before they could blink.

Evan glanced at Xen, who was back to his silent, impassive demeanor. One of his hands was pocketed, the other grasping Evan’s hand firmly.

The memory of his warm mouth invaded Evan’s mind before he shoved it away, adjusting his pants discreetly.

After giving it some thought, Evan decided to let him hold his hand. “The Covenant of the Nightshade worships something called a Dark Spirit. I think that’s what’s possessed Aaron’s mind and is waiting to manifest into a physical form through the ritual. What I don’t understand is what kind of creature it is. Another demon or something human-ish?”

“Something that is neither. It’s merely a conscience,” Xen replied, voice monotonous. “A creature born from Hellfire and awakened with human blood is something that doesn’t belong to any realm. That’s why it must be stopped.”

If it was neither human nor demon, then what could it possibly be? A mixture of both? Or a creature that lacked the qualities of either?