The Greatest Sinner

In the morning, there was a luxury carriage outside Evan's house, where Marcel was already waiting for him.

They exchanged a few brief phrases, and then were silent the whole way. Soon the carriage arrived in a part of the city Evan had never been in before. It was a small, but extremely important sector of Mossy Vulture.

It housed all the ore and minerals that were mined in the mines, as well as all the equipment needed for the work. It could be said that from this place Mossy Vulture got the necessary resources for its development.

Of course, Mossy Vulture had an active foreign trade, but it would be a big mistake not to take advantage of so many mines with valuable ores.

Perhaps, in other cities a war would have broken out between the main forces in the city over these mines and especially the "Pond of Mountain Crystals", but Koen and Fane were not about to let that happen. They knew it wouldn't do any good.

If their Families fought over those mines, at the very least they would destroy half the city and lose most of their power, not to mention the people`s lives.

...

After a while, the carriage stopped and Marcel led Evan into the depths of the central cave. Just as Marcel had said, they were at the cliff behind Mossy Vulture.

"These caves have been exploited for many years, yet they are not yet fully explored. Every time a certain amount of ore is mined, new, unexplored passages are discovered."

Marcel said calmly, pointing at the dozens of tunnels around them. They walked through the widest tunnel for a while until they turned left and went down. It was the cave that led to the entrance to the "Pond of Mountain Crystals".

It wasn't long before they reached a large iron door with two guards beside it. From the outside it might have looked like the protection was weak, but it was not. There was a strong barrier in front of the iron door, and if anything happened to it, a magician would rush to the aid of the guards.

"Stop!" The guard said loudly when Marcel and Evan got close enough.

Marcel smiled and turned to Evan: "This is where I say goodbye to you, they'll take you from here. Good luck!"

He left and the young man was left alone with the guards.

"I am Evan Lynch." Evan said confidently.

The guards nodded and one of them took out a special amulet. He placed it against the barrier, and then the iron door opened.

"Follow me." The guard said gravely as he passed through the iron barrier.

Evan nodded and followed him.

The guard took Evan to the man who was in charge of access to the sections of the "Pond of Mountain Crystals".

Click.

The man opened the door and a thick puff of smoke flew out to meet him. To Evan's surprise, this smoke was familiar to him, or rather the smell of it. He had already felt and seen the same thing in some place.

"Mr. Demien! This is that man!" The guard said respectfully, after which he hurried away.

"А?"

"А?"

Evan and Demien met their gazes and looked at each other in surprise. Evan didn't understand what a simple clothing store owner was doing here.

Demien took his cigarette out of his mouth and said with a puzzled face: "Boy, so, were you the one who won the tournament? Hmm... if I'd known that, it might have made a pretty good advertisement for my store, but all right."

"What are you doing here?" Evan didn't understand what Demien had to do with this place.

"Well... the thing is, Fane came to me yesterday and asked me to get a man into section four. I told him to do it by himself, but then... ahem, well, I`ve changed my mind." Said Demien taking another puff of his cigarette.

<Is he related somehow to Fane? I wonder>. Evan thought to himself. He hadn't expected that Demien was actually more than just a clothing store owner.

"So, do you also work here?" Asked Evan.

Hearing his words Demien frowned and replied rudely, "What the hell are you talking about? I'm only in charge of section four access and if you think that's what I wanted to do, you're sorely mistaken!"

Demien sighed and continued: "That son of a bitch, Fane, I owed him and he couldn't think of anything better to do than to make me do it. It's only temporary, of course, while the Koen`s man is on assignment, but anyway, I'm sick of it."

Evan wanted to say something, but Demien beat him to it, "And then you showed up. Kid, why the fuck did you win the fucking tournament? One more week and I'd have been free, and now you have to be escorted to the Section Four. I'm fed up of this..."

"Before we go, can I ask you something?" Evan said calmly.

Demien simply replied, "Go ahead"

"How many people have you led to the fourth section so far?"

For a minute Demien had managed to complain as much as if he'd been working here for decades on end. Evan thought that Demien had people coming in all the time and bothering him.

Demien simply replied, "You`re the first".

"..."

...

Demien was walking slowly through the narrow cave and Evan was following him. They weren`t even talking, Demien was smoking his cigar along the way, and Evan was thinking about a lot of things.

From their little conversation, Evan realized a lot about Demien. He was far from an ordinary man. He was trusted to escort people to Section Four, but that wasn't the only thing that was surprising. Fane himself came to see him personally, and Demien could talk to him in a loose manner.

Of course, there was only one conclusion.

<Demien is very strong>. Evan thought to himself, looking at the cave they were walking through.

The stone walls were studded with many small blue crystals and their color changed from time to time. After a hundred meters, Evan was surrounded by yellow crystals, and after another hundred meters the crystals were already pink.

<Hmm, even here I feel that the concentration of mana here is much higher than outside. I wonder what I'll see in the fourth section then?

...

After a while, Demien stopped, frowned and said: "Damn."

There was a wide chasm in front of them, and the other end was too far away to reach it.

Demien scratched the back of his head and said: "I`ve forgotten my amulet... okay, nothing serious. Kid, I'm too lazy to go back, so I'll cheat a little. Don't tell anyone about what's about to happen here now."

Evan didn't know what Demien meant, but he nodded anyway.

The next moment Demien put his hand on the stone floor and poured mana into the seal on the stone.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

Immediately thereafter, Evan saw one barrier after another dissipate into the air. It was one of the defenses before the fourth section. A special amulet was needed to bridge the chasm, but Demien didn't bring one with him. Nevertheless, he found a way out.

Whoosh.

Demien's "Warp" swirled and mana began to gather at his hands.

He took a long puff and the next moment blew out a large puff of smoke. Evan was shocked by the next scene, as the smoke began to grow larger and larger by the second.

Demien waved his hand and the huge puff of smoke split into dozens of small clouds that quickly lined up and hovered over the abyss like slabs.