While floating in the sky, Daniel looked down at the empty tents. He raised his hand, and suddenly flames appeared, setting the empty tents on fire.
"What the hell? Another fire? Damn it!"
"Hurry! Bring water! The tents are burning again!"
"Check if anyoneâs hurt! Make sure everyone is okay!"
The pilgrims jumped up in panic and ran toward the water sources to fetch water and try to put out the fires.
But this time, unlike before, they didnât foolishly rush toward the burning tentsâafraid of another explosion. Clearly, they had learned from the previous night.
Still, Daniel didnât care about any of that. He was just waiting to see if the people following him would make a move or not.
He activated his spiritual sense and observed everything from above. If another fire started, it would definitely be the work of the ones he was hunting.
And thatâs exactly what happened. Right after the fire he had started, a chain of new fires broke out.
Tents in different sections and areas began to burn.
Boom! Boom!
Not just fireâmassive explosions also occurred. But this time, Daniel was prepared. He had already created a defensive shield for the pilgrims using his mana essence.
He immediately summoned his Fallen and ordered them to find the saboteursâthose who had started the other fires.
The Fallen began scanning the area with full force to identify the targets.
"Found them," Daniel suddenly said. He spotted two people who looked suspicious.
Without hesitation, he took a step and appeared right in front of them.
"Ahâwho are you?!" the two panicked as Daniel appeared before them and fell back to the ground in fear.
Instead of questioning them, Daniel just knocked them both out. Now wasnât the time for interrogation.
He then continued searching and managed to find three more of them. He quickly captured and knocked them out too, laying them down beside the other two.
Thatâs all?
No matter how much he searched after that, he couldnât find anyone else.
Either they were hidden so well he couldnât detect them, or these five were truly the only ones.
Daniel looked at the five unconscious people in front of him. He had brought them to the middle of the desert so no one else would see what he might do to them.
He doubted these five were anyone important. They were too weak to be a real challenge for him.
If this was somewhere else, maybe he wouldâve thought he was just too strongâbut this was the Tower, and the Tower always scaled the floorâs difficulty to match the individualâs strength.
He woke them up using his soul energy.
"W-Who are you?! What do you want from us?!"
"We didnât do anything! Weâre just some innocent pilgrims!"
"Please forgive us!"
Daniel growled, and suddenly a terrifying aura of death covered them.
"Donât play dumb. Why did you set the pilgrimsâ tents on fire?"
"We didnât do anyâ" one of them began to say, but before he could finish, Daniel exploded his head.
"If you answer my questions with nonsense instead of truth, youâll end up like him," Daniel said coldly, sending a bone-chilling shiver down the spines of the remaining four.
They glanced at each other nervously and swallowed hard.
"Weâre part of a group against Zirhamism. We wanted to kill those foolish followers to show that Zirham is nothing but a fraud and that everyone is equal before death."
"Huh? What even is that?" Daniel frowned. This was the first time he had heard about such a thing.
"Weâre a group that believes Eternity is not a Supreme Law. We believe itâs all just lies spread by Zirham. That so-called prophet lied for his own power, and there has never been a Book of Eternity among the other Supreme books."
"I see... so there are more of you?"
"Actually, only us five came from our group. The leaders of the anti-Zirhamism movement didnât come here," one of the four explained.
"So the fires from last night and tonight were your doing?" Daniel asked, staring at them sharply.
Before they answered, the four looked at each other with hesitation.
"What? My patience has a limit." Daniel growled. Did these idiots really think his patience had no limit? He was already extremely pissed that several pilgrims had died because of last nightâs fires.
He was sure that the deaths of those pilgrims would definitely affect the outcome of clearing this floorâand he was not happy about that at all.
"Well... last night we wanted to attack, but someone else started the fire before us. Though the explosions both nights were done by us. At first, we thought it was another anti-Zirhamism group, but after we reached out, we realized it wasnât."
"Reached out how?" Daniel frowned. Things were getting more complicated than he expected.
It seemed his guess was rightâthere wasnât just one group, but multiple ones planning to attack the pilgrims.
But what had these poor pilgrims even done to deserve being targeted by two different groups?
And on top of that, it just meant more work for him.
"As long as I can get some EXP out of it... or maybe find a few potential Fallen among them, itâs not all that bad."
"We have a way to contact our kind... a method to confirm our identities. We tried reaching out, but no one responded."
"I see. So thereâs another group trying to harm the pilgrims, but so far, theyâve only started fires." He nodded. It seemed he hadnât flushed out all the rats.
"So... can we go now?" the four looked at each other, then at Daniel.
But Daniel just raised his hand, and a wave of death energy rushed toward them. Their bodies decayed and were completely destroyed.
Naturally, he wasnât going to let these bastards live. First, he didnât want any more troubleâif he let them go, theyâd definitely report back to their leader.
Second, he didnât want these vultures taking another chance to attack the pilgrims. Thatâs why killing them was the best decision.
Too bad they were too weak to even become Fallen.
He turned and looked at the Fallen behind him.
"Weâre not done yet."