Chapter 290: Infiltration

Saul wasn’t sure if his guess was right.

By all accounts, the Kema Duchy and the Wizard Tower were allies. They shouldn’t be scheming against him.

But alliances could sometimes be more complicated than anyone could imagine.

He packed away his most important items, though he didn’t bother to thoroughly clean the laboratory.

Instead, he deliberately left behind signs of use, then quietly sat down at the experiment table, as if still engrossed in studying magic.

Just before sitting down, he casually brushed a hand against the wall—leaving behind a small, nearly invisible crack.

From daylight to deep night.

Unlike the Wizard Tower, Black Castle didn’t keep its lights burning round-the-clock.

Whether out of thrift or simply for convenience, few lamps were set up here at all.

So when night came, Black Castle lived up to its name—shrouded in pitch blackness. Moonlit shadows flitted across the treetops, casting eerie silhouettes that made any peasants glancing upward doubt their own eyes.

In the pitch-dark storage room, something emerged from the bottom of a giant, not-yet-fully-dismantled wooden crate—a pale grayish-white hemisphere.

The sturdy wooden casing posed no obstacle. The sphere slowly elongated, revealing a pair of eyes.

It wasn’t a sphere—it was a bald human head.

Its pupils were tiny, and the whites of its eyes took up almost the entire eyeball, nearly the same color as its skin.

At a glance, it looked like the only parts of its eyeballs were the small, black-bean-sized pupils.

The head slithered out through a gap beneath the crate—nose, mouth, chin, and then its long neck.

An endlessly long neck.

No body.

The tiny pupils flicked left and right, surveying the room in the darkness.

Then, it locked onto the door.

The neck continued stretching, pushing the bald head toward the storage room’s exit.

Though the gap beneath the door was narrow, it couldn’t stop the head from slipping through.

It exited easily and looked both ways.

The storage room was located at the end of the first floor of Black Castle, and beyond it stretched a winding corridor.

The head glanced around, then opened its mouth wide. From the gap between its toothless lips slithered a thin, pale tongue—matching the skin tone—topped with a small, round bulb.

Once the tongue left the mouth, it began to swell—especially the bulbous tip, growing to nearly the size of a head.

That tip split open along two seams, revealing a pair of tiny pupils.

Then a third seam opened beneath the eyes, forming a gaping mouth.

And from that mouth, another thin tongue emerged, also ending in a rounded tip—this, too, sprouted eyes and a mouth.

Then came a second tongue from the original head.

Then a third. A fourth…

Each tongue grew a head with eyes and mouth, and then birthed another tongue from within.

An uncountable number of identical heads began stretching out and slithering down the corridor.

They moved across the floor, up the walls, endlessly lengthening. Their tiny black pupils trembled with excitement, yet not a single sound was made.

Soon, the heads carpeted the entire hallway and slithered toward the first-floor foyer.

No guests were visiting tonight, so the front hall was just as dim. The grand chandeliers and ornate wallpaper seemed to shift into something else entirely under the pale moonlight.

The first head reached the foyer and continued exploring—until it suddenly stopped.

Its quivering pupil shifted to the corner of its eye and spotted a black vine coiling tightly around it.

“Devil… Vine…”

The mouth finally spoke its first words.

But it didn’t resist. It simply extended another tongue—birthing the next head.

One by one, each head caught by the Devil Vine didn’t resist. They let themselves be bound, but not before producing another tongue, which continued the search through Black Castle.

Sensing no resistance, the Devil Vine perhaps mistook them for ordinary snakes, bugs, or rodents sneaking in from the forest and didn’t issue an alert to its temporary master.

Meanwhile, on the third floor in his laboratory, Saul was writing furiously.

Suddenly, his hand paused mid-sentence. “An unidentified intruder, and yet no alarm?”

He turned his head slightly and muttered, “They came prepared. They managed to disable Black Castle’s most sensitive detection method in one move. Then it’s entirely possible the rest of the defenses won’t hold up either.”

Had it not been for Saul’s control of the Devil Vine far exceeding that of a mere temporary master, he might not have noticed anything until they were already upon him.

But now…

“If I charge out… can I take down whoever’s lurking in the shadows?”

A familiar sensation rose in his mind—the diary slowly unfolded.

—

5th September, Year 316 of the Lunar Calendar

A troublesome guest knocks at your door.

The enthusiastic host wishes to make him stay forever.

The guest brings a bouquet.

The host prepares fresh seafood.

After a back-and-forth exchange.

You invite the guest to stay—forever.

But alas,

You miss the chance to meet the second guest.

—

Reading the entry, Saul paused.

He had deliberately guided the diary with a clear strategy—seeking to confirm whether he’d face a life-threatening danger.

The moment the diary appeared, he feared the worst—that he was no match for the intruder and would die tonight.

But seeing the entry wasn’t a death forecast surprised him.

After all, he’d always assumed that anyone resorting to sneak attacks wouldn’t be a True Wizard—and that any regular Third Rank apprentice was no longer a threat to him.

What surprised him even more was the implication of the diary.

According to it, he would defeat the first enemy. But this also meant the diary’s warnings were no longer limited to death alone.

He would merely subdue the first guest—and scare off the second, missing the chance to meet them.

“The diary’s warnings… have upgraded? It won’t only alert me to death threats anymore?”

To test his theory, Saul immediately switched mental strategies.

“What if I hide instead?”

The diary reappeared, offering several more lines.

Again—not a death warning.

“Just as I thought…” Saul smiled faintly. “This is the diary’s first alert since it evolved into a locator. That’s why I’ve only just realized the trigger conditions have changed.”

As his connection with the diary deepened, it began offering more comprehensive feedback.

“If it’s following its usual narrative logic… then missing the second guest could lead to future consequences. I’ll have to find a way to flush them out.”

Knock, knock, knock!

Suddenly, someone knocked on the lab’s door.

Saul glanced toward it—through the gap beneath the door, something shadowy seemed to shift and tremble.

“A guest uninvited, arriving at last.”

He smiled softly, ignored the midnight knocking, turned his head, and pulled his hood over his head with his left hand—continuing to write.

Scratch, scratch, scratch…

The room was silent, save for the soft rasp of pen against parchment.

Outside the door, the guest gently tapped his forehead against the wood. Every three knocks, he would pause, grin, and wait patiently for the host to open up.

All around the doorway—on the floor, walls, and ceiling—dozens of identical heads crowded the entrance, their wide black-and-white eyes pressed to every gap.

Jostling and nudging, they fought for space at the crack in the door, pupils quivering with excitement as they peeked inside—catching a glimpse of a cloaked figure seated with his back to them.

Their eyes trembled, thrilled with anticipation.

Waiting for the host… to open the door.

(End of Chapter)

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