Infinite Realm

A minute right after Cecilia had left, Sato immediately exited the river. Even though he didn't want to do so so quickly, Sato had no choice. Despite being able to hold his breath underwater for at least 5 minutes, Sato wasn't willing to spend a second longer down there.

Not only was he running out of air, but despite the depth he stayed at being not more than 7 metres, the pressure Sato felt underwater was nothing to joke about. There was also the fact that he felt an unceremonious gaze lingering on him. Sato didn't doubt that he had caught the attention of an underwater predator so he hurriedly left the spot once he felt that Cecilia had gone far enough.

'I need to get out of here fast.'

Sato immediately broke off in a run.

He knew that Cecilia was a lady of circumspect and she most likely had her ways of monitoring this area even without her being physically present. Even though doing such was stressful and required certain abilities, Sato didn't doubt that Cecilia could pull it off as she was not only a powerful mage but one who wouldn't want to take any more risks at this point. It won't be surprising if she left behind a gadget to monitor the area from a covert location.

About 2 minutes after Sato had left, Cecilia returned to the exact same spot once again. It was just as Sato had suspected, she was monitoring the area through a special sigil.

The sigil worked almost like a motion detector, sending a signal to its owner once a living being was detected within its range. It worked one-way so Cecilia could only receive an alert that a living being had passed through there. As for whether it was Sato or a river monster, Cecilia was unaware. Nonetheless, she still decided to check on it.

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Because of the distance between her and the sigil, it had taken some time for the signal from the sigil to reach Cecilia. Added with the time it took for her to get over here, Cecilia was 2 minutes behind Sato.

'A monster was here.' Cecilia frowned as she noticed some abnormally large footprints on the floor.

The sigil only had the function of spotting movement from an animate being. As for whether said being was a monster or a human, was unknown. So there was a chance that it was a false alarm and it was only a monster that had passed by here. Since the commotion on the surface was a lot, with part of the river bank's vegetation being razed to cinders, it was only natural for a monster close by to come and inspect the area.

At this point, Cecilia began fretting.

'Who knows whether he's discovered my identity. If I can't find that kid, then the mission would be ruined.' Cecilia gritted her teeth before choosing a direction and dashing away.

Two reasons led to her actions. 

The first was that Cecilia refused to believe that Sato still remained in the river. He must have either swam in a particular direction and escaped, or had left from here during the time she was looking for him. If he hadn't exited the river yet, then it meant that Sato was dead. As for why she was confident in that, it was closely related to the second reason.

A monster was steadily approaching the shore. 

Even though Cecilia couldn't extend her senses deep into the water, for her to be able to sense a monster coming meant that its aura was powerful. Any monster with an aura that strong was definitely not a half-assed beast. Even she wouldn't want to trade blows with such a creature. Therefore, if Sato was still in the river, he would undoubtedly die or might have already died.

'I just hope he's dead. Otherwise finding him now would be difficult. But if I do find him…' Cecilia narrowed her eyes as a hint of demonic energy leaked out from her.

Meanwhile, the target of all this was long gone from the scene. 

When Sato had left the river, he didn't waste a single second as he broke off in a run, using [Sprint] to increase his speed. When he realized that he wasn't being chased, Sato immediately used [Shadow Movement]. Each time the skill went off cool-down, Sato would use it further lengthen the gap. 

While it was true that he could easily cover the basic 5 metres gap of the skill, the mysterious teleportation style of the skill made it very difficult to track him. 

Sato knew that Cecilia wouldn't give up chasing after him -for whatever reason she had to do so in the first place-, so any technique that could make tracking him difficult was even more appreciated than one that could increase his movement speed. 

In this regard, Sato was lucky to have both. Sato only held back in using the berserk skill from his title, [Gratitude of Races], as he felt that it was the only thing that could give him a fighting chance against Cecilia and also improve his survivability chances in this zone.

Being deep within Maldora Canyons, Sato would normally have to progress at a slow and steady pace even with Milo leading the way, much less now he was all alone. Despite that, his speed wasn't all that slow as Sato felt it was better to risk encountering a dangerous monster than facing off against Cecilia. 

Call it his guts or gamer instincts but Sato felt that there was a plot hidden here, and not one of an ordinary caliber. He even felt that dying in the hands of Cecilia wouldn't be the same as dying at the hands of a monster or regular NPC character. The absurd abilities she displayed as well as the eerie green aura made Sato feel that Cecilia was more aligned to the dark side. It wouldn't be surprising if her methods had severe consequences to even players, after all, a personage of the dark side had methods that could harm the soul of an individual. 

Sato believed that, just like in other games, a death accompanied by a soul injury wouldn't be the same as an average death. It was for this reason that he didn't mind jumping inside the river, even though there was still a chance of getting eaten by a river monster.

*Ding*

'Hmm?' 

With the notification sign from the interface, Sato spared a part of his focus towards the new message. It was the report from the information hunter he had hired regarding news about the Arnhaunt family. The previous news was nothing more than general information regarding the family's public allies, insignia, area of jurisdiction, and official status. For more detailed information regarding its members -particularly female members of the main branch- and so on, Sato had to pay more and wait for the information hunter to make a proper report. Sato had previously suspected Cecilia's identity even before she had tried to kill him and now, he was even more suspicious of that. There was no motive for that and the two had never crossed paths before their encounter within this canyon.

While Sato didn't exactly want to read the report right now, a part of him felt it was necessary to do so. As they say, know your enemies and victory will be assured, anything regarding Cecilia might end up being useful if he was forced to face her. Hence, Sato found a safe spot and hid as he went through the information. It was then that he laid his eyes on a staggering discovery.

In the publicly acknowledged birth records of the Arnhaunt family, there was no Cecilia recorded within the register.