CHAPTER 170 — SERIS
House Veil stood at the northernmost edge of the Twinfield Continent where the land itself slowly disappeared beneath endless pale fog.
No wars were fought there.
Not because the territory lacked value.
Because armies that entered too deeply eventually stopped reporting back correctly.
Maps returned incomplete.
Memories contradicted themselves.
Entire scouting routes vanished from military archives despite recorded deployments proving they had once existed.
Over time, the other Marquis Houses stopped attempting long-term surveillance entirely.
The territory remained classified, practically.
The Veil dominion stretched across cold silver forests, drowned valleys, and silent mountain regions where sunlight rarely reached the ground completely. Thin mist drifted endlessly between the trees, softening distance until entire structures seemed to appear only after someone stood directly before them.
At the center of that territory stood House Veil itself.
Not a fortress.Not even a city.
A vast layered estate built directly into the sides of enormous black mountains that curved around the region like the ribs of some ancient buried creature.
Silver bridges connected towering structures suspended above bottomless ravines while streams of pale light flowed through formation channels carved across the stone walls of the mountains themselves.
Everything felt quiet there.
Controlled.Measured.
The population within Veil territory was smaller than every other Marquis House despite controlling one of the largest regions on the continent.
Few outsiders remained there comfortably for long.
Visitors often described the same feeling afterward.
The sensation that the territory was observing them in return.
Even the disciples of House Veil rarely gathered in large visible groups. The estate lacked the loud martial grounds common among the other Houses.
No roaring arenas.
No public displays of dominance.
Only silence.
Corridors stretched endlessly through the mountain structures while servants, guards, and disciples moved through them with restrained precision beneath dim silver lanternlight that never seemed to flicker no matter how strong the wind became outside.
And somewhere deep within those endless halls..Seris walked alone
The girl stepped through the corridor without making a sound.
Not because her footsteps were light.
Because the servants lining the hallway failed to notice her until she had already passed them.
Silver lanternlight slid across the walls in long muted streaks as she moved deeper into the estate, her figure appearing briefly within the reflections before fading from attention almost immediately afterward.
No guards announced her arrival.
No signatures reacted to her presence.
Even the layered formations embedded throughout the corridor remained quiet as she walked beneath them.
A thin silver coat rested over her shoulders, its fabric shifting softly around her legs with each step while strands of pale black hair framed a face calm enough to feel detached from the world around it.
Then she stopped.
An elderly servant approaching from the opposite side of the corridor froze slightly after seeing her.
Recognition flickered across his face.
His lips parted.
"…Lady…"
The word stalled halfway.
Confusion replaced it instantly.
His expression tightened as though something inside his thoughts had slipped out of place.
Seris watched him silently for a moment.
Then she continued walking.
By the time the servant turned around again..he could no longer remember why he had stopped moving in the first place.
—
She continued deeper into the estate as the corridor gradually widened into a massive interior passage carved directly through the mountain itself.
Pale streams of formation light flowed beneath the transparent floor beneath her feet, illuminating the abyss far below where countless lower structures extended endlessly into the darkness beneath House Veil.
The scale of the estate became clearer there.
Entire districts existed beneath the main halls.
Silent libraries.
Restricted archives.
Observation chambers.
Memory vaults.
Thousands lived within the territory, yet the deeper sections of the estate still carried an unnatural emptiness, as though sound itself had been deliberately restrained.
Seris reached the end of the passageway shortly afterward.
A pair of enormous silver doors stood before her.
No guards protected them.
No formations activated.
The doors simply opened the moment she arrived.
A cold breeze drifted outward from the chamber
Then the room revealed itself,It was circular.
Vast enough to resemble a small arena, yet completely empty aside from the enormous structure suspended at its center.
A sphere.
Dark silver.
Dozens of thin metallic rings rotated slowly around it while countless tiny symbols moved across its surface like living script.
Information.
Memories.
Records.
The central archive construct of House Veil.
Seris stepped forward quietly.
The sphere reacted immediately, Several rotating rings slowed.
Then stopped completely.
For the first time since entering the chamber, Seris finally lifted her eyes fully.
And the moment she did..the floating scripts around the sphere began disappearing line by line.
Entire records vanished.
Names dissolved.
Locations erased themselves.
Even the chamber formations trembled faintly as if struggling to retain the information being removed.
Then a single line remained floating above the sphere.
SOULIS EVENT CONFIRMATION
Below it..five names slowly appeared.
Frigga phenix.
Erasmus Trojan.
Sevrin Dorian.
Varian Salvatore.
Seris Veil.
Seris stared at the names silently for several moments.
Then finally..another name began trying to form beneath them.
The letters appeared halfway before violently distorting.
The entire sphere trembled.
Warning sigils ignited across the chamber walls instantly.
The name collapsed before completion.
But Seris had already seen enough.
Her expression changed slightly for the first time
"…Interesting.