After successfully killing Cabourn and binding his fractured soul as a loyal summon, Leylin immediately withdrew from the ruined battlefield alongside the other members of the Astral Requiem.
Soon after reaching his majestic castle, Leylin sold the critical information of Cabourn's death to the Abyssal Bone Forest.
Through this transaction, he effortlessly reached a mutual understanding with them over the strategic division of the leftover territories and assets belonging to the now-fragmented Thousand Meddling Hands.
The Abyssal Bone Forest was geographically the closest entity to the primary base of the Thousand Meddling Hands and was led by Chairman Siley.
Because of the devastating, huge losses they had suffered previously in the intense academy wars, they quickly jumped at the opportunity to seal a swift deal with the rising power of the Astral Requiem.
Although the dark magus surprise attack and the subsequent events had been strictly classified as a top-secret emergency by the higher-ups, and the Four Seasons Garden's main entrance to the secret plane had even been sealed shut for a considerable period of time, it was completely impossible for regular Magi to pierce through the fog of secrecy to know about this.
However, for the exceptionally resourceful and high-ranking Magi of the South Coast, the monumental news of Reynolds and Cabourn's sudden death spread through their underground channels like wildfire.
Rumors flared everywhere concerning the mysterious Eternal Nightmare of the Astral Requiem killing such a veteran, notorious Rank 2 Magus.
Although it was highly probable that Cabourn had been heavily injured because of his preceding brutal battle with Chairman Reynolds, especially since successfully killing Reynolds must have forced him to expend a few of his ultimate trump cards, it was still profoundly shocking to the core.
What made it even more terrifying was knowing that the formidable Magus in question still remained completely unknown to the other major organizations.
Inside the grand, quiet throne room of the Astral Castle, Leylin sat comfortably upon his seat, slowly flipping through the densely annotated pages of the newly acquired Secret Plane Builders Book.
The soft rustle of ancient paper was interrupted as the doors parted, and a female Magus stepped forward, dropping to one knee as she bowed deeply before Leylin.
"My Lord," she reported respectfully, "an old woman from the Botelli family has suddenly appeared near our Clalric Plain stronghold, wishing to meet with a higher authority of the Requiem."
Leylin offered a slow, indifferent nod, his eyes remaining fixed on the complex spatial formulas in his book. "Who has attended her at the border?"
"It was Lord Reid, my Lord," the female Magus replied.
Leylin paused, lifting his gaze slightly as he asked, "Who's that?"
The expansion of the Astral Requiem had developed a tremendous lot recently, resulting in many new administrative positions that were appointed directly by the various department heads and commanders who held the rank of a Four-Wings member.
Within the structural laws of the organization, four-wings and above members were treated essentially like active stakeholders of the Astral Requiem, heavily put in check by the regular oversight of other members to prevent any abuse of power.
The girl quickly replied, "He is a local overseer appointed directly by Elder Armani Greenwood."
Leylin nodded understandingly. Armani, as a recently instated Five-Wings Elder and a powerful Rank 2 Magus, had naturally been granted many sweeping powers to manage his designated sectors.
"Have the old guest transferred here immediately," Leylin commanded smoothly. "And have two Saint Knights from the Rebelhearts bring her to me."
"It would be as required, my Lord," the female Magus bowed deeply, backing away out of the chamber.
Internally, a cold, mocking thought flashed across her mind. That arrogant old woman from the Botelli family had created quite a loud, intolerable ruckus at the stronghold gates; she would personally make sure the escort men thoroughly disciplined her and humbled her properly along the long journey before she was allowed to meet their esteemed leader.
Just knowing that a formidable Rank 2 Magus would be meeting her directly would be more than enough to make the old hag completely shit bricks by the time she stood before the throne.
A while later, the heavy adamantine doors opened, and the old lady from the Botelli family was formally escorted into the vast room by two young adolescent boys who had recently reached the prestigious rank of Saint Knights.
The old woman, who still insistently wore the extravagant, heavy clothes of the mortal upper class, had her wrinkled face entirely covered with layers of protective gauze.
She wore tight black gloves over her hands, her fingers desperately holding onto a small, enchanted leather bag as she stepped forward.
The moment she fully entered the vast chamber and felt the suffocating, unyielding weight of Leylin's cold gaze landing upon her, the sheer atmospheric pressure almost made her knees buckle completely under her.
She staggered a step forward, her breath hitching as she stammered out her introduction. "I... I am the leader of the Botelli family," she rasped, her hands shaking. "I have come here today... wishing to make a formal truce with the Astral Requiem."
Her lineage had been suffering tremendously in recent time. Under the relentless, systematic harassment of the Astral Requiem's hunting squads, even two of their official family Magi had already been ruthlessly put to death.
To make matters worse, their diviner of this generation, Jenny, had been badly injured after foolishly trying to cast a direct divination spell against Leylin; the attempt had failed catastrophically, and instead, a counter-curse had been unleashed upon her, leaving her on the verge of collapse.
The old woman hadn't taken the rumored strength of the Astral Requiem seriously before, completely deducing internally through their flawed sight that Leylin was probably just a low-ranking member.
But as the targeted harassment expanded daily, she finally understood with absolute horror that the Astral Requiem had firmly set their deadly gaze upon them.
One must keep in mind, of course, that Leylin's true identity and face remained entirely unknown to the common people and rival organizations.
Although the Botelli family possessed unique divination abilities that had historically earned them a massive lot of merit and powerful connections throughout different Light Magi organizations, they were plagued with an innate, psychotic personality disorder.
This was a direct result of severe soul pollution stemming from the exact ancient meditation technique that had made their lineage famous across the South Coast.
Consequently, their interpersonal relationships were severely strained and toxic; when the shadow of a powerful Rank 2 organization like the Astral Requiem descended to erase them, intervening to help them against such a force wasn't a job that anyone in the Light alliance wanted to do.
The Astral Requiem had carefully maintained its status as a strictly neutral force; although they had previously raided and cleared out the central merit zone of the Four Seasons Garden, they had also completely thwarted the dark Magi's plans and even executed the offender Cabourn.
Furthermore, Leylin possessed the ancient Book of the Giant Serpent, which contained a massive plethora of high-tier, obscure curses.
As a powerful Rank 2 Magus who possessed a highly specialized soul attribute, his fundamental understanding and control over curses was extremely high; he could easily weave lethal, automated curses against any external divination directed at his person.
This was the reason why Jenny had gained little to no real understanding of Leylin and his true strength, including his hidden ascension to Rank 2 power.
Not even the ruling, large-scale Rank 3 organizations could find a single shred of information about him.
Leylin looked down at the trembling matriarch with cold, piercing eyes. Her careful words and tone seemed to arrogantly suggest that the Astral Requiem should just gracefully stop harassing her family simply because she wants to.
Finding her posturing entirely intolerable, Leylin casually released a concentrated wave of his raw spiritual force. The heavy crimson pressure slammed down, instantly forcing her body onto her knees, her face pressed against the stone floor.
"You have a simple answer," Leylin spoke, his voice dropping into a freezing tone that vibrated through the chamber. "Give your meditation to me and I'll forgive your offense to my Requiem, otherwise neither you nor your family would live to see the sun tomorrow. I didn't take you seriously and you dare come to my doors."
The old woman's eyes widened behind her gauze in absolute horror. "Oh, Mother of Peace! You covet our family's meditation technique!"
She desperately clutched her chest, her breathing turning frantic as if she were on the very verge of going completely crazy under the immense psychological stress.
But under the heavy, suffocating suppression of his Rank 2 pressure, her resistance broke completely.
With trembling fingers, she reached into her bag and ultimately surrendered a pristine crystal ball that had the complete information about their family's meditation technique recorded safely within it.
Leylin beckoned with his hand, the crystal ball flying smoothly into his palm. He casually retrieved a small vial from his robes and tossed it onto the floor before her.
"Give this potion to that little lass, and she would be okay." He turned his eyes toward his guards and commanded, "Take her out."
The two Saint Knights immediately stepped forward, pulling the broken old woman to her feet and escorting her out of the throne room.
Left alone, Leylin rubbed his chin, examining the crystal ball. An ability to predict the future was quite an alarming and potent trait.
Through the manipulation of unique spiritual force derived from the supernatural world, a practitioner could actively sense fragments of what's to happen in the future.
Leylin briefly looked through the technical layers of the technique. With rigorous training, Magi could practice and form a highly unique type of spiritual force; with the extension of this spiritual wave, one could then gain critical information and see fluid images relating to the future.
In general, the baseline results were absolutely astounding, but unfortunately, the technique was fundamentally incomplete, inevitably warping the user's mind with soul pollution.
'Although a high-tier meditation technique, Sacred Flames is incomplete and causes many hidden injuries to its users, especially if the user is male. For now, I'll just record it, and in the future, when I collect enough meditation technique, I can have the A.I.Chip complete it.'
....
A few weeks later.
Leylin was sitting quietly inside his private research room, surrounded by alchemical apparatuses, when a sudden A.I prompt materialized before his eyes on the digital matrix.
[Beep! Intruder Alert! Unauthorised breach at the west gate of the Requiem castle. Automated scans performed through Spirit Child formation reveals 7 semi-converted, 3 peak rank 1 and 1 rank 2 magus assailant... Activating defensive formation...]
[Safely protocols 2.AE activated! Area #37 locked! Zenith and nadir formation design interconnected. Permission to activate offensive spell formation pending.]
Leylin looked completely unconcerned as the loud intruder alert flashed across his vision. "A.I. Chip activate the formation genie, and permission for the offensive spell formation granted, and inform the Dragon Guards," he commanded calmly to the empty air.
With a light flick of his wrist, he summoned the Cabourn, Black Horrall Snake and the Vanguard of the Requiem summon before him, their spectral forms solidifying in the shadows of the laboratory.
"Lead the Dragon Guards and capture the intruders," Leylin ordered them coldly. The three powerful summons offered silent affirmation before dissolving into the darkness to execute his command.
Currently, Leylin only possessed a total of three distinct summons, one powerful Rank 2 entity and two peak Rank 1 entities.
He didn't fancy having a massive number of low-tier summons crowded around him. Apart from the immense practical usefulness of a Rank 2 summon like Cabourn, the fundamental reason why Leylin only maintained two main Rank 1 summons, the Black Horrall Snake and the Vanguard of the Requiem was because both of them possessed an immense, unmitigated growth potential.
Leylin could easily harvest mutated magical beasts endowed with ancient serpent bloodlines to continuously nurture and evolve the Black Horrall Snake, and could systematically use high-grade knights to strengthen the Vanguard's physical vessel.
As a formidable Rank 2 Magus, he didn't care much about static, dead-end Rank 1 strength summons; only advancement types with boundless potential were truly worthy of his personal attention.
Deep within the walls, the automated voice of the castle's spirit resonated instantly. "Order received! Activating Hell's Gate spell formation at Area #37…"
The formation genie controlled by A.I. Chip held absolute administrative control over a massive area, which practically included the entire structural layout of the headquarters.
Ever since Leylin had successfully extracted the highly coveted Secret Plane Builders Book from the Four Seasons Garden's central vault during that chaotic raid, he had immediately thrown his full focus into studying its pages.
Although the text was completely filled with incredibly high-level information and spatial calculations handled at a very advanced mathematical level, but with the computational help of his A.I. Chip, he was mildly able to scratch the surface of its profound secrets.
With this new knowledge, Leylin had completely reconstructed the entire defenses of his base. He was able to deeply understand the exact blueprint and structural build of the secret plane itself, and with some profound understanding toward its spatial coordinates, he used this ancient secret plane formation matrix to directly connect to his primary Headquarters defense formation itself.
At the current, upgraded level of protection that his headquarters now stood at, the barriers were rendered completely indomitable.
Unless a world-shaking Morning Star Magus were to personally take any hostile actions against his home, the fortress was completely impregnable against any Rank 3 force, least of all the measly bunch of organizations currently operating along the South Coast.