Journey to Become the Zenith-Chapter 67: Where Blood Should Have Been

Where Blood Should Have Been

While Soren was still kneeling in horror before the sight that shattered his world, Victor and the two women continued climbing toward the place where the hunters had supposedly seen the dead mountain ogre.

The mountain path narrowed as they ascended. Jagged rocks pushed through the soil like broken teeth. The wind carried a dry chill now, whistling low between scattered pines. It was the kind of place where sound traveled strangely—too far, too clearly.

Victor walked in front, steps measured and unhurried.

Lane moved slightly to his left, eyes scanning the higher ridges and tree line. Clara walked to his right, her gaze constantly shifting—ground, horizon, shadows, Victor.

They said the head was found here.

Victor stopped when they reached a rocky clearing carved unevenly into the slope. It wasn’t large, but it was exposed. A few broken shrubs. Loose gravel. A slanted stone face stained darker than the rest of the rock.

"This is it," Clara said quietly.

The place felt wrong.

Not violently wrong.

Just... hollow.

Victor stepped forward first.

Clara crouched near the rock face, brushing fingers lightly over the surface. Lane walked the perimeter, boots silent despite loose stones beneath her feet.

For several long moments, no one spoke.

Victor knelt and pressed two fingers to the ground, closing his eyes briefly.

Nothing.

No residue.

No echo.

Not even faint decay.

Clara stood slowly, wiping dust from her palm.

"It’s clean," she muttered.

Too clean.

Victor rose.

They continued searching—checking for gouge marks, drag trails, broken branches, disturbed earth.

It didn’t even take them a few minutes before Victor and Clara came to the same conclusion.

There was nothing there.

No blood.

No sign of a battle.

No trace of a severed ogre head ever resting here.

Victor’s golden eyes narrowed slightly.

"How many days ago did he say it was when he saw the head?" Victor asked, still surveying the area.

Clara straightened.

"The hunter who spotted the head claimed that he saw it three days ago."

Three days.

Victor’s jaw tightened faintly.

Inside the dragon-shaped tattoo on his arm, Diana stirred.

He didn’t move his lips when he spoke next.

"What do you think, Diana?"

Her voice flowed through his mind, calm and certain.

"I do not sense any blood in this area. And I am sure no blood has been spilled here for a very long time—certainly longer than three days."

Victor exhaled quietly.

"As we expected," he said aloud, voice even. "The villagers are liars."

Clara folded her arms.

Her earlier frustration had long since cooled into something sharper—focus.

"So, Clara," Victor continued, glancing at her, "who was the one who made that request and passed it to the guild?"

Clara shook her head.

"The one who made the request didn’t identify themselves. They simply passed the quest details and gave the reward money directly to the guild."

Victor clicked his tongue softly.

"Tsk. Then tell me what you know about the village."

Clara hesitated only briefly before answering.

"This village used to serve as a checkpoint for travelers heading to the Goddess’s holy shrine beyond the mountain range. Pilgrims, merchants, adventurers—they all passed through here."

Her eyes drifted toward the distant peaks.

"But no one passes through anymore. There are too many monsters in this region now. People found an easier path toward the shrine."

Victor’s gaze sharpened.

"When did that happen?"

Clara blinked.

"When did what happen?"

"When did people stop coming here? When did this place stop receiving guests?"

There was a short silence.

Clara’s brows slowly drew together.

"...Around five months ago."

The number hung in the air like a dropped blade.

Five months.

Victor’s thoughts aligned.

The village acting strange.

The missing travelers.

A request submitted anonymously.

A boy without blood.

A former pilgrimage route abandoned half a year ago.

Clara inhaled slowly.

She understood now what Victor was implying. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"If pilgrims stopped coming..." she murmured, "then fewer outsiders would notice if something went wrong."

Victor didn’t respond immediately.

Lane returned then, stepping lightly over a fallen branch.

"There are no fresh tracks within fifty meters," she reported. "No large creatures. No drag marks. No sign that anything heavy was placed here."

Her dark eyes shifted briefly to Victor.

"And no signs of recent scavenger activity either."

Which meant no ogre head had ever rotted here.

Clara’s fingers curled slightly.

"They fabricated the entire story."

Victor remained silent.

He looked toward the lower slopes, where Village lay hidden beyond the trees.

Five months.

That was when the path to the shrine had died.

Five months was long enough for something to settle in.

Something to take root.

Something that fed quietly.

Diana’s voice brushed his thoughts again.

"The absence here is louder than blood would have been."

Victor agreed.

He turned slightly toward Clara.

"If the village used to rely on travelers for survival, what happened when that stopped?"

Victor’s question hung in the air like a stone dropped into still water.

Clara swallowed before answering. Her eyes drifted across the quiet clearing, as if the empty space itself might offer the answer.

"They would have struggled," she said slowly. "Supplies would run short first. Then trade. Then income."

She paused, fingers tightening slightly around the strap of her satchel.

"And after that... people start making desperate choices."

Victor gave a faint nod.

"And desperation," he added quietly.

The word lingered.

A faint shift in stance, that was it - dirt whispering under boot soles. Fingers lay quiet on the bow’s handle, thumb tracing circles on sun-faded leather. Tree line ahead held stillness, but her gaze moved fast, missing nothing.

"So the request was bait," she said flatly.

Frozen in place, Victor stayed quiet. Over the deserted open space his eyes wandered - snapped fence bits here, a wagon path ending at nothing there, an off-kilter silence hanging like dust before storm. Not right, it seemed.

"Possibly," he replied.

A furrow formed between Clara’s brows as she turned the problem over inside her head. At the edges of memory, a whisper stirred - something didn’t sit right.

A thought crept out - hesitant. "Maybe," she murmured, words catching up to her mind, "something else pulls their attention." The silence between us stretched, shaped by what wasn’t yet said

A glance slipped sideways - his gaze landing on her.

A flicker of yes showed in his eyes. Then it was gone.

Thoughts settled into place. Her mind moved clear.

What exactly are we being distracted from? Lane turned slightly, eyes shifting toward them. Nothing sits out there

A faint creak came from his elbows as he crossed them.

"That’s exactly the point."

A hush moved through the stalks, rustling where no one stood. The field listened, bent sideways by a breath unseen.

"Either way," he said, "we weren’t meant to find anything here."

Clara exhaled quietly.

"That’s... unsettling."

Lane looked over the open space once more, her eyes moving at a crawl now, every inch weighed. Something about it tugged at her gut. Quiet like that didn’t just happen - it sat there on purpose.

The clearing felt colder now.

Not physically.

Conceptually.

The kind of cold that crept in when a situation stopped making sense.

Victor noticed it too. His eyes narrowed slightly, mind already working through possibilities.

"If someone wanted us here," he murmured, "then they wanted us somewhere else."

Clara looked at him.

"You think this was staged?"

"I think," Victor replied calmly, "someone expected us to follow the wrong trail."

Lane stopped scanning the trees.

For a moment she stood perfectly still, as if listening to something only she could hear.

Then she crouched near the edge of the clearing, brushing aside a patch of flattened grass.

Her voice broke the silence.

"Victor."

Her expression remained calm, but something in her tone had sharpened.

"I found something you might want to see."

And with that—

She turned slightly; eyes fixed toward a narrow trail that cut deeper into the mountain’s shadow.