Benjamin stepped out from behind the stone pillar.
Although Void-Step was still active, he had deliberately lowered its output considerably, revealing his face.
He looked at the professor, his expression calm, with a hint of curiosity in his eyes.
"Looks like you aren't surprised by my appearance." Benjamin said. "Do you know anything about me?"
On the professor's blood-red face, his mouth twitched slightly into something resembling a self-mocking smile.
"No." His voice was much deeper than before, resonating with a metallic texture. "But there is something familiar about you. That person—his aura was completely different from yours, yet the feeling you both give me is very similar."
Benjamin's eyes lit up slightly.
Of course, he knew who the professor meant by "that person."
It was the wizard who had collaborated with the Black-Robed Cultists in this plane and provided them with the Aberrant Fusion technology.
Benjamin had been tracking that person's whereabouts, but had never found a direct lead.
"May I ask about the other person?" Benjamin's voice was unhurried.
The professor fell silent.
Benjamin could sense that the silence was not a refusal, but an effort to remember.
"It is not that I am unwilling to tell you." The professor finally spoke, much more slowly than usual, as though every word took effort. "It was only after I fused with this aberration that I discovered such a person had once been around me."
Benjamin raised an eyebrow slightly.
The professor meant that he had been entirely unaware of the wizard's existence before this. Only after fusing with Blood Net, after the essence of his soul had changed, had he realized that someone had been operating in secret around him all along.
To conceal himself to such an extent, that wizard likely excelled in Soul School witchcraft as well.