Ch. 32 was rewritten.
TL:DR: Cult is alive, but lost all Knights. Children are alive and soon gonna be fighting each other; Cid is just watching to make sure everything is going along with his stage play (namely: his plan to raise the heroes) but otherwise doesn't interfere; he also now doesn't have mid-life crisis over the fact that Cult was real and just shrugged it off; he still pissed off the Goddess and one-shotted her, though.
"Welcome back, Master Shadow. I assume your hunt was glorious?" Alpha greeted Cid once he returned.
"Yup. Took away every leader from the shadows, but couldn't be bothered to try and hunt the small fry. That's gonna be your job," he answered, "Oh, thanks, Delta, that meat is great."
"I grilled it, Boss!" wolf-kin proudly smiled.
Alpha's expression sunk a bit. Now what did he do wrong now?
"So, even with all help you have provided us you still had to intervene personally and take out their leaders…" oh, that's why.
"Relax, Alpha. Honestly, most of them were barely comparable to Shades in terms of power, their only saving grace is roots they got in thousands years of their existence. I just made your job a bit easier," he munched on meat.
"If you say so…" look, now she's motivated!
"Correct me if I am wrong, my Lord…" Epsilon started, "Do you mean we only need to take out the small fry since you took all Knights and Children?"
"Children?…" now who these even were… wait, Nu told him about that… oh, right, candidates! "No, I didn't take these out. I only took away the Knights. They are gonna be your job, too."
"Hmm…" Zeta started thinking, "Diabolos itself was taken away by you. Their leaders are gone. Cult may replace them in the future, but as of now you have given us advantage…" oh, she went into her espionage mode!
"Bossman, did you really need to take all the good prey to yourself?" now don't look at him with puppy eyes, it stopped working half of year ago!
"Yuh-uh, now shush, it's dinner time… Where's Violet, by the way?"
"Ah, of course, your lovely Violet…"
"Yeah, where is she?"
"Ara, my gallant knight, I am right here," what was she even doing in the bush?… Oh, it had some kind of berries. Well, he did give her poison resistance on everything, so it should be alright.
"I see you are enjoying your new life," he smiled at her.
"Yes! There's so much to explore and to feel…" she sighed in amazement as she stood near the tree.
"Good to know."
"Master Shadow, excuse me, can I ask you something? In private," Alpha came from behind with very serious expression.
"Mhm, sure, I guess?"
Alpha was taking away… Very much away… Is it even correct wording? Eh, nevermind. In short, she took him away from their temporary camp.
"Master Shadow, do forgive me for asking, but what is the reason you didn't eliminate all Cult's members?"
"Because my Shadows can't find everyone," well, that's the truth.
"Oh… But surely they could find Named Children, correct?" Alpha squinted.
"They could," Cid confirmed.
"Then?…"
"Because if I take them away then who will you grow against? And did you think about what would happen around the world?"
"…Excuse me?" why is she so taken aback?
"Right, let me explain: if I take everyone, at once, what do you think will happen with the places they used as their cover?"
"…They will fall."
"Correct," he nodded, "most Cult members are currently working in the government, and as much as they work for Cult, they still do their jobs fine as long as it doesn't interfere with Cult's goals. If I take them away, the chaos will start. Kingdoms will fall. It will be anarchy."
"Which will completely destroy any semblance of peaceful life in society…" Alpha nodded back in understanding, "Right, and what about "grow up" reason?"
"Oh, that's even simpler," he struck a cool pose, "Because only in hardships can character be tempered, akin to that of steel in forge. It's in times like these your true personality comes to surface: where a perfect image of noble breaks down to show nothing but crumbling dirt, a muddy commoner sheds the old scales to reveal the glistering beauty of iron."
Oh, he needs to write it down! That one was great!
"…So that's how it is," she nodded, seemingly mesmerized by his performance, "Understood, Master Shadow. That's also the reason you took princesses under your wings, correct?"
"Oh?" now we has genuinely surprised, "Correct, Alpha. I am proud you could get that from mere exchange of words."
"Your praise flatters me," he can see her cheeks reddening! "…But, Cid, are you alright?"
"Hmm?"
"You don't fall apart because of our expectations, are you?"
"Ah, no, it's actually pretty fine. I just realized how to make everything even better, so now we're cool!"
"Good to know, Cid. Now, shall we return back, Master Shadow?"
"You know, you girls go first, I still have a couple of theories to test out. Especially with that Sanctuary, a really good place, I will show you some time later."
"Right, but don't forget about your promises, Master," she smiled upon seeing him faltering a bit.
"Yeah, I remember, tell Beta and Epsilon to be ready!"
"Understood," and once she made sure he disappeared, "Hmm, so they are first…"
Sanctuary, Sanctuary, Sanctuary!
Oh, he wants to do so many things with it! It was deep diving in shadows long enough, now he wants to know how it's working! Rea-a-ally wants! So let's check it out!
First, obviously, the door. Door worked quite simple, actually: there was the door itself and the… let's call it beacon. So the beacon was a guiding point for the door: it was covered in runes (because obviously nobody knew how to imprint concepts, obviously) and was working on, hmm, a special wavelength? Let's call it like that. So this special wavelength was connected with everything that had another set of runes on it, namely, this door. And the door, in turn, was a teleportation device… With in-built teleportation of itself! No, more like, it was a subspace. The door existed in subspace and was unreachable unless someone with access to Sanctuary wished for it. Moreover, it was not the only door, oh no! There were multiple doors!… But his was the most dirty and dark and scary. Probably because, as Violet then confessed, she was the one to summon him.
Moving on, the set of runes. The set itself was quite interesting, as it was unlike everything else he saw before. As girls said, the Sanctuary itself was a natural phenomenon, because it formed on the leftover memories of dying warriors and the sealed Hand of Diabolos. It was a wonder of nature! And thus, Ancient Language was not used here. No, it was used, but in combination with a bunch of different unknown symbols. Even this bald guy could only use Sanctuary because of his access as one of the researchers back when it was a laboratory (at least he thinks, he doesn't know for sure), and even then his access was quite limited: he was free from magic suppression and could summon copy of hero Oliver (and maybe other, too, if Trial is anything to go by). Oh, he also could come closer to Hand. That's pretty much it.
Oh, even more interesting was the fact that… The Sanctuary itself was a subspace! Oh, and he did not mean anything strange, oh no! It's the fact that it existed… somewhere. He didn't know where, but it existed! And it could open up to the real world! And then close down! You should get by this point where's coming to. No, you don't?
Inventory! Your own personal dimension! The place where you can just run off to and relax and where nobody will find you! And many other things that are now possible thanks to this little wonder of nature. All he needs to do is understand how it actually works. Good thing he can now understand intents on, let's say, spiritual level.
Hm, hm, right, that one is Ancient Language, so he can just read that… Oh, yeah, that one is incomprehensible, let's just 'listen' to what it's supposed to be… Oh, oh, that one is interesting, because it actually serves as a control panel? Hmm, now everything should become easier… Or not, because it rejects him. Bummer. Gotta hack that one down…
Well, it took three threats of breaking it, five threats of relentless hacking, and just one small minuscule threat of just leaving it in Shadow World for the control panel to give up and give him full access to Sanctuary. Oh, and he also threatened the control panel that if it tries to fool him he will just open everything to Shadow Entities. Man, he's so kind and good today, only took away twelve lives and threatened a building, he can feel himself becoming some creature of light like angel. That won't do, he's Eminence in Shadows! So he will go and troll Alexia after everything is over to rebalance his karma. Mhm, good plan!
Right, Control Panel. With it everything now became way easier… Oh, this place also had everything to do with DNA and cloning? So this Cult actually had some kind of modern knowledge?… No, their technologies are techno-magical. Bummer.
Alright, focus. The teleportation. The subspace. He needs it. It's important. First to go to different worlds and take goods from them. Second to have a place to store these goods. Oh, and also to prepare an arena for the final battle. He still didn't forget about placing himself as the final boss of heroes journey!… And secret boss, too… Well, and super-mega secret boss… And another one…
The teleportation sequence goes like this: it takes the coordinates from the beacon, then it comes to the one who was chosen as vict- uh, the honored one! Right, then it would pester this honored one until they enter. After that the target simply is transported to wherever beacon pointed. Simply on paper, in execution… Well, simple too, but kinda different.
He tried to do it on his own, immediately, without any calculations. It worked, but it was hard, because clearly, he is not on the level of using pure Spatial Magic without crutches, or runes. But it worked! And the most important part, if he uses good enough materials, he can leave his Beacons everywhere! And then he can just focus on them and teleport immediately!
He will leave the subspace itself for a bit later!
For now, he will work with his brand new toy! Pylons! He will call them Pylons!
And he must construct additional Pylons!