New Calendar Year 1027, March 29.

  Wynchester.

  Morning.

  Thin morning light pierced the fog and scattered across this metropolis of a million souls.

  Thanks to the newspapers and the churches, every resident knew that this afternoon, on The Marshal’s Rostrum, the Holy Spirit Church’s Grand Primate would deliver a great sermon.

  As for what, precisely, “great” meant?

  The faithful did not know. In their devotion, they did what they could—dressing storefronts and streets, even staging a few marches to display their piety and their support for their Pontiff.

  Of course, the square around the rostrum was limited. At most, it could hold some fifty thousand people. The overwhelming majority of believers would never set foot there to hear the Pontiff’s words in person.

  But the true upper crust—high society, aristocrats, and the self-styled elite—would certainly have a place reserved on that square.

  Rumor had it that even His Majesty—Arthur VI—would attend.

  Today’s audience would be unprecedented in scale. And if anything happened… it would be an event fit to be written into the annals of history.

  Baron Jacques’s Residence.

  “My dear… what do you think of this gown?”

  Though she was nearing forty, Baroness Jacques still carried herself with effortless grace. She stood before a full-length mirror, trying one dress after another.

  The speech was scheduled for the afternoon, but the time a woman needed to choose her clothes and complete her makeup was always long. A single morning might not even be enough.

  On a day like this, Baron Jacques—who held an office at court and oversaw the King’s wardrobe—had long since gone to Thronehall of Wessex to attend his sovereign. He was not at home.

  At home were only Metana Jacques… and the household tutor Sundar, whose intentions were far from clean.

  “Not bad…” Metana answered perfunctorily, then looked at Sundar.

  The Blood Robe Club’s watcher sat brazenly in her father’s seat, his expression amused, the desire in his eyes all but undisguised.

  Ever since that great man had willingly sent himself into the Bureau’s custody, Sundar’s manner had grown more insolent by the day. And lately Metana had heard things—horrifying things—about the Bureau being attacked…

  “Madam, you would be beautiful in anything,” Sundar said with a smile, then turned his gaze to Metana. “Metana. I believe I’ve taught you that one must dress formally to display one’s nobility. As your etiquette instructor, I will personally choose your gown today.”

  He clapped his hands. A maid immediately brought in a dress—garish, vulgar, and scandalously revealing.

  Damn him. Even the lowest dance-hall girls wouldn’t wear something this obscene.

  Metana cursed inwardly. Sundar’s taste is atrocious.

  She forced a strained smile onto her face. “I’d like to try a few other styles.”

  Sundar frowned. “Metana, you’ve been disobeying my will more and more lately.”

  Metana’s heart kicked hard.

  Since being purified, she had long since been freed from Blood Pact LAW. In small ways, she had begun to act more like her true self again.

  She hadn’t expected Sundar to notice so quickly.

  She squeezed out a smile. “Even if I have already drunk that blood, as long as you require only my silence, I can still act according to my own preferences.”

  “Yes. Yes…” Sundar nodded again and again, his voice turning soft. “But I only advanced last night. My power hasn’t fully settled—so I can’t conceal it yet. Why do I feel your heartbeat and the speed of your blood… increasing?”

  Metana’s pupils contracted. Instinctively, her hand went to her diamond necklace.

  A Sanguis spell surged, ready to ignite—

  And in the next instant she froze, shock flooding her features.

  Because a revolver had appeared in Sundar’s hand, the black muzzle leveled at her. “Heh… at close range, a low-tier transcendent’s tricks aren’t as useful as a gun.”

  His expression remained playful as his eyes flicked over the flustered maid and the Baroness, then locked onto Metana. “Your reaction tells me you’re hiding something. What is it?”

  Metana bared her teeth. Her experience was still too shallow. One scare, and she’d shown a crack.

  “Baroness,” Sundar’s grin split wider, “tie your daughter up. I’m going to interrogate her properly.”

  The moment he said the word silence, the Baroness’s expression twisted into painful struggle.

  In the end, she spoke softly to the maid. “Fetch rope. And don’t speak a word of what you saw—otherwise there will be an extra corpse in the River Dorsom tomorrow.”

  “Y-Yes, Madam!” The maid trembled and hurried out.

  The Baroness’s behavior was nothing like that of a proper lady—and nothing like that of a mother. It was the distortion of Blood Pact LAW. She had elevated secrecy into her highest purpose, warping her own humanity to uphold it.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Metana looked at her mother and felt as if she could hear the sound of her spirit weeping—helpless, drowning in despair.

  “Damn you. I will kill you. I swear it!” she roared at Sundar.

  “On the eve of the speech, and this happens.” Sundar smiled as he watched Metana’s rage. “Fortunately, today is the twenty-ninth. Everything is already beyond saving.”

  He stepped closer, savoring her expression. “Hate me as much as you like—if that helps. We don’t need to worry about anything else anymore. I’m going to take very good care of you.”

  “Madam, I brought the rope.”

  The maid returned in her black-and-white uniform. Fear had made her voice wobble; a coil of hemp rope lay in her hands.

  “Madam…” Sundar enjoyed every second of it. His muzzle stayed trained on Metana, while he signaled for the Baroness to tie her daughter with her own hands.

  “I…” Tears ran down the Baroness’s cheeks, but her hands moved as if they no longer belonged to her. She took the rope.

  Then she looked up at the maid’s face—confusion dawning. “You… you’re not—”

  Crack!

  The “maid” raised a hand. Shadow condensed into a black whip and lashed across Sundar’s wrist.

  Sundar’s expression changed. The revolver flew from his grasp, clattering away.

  “I hate trash like you the most.”

  Lily shouted. A dagger formed in her grip; she surged forward in a single thrust and was already in front of Sundar.

  “Slow.”

  A Spirit Language word sounded from the doorway, accompanied by a talisman thrown toward Sundar’s feet.

  “You all right?” Jessica rushed in. She clamped a hand over the Baroness’s mouth before the woman could scream, then looked to Metana.

  After escaping the Bureau, they had contacted Metana. With her help, they had been lying in wait inside Baron Jacques’s home, ready for a moment like this.

  Lily and Jessica were both members of The Witch Sisterhood.

  The witch path mixed three aspects—Sanguis, Veil, and Umbral—and the abilities it produced were correspondingly eclectic.

  Lily herself leaned toward Sanguis: enhanced physique and brutal momentum. She had also trained in combat; she could trade blows with Sundar head-on.

  Jessica, on the other hand, leaned toward Umbral. She excelled at talismans and debilitating curses.

  With the Slow talisman released, the room seemed to gain an invisible field. Sundar’s movements dulled, as if wading through thick water.

  Lily seized the opening—her dagger went straight for Sundar’s heart.

  His face sank. His right arm dropped and crossed in front of his chest.

  Thk!

  The dagger ripped his sleeve, sliced through skin and muscle, and drew a spray of blood.

  “Metana…” Sundar licked the blood from his forearm. The wound was already knitting closed at a speed visible to the naked eye. “You’ve been naughty.”

  His smile widened. “Ambushing your teacher with hired help? I’m going to punish you properly.”

  As he spoke, his pupils flooded crimson. Veins bulged; beneath the skin of his limbs, blood-red “worms” seemed to writhe.

  In that instant, Lily’s Essence screamed warnings, wild and frantic—as if the enemy before her had become a beast.

  On instinct, she raised her dagger to guard.

  Boom!

  The next moment she was smashed backward. Her dagger ended up embedded upside-down in the ceiling.

  Metana’s pupils tightened.

  Sundar was stronger than she’d expected.

  But she gritted her teeth, seized her diamond necklace, and spat a Spirit Language word: “Open!”

  This time she did not use Sanguis to affect the enemy.

  She used it on herself.

  Her skin flushed blood-red in an instant, as though blood might seep from every pore.

  “Weaken!”

  Jessica threw a second talisman.

  As Sundar’s attention shifted, Metana burst forward—then rolled hard across the floor, reaching the corner where the revolver had landed.

  She snatched it up.

  Bang! Bang!

  Two shots hit Sundar cleanly, punching pea-sized holes through his arm.

  “You’ve made me angry!” Sundar roared. His fingernails lengthened, turning black and sharp—like a wolf’s claws.

  But before his raised hand could come down, Lily clung to him with all her strength, locking his arm.

  “Frost!”

  On the other side, Jessica released another working. Ice spread across Sundar’s left forearm, crusting it in rime.

  “You—”

  The crimson in Sundar’s eyes faded slightly.

  For the first time, it was as if a sliver of reason returned.

  Then his mouth twisted into a savage grin, and he shouted, loud and clear:

  “I call upon… the Master of Thorns and Blood, the Patron of Corruption and Crimson—”

  The fight had gone beyond Sundar’s expectations. He was about to pray directly to the God of Suffering.

  Tens of thousands prayed to the God of Suffering every day, but as a watcher, Sundar’s prayer bore a special mark.

  If he completed that honorific, the chance of the God of Suffering noticing this place would rise sharply.

  Metana’s face turned ashen with despair.

  “Great—”

  Sundar’s smugness sharpened; the last line was on the verge of leaving his lips.

  Something changed.

  A shadow like a black hand snapped over his mouth.

  He could not speak.

  The room dimmed as if dusk had fallen indoors. Ripples shivered through the air.

  A woman in a black trench coat stepped out, her presence chilling. “He was about to summon the God of Suffering. I had no choice but to intervene…”

  “Ahem…”

  Lily realized that Sundar had become as immobile as a statue. She coughed once, then said quickly, “Thank you, Madam. It’s an honor that you would act on our behalf.”

  “And you are…?” Metana stared, hardly believing what she was seeing. The manner of this woman’s arrival was too uncanny.

  “This is Madam Yevna,” Jessica said simply. “A non-human existence from our organization.”

  That single sentence made Metana’s breath catch—then her eyes brightened with fierce emotion.

  That great one… sent a non-human existence to protect me?

  Even among ancient noble lines, those who could open the Fourth Sephiroth were exceedingly rare.

  Crack.

  A crisp sound came from Sundar’s body.

  His head had been twisted a full hundred and eighty degrees. It faced them at an impossible angle.

  “What do we do now?” Metana stared at the corpse collapsing to the floor, stunned for a beat, then blurted, “Report to the Bureau—no, report directly to the Kingdom?”

  “No.” Yevna’s voice was calm. “We must leave at once.”

  Otherwise, they would meet a terrible calamity.

  She didn’t need divination for that; simple reasoning was enough.

  The Blood Robe Club had likely stationed more than one watcher. And the sounds of fighting had already carried.

  Worse—Metana had fired a gun. More—and stronger—cultists would soon arrive.

  “I’m fine. But my mother…” Metana looked at the Baroness, still struggling, and pain flashed across her face.

  Thud.

  Lily walked over and chopped the Baroness neatly at the back of the neck.

  The Baroness’s eyes rolled white. She went limp.

  “Handled,” Lily said curtly.

  “We can’t just leave.” Metana lifted her mother and stared at the wrecked room, a sudden ache in her chest. “My father… my family…”

  “Your father is at the King’s side. He will be safe.” Yevna spoke as if she could already see what was coming. “And after today, this will end completely.”

  When Metana heard that promise, her shoulders loosened as if a weight had been lifted.

  “Then… all right.”

  They caught at the edge of Yevna’s coat.

  Their figures vanished from the room in an instant.

  At last, the afternoon arrived.

  Thronehall of Wessex.

  King Arthur VI wore a golden crown set with gemstones. A gold mantle fell from his shoulders; a scepter rested in one hand. With the other, he held the Queen’s hand as they stepped gracefully into the carriage together.

  Royal Guards in scarlet uniforms and black boots cleared the way ahead. The carriage began to roll, moving toward the speech square.

  From above, one would have seen it clearly: the noble carriages of the Queen’s District had become a tide, flowing toward the same destination.

  And more and more believers gathered as well. Most were middle-class—properly dressed, well-mannered. Yet once they reached the square, they fell silent without knowing why.

  A heavy atmosphere seeped into the air, as if warning them that whatever happened today would rewrite the Kingdom’s history.