It was worse than any of them had imagined.
The chamber was alive with tension, thiough to choke on. In the ter of it all, Evan di Sator stood like a tempest barely tained, his youthful frame a stark trast to the raw authority radiating off him.
His hands glowed with uing mana, the soft blue hue a fragile tether keeping a small, unscious girl tethered to life. Sweat dripped from his brow as he chugged high-grade mana potions like water, his lips moving nonstop to cast perpetual healing spells over her frail form.
“Information!” he barked, his voice sharp enough to cut stone. “What use is all the money Papa’s gathered over the years if we ’t even monitor the pace properly? I want to know where Rafaye Inkor and Celia Angemoux are right now and what they’re doing!”
The attendants around him flinched but scrambled to respond. One, braver thahers, mao stammer, “The pace moved the moment the First Prind the Elven Princess disappeared, sir, but the King and Queen—”
“Useless!” Evan snapped, his eyes fshing dangerously. “Then give me something—anything! Everything around Lankor or anyone ected to the pace! Bir’s maids, her dy-in-waiting, her physis—Celia Angemoux must know something!”
His frustration crackled like lightning, but his foever wavered from the girl in his arms.
It was at that moment Bunny Fay ehe chamber, her entrananding attentioe her precarious dition. The three parents followed close behind her, but they froze the moment they saw the se before them.
Two young boys—Matthearadscha and An Mossflower—sat slumped in a er, their faces pale, their eyes hauhey looked as if they’d been holding their breath for hours, and the moment they saw their parents, it was as though the dam holding back their emotions broke.
“Mom! Dad!” Matthew cried, rushing forward, his arms outstretched.
“Father!” An called, his voice trembling as he followed.
The parents caught them instinctively, their relief palpable as they embraced their sons. For a moment, their terror eased, repced by the familiar warmth of their children’s presence. But the reprieve was brief.
Evan’s sharp eyes flicked toward the door, and the sight of his mother’s blood-soaked figure made him freeze. His gaze zeroed in on the gaping wound in her chest, his expression shifting from ao arm in an instant.
“Mama…” he said, his voice tremblie his best effort to sound calm. “Why is the wound still—”
“It won’t close,” Bunny cut him off, her tone calm but tinged with grim resignation. She didn’t stop moving until she lowered herself carefully onto a chair, her breaths shallow and strained. “It’s feeding on my flesh. I ’t stop it now.”
Evan ched his jaw, his young face twisted with a mix of helplessness aermination. “Papa still hasn’t returned?”
“Not yet, darling,” Bunny replied, her voice softer now, but no less resolute. She coughed into her hand, the crimson stai behind a vivid reminder of just hile her dition was.
The parents exged gheir earlier relief at reuniting with their children quickly overshadowed by the grim reality unfolding before them.
Here was a boy, barely twelve, who had been forced to shoulder responsibilities far beyond his years. A woman, regal even in ruin, who refused to falter despite her failing body. And a se so dire that even the most seasoned ruggled to process it.
It was clear now: this was no ordinary crisis. This was a battlefield, and they had just stepped into the heart of it.
“Mama, how about you let go?” Evan’s voice trembled slightly, betraying the calm exterior he was trying so hard to maintain. His gaze shifted between Bir’s unscious form and the gaping, unhealed wound in his mother’s chest. “This is the perfect time for a loop reset.”
Bunny, pale but unyielding, g her son with weary determination. “Not yet… We o give your Papa… a bit more… time…” Her voice was thin, each word dragging out as though weighed down by the pain she refused to show.
Bianca Lumine, having moved closer, began ting purifiagider her breath, her hands glowing faintly with holy light. Her expression was tight, her focus absolute, but there was a hesitation in her movements. As she worked, her sharp gaze flicked up toward Bunny.
“Corrupted mana,” Bianca said slowly, the words heavy with implication. “You mentio earlier. Is this… what I think it is?”
Of course, the desdant of Romeuf the Apostle would reize corrupted mana. It wasn’t something you needed a full expnation for, especially not when you were staring directly at an injury like this—a wound that defied healing, pulsing with malevolehe signs were all there, pointing to one grim possibility.
“It might be,” Bunny admitted, her gaze steady as she met Bianca’s questioning eyes. There was no need for pretense here; the truth was obvious. If she herself couldn’t heal the wound, there was no ce Bianca could.
Bianca’s hands faltered as realization struck. Her magic flickered and faded by the fifth sed, her expression shifting from focused determination to grim acceptance.
Bunny reached up aly patted Bianca’s hand, a subtle but clear gesture of aowledgment. “Don’t waste your energy,” she said, her tone quiet but resolute. “This is beyond even you.”
Bianca took a step back, her lips pressing into a thin line as she nodded relutly.
“For now, information is what we need,” Bunny tinued, her voice firmer now despite her obvious exhaustion. She straightened slightly, f her body to ply. “I’ll call Nemo ihe barrier should be strong enough by now.”
Eva out a long, trolled sigh, the weight of the situation pressing down on him even harder. But when Bunny’s gaze shifted to him, her eyes sharp and expet, he immediately straightened, pulling himself together.
“Evan,” Man said, her voice carrying a quiet authority, “help me expin to everyone what kind of war we’re fag.”
“Yes, master,” Yvain replied.
***
It was an eerie expanse of silehe underground corridor’s oppressive air broken only by the faint, wet squelovement.
On the ground, a grotesque blob of living bck substance writhed sluggishly, its form an uling mess of vaguely humanoid limbs—arms, legs, and something that might have been a spine, if one squinted.
The half-formed torso that protruded from its ter pulsed faintly, as though imitating breath, and atop it sat a human head, pale and disturbingly intact, its vat gaze locked forward.
The se might have been pitiful if it weren’t so uling.
Opposite this abomination stood a man. Burn held himself with the kind of poise that screamed unshakable trol. His sharp white hair glinted like frost uhe weak light, and his golden eyes—unnervingly bright, like molteal—were fixed on the head.
In his hand, steady as a statue, he gripped a dragon horn sword, its edge gleaming faintly with a dangerous aura that promised finality.
For a moment, her moved. The blob seemed tent to fester, and Burn seemed tent to stare, though what emotion swirled behind his pierg gaze was anyone’s guess.
Finally, the head twitched—ever so slightly—its lips parting to croak out a voice that was more bored sigh than sound.
"You... have a pce... to be... Burn…” it said. “Don’t... stall… no more…”
The wurgled and rasped, as though fighting through tar to escape.
Burn blinked, just once, like a brief pause, his goldeill fixed on the head. There was no disible rea on his fao anger, no pity, not even disgust. Just that cold, imperable stare.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low and measured, tinged with something too distant to be ht mockery but sharp enough to feel like a cut.
“We will meet again, Brother,” he said, his tone as steady as the grip on his bde. “Wait for me just a moment lohen, I’ll know what to do.”
In the loop.
And with that, he turned on his heel, his movements deliberate, his presence leaving a void in the suffog silence of the corridor.
Behind him, the blob of bck substance pulsed faintly, its head watg him retreat with an expression that could almost be mistaken for a smile—thick bck liquid flowing down its eyes like tears.
.
.
.
.
.
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