「EDMUND'S TEAM」
The five remaining spiders tightened their half-circle around the base of the Oregon pine, their many legs moving in a rhythm that made the forest floor seem to click beneath them. Edmund stood between the creatures and the two priests.
Priestess Kalia and Priest Felon remained pressed near the trunk behind him, exactly where he had ordered them to stay. The pale-white Mana Form surrounding Edmund's sword illuminated the edge of the blade without throwing enough light to expose them farther into the forest, while the elegant crossbow in his other hand remained empty after the shot that had taken the first spider through the eye. He did not look back.
"Priestess," Edmund said, his voice quiet but absolute, "on my mark, you will chant Guardian's Aegis. Focus the barrier three paces ahead of me. Understand?"
Priestess Kalia's fingers tightened around her pendant.
"Y-yes."
"Priest Felon, you will watch our rear and both flanks. If anything moves from the shadows, call 'Flank' and point. Do not attempt to engage it."
The young priest swallowed.
"Your responsibility is to see."
"Understood."
The closest spider crept forward another pace. Edmund watched the slight lift of its abdomen. Its legs shifted. The spinneret contracted.
There, Edmund thought.
Edmund moved just before the green venom shot toward him. He did not retreat from the attack. One controlled step took him outside the line of fire, close enough that the venom passed beside his shoulder and struck the roots behind him with a violent hiss. Before the spider could lower its abdomen, Edmund entered its reach. He drove his sword forward in a thrust.
The pale Mana Form reinforced the point as he drove it into the narrow opening where the armored head joined the thorax. Chitin resisted for barely an instant before the blade punched through. A brittle crack sounded beneath the creature's shell. The spider convulsed. Edmund withdrew the sword before its collapsing body could trap the steel, shifted his weight, and turned. Two more were already rushing from the left.
"NOW!"
Priestess Kalia raised her pendant with both hands.
"O-Oh Divine Holy Trinity E, shelter your children—Guardian's Aegis!"
Golden light surged from the earth three paces ahead of Edmund. The barrier had barely formed when both spiders spat. Venom slammed into the divine shield.
A violent hiss filled the clearing. Green liquid spread across the curved surface in steaming rivulets before the holy light burned it away. The barrier held, but the impact traveled through the spell and into its caster. Kalia's shoulders jerked. Her face immediately lost color. Edmund heard her breath hitch behind him.
He did not waste the protection she had given him. He stepped behind Guardian's Aegis, lowered the empty crossbow for half a heartbeat, and drew a fresh bolt from beneath his cloak.
His hands moved with the speed of habit rather than haste: string set, bolt seated, mechanism secured. He returned the loaded weapon to his belt and looked at his sword. As he released it, the pale Mana Form faded from the blade, leaving only ordinary steel. Priestess Kalia noticed immediately.
Edmund inhaled. His shoulders settled and his hips lowered. The posture of the immaculate butler vanished so gradually that neither priest could have identified the precise instant it happened.
One moment he stood like the sophisticated older adventurer who had escorted them through the forest. The next, his weight had sunk into the earth. Both hands closed around the sword.
His stance widened just enough to create a powerful foundation. His front foot angled forward while the rear remained grounded, heels positioned to allow motion without sacrificing balance. The man and the weapon were unchanged, yet he held the sword as though it belonged to another part of his life.
"Flank! Left!"
Priest Felon's voice cracked through the clearing. A fourth spider had slipped around the weakening edge of Guardian's Aegis. Edmund turned as the creature lunged. His feet shifted in a short, grounded shuffle as he met it halfway.
The spider's front leg descended toward his shoulder. Edmund's sword rose beneath it in a diagonal cut. Instead of the clean slice of steel through flesh, a hard, explosive CRACK tore through the forest. The armored limb shattered.
Fragments of chitin scattered past Edmund as the spider recoiled, its remaining legs scrambling for balance. Edmund was already inside its guard. The upward cut continued into his next motion, his wrists turning as his weight transferred forward.
The blade came horizontally across the creature's opposite side and broke through two more supporting legs. The spider collapsed sideways. Edmund shifted with it. One downward thrust entered the largest cluster of eyes and drove through the softer structure beneath. The body went still.
Priestess Kalia stared. Without a spoken spell or an elemental formation, power had begun gathering along Edmund's sword. Tighter and heavier than the pale raw mana she had seen before, it followed the weapon as though the blade had become an extension of something cultivated inside him.
"Shield failing!" Kalia warned.
Guardian's Aegis flickered. The two spiders behind it sensed the weakness and surged forward together. Edmund breathed out. The energy surrounding his sword sharpened. For the briefest moment, the weapon seemed longer than the metal should allow. A translucent edge extended beyond the physical blade.
Sword Aura.
Guardian's Aegis failed. Golden light broke apart. The first spider spat through the collapsing barrier. Edmund rotated his wrists. The projected aura edge intersected the incoming venom before the liquid reached him. The strike dispersed the glob away from his centerline, green droplets hissing against the soil on either side.
Edmund stepped through the opening he had created. One grounded stride. Then another. The nearest spider snapped its mandibles. His sword entered through the central eye cluster.
He did not wrench it free immediately. He turned his body around the embedded blade, using the creature's own violent reaction to open its vulnerable side. Then he withdrew. The second spider came from his right. Edmund lowered his center of gravity.
The Shuffle Stance kept his feet close to the earth even as he changed direction. He slipped outside the creature's front legs, turned his hips, and brought the Sword Aura-reinforced blade down where the abdomen met the thorax.
The cultivated force extended beyond the steel. The spider split, and green fluid struck the ground behind him.
Priestess Kalia could barely follow the sequence. She had seen knights and adventurers fight, had watched elemental mages overwhelm monsters through sheer magical power, but Edmund's precision held her transfixed. His shoulders, hips, wrists, feet, and breathing worked together, each movement carrying the sword into the next.
The last surviving spider hesitated, then fled. Edmund's gaze followed it. His left hand dropped, and the crossbow he had reloaded beneath Guardian's Aegis came free.
—THWIP
The bolt crossed the clearing and buried itself near the fleeing creature's spinneret, the impact driving it down against the forest floor. The spider thrashed. Edmund approached without haste. One stride carried him beside it. His sword came down.
Silence followed.
Only the priests' ragged breathing and the faint sizzling of dissolving spider remains disturbed the silence beneath the trees.
Edmund stayed motionless for several seconds. The Sword Aura along the blade gradually receded. The projected edge disappeared first. Then the force coating the physical steel sank away until he stood with nothing more visibly extraordinary than an ordinary sword in his hands. His stance relaxed. His shoulders rose.
The butler returned.
Edmund wiped the blade against a clean patch of moss.
"The lesson is concluded."
Priest Felon stared.
"The… lesson?"
"You both performed adequately."
He sheathed the sword.
"Priestess Kalia maintained the barrier under pressure. Priest Felon successfully identified a flanking threat."
He looked down the dark trail ahead.
"Now we move. The Captain's marker indicates they are farther ahead, which means they are likely in considerably more danger than we were."
He offered no explanation for the stance or the Sword Aura. He simply started walking.
Priestess Kalia remained frozen for another second. She had read about that grounded footwork, that internal cultivation through which aura manifested in a weapon rather than elemental conversion.
Vester. The southern warrior tradition.
The realization sent another chill across her skin. Priest Felon looked equally shaken. The refined older man walking away from them was still Edmund Saiden, still the same courteous adventurer who lectured them about remaining close.
But there was another history beneath that composure. And neither priest understood why a man trained in Vester's warrior tradition was wandering through an Einstonian forest pretending to be nothing more remarkable than an experienced adventurer.
"Are you coming?" Edmund called without looking back.
Both priests hurried after him.
「G6'S TEAM」
G6 leaned back against the trunk of a broad tree high above the contaminated forest floor. Below them, the remains of another spider cluster had begun dissolving into blackened residue. Lord Zen sat several feet away on the same branch, breathing harder than he would have preferred to admit.
"Fuck."
G6 tipped her head against the bark.
"There's fucking more deeper in the shadows. Such a nuisance."
"Cap…tain."
Lord Zen pulled a canteen from his Dimensional Vault.
"Where do you think the main nest is? The spider territory we encountered outside Grain Town… do you think they've simply spread from somewhere deeper?"
"Didn't you see the layout? This forest ends at the temple's back wall. They're probably expanding outward looking for food."
Lord Zen glanced down at the silent undergrowth.
"Now that you mention it, we have seen no other wildlife. If the spiders exist here in such numbers, perhaps they have already exhausted whatever originally lived in their territory."
"Perhaps…"
G6 stared through the trees.
If these dumb spiders were the cause of the dead zone, why didn't it happen as soon as they arrived?
That question refused to leave. Lord Zen looked toward the scattered remains below.
"We are supposed to collect their left front legs as evidence of extermination, are we not? Do you believe we can finish before lunch?"
G6 pulled the pocket watch from her trousers.
10:27 A.M.
"Eddie said real dungeons don't collapse. They're supposed to have multiple levels."
"They are. Einston has only two true dungeons within its territory. The southeastern dungeon is where most adventurers go to develop their rank. The larger one within the Scutum Mountains is far more dangerous, and exploration there is prohibited."
Lord Zen glanced toward her.
"Why?"
"Back in Oak Village, when I killed the big boss—the so-called new-type demon—the man-made dungeon collapsed. That's when Eddie and I found the demonic script connected to the disappearance of natural mana."
Lord Zen's eyes sharpened.
"So that two-man party was indeed you and Edmund."
"Yeah."
"That rather explains Her Majesty's sudden interest."
His mouth curved faintly.
"Smooth."
"Whatever."
G6 returned the watch to her pocket.
"I'm thinking—if this is another artificial dungeon and we kill whatever's at the top of it, would the underlings disappear with the structure?"
"That is a reasonable theory. We will only know if we locate the dungeon you believe is here."
G6 exhaled.
"Let's wait for Daunt. Why the hell aren't these things showing themselves now? This is bullshit."
"I noticed that as well. They appear to emerge in clusters led by the seven-foot specimens. Perhaps the larger ones function as vanguards."
"That makes sense. Their frontal carapaces are much harder than the smaller ones'."
G6 looked back along the route they had taken.
"Which reminds me… where the fuck is Eddie?"
"This is why I dislike baggage."
Lord Zen rested his head against the trunk. G6 glanced at him.
"Right. How'd you learn the tree-leaping thing anyway?"
"I knew advancing my inherited Earth affinity would require time, so I concentrated more heavily on Physical Enhancement. I developed much of that mobility during my… intelligence-gathering days."
He looked toward her.
"And you, Captain? You move as though you were raised in trees."
Try jumping between rooftops with nothing but a grapnel and bad life decisions.
"Practice."
G6 held out her hand.
"Give me that canteen. I'm thirsty."
Lord Zen hesitated only briefly. Nobles did not generally pass personal drinking vessels around with such complete indifference. Then he tossed it. G6 caught the canteen without looking, unscrewed the cap, and drank deeply. She made no effort to wipe the rim before handing it back. Lord Zen caught it.
Before he could say anything, silver-white movement cut through the canopy. Daunt landed beside them. Sticky webbing clung to sections of his fur, and the blue flames along his mane flickered with obvious irritation.
"Found it."
G6 straightened.
"Talk."
"There is a den roughly one hundred meters north, built into a shallow sinkhole. The entrance has at least a dozen sentinels, mostly seven- and ten-foot specimens."
His ears flattened.
"I could not enter far enough to inspect everything, but the absence of natural mana is strongest there. The interior reeks of corruption and breeding. I saw egg sacs lining the walls, smaller creatures across the floor, and a Queen still producing more."
Lord Zen paled.
"A breeding nest. If we do not eliminate it—"
"We don't have the luxury of waiting for backup."
G6 stood.
"If we call the knights, they arrive with uniforms, public spellwork, reports, questions, and a parade of nobles sticking their noses into everything they see. We have methods they don't need to investigate, and we still have a job to finish."
Lord Zen pushed himself upright.
"What is the plan?"
"We divide the outside forces."
G6 pointed toward him.
"You use Earth to cage the sleeping cluster. One large structure. Thick enough that the pressure stays contained."
Understanding entered his expression.
"And you intend to—"
"Drop an F5 inside."
A cold smile appeared.
"They can resist conventional magic all they want. Trap them inside a confined pressure blast and physics gets the final vote."
Daunt gave an approving rumble.
"I shall handle the sentinels. Their mucus ignites easily."
"Good."
G6 looked toward Lord Zen.
"The moment you have a visual, build the bowl. Make it thick. Make it tall."
"What about Edmund and the priests?"
She checked the watch again.
10:32 A.M
"If they're alive, they'll see or hear what we're about to do and follow. Either way, we're on the clock."
G6 dropped from the branch.
"Move."
❈.❈.❈
Daunt led them north. The forest descended gradually into a shallow basin where webbing had nearly swallowed the trees. Thick green residue glistened over roots and bark, filling the air with the same acidic, rotting smell that had accompanied the spider territory from the beginning.
Then the den appeared: a jagged opening in the depression ahead, its shape too geometric, too deliberate. Massive Venomous Spiders stood around it like grotesque sentries. G6 and Lord Zen exchanged one look.
Lord Zen circled left. G6 lowered herself into a crouch. Daunt inhaled. Blue flame burst across the mucus-coated webbing between the sentinels and the cave. The green residue ignited almost immediately, fire racing upward through the silk. The sentinels shrieked and their formation broke.
Lord Zen reached the sleeping cluster beyond them. Dozens of smaller spiders twitched together in the depression, beginning to wake as the heat spread. He drove both hands toward the ground.
"EARTH RISE: TOMB!"
Earth erupted. Thick granite walls surged upward around the entire cluster, forming a deep rectangular enclosure before the spiders could scatter. Shrieks and frantic scraping immediately rose from within.
G6 was already above it. Wind gathered between her hands, compressing until the air screamed beneath the pressure as she shaped the attack.
Classic F5.
G6 looked into the enclosed mass.
She drove the compressed Wind downward. The blast struck. For a fraction of a second, Lord Zen's walls contained everything. Then the earth shook. Cracks raced across the granite as pressure slammed repeatedly against the enclosure from within.
The stone bulged outward but held until the violence inside abruptly ended. Lord Zen released the structure. The walls collapsed into the ground. What remained inside was barely recognizable as having once been living creatures. G6 descended beside the crater.
"Clean."
Lord Zen stared into it.
"I am beginning to understand why your definition of that word concerns me."
The fire around the den had begun dying. Daunt returned with soot along his muzzle.
"The strongest absence remains within."
"Then let's shut it off."
G6 turned toward Lord Zen.
"Leave another marker for Eddie. Big '0.' Then we go inside."
Lord Zen carved the symbol deep into the softened ground.
They entered.
The cave exhaled a cold, stale breath filled with ammonia and decay. Daunt's blue fire cast shifting light across web-covered walls and swollen egg sacs. The floor crawled with smaller spiders. G6's hands trembled. Lord Zen noticed.
"Captain?"
"That was just forty-percent output."
She flexed her fingers.
Classic F5 used to punish this body far worse.
A faint smile touched her mouth.
Now it's a tremor.
The passage widened. The Spider Queen waited beyond it. She was enormous. Her legs resembled petrified trunks, her abdomen extending behind her like a swollen living factory. Clusters of green eyes reflected Daunt's flames as the creature rotated toward them. Venom gathered between her mandibles.
"NOW!"
Lord Zen drove both hands down.
"EARTH WALL: BULWARK!"
A sloping wall of dense earth erupted before them just as the Queen expelled a torrent of corrosive liquid. Venom struck stone. The barrier hissed. Daunt moved immediately. His blue flame swept across the ceiling above the Queen, catching the slime-covered egg sacs rather than the monster itself.
The nursery ignited. Wet detonations rolled throughout the chamber. The Queen screamed. The sound tore through the cave strongly enough to shake dust from the ceiling.
G6 split right, Lord Zen moved left, and Daunt attacked from above. The Queen drove one massive leg toward G6, but she slipped around the descending limb and entered close enough to strike the softer joint beneath its armored plate.
Crimson Mana Form wrapped her twin reaper daggers as both blades bit into the seam. The Queen jerked away. G6 let the movement pull her out rather than contesting the creature's weight.
Across the chamber, Lord Zen's conventional spell interval forced him to rely on his sword. Pale raw mana coated the blade as he intercepted another leg, struck the vulnerable joint, then retreated before the Queen could trap him beneath its mass.
Daunt swept low over the creature's head, his claws raking one cluster of eyes. The Queen snapped upward, but he twisted clear.
When Lord Zen's interval cleared, he planted one hand toward the cave floor.
"STONE SPIKES!"
Jagged stone erupted beneath two supporting legs. The Queen shifted under the sudden pressure. G6 saw the imbalance before the creature corrected it. She moved inside. One dagger drove into the exposed joint. The other followed. Green ichor struck the ground. The Queen screamed again and tore free. With his next Earth spell still unavailable, Lord Zen closed with his sword.
His Mana Form-coated edge struck at the creature's damaged leg while G6 moved to the opposite side, forcing the Queen to divide its attention between three threats. Daunt remained above. Blue flame crossed the creature's face whenever it tried to orient toward G6. Another interval ended. Lord Zen stepped back.
"EARTHEN SHACKLES!"
Earth surged around two lower limbs and clamped them against the cave floor. The restraints lasted barely seconds before the Queen tore one leg free, then the other. But the delay was enough. G6 passed beneath a foreleg that would otherwise have crushed her and cut another line through the softer tissue along its underside.
The battle continued through accumulated damage. Blinded eyes and injured joints restricted the Queen's movements as they struck again and again where her enormous body could least afford it.
The dead zone made every exchange more expensive. G6's breaths sharpened. Lord Zen's movements grew heavier between casts. Even Daunt's flames seemed slightly less vibrant without the environmental mana that normally surrounded them.
The Queen noticed and changed tactics. Instead of continuing to contest the three attackers surrounding her, the creature twisted suddenly and hurled its full weight toward the weakened cave wall. Stone exploded outward. The Queen burst into the clearing toward the golden light beyond.
「OUTSIDE THE DEN」
Edmund reached G6's second marker with Priestess Kalia and Priest Felon close behind him. Then all three stopped. The crater left by Classic F5 dominated the clearing before them. Priestess Kalia stared into it.
"Merciful Holy Trinity…"
Priest Felon stepped closer, careful not to touch the residue.
"What manner of spell could cause this?"
He studied the destruction.
"The damage is almost entirely concussive…"
"Admirable," Edmund murmured.
But his attention had already moved north. A faint blue glow pulsed through the distant trees. Daunt.
"We follow that. Now. Double time."
They ran. The Queen's scream struck before they reached the final clearing. Priestess Kalia stumbled and covered her ears. Priest Felon nearly did the same. Edmund drew his sword.
"That is no sentinel. Move!"
They burst from the trees as spiders began converging from every direction. The Queen's agonized cry had carried throughout the territory. Two-foot creatures emerged first, followed by seven-footers and ten-foot sentinels. Dozens of them scrambled toward the den. Edmund placed himself ahead of the priests.
"Priestess Kalia! Guard our rear!"
She raised her pendant.
"Guardian's Aegis!"
Golden light snapped into place behind them. Venom struck the barrier almost immediately.
"Priest Felon, flanks!"
The young priest saw a spider rushing from the side. This time, fear did not freeze him.
"Searing Light!"
Holy radiance shot from his hands. The first lance pierced a smaller spider and forced another away from the flank. Edmund entered the front line. Sword Aura manifested along his weapon once more. A seven-footer rushed him.
His grounded Shuffle Stance carried him beneath the first leg. The projected edge cut through the vulnerable joint as he turned, allowing the creature's own weight to carry it past him. Another closed from the opposite side. Edmund did not chase the wounded one.
Protect the line. Protect the priests, Edmund reminded himself.
He stepped toward the new threat. His sword broke through a foreleg, then another. The spider stumbled. Edmund finished it through the eye cluster before rotating immediately toward the next attacker. Behind him, Guardian's Aegis flashed each time venom struck. To his right, Priest Felon called another flank. Edmund adjusted. The Sword Aura around the blade hummed as he cut a bloody buffer between the cave and the two priests.
Nothing passed him.
Then the cave wall exploded. The Spider Queen burst into the clearing. G6, Lord Zen, and Daunt followed.
The Queen's remaining eyes fixed on the brightest target in the chaos. Priestess Kalia. The priestess remained turned toward the spiders pressing against Guardian's Aegis. She never saw the Queen bearing down behind her.
G6 did.
Her body accelerated across the distance. One explosive step became another, her movement so fast that everyone watching lost the individual transitions between them. Dirt tore beneath her boots as she passed the Queen's flank, cleared the space between the ruined cave and the priests, then forced herself to brake.
G6 slid between the descending fangs and Priestess Kalia's unprotected back. Her boots carved two lines through the bloody earth. Kalia gasped at the sudden presence behind her. G6 did not raise her daggers.
There was no time to contest the Queen's weight with steel. Instead, she looked up and let the thing inside her that had ended more lives than she could count come forward.
<
There was no visible wave or elemental formation, only pressure. Every fragment of killing intent G6 normally kept buried beneath cold calculation condensed onto the creature before her with absolute certainty. The Queen had been charging toward prey.
In the next heartbeat, instinct told it that it had entered the reach of a predator. Its front legs struck the ground unevenly. The descending fangs stopped short of G6. One massive limb twitched backward.
The nearest spiders recoiled with it, their movements breaking as the hostile intent driving them faltered beneath the pressure radiating from the woman in front of their Queen. Priest Felon felt his breath lock in his chest. Priestess Kalia forgot the words of the prayer still on her lips. Even Lord Zen, who knew the pressure was not directed at him, felt every survival instinct in his body urge him not to move carelessly.
Edmund's eyes narrowed. He had felt killing intent from soldiers, assassins, and demons, but rarely concentrated like this. G6 had focused everything that made another creature understand death is here into one target.
The Spider Queen shuddered, its enormous strength checked by the disruption of the hostile intent driving it forward. One heartbeat passed, then another. G6 had her opening, but her body was already struggling to sustain it. Pain stabbed behind her eyes. The Dominion wavered.
She had already used Classic F5, Mana Form, repeated Wind applications, P.A.F. Speed, and sustained combat inside an environment stripped of natural mana. Her reserve was not the immediate problem. The vessel carrying the output was.
The Queen screamed. Its primal aggression forced through the hesitation, and its legs drove forward again.
Aura Dominion broke.
The backlash struck G6 through the skull. Her vision flashed white. She coughed, blood running hot over her lips. Beneath her tinted lenses, more blood welled along her lower eyelids.
"CAPTAIN!"
Lord Zen's voice tore across the clearing. Edmund took one step toward her before another spider forced him to turn and keep the priests' front line intact. Daunt stared. His blue eyes widened.
She's pushing it, Daunt thought.
G6 straightened. Blood ran from the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with the back of her wrist. Her expression did not change. The Queen had broken through Aura Dominion.
Fine.
G6 still had another answer.
Total Resonance.
50% output.
She focused. The technique forced an enormous release of raw mana through pathways that were already screaming from overuse. Crimson raw mana erupted around her, without Wind, or Cryomancy. It surged from her body in violent arcs, gathering around her arms and flowing into the twin reaper daggers.
The Queen recoiled. Even after forcing itself through Aura Dominion, instinct recognized the escalation. Venom gathered in its mouth. G6 moved first.
Her opening step tore loose soil beneath her boot. She accelerated along the Queen's side, refusing to meet its full mass head-on. One foreleg descended toward her path. G6 adjusted by inches. The limb crashed behind her. She entered the damaged region they had spent the entire battle creating, where cut joints and fractured plating left open seams. The daggers crossed. G6 passed the creature in one devastating line. Both crimson edges carved through the weakened structure in intersecting arcs. She cleared the Queen and slid across the clearing.
Behind her, the creature remained upright for a single breath. Then one cut opened, a second intersected it, and the upper mass shifted.
And fell.
The Queen struck the ground hard enough to shake the clearing. Green ichor flooded beneath the corpse. The artificial cave groaned. Stone began collapsing inward. At almost the same moment, the surrounding spiders stopped. One creature froze halfway through a lunge at Edmund. Another collapsed against Guardian's Aegis. Across the clearing, green eyes went dark one cluster at a time. Legs folded beneath the bodies. Then nothing moved.
Nobody understood yet whether the Queen's death had killed them, whether the collapsing dungeon had severed something binding them, or whether both events were parts of the same mechanism. In that moment, it did not matter. G6 was still standing.
Barely.
The crimson manifestation around her sputtered. Her daggers slipped from her hands and embedded point-first in the soil. She swayed.
"Captain!"
Edmund and Lord Zen moved at the same time.
"Reise!" Daunt growled.
G6 dropped onto one knee.
"I am good."
Her voice came out rougher than intended. Edmund reached her first.
"No, you are not!"
The butler's composure cracked as he dropped beside her and pulled a spotless handkerchief from his coat. One gloved hand steadied her chin while the other wiped the blood from beneath her shades. Then he removed them. Her grey eyes were bloodshot. Fresh blood had gathered along the lower lids. Priestess Kalia saw it and immediately abandoned the remains of Guardian's Aegis.
"Oh, merciful heavens! Pardon me, my lady. Let me help."
She knelt beside G6 and clasped her pendant.
"Oh God Eldrin, in Your boundless grace, grant relief to this wounded soul."
Golden light gathered overhead. It descended over G6 like warm sunlight. The sensation differed completely from a potion. The healing did not erase every ache or magically restore what she had spent, but it reached through the immediate internal damage, slowing the bleeding and stabilizing the pathways that had been forced far beyond what Reise's body comfortably tolerated. Priestess Kalia's breathing became heavier.
After nearly a minute, the blood gathering beneath G6's eyes stopped. She blinked, and her vision cleared.
G6 flexed one hand. A deep ache remained beneath the muscles.
Aura Dominion instability hit my head first, then my eyes.
Total Resonance burns through the pathways like hell.
Her mouth tightened.
Note to self: dead zones fucking suck.
This body sucks.
"That was different."
Her voice remained hoarse.
"It was divine healing," Daunt said. "It can reach injuries ordinary restoratives may not address as easily."
Priestess Kalia slowly turned toward him and froze. Priest Felon followed her stare. His mouth dropped open.
"OH MY GRACIOUS HEAVENS! IS THAT A FENRIR?!"
Priestess Kalia scrambled backward.
"A Fenrir? One of the mythical divine creatures from the Celestial Parables?!"
Daunt immediately raised his head.
"Took you long enough to notice."
The blue flames along his mane flickered proudly. Both priests bowed deeply.
"Never in my holy life did I imagine meeting a Great Fenrir," Priestess Kalia breathed.
"There he goes again," Lord Zen muttered.
Daunt's head snapped toward him. Lord Zen immediately found the collapsed cave extremely interesting.
"We're not done yet."
G6 pushed herself upright with Edmund's help.
"Right."
Edmund kept his hand near her arm until he was certain she would remain standing. He retrieved both daggers from the soil, wiped the blades clean, and handed them back. G6 returned them to their sheaths.
"We still need to find it. Captain, remain here. Zero, Master Daunt—we search the rubble. We are looking for a specific parchment."
The three moved toward the collapsed den.
G6 leaned against one of the cleaner trees while Priestess Kalia and Priest Felon stayed nearby. Both kept looking at her.
"What you looking at?"
Priestess Kalia jumped.
"I… I wished to thank you, my lady. That creature was directly behind me. I did not sense it."
G6 shrugged and immediately regretted the movement.
"Would've been a nuisance if someone from the Holy Kingdom died on my watch. Political conflict without someone cleaning it up? Bothersome."
Priestess Kalia stared. G6 had already turned her attention elsewhere. Priest Felon cleared his throat.
"And, if I may ask… the Fenrir. How did you—?"
"Found it. It wanted to be my pet."
Daunt stopped digging through the rubble. G6 continued.
"Followed me home. Now it won't leave."
A deeply offended sound came from the divine beast. The two priests looked from G6 to Daunt, visibly struggling to reconcile the theological creature of ancient scripture with the fact that a woman in black tactical clothes had just described him like an inconvenient stray.
"Found it!"
Lord Zen's voice ended the conversation. A broken slab had partially concealed a single sheet of black parchment. Violet-black strands drifted over its surface like smoke pulled into invisible thorns. The symbols across the page pulsed faintly. Lord Zen crouched.
"Do not touch it!"
Edmund caught his wrist before his fingers reached the aura. Priest Felon leaned forward.
"What… is that?"
Edmund studied the page.
"The same kind of demonic script we encountered near Oak Village."
His expression hardened.
"If this incident follows the same pattern, it may be connected to the missing natural mana."
G6 approached. One of her daggers came free. She drew the blade across her palm.
"Captain?" Lord Zen said.
"Testing something."
A single drop of blood fell onto the parchment.
Nothing happened.
Then the violet-black aura recoiled. The symbols flashed. White light spread across the black page, forcing the corrupt threads backward until the dark aura disappeared completely. The parchment remained black, silent, inert.
Then the forest changed.
Natural mana returned in an inrush. The surrounding world seemed to breathe again. Leaves stirred. The oppressive emptiness that had smothered the forest lifted. Daunt raised his head as the familiar environmental current flowed around him once more. G6 felt the change immediately. The damage left by Total Resonance remained, along with the ache behind her eyes and the exhaustion deep inside Reise's body. But the absence was gone.
That mattered.
"It's back." G6 and Daunt said in unison.
Lord Zen looked around.
"So it really was connected."
"At least now we have stronger evidence than last time."
G6 pulled out her pocket watch. Blood had smeared across the brass casing. She wiped it away with her thumb.
11:45 A.M
Fifteen minutes remained before the deadline she had given Archbishop Tolentino for the Holy Grail's restoration. G6 snapped the watch shut.
"We're done."
Her gaze moved over the ruined den, the lifeless spiders, and the now-inert parchment.
"Mission accomplished."
—To Be Continued…—