「EDMUND'S TEAM」
The five remaining spiders closed their half-circle, their skittering clicks syncing into a chilling rhythm. In the center, Edmund stood with his back to the thick oak, Kalia and Felon pressed against the bark behind him. His sword, coated in that pale blue-white mana, was held low and ready. His other hand held the small, elegant crossbow—now empty.
"Priestess," Edmund said, his voice not raised, but carrying absolute clarity. "On my mark, you will chant Guardian's Aegis. Focus it three paces ahead of me. Understand?"
Kalia's eyes were wide, but she nodded, her hands clasping her holy pendant. "Y-yes."
"Priest," Edmund continued, his gaze never leaving the advancing green eyes. "You will watch our rear and our flanks. If anything moves from the shadows, you shout 'Flank' and point. Do not try to fight. Your job is to see."
Felon swallowed hard, his earlier bravado gone, replaced by the cold understanding of a soldier given orders. "Understood."
The nearest spider, emboldened by their stillness, scuttled forward and spat. A glob of green venom arced through the air.
Edmund didn't move to avoid it. He moved through it.
He sidestepped with a fluidity that belied his age, the venom sizzling past his shoulder. In the same motion, he was upon the creature. His sword didn't swing—it lanced forward in a straight, perfect line. The mana-coated tip didn't meet the armored carapace. It found the microscopic gap where the head met the thorax. There was a sound like a cracking nut, and the spider collapsed, its legs curling inward.
But he was already turning. Two more rushed from the left.
"NOW!" Edmund barked.
"O-Oh Divine Eldrin, shelter your children!" Kalia's voice, initially trembling, found a core of fervent belief. Her pendant flared. A dome of shimmering, golden light erupted from the ground three paces in front of Edmund, just as the two spiders spat.
The venom hit the holy barrier and hissed, dissolving into harmless steam against the divine energy. The shield held, but Kalia gasped, her face paling—maintaining it was draining her rapidly.
Edmund didn't waste the opening. He dropped into a low stance behind the shield.
And then he changed.
It was subtle, but to Kalia and Felon, it was like watching a statue come to life. The butler's precise posture melted away, replaced by something lower, wider, and utterly grounded. His grip on the sword shifted, both hands settling on the hilt in a way that spoke of countless drills on a training field. The pale blue mana around his blade didn't just glow—it condensed, pulling inward until the steel itself seemed to hum with contained power.
This was not the elegant dueling style of Einston's knights, all flourishes and elemental fury. This was something older, simpler, and brutally direct.
"Flank! Left!" Felon shrieked, pointing as a spider tried to scuttle around the dissipating golden dome.
Edmund moved. He didn't run. He shuffled, his feet never leaving the ground, maintaining that rooted, powerful stance. As the spider lunged, he didn't parry. He met it.
His sword came up in a diagonal rising cut. There was no wind, no earth, no elemental affinity. Just pure, refined force, focused into the edge. The blade met the spider's leading leg.
It didn't cut it.
It shattered it.
The chitin exploded into fragments. The spider reeled, shrieking. Edmund's follow-through was already in motion—a horizontal slash that cleaved through two more legs on the opposite side. The creature toppled. A final, downward stab, precise and final, through its brain cluster.
"Shield failing!" Kalia cried, her voice strained.
The golden dome flickered. The two spiders behind it surged forward.
Edmund took a deep breath, and the humming energy around his sword pulsed. He didn't chant a spell. He didn't call upon an element. He simply exhaled, and the compressed aura around his blade extended, forming a brief, shimmering phantom of the sword itself—a visible projection of pure force.
Sword Aura.
He stepped past the failing shield, into the face of the attack. One spider spat. He twisted his wrist, and the projected aura- edge intercepted the venom mid-air, dispersing it with a sizzling crackle. He closed the distance in two swift, grounded steps.
His movements were economical to the point of being stark. A thrust that pierced an eye cluster. A short, powerful chop that severed an abdomen. He fought not like a man killing monsters, but like a craftsman dismantling faulty machinery—with a terrifying, impersonal efficiency. Each movement was built on a foundation of perfect balance and leverage, using his whole body as a single, lethal weapon.
The final spider, seeing its brethren fall, tried to flee. Edmund's free hand shot out. The small crossbow was already reloaded—when had he done that? Thwip. The mana-tipped bolt took it in the spinneret, pinning it to the forest floor. A single stride, and his sword ended it.
Silence fell, broken only by Kalia and Felon's ragged breathing and the slow, sizzling dissolve of spider carcasses.
Edmund stood amidst the carnage, his sword still humming faintly with that condensed aura. He took another slow breath, and the aura dissipated, sinking back into the steel until it was just a well-made blade again. He turned to the two priests.
Kalia was staring at him, not with fear now, but with awe and deep, profound confusion. This was no adventurer, no butler. The way he moved, the way he held his sword… it was the style whispered about in military histories. The style of the Vester Kingdom—the Sword Saints of the South. The style that used no elemental magic, only the refined aura of the warrior themselves.
Felon simply looked like he had seen a ghost.
Edmund wiped his blade clean on a patch of moss, his expression settling back into its usual composed, butler's mask. But the mask no longer fit. The glimpse behind it had been too clear.
"The lesson is concluded," he said, his voice once again the calm, measured tone of a household servant. He sheathed his sword as if putting away a tea knife. "You performed adequately. Now, we must move. The Captain's marker means they are ahead, and in greater danger than we are."
He didn't explain the aura. He didn't explain the stance. He simply turned and began walking down the path again, stepping over the dissolving remains without a second glance.
Kalia and Felon exchanged one last, shell-shocked look. The man walking ahead of them was a lie. A pleasant, helpful fiction. The truth was the warrior who had just dismantled six Venomous Spiders in the dark with the cold precision of a master swordsman from a legendary kingdom.
They hurried after him, the forest feeling infinitely more dangerous, and the quiet butler infinitely more terrifying, than any number of glowing spider eyes.
「G6'S TEAM」
G6 and Zen were catching their breath high up on a thick tree branch. The air still hummed with the dissipating energy of their last fight. The ground below was littered with the dissolving, smoking remains of the second wave.
"Fuck," G6 murmured, tilting her head back against the trunk. "There's fucking more deep in the shadows. What the hell."
"Cap…tain," Zen called, pulling a canteen from his dimensional vault. "Where do you think the main nest is? The one we stumbled into outside the town… you think they've already moved deeper?"
"Didn't you see the layout? The forest ends at the temple's back wall. They're probably just spreading out, looking for food," G6 said, accepting the canteen he tossed over.
"Now that you mention it… there are no signs of any other wildlife here. If they exist in great numbers, could it mean they've already starved out their own territory?" Zen mused.
"Perhaps…" G6's mind raced. If these dumb spiders were the cause of the dead zone, why didn't it happen as soon as they arrived?
"We have to collect their left front legs for proof, right? Think we can wrap this up before lunch?" Zen asked, trying to gauge their progress.
G6 pulled a pocket watch from her pants. 10:27 AM.
"Eddie said real dungeons don't collapse. That they're multi-level," G6 stated, changing the subject.
"They are. There are only two true dungeons in the kingdom. The one in the southeast is where most adventurers go to rank up. The big, dangerous one is in the Scutum Mountains—exploration is forbidden." Zen paused. "But why ask?"
"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 that was disabling the natural mana."
Zen's eyes lit up with understanding. "Wow. So that two-man party was you and Edmund? Smooth." A smirk touched his lips. "That explains the Queen's sudden interest."
"Yeah. So, anyway. I'm thinking: what happens if we kill the big boss here, if this is another man-made dungeon? You think the underlings would just… vanish along with the structure?"
"That's a solid theory. We'll only have answers if we find the dungeon you're talking about," Zen said.
"Let's wait for Daunt to come back," G6 sighed, scanning the ominous stillness. "Why the hell aren't they showing themselves now? This is bullshit."
"I noticed, Captain. They only seem to emerge when there's a group led by those seven-footers. Maybe the big ones act as vanguard commanders for each cluster."
"That would make sense. Their frontal carapaces are way more hardened than the little ones'." G6's gaze sharpened. "Which, speaking of… where the fuck is Eddie?"
"This is why I hate baggage," Zen muttered.
"Right. How'd you learn the tree-leaping thing, anyway?" G6 asked, shifting to lean more comfortably against the branch.
"I knew enhancing my familial affinity would be a slow grind, so I focused on physical enhancement magic. Developed the technique during my… intelligence-gathering days." He looked over at her. "What about you, Captain? You're a natural."
Of course I am. Try jumping from one rooftop to another two meters away. I could do that without magic, just a grapnel and sheer nerve.
"Practice," G6 said simply. "Give me that canteen. I'm thirsty."
With a flicker of hesitation—sharing a Worthon's personal canteen felt strangely intimate—Zen tossed it across the gap between branches.
She caught it without looking, unscrewed the cap, and drank deeply, not bothering to wipe the rim. The casual disregard for propriety, or germs, was as telling as any confession. In her world, survival had long since trumped fastidiousness.
She handed it back, her eyes already distant, listening for the telltale sign of a returning Fenrir or the ominous skitter of another wave. The clock was ticking, and the heart of the dead zone still lay hidden, waiting.
Zen caught the canteen, his mind still turning over her theory about the dungeon collapse. Before he could speak, a silver streak blurred through the canopy, landing with predatory silence on their branch.
Daunt's fur was matted with sticky web strands, and his blue-flame mane flickered with agitation. "Found it," he growled, his voice low. "And you're not going to like it."
G6's gaze sharpened. "Talk."
"It's a den. A shallow, man-made cave about two hundred meters north, nestled in a sinkhole. The entrance is guarded by at least a dozen sentinels—ten and seven-footers acting as lookouts. And inside…" Daunt's ears flattened. "I couldn't see far, but the mana void is strongest there. It stinks of corruption and… reproduction. The queen is inside, still producing. And she's not alone. The cave walls are lined with egg sacs, and the floor is carpeted with the smaller ones, dormant but… twitching."
Zen's face paled. "A breeding nest. If we don't stop it now—"
"We don't have the luxury to wait for backup," G6 cut in, her voice glacial. "Calling for the knights means broadcasting our faces, our methods. They'll ask questions. Noble questions." She looked from Zen to Daunt. "Nobles have affinities. We have skills. And we have a job to finish."
"So what's the play, Captain?" Zen asked, his scholar's mind already running scenarios.
G6 leaned forward, her grey eyes glinting behind her shades. "We split their forces. Isolate the threat." She pointed at Zen. "You use your earth walls. Not to defend—to cage. Create a stone bowl around the sleeping cluster outside the den. Seal them in."
Understanding dawned in Zen's eyes, followed by a flicker of grim awe. "And you'll…"
"I'll drop an F5 into the bowl." A cold, almost cruel smile touched her lips. "No matter how mana-resistant they are, raw concussive force in a confined space turns everything to pulp. Physics doesn't care about affinity."
Daunt let out a low, approving rumble. "Efficient. Brutal. I'll handle the sentinels. Their mucus burns like oil when ignited. A wall of fire should keep them distracted… or turn them into a barrier of their own making."
"After we clear the outside, we breach the den," G6 said, standing. "Daunt, lead the way. Zero, the moment you have visual, you build the bowl. Make it thick. Make it tall. I'll be right above you."
"What about Edmund and the priests?" Zen asked.
G6 checked her pocket watch again. 10:42 AM. "If they're not dead, they'll see our fireworks and follow the noise. Either way, we're on the clock. Let's move."
They dropped from the canopy, landing in the toxic bog with soft, practiced silence. Daunt took the lead, a streak of silver slipping through the shadows. The forest grew even darker, the air thicker with the cloying scent of decay and ammonia. Soon, the terrain dipped into a natural depression. Ahead, through a veil of weeping, mucus-coated trees, they saw it: the jagged, unnatural mouth of a cave, partially obscured by thick, glistening webs.
And guarding it, like grotesque statues, were the sentinels. Massive, still, their green eyes glowing faintly in the gloom.
G6 and Zen shared a nod. No more words were needed.
Zen melted into the shadows to the left, circling wide. G6 crouched, gathering her will. The air around her began to vibrate with gathered wind mana, a low hum that made the nearby leaves tremble.
Daunt took a deep breath, his chest expanding. Then he exhaled—not air, but a stream of concentrated, blue-tinged flame that roared to life in the space between the sentinels and the den entrance.
The effect was instantaneous. The mucus on the trees and the webs ignited like lantern oil, erupting into a roaring, green-tinged inferno. The sentinel spiders shrieked, scrambling back from the sudden wall of heat and light, their formations breaking into chaos.
NOW.
Zen emerged from the shadows on the far side of the sleeping cluster of smaller spiders—dozens of them, curled together in a grotesque, twitching mound. He slammed his hands onto the ground.
"EARTH RISE: TOMB!"
The forest floor erupted. Walls of solid granite, two feet thick and ten feet high, shot up from the earth in a perfect, rumbling rectangle, sealing the sleeping spiders in a stone prison. The sound woke them. A chorus of clicks and shrieks erupted from the newly made bowl.
G6 was already in the air, lifted by a controlled gust. She hovered above the stone bowl, looking down at the seething mass within. Her hands came together, palms facing each other, as if cradling an invisible sphere.
The air around her warped. Wind mana, raw and furious, compressed between her palms with a sound like tearing metal. It wasn't a spell from a book. It was pure, undiluted force given intent—the Classic F5.
Her hat brim trembled. Her cloak snapped violently in the self-generated gale.
"CRATER."
She clapped her hands downward.
The compressed sphere of wind shot from her grasp. It didn't fall; it imploded into the stone bowl. For a split second, silence. Then—
BOOOOOM.
The earth shook. The stone walls Zen had erected bulged outward for a terrifying moment, dust and cracks spider-webbing across their surface. From within the bowl came not shrieks, but a single, wet, crushing SQUELCH, followed by absolute silence.
G6 dropped from the air, landing lightly as Zen let the earthen walls crumble back into the soil, revealing the contents.
There were no spider parts. Only a shallow, perfectly circular depression filled with a uniform, green-and-black paste.
"Clean," G6 remarked, her voice flat.
She turned to the cave entrance. The fiery barrier Daunt had created was dying down, the sentinels either burned or scattered. The path to the man-made den was clear.
Daunt padded to her side, his muzzle smeared with soot. "The heart of the void is in there."
"Then let's go shut it off," G6 said. She looked at Zen. "Leave another marker for Eddie. A big '0'. Then we're going in."
Zen swiftly carved the angular symbol into the softened earth near the carnage, his expression grimly satisfied. The message was clear: We passed. We killed. We're ahead.
The trio turned as one toward the dark, waiting mouth of the cave. The source of the dead zone—and the answers they needed—lay within. The clock read 10:51 AM.
They had an hour to solve the mystery before their deal with the Archbishop expired.
The cave exhaled a cold, stale breath that reeked of ammonia and rot. Daunt's blue flame danced ahead, casting long, monstrous shadows on walls webbed with pulsating egg sacs. The floor was a carpet of twitching young, their tiny legs jerking in unison as if pulled by invisible strings.
G6's hands trembled slightly at her sides. A fine tremor, like a bowstring after release.
Zen noticed. "Captain?"
"That's just 40% of my mana power," she said, flexing her fingers once, deliberately. Her mind, however, was coolly assessing. Before, the Classic F5 would've drained me to faintness. Now it's just a shake. The vessel is adapting.
Ahead, the cave opened into a wider chamber. And there she was.
The Queen was not just larger; she was an abomination of scale. Twice the height of the ten-foot sentinels, her bloated abdomen glistened under the blue light, a living factory of corruption. Her legs were like petrified trees, her faceted eyes a constellation of malevolent green stars. Around her, the air didn't just lack mana—it sucked at the warmth of their very breath.
The Queen's head swiveled toward them. Her mandibles parted, dripping green mucus.
"Now!" G6 yelled.
Zen slammed his palms to the cave floor. "EARTH WALL: BULWARK!"
A thick, sloping rampart of solid earth erupted between them and the Queen, just as she unleashed a torrent of corrosive mucus. It hit the wall with a deafening hiss, eating into the stone but not breaking through.
Daunt didn't hesitate. He inhaled, his chest swelling, and unleashed a focused jet of his blue flame not at the Queen, but above her, across the ceiling of egg sacs coated in her own flammable slime.
The chamber ignited.
A wave of blue and green fire roared across the nursery. The egg sacs didn't burn—they detonated in wet, popping bursts. The Queen let out a sound that was less a shriek and more a seismic scream of pure, rending agony—a frequency so high it felt like needles driven into their eardrums. The cave trembled, dust and debris raining down.
The scream was the signal. The real fight began.
—SHIFT PERSPECTIVE: EDMUND'S TEAM—
Edmund, Kalia, and Felon arrived at the clearing marked with a deep '0'. The sight that greeted them was not of battle, but of aftermath: a shallow, smooth crater filled with unidentifiable paste, and the lingering scent of ozone and crushed chitin.
"Merciful Eldrin," Kalia whispered, her hand over her mouth. "What manner of spell could do this?"
"Not a spell," Felon murmured, eyes wide with a scholar's dawning horror and respect. "That's pure concussive force. Applied physics. They must be masters of physical enhancement magic… to this degree… it's…"
"Admirable," Edmund finished, his voice tight. He wasn't looking at the crater; he was looking north, where a faint, eerie blue glow flickered against the distant trees. Daunt. "We follow that light. Now. Double time."
They broke into a run. They were almost there when a sound tore through the forest—a deafening, soul-scraping SCREECH that made the very air vibrate. Kalia and Felon stumbled, clapping hands over their ears. Edmund's face went grim.
"That's no sentinel," he said, drawing his sword. "Move!"
They burst into the final clearing just as chaos erupted.
The Queen's death-cry had been a beacon. From the surrounding gloom, a tide of spiders—the scattered remnants of the brood, frenzied and leaderless—surged toward the cave mouth. Dozens of them, from skittering two-footers to lumbering ten-foot guards, all converging on the trio emerging from the carnage.
Edmund didn't break stride. "Kalia! Shield our backs! Felon, watch the flanks! Light them up!"
Kalia, her face pale but set, thrust her pendant forward. "Guardian's Aegis!" A dome of golden light snapped into existence around them just as the first wave of venom splattered against it.
Felon, empowered by adrenaline and the sight of Edmund's earlier display, raised his hands. "Searing Light!" Lances of concentrated holy energy, shaped like crude swords, shot from his fingertips, spearing through smaller spiders that tried to flank them.
Edmund became a whirlwind of shattering force at the front line, his Sword Aura humming as he cleaved through legs and carapaces, creating a bloody buffer zone between the cave and the swarm.
—BACK TO THE CAVE—
Inside, the showdown was reaching its climax.
Zen was a blur of earth and motion, using Stone Spikes to impale the Queen's legs, Earthen Shackles to slow her titanic movements. Daunt harried her from above, his blue flames searing her eyes, his claws raking deep furrows in her hardened plating. G6 darted through the chaos like a razor-edged ghost, her twin swords leaving trails of crimson mana that bit deep into the Queen's joints.
But the dead zone was taking its toll. G6's breaths came sharper. Zen's spells were taking longer to form. Even Daunt's flames seemed less vibrant.
Sensing their weakening onslaught, the Queen, bleeding from a hundred wounds and mad with grief for her burned brood, did something intelligent. She disengaged. With a powerful lurch, she turned and smashed through the weakened cave wall, bursting out into the clearing—right toward the glowing golden dome protecting Kalia and Felon.
Her remaining cluster of eyes fixed on Kalia's back, the source of the annoying holy light.
G6 saw it. The priestess was focused on the swarm, unaware of the mountain of rage and chitin bearing down on her from behind.
Speed. 0.01s.
It wasn't a run. It was an erasure of distance. G6 vanished from the cave mouth and re-materialized between the Queen's descending fangs and Kalia's back, her boots skidding on the bloody earth.
Kalia gasped, feeling the sudden presence at her back, a wave of cold that had nothing to do with the holy shield.
G6 didn't raise her swords. She looked up at the towering Queen, and projected her will.
Aura of Finality.
An invisible wave of pure, undiluted killing intent washed over the clearing. For a heartbeat, the very forest seemed to hold its breath. The swarming spiders faltered. The Queen herself staggered, her charge broken, her primal mind screaming at the presence of something that was death incarnate.
But G6 was exhausted. The dead zone leeched at her. The Aura flickered. The Queen shook off the paralysis with a furious shriek.
The recoil hit G6 like a physical blow. She coughed—a wet, ragged sound—and blood sprayed the inside of her shades, tracing a line down her chin.
"CAPTAIN!" Zen's shout was raw with panic.
Daunt's eyes widened, not just with fear, but with a spark of terrible awe. She's pushing it. She's really going to—
G6 ignored them. She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist, smearing crimson across her pale skin. Her grey eyes, visible now behind blood-spattered lenses, were flat. Decided.
Total Resonance. 50% output.
She didn't chant. She focused. The remaining mana in her core didn't flow—it detonated internally, then was forcibly shaped, pulled from her very bloodstream. A screaming, violent torrent of raw power, untempered by any affinity, erupted from her skin. It wasn't an aura; it was a corona of crimson lightning that crackled around her, making the air smell of ozone and hot metal.
She coated her twin swords in the raw, bloody energy. The blades didn't glow; they screamed with power.
The Queen, sensing the new, terrifying threat, recoiled to spit.
G6 was already moving. A single, earth-tearing step. Then a blur.
She shot past the Queen in a straight, devastating line. There was no fancy maneuver. Just speed and finality.
Her swords crossed in a single, fluid X as she passed through the space beside the monstrous abdomen.
For a moment, nothing.
Then, a clean, diagonal line appeared across the Queen's massive body.
A second line intersected it.
With a sound like a mountain sighing, the upper portion of the Queen's torso slid diagonally off the lower, hitting the ground with a world-shaking thud. Green ichor gushed like a fountain.
Silence.
Then, the cave they had just left groaned and began to collapse in on itself, rocks tumbling to seal the corrupted womb.
And all around them, the attacking spiders… stopped. Their glowing eyes winked out. They simply folded their legs and dropped to the forest floor, lifeless puppets with their strings cut.
In the sudden, ringing quiet, the only sounds were G6's harsh, ragged breathing and the drip of her blood onto the toxic soil.
She stood amidst the carnage, the crimson corona around her sputtering and dying. Her swords slipped from her trembling fingers, embedding point-down in the earth. She swayed.
Zen, Daunt, Edmund, Kalia, and Felon could only stare, united in a moment of sheer, speechless horror and awe. The air still thrummed with the after-echo of annihilated power.
The forest held its breath. And in the center of it all, the Reaper coughed once more, a droplet of blood falling to join the rest.
"Captain!" Edmund and Zen.
"Reise!" Daunt.
They called in unison as G6 dropped to her knees.
"I am good," she said, the words a ragged breath torn from her chest. The blood from behind her shades still traced crimson paths down her pale cheeks, stark against her skin.
"No, you are not!" Edmund snapped, his butler's composure shattering. He reached into his inner pocket, producing a spotless handkerchief with a trembling hand. Gently, he cupped her chin and wiped the blood away, his touch clinical yet frantic. He removed her shades.
Her grey eyes were weeping tears of pure blood.
"Oh, merciful Eldrin!" Kalia gasped, dropping to her knees beside her. "Pardon me, my Lady. Let me help." She clasped her holy pendant, her face a mask of devout concentration. "Oh God Eldrin, in your boundless grace, heal this wounded soul. We plead for your mercy."
A soft, warm, yellow-gold light—different from the sharp, defensive glow of her shield—shimmered into existence above G6's head. It descended like liquid sunlight, pouring over her, seeping into her skin. The light felt clean and invasive in a way mundane healing potions never did; it sought out the deep, systemic trauma of the Total Resonance backlash, the micro-fractures in her mana channels, the strain on her soul itself.
Kalia's face contorted with effort, her own breathing becoming labored. After nearly a minute, the flow of blood-tears finally ceased, leaving only tacky, drying trails. G6 blinked, her vision clearing.
G6 flexed her hand, feeling the phantom ache deep in her bones—not in the muscles, but deeper, in the channels where her mana was supposed to flow. Aura Finality instability hits the mind first, then bleeds into the eyes. Resonance burns the pathways from the inside out. Note to self: dead zones fucking suck.
"That was different," she rasped, her voice still rough.
"It is. That was pure divine healing. It mends more than flesh," Daunt rumbled, his eyes fixed on G6 with a mix of worry and analytical interest.
Finally, Kalia and Felon registered his full presence. Their jaws went slack.
"OH MY GRACIOUS HEAVENS! IS THAT A FENRIR?" Kalia shrieked, scrambling back a step.
"F-Fenrir?! The Mythical Divine Creatures from the Celestial Parables?!" Felon stammered, looking as if he might faint from theological shock.
"Took you long enough to notice," Daunt said, preening slightly and lifting his majestic head. The blue flames of his mane flickered with pride.
They both immediately dropped into deep, reverent bows. "Never in my holy life did I imagine to meet a Great Fenrir!" Kalia breathed, her earlier terror replaced by radiant awe. Felon could only nod vigorously, his scholarly mind likely short-circuiting.
"There he goes again," Zen muttered under his breath.
Daunt's head swiveled, fixing him with a sharp, glowing stare. Zen immediately looked away, whistling a tuneless, innocent note at the collapsed cave.
"We're not done yet," G6 said, pushing herself upright with Edmund's steadying hand.
"Right. We still need to look for it. Please wait here," Edmund said, his voice returning to its usual firm calm, though his eyes remained troubled. "Zero, Master Daunt. Let us search the rubble. We're looking for a specific parchment."
The three of them moved toward the pile of broken stone and webbing that was the collapsed dungeon entrance. Kalia and Felon stood awkwardly beside G6, who leaned against a relatively clean tree, watching the search with her shades back on.
The two young priests kept stealing glances at her, their expressions a whirlwind of confusion, gratitude, and newfound, star-struck admiration.
"Spit it out," G6 said without looking at them, her tone flat but not hostile.
Kalia jumped. "I… I wished to thank you, my Lady. For saving me. That creature… I did not even sense it."
G6 shrugged, a small, pained gesture. "Would've been a nuisance if someone from the Holy Kingdom died on my watch. Political conflict without someone cleaning it up? Bothersome."
Instead of being offended, Kalia's eyes only grew wider. The blunt, almost offensive pragmatism was so far from the noble platitudes she was used to that it circled back to being fascinating.
"And… if I may be so bold," Felon ventured, his voice hushed. "The Fenrir… how…?"
"Found it. It wanted to be my pet," G6 stated, as if discussing a stray dog. "Followed me home. Now it won't leave."
Daunt, who had his snout buried in the rubble, let out an indignant snort but didn't contradict her.
To G6's slight surprise, the two priests didn't look scandalized. Their eyes sparkled. They exchanged a look of pure, unadulterated wonder. She's so cool, their expressions screamed. Not crude. Not disrespectful. Powerful enough to have a mythical divine being as a self-proclaimed pet. The disrespect was the power. They were officially, utterly, awestruck.
"Found it!" Zen called out, his voice tight. He was pointing at a jagged piece of bedrock. Wedged beneath it, almost invisible against the dark stone, was a single sheet of black parchment. But it wasn't inert. From it emanated a faint, sickly violet-black aura that seemed to writhe like thorny threads, pulsing slowly. It made the air around it feel greasy and wrong.
"Don't touch it!" Edmund barked, grabbing Zen's wrist before his fingers could brush the aura.
They all gathered around, forming a wary circle. The priests huddled closer, peering over Edmund's shoulder.
"What… what is that?" Felon whispered, the holy light in his eyes dimming as if repelled by the parchment's presence.
"The source of the dead zone," Edmund answered, his voice grim. "A demonic script. A key that turns locks it shouldn't."
G6 stepped forward. She drew one of her daggers from her boot. Without ceremony, she drew the blade across her palm. A line of crimson welled up. She made a fist and held it over the parchment.
A single drop of her blood fell, striking the center of the black page.
For a heartbeat, nothing. Then the violet-black threads of aura recoiled as if burned. The demonic script inscribed on the parchment flared with a blinding, antiseptic white light that burned away the greasy feeling. There was a sound like a distant, silenced scream. The light subsided as quickly as it came.
The vile aura was gone. The parchment was now just a strange, inert black page.
And the forest… sighed.
The return of natural mana was not a boom, but a profound, deep inrush. It was like the first full breath after being underwater. For Daunt and G6, connected so intrinsically to the world's mana flow, it was a sensation that went beyond refreshment. It was a balm that seeped into the very marrow of their bones, soothing the deep aches left by the dead zone and G6's self-inflicted trauma. Daunt let out a low, contented rumble, his fur seeming to glow brighter.
G6 pulled out her pocket watch. The brass casing was smeared with her blood. She wiped it clean with her thumb.
11:45 AM.
Fifteen minutes before the Archbishop's ultimatum.
She snapped the watch shut, the click final in the now-living forest. "We're done. Mission accomplished. Mana's back."
She looked at the group—her bloody, exhausted team, the two starry-eyed young priests, the divine beast currently sniffing the now-harmless parchment with academic curiosity. The queen was paste. The eggs were ash. The script was neutralized.
—To Be Continued…—