The heavy doors of the Vertical Chamber sealed shut behind them with a definitive, reverberating thud. Sector Six stretched out before them. The staff sector bloomed into a sprawling, sunlit plaza. Lush, vibrant greenery spilled from elevated stone planters, framing the pristine, scattered architecture of research wings and residential manors.
Arthur walked two paces ahead. The immaculate white cotton of Cyril's robes rustled quietly in the gentle breeze.
Arthur pivoted. The obsidian Arcanite blade cleared its scabbard. He ignited the Nameless Arts. A deathly-black aura swallowed the steel, drinking the ambient sunlight. Arthur swung horizontally. The frictionless spatial strike sheared through the boy's waist, parting the white cotton and the flesh beneath with zero resistance. Cyril's crimson eyes remained locked in a state of pure, impenetrable serenity even as his upper half slid from his hips and tumbled onto the manicured grass.
Too wide. Too slow.
The sunlit plaza shattered into glass-like shards of compressed time.
The heavy iron doors sealed shut. Sector Six stretched out before them. Arthur walked two paces ahead.
He dropped his center of gravity, sinking his weight into the balls of his feet against the paved walkway. His pale fingers wrapped around the leather hilt of his sheathed sword. He spun, driving his momentum upward. The Arcanite blade launched in a diagonal trajectory, piercing directly beneath Cyril's ribcage and erupting through his sternum. The boy's fluffy white halo of hair bounced with the kinetic impact, yet his bright, unburdened smile never faded as the blade breached his heart.
Inconclusive.
The greenery dissolved.
The heavy iron doors sealed shut. Sector Six stretched out before them. Arthur walked two paces ahead.
He flooded the sheathed Arcanite with the necrotic black aura. In a singular, continuous flow of kinetic energy, Arthur turned, thumbing the guard and unleashing a blinding upward draw. The blade carved a perfect, silent crescent through the air, severing Cyril's neck instantly. The spatial strike was so absolute it sheared completely through Arthur's own scabbard with zero resistance.
The sunlit plaza of Sector Six stabilized.
Arthur walked two paces ahead. His right hand rested loosely at his side, entirely empty. His Autonomic Merged Processor hummed in absolute, wordless silence. The three hyper-compressed temporal shards were categorized and filed away into the chilling, ruined architecture of his mind palace—a mere fraction of the four hundred and twelve simulations he had just run.
Arthur glanced over his shoulder, a gentle, flawlessly practiced smile warming his amber eyes.
Cyril strolled behind him, his striking crimson eyes wide with innocent wonder. "Wow, look at the aqueducts!" Cyril shouted, pointing happily at a massive, gravity-defying stream of water arcing between two research towers. He giggled to himself. "We never had anything like this in Grenfell."
The phonetic sequence of the boy's surname finished compiling within Arthur's cognitive engine. Celestine. A blatantly blasphemous appropriation. The title belonged to the Celestial Sun Church's last Spiritual Pope, dead for three centuries—the very same pontiff who delivered the ancient prophecy of the child born to liberate the land from monsters.
His prophecy.
The thought settled naturally, yet it triggered a faint, nauseating tremor behind his eyes. He remembered the radiant blessings burning against pale skin. He remembered the weight of divine expectation. But when he tried to recall whose skin had burned with that light—whether he had been looking at his own reflection or down at someone else—the memory slipped through his fingers like dry ash.
There was only the indisputable reality: he was breathing, the seven rings of an Emperor were branded into his flesh, and this white-haired interloper was stepping directly onto his ground.
Why did the Church send him? The tactical threads began to weave. If the Celestial Sun Church had engineered the dormitory attack that butchered his brother, why march a rival candidate directly into his custody?
A cold, unsettling amusement stirred beneath his calm. The sheer irony of placing an untested novice beneath a Saint who had already survived the grave was a staggering miscalculation.
Cyril finally tore his gaze from the botanical glasshouses and bounded up to Arthur's side, his fluffy white robes catching the gentle breeze. He offered a brilliant, playful grin. "Where are we going, mentor?"
Arthur paused his stride. He turned, looking down at the boy with a meticulously crafted gaze of warm, protective empathy. He let a gentle, saintly smile bloom across his features.
"There's no need to be so uptight," Arthur said, his voice dropping to a soft, disarming cadence. "We are both cut from the same cloth. Just call me Cedric from now on."