Before she'd processed the words, the vision of the figure and the golden mist vanished. She was back in the abandoned villa.
"Sharron, are you—"
Maric had barely managed a few words when Sharron felt a burning, scalding pain — as if boiling water had been poured over her entire body. In her mind, memories of past crimes played in unwilling succession: faces of the people she had killed, moments of transgression, laid out like evidence before a court.
A trial and prosecution aimed directly at the soul.
...
Vincent watched the grey crystal on the left tray of the Scale grow fractionally heavier, and sank back into the chair — firmly resisting the urge to immediately use the Shadow Box.
He'd run a few low-stakes experiments recently, each time with a small amount of grey crystal. Results: a pistol, a throwing dart, and a bowl of ramen noodles.
That was enough to kill any hopes of small-scale gambling for big returns.
But it also meant he was wary of spending his crystals freely. In theory, the bigger the investment, the more significant the return — but how significant, and whether it would actually be useful, was completely unknown.
Better to save it for advancing to Sequence 4.
"All that anticipation, and it turns out to be a dud."
He sighed and returned to reality.
In the dark, he opened his eyes and sat up slowly.
"What happened?"
Bernadette's voice came immediately.
"Just now it was the Temperance Faction's Sharron praying to me. She's found Kreuch — they're planning to hunt the Indulgence Faction pursuers tonight at the docks."
He summarised quickly. "She was also worried Kreuch might fall back under the Mother Tree of Desire's influence. And she's not sure whether the Rose School's demigod has arrived in Backlund — which is why she asked for help."
Vincent paused. "Should we go have a look? Kreuch is your most trusted first mate, isn't he?"
"I'm not worried about Kreuch falling back."
Her voice was flat. "Over these years, he spent everything he had — drained his savings — to obtain a Beyonder item made from the Unshadowed characteristic. Specifically for this day."
"If the Unshadowed item can't free him from the evil god's hold — he'll use it to burn himself to ash completely."
Vincent was quiet for a moment. "No wonder he managed to break free from the Indulgence in the first place. That's a commitment against yourself."
"As for the Rose School's demigod."
Bernadette said: "Even with the Unshadowed item, two Sequence 5 Beyonders against a demigod is a very steep climb." A pause, then just a hint of hesitation: "You're planning to go yourself?"
"Not directly. I'm thinking more like — side effects."
Vincent smiled, held out his palm, let spirituality flare, and using the bedroom as a relatively enclosed space, wove a Shadow Box into being. One half of the room plunged into a darkness so total no light could escape.
He snapped his fingers, opened the secret door, and retrieved a few Beyonder characteristics and gemstones. He walked to the boundary between dark and dim and thought for a few seconds.
"I want to inflict a period of bad luck on the Rose School's Indulgence Faction members currently in Backlund."
Killing the Indulgence Faction demigod outright would cost considerably. But inflicting a run of misfortune should come much cheaper.
He held one Sequence 6 Beyonder characteristic and one gemstone and reached into the darkness.
After a beat, something cold drifted toward his palm. The characteristic and gem were taken. He waited. Then the chill returned, and a hand gently closed around his.
Vincent glanced into the dark: the hand was pale, slender-fingered, delicate — almost certainly female.
A humanoid supernatural entity? Or simply a person?
The Shadow Box's trading partner could be anything — a creature lurking in shadow, a dangerous entity, or a live human being. Neither party ever knew who they were dealing with. And even as the one constructing the Shadow Box, Vincent had never been able to work out the underlying mechanism. He activated the ability in an enclosed space and the other party simply… appeared. How, he had no idea.
Once both parties had confirmed the exchange with a handshake, the cold pale hand let go and withdrew into the dark. The solid blackness gradually faded. The room returned to normal.
"Is that accepted?"
Vincent was mildly surprised. A Sequence 6 characteristic wasn't nothing — but the targets included at least a Sequence 7, a Sequence 6, a Sequence 5, and a demigod.
"It's possible the Indulgence Faction's demigod isn't in Backlund," Bernadette said. "Or the party you just dealt with has no intention of honouring the agreement."
The Shadow Box contract was binding — but this world had no shortage of methods for breaking such bonds.
"Well — I'd rather it be the first option."
Vincent pulled on his black coat and dropped into shadow on the street outside — elongating, springing from darkness to darkness, moving fast toward the dock district.
...
The dock district at midnight was utterly black.
Four warehouses. Overgrown with weeds, the ground muddy from recent rain.
Boom.
A sphere of blazing fire erupted and detonated. A middle-aged man — black tailcoat, dark red cape, slicked-back hair — was hurled through the air by the blast and slammed to the ground. His skin blackened and blistered, dark smoke coiling up from the burns.
As a Wraith with formidable defensive ability, an explosion of this scale couldn't truly harm him — but the light released in the blast was laced with Sun-pathway purification energy, devastatingly effective against creatures of darkness.
Steve bit down on the pain, rolled to his feet, sprinted forward, caught his reflection in a distant gas lamp's glass shade, and performed a mirror jump.
His two companions — the werewolf Tyler and the corpse Jason — had been cut down in the opening minutes of the ambush. All that likely remained of them were their Beyonder characteristics.
Steve had bought himself an escape window by using the Scarlet Lunar Corona to weaken Sharron and her allies, but he knew clearly: against two Wraiths at the same sequence and that Sun-pathway Beyonder item, his odds of slipping away were almost nothing.
Unless Lord Satzven arrived in time.
And getting Lord Satzven here was exactly what he was stalling for.
While he worked through his options, Steve completed several more mirror jumps, finally allowed himself to materialise, then reached into his coat and seized the pitch-black doll hidden inside — and poured spirituality into it with everything he had.
The doll's eyes lit up with two points of eerie crimson light. Its mouth opened wide in a silent, soundless scream.
"Done."
To be continued…
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