“Mother of Nature knows us. All things have their laws… all things can commune…”

  Cornelius recited doctrine, his face gradually flushing a deep red, looking as if he could keep going forever.

  Bruce couldn’t bring himself to interrupt after being saved, so he listened with a pained, toothache-like expression.

  At the same time, he applied his own occult knowledge to make sense of the Druid Path:

  Druids are a fusion of Sanguis and Chrysalis—taking* Sanguis for the growth of all things, using Chrysalis to commune with the Essence of all things. That explains commanding animals… but why add flesh modification? Something about it feels wrong…

  As his thoughts drifted, Cornelius’s expression suddenly turned solemn.

  “You must understand… nature has its wrath as well—steel as its sword, gunpowder as its furnace, flesh and blood as its veins!”

  Crack—crackle!

  In a single instant, his raised right arm tore through his clothing and swelled rapidly…

  Flesh proliferated at frightening speed, stretching and lengthening like a giant python thrashing in frenzy. Steel fittings were embedded along the mutated limb—gears, bearings, pipes…

  At a glance, it looked like a raging river of machinery fused with flesh. With a surge of brute force, it shattered the surrounding walls, wrapped Bruce up, and vaulted out of the basement.

  “Enemies?”

  Bruce’s first reaction was that Cornelius had sensed an attack.

  He knew the power of that arm. Cornelius had used it before—whipping the flesh-limb into a storm and crushing several pursuing Transcendents into pulp, their deaths too grotesque to describe.

  Whoosh—rattle—whiplash!

  Countless tendrils spread across the flesh-limb, and it thrashed like a colossal blood-red centipede. Wherever it touched, load-bearing walls and reinforced concrete pillars collapsed.

  With a thunderous crash, a nearby derelict building folded in on itself like a collapsing hill and came down in an avalanche.

  “Where are they?”

  Bruce scanned the area—and found only a darkness unnaturally dense. Cold spread outward, laying a thin crust of white frost across the ground.

  As dust drifted down from the collapse, a translucent, phantomlike figure appeared.

  Handsome yet blank-faced. Purple eyes. An ornate ancient court dress.

  “Cornelius Ashford… I’m not your enemy,” Javon said in a low voice.

  Is this still a druid? Compared to a Machinery Mentor who turns the body into a tool entirely, they seem to be pursuing a fusion of flesh and metal…

  “Purple eyes, ancient attire—you’re a Sothos malevolent spirit?” Cornelius asked solemnly, his body grotesquely mismatched with the monstrous right arm he still hadn’t withdrawn. “Are you from The Blood of Decay or The Green Banyan Council?”

  “Neither…”

  Javon answered in a hoarse voice. “I serve an Immortal existence. His name is—Earl Javon·Sothos of Greenforest!”

  “Is it you?”

  Bruce blurted out, a flicker of delighted surprise in his voice. “My teacher mentioned you—the malevolent spirit from the Sothos ruins. How did you find this place?”

  He trusted the figure more than he feared it. The Earl of Greenforest couldn’t possibly be allied with the attackers.

  “I came at the request of a descendant,” Javon continued. “His name is Javon Yuggs. Your reaction, however, seems… a little excessive.”

  “Uh…”

  Bruce looked at the toppled building—at the inevitable attention it would draw—and gave an embarrassed grimace. “So you’re reinforcements? You came faster than I ever imagined…”

  By his estimate, the letter shouldn’t even have reached Verdant City yet.

  Whoosh—click—whirr.

  The massive arm of flesh and gears coiled back in on itself, shrinking into Cornelius’s normal right arm again.

  A trace of awkwardness crossed Cornelius’s face. He stayed solemn.

  “With this much commotion, others will be drawn here. We must leave immediately. Mr. Malevolent Spirit—what do you plan to do?”

  “Simple. You go first. I’ll cover the rear.”

  Javon smiled. Oclair couldn’t truly die—if he fell, he could return.

  “But our enemies are skilled in divination,” Cornelius said at once. “They find us every so often.”

  “That’s simple. Give me something you carry on you.”

  Javon nodded.

  Bruce glanced at Cornelius, then produced his pocket watch and handed it over first.

  Javon took it calmly—then returned it just as calmly.

  “I’ve already placed a counter-divination interference on you…”

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  I’m pretty sure you’re messing with me. Bruce wore a baffled expression.

  Cornelius, however, seemed to understand something and praised him immediately. “Your use of the Ethereal Realm is astonishing, Mr. Malevolent Spirit.”

  As he spoke, he handed over a wallet.

  By then, Javon had already seen Transcendents appearing in the distance. He waved, urging the two to leave.

  “Mr. Malevolent Spirit—you should be able to find us, once you shake the pursuers…” Cornelius said one last time, then led Bruce away.

  Only then did Bruce realize something belatedly.

  How could he find us directly? Even in the letter to Yuggs, I didn’t write a detailed address… yet the malevolent spirit came straight here. His divination is above even our pursuers’.

  Leafton was a Bureau agent.

  His daily job was simple: he was stationed in the Abandoned District, turning incidents into reports on a typewriter and submitting them to his superior.

  It was dull, monotonous work—except in the Abandoned District, where it was viciously dangerous. Many of his colleagues had already died in the line of duty; only he remained, stubbornly holding his post.

  There were many such observation posts throughout the Abandoned District.

  And tonight, Leafton knew he might die too—because the thunderous noise that woke him was followed by a sight that made his blood run cold:

  A building had collapsed.

  A Transcendent capable of toppling a building wouldn’t need any special effort to crush him.

  He hesitated.

  Then responsibility won.

  “Ha… so cold.”

  Following Bureau training, Leafton kept himself as hidden as possible as he advanced by feel. The intense chill ahead wasn’t merely freezing his body—it seemed to strike straight at the soul.

  Moving soundlessly like a cat, he ducked behind a fractured slab of wall and stole a glance toward the battlefield.

  He saw… corpses.

  From their clothing, some were local gangsters, some were Transcendent Scavengers, some were wandering mutated monsters.

  All of them were dead.

  And a phantom figure looked over under the moonlight, eyes glittering—

  “Purple-eyed malevolent spirit… and the face matches the portrait the Bureau circulated. It’s Oclair.”

  Leafton told himself.

  If he survived this, promotion was within reach.

  Ever since the Bureau learned Javon had arrived in Wynchester, they’d been hunting for him. Xistos and the others had distributed portraits of Javon and the malevolent spirit, along with notes.

  Oclair’s label read: Extremely Dangerous, Do Not Engage With Force, Report Immediately Upon Discovery.

  And the reward for reporting was more than tempting.

  But now he’s seen me… I’m dead. I’m absolutely dead.

  Leafton’s scalp went numb. Even his body seemed to slip out of his control—he couldn’t move.

  When he finally forced himself to look again, the malevolent spirit beneath the moonlight was gone.

  “He left?”

  Leafton exhaled hard. He turned his head—

  —and almost met a pair of purple eyes at point-blank range.

  “Ah!”

  He fell backward, every shred of composure a Bureau agent ought to possess evaporating.

  Before a Beyond Mortality existence, he was nothing but an ant.

  “Occult Constabulary?” the malevolent spirit sneered. “This is your courage?”

  He… he’s not completely mad. He can communicate.

  Strength returned to Leafton’s limbs. He struggled upright and bowed.

  “Mr. Malevolent Spirit… I bring greetings from the Bureau. We are willing to communicate. Please do not regard us with hostility.”

  When facing an enemy they could not oppose, the Bureau’s policy was—provenly—flexible.

  “I come under the command of a Great One, to deliver a prophecy.”

  Javon spoke, deliberately adopting an archaic cadence from a millennium past. The agent’s face turned even paler.

  “Y-you… please speak,” Leafton said with utmost seriousness.

  “Disaster approaches!”

  Javon intoned like a bard of antiquity. “Darkness, shadow, death, misfortune… will shroud Wynchester. In the end, they will crystallize into a catastrophe. The key lies in the Cult of Desire!”

  In truth, he only had a vague sense that the Cult of Desire was plotting something. That didn’t stop him from dropping a black pot squarely on them.

  He also wanted to test whether the Bureau had been used as a blade—or whether it truly was a dog raised by the Cult of Desire.

  “A catastrophe… over all of Wynchester?”

  Leafton’s expression changed instantly. He lived in this city. His colleagues were here. His family. His friends.

  Fear gave way to urgency.

  “Can you be more specific, sir?”

  “This prophecy comes from a Great One.”

  Javon ignored the question and continued as if speaking only to himself.

  “And by my investigation, the God of Suffering behind the Cult of Desire is a The Crowned One. He supported the magician Lucivar—and took the Iron Crown!”

  With that, the malevolent spirit vanished, leaving Leafton staring in stunned confusion.

  Not long after, the night grew even thicker, as if stars flickered within it. A sensual woman stepped out from the darkness, her hood masking most of her face.

  “Lady Fiona!”

  Leafton hurriedly bowed. “I just… I just saw the malevolent spirit from the Sothos ruins!”

  Fiona’s voice sharpened. “Are you certain?”

  She remembered the terror of the blood-red cloak within the Sothos ruins—and the many colleagues who had died there…

  “I swear it. The Sephiroth level and appearance matched perfectly. He also gave me a prophecy.”

  Leafton quickly repeated the prophecy: disaster was coming.

  “A Great One?”

  Fiona’s voice returned to calm.

  Leafton didn’t know what stood behind Oclair—an Immortal existence. He didn’t understand the weight of this prophecy.

  “Disaster… tied to the Cult of Desire?”

  She pointed at him. “You’re coming back to headquarters. You will be questioned—and you’ll undergo a physical examination.”

  Facing an existence like that, it was entirely possible to be cursed without realizing it, and die without ever knowing why.

  Javon moved swiftly through the Abandoned District’s buildings. In his hand, the letter Bruce had sent him reappeared. With that as the anchor, divining Bruce’s current location was simple.

  In the next moment, he passed through a thick wall and saw Cornelius and Bruce hiding in the dark.

  “I’m back. Only a pack of little rats came. They’ve all been dealt with.”

  Javon appeared abruptly, making Bruce jump.

  “Bruce told me about you,” Cornelius said, eyes bright with interest, as if eager to converse. “It’s hard to believe. Are you truly that prince?”

  He leaned forward slightly. “How did you keep your sanity?”

  A Transcendent who became a malevolent spirit would have their reason ground away quickly—it was not, by any measure, a good path.

  And Oclair had been dead for centuries.

  “This involves assistance from a great figure. Bruce should know.”

  Javon smiled.

  “I… I can testify. Mr. Malevolent Spirit is telling the truth,” Bruce said, nodding seriously.

  “Fine. Your secret, then.”

  Cornelius shrugged. “Know that if you can regain sanity as a malevolent spirit, it is also nature’s will. Would you like to hear about the deeds of the Mother of Nature?”

  “Put that on hold.”

  Javon cut in. “I came at the descendant’s request. I have questions for Bruce.”

  He looked at Bruce. The letter had been sparse. He still had many doubts.

  The Eye of Gumo was raided?

  “Yes.”

  Bruce shuddered, as if his mind refused to revisit it. “A group of enemies came—strong, so strong… the sky seemed to turn blood-red. Black liquid like oil surged across the ground. The Eye of Gumo isn’t some weak school, but we didn’t hold long before we were completely overrun. And… a holy relic kept by the school was taken.”

  “A holy relic?”

  Javon’s interest sharpened.

  “It was an eyeball of the Ethereal Realm creature Gumo—our school’s inheritance token.”

  Bruce explained, voice tight. “And according to the Bureau, it’s also an Angel-grade arcane artifact!”

  Javon nodded.

  He understood: Extraordinary-grade corresponded to the First through Third Sephiroth. Beyond Mortality-grade corresponded to a Fourth Sephiroth Beyond Mortality existence.

  As for Angel-grade—it should contain power on the level of the Fifth and Sixth Sephiroth.

  And Deity-grade?

  That wasn’t something mortal craftsmen in the present world could forge. Its birth often had a direct connection to the Velthyr—mere sacrificial “borrowed power” wasn’t enough. It had to be like The Spear of the Sun King—tainted with a god’s blood!

  “One last question.”

  Javon asked the final thing he needed to know.

  “Who were the attackers?”

  Bruce drew a deep breath and let out the name slowly:

  “The Cult of Desire.”