When the Ghoul Warden golem’s head split like a pomegranate on just one side, not the whole body, Adelaide knew she’d chosen wrong.

The golem’s soul crystal still pulsed intact. Worse, Skela faltered. She dropped to her knees. Black hands, tar-dark, clawed up from underfoot. They seized her limbs and dragged her inch by inch toward the Ghoul Warden’s “head.”

Adelaide’s expression soured further, a storm gathering. She should’ve seen it—the helmet existed to choke its soul tide. Stare too long, and any sane mind snapped. Skela, poisoned by chaos and still casting through that pressure, was a miracle walking.

But this miracle cut the wrong way now. She’d already eaten two backlashes today. Add the tide and the toxin, and the next would be ruin, severalfold.

She had to rip Skela free before the fusion sealed. Or don’t imagine the consequences. Blood-red chains reassembled at Adelaide’s side. She wasn’t the only one with that thought.

She looped a chain around a massive shard of iron gate and slung it like a meteor hammer at the golem’s shoulder. Hazel moved too. She vaulted onto the whipping iron slab, riding its momentum toward the head.

Blade-sharp iron swept across the golem’s shoulders. Adelaide’s magic couldn’t pierce the counter-array, but the chain-slung iron wasn’t a spell, and it bit deep. With half its head blown and still regrowing, it couldn’t dodge. The iron carved two gaping gashes; its arms crashed down, too ruined to reach for Skela.

Hazel seized the opening and dove for Skela. Her mana flickered midair; waterlight flashed and severed the undead arms coiling her.

She pushed to close the last meter. Then the head heaved and rolled, blossoming into a hundred weeping faces. They turned as one toward the intruder. Their silent scream hit like a hurricane and shoved Hazel back, one step frozen into stone.

“Hazel!”

Feeling her, Skela pried her eyes open.

“Haz…”

“Take my hand!”

Hazel stretched with everything she had. Her face flushed crimson under the soul tide’s pressure. Her forearm inside the field was scored by the invisible, bleeding fine red lines. Still she held on, inching closer.

Seeing it, Skela seemed to clear and raised a trembling arm.

Hazel was about to reach her when a faint flute-note seeped in. The melody was eerie, outright wicked. Played by an instrument, but stripped of all beauty, it crawled cold along the spine. Skela, who shouldn’t have been able to hear, went chalk-white.

Just like when she heard the voice named Toka, she screamed. Her eyes lost focus. Her hand recoiled. She clutched her head and shook, like a leaf in sleet.

It shattered Hazel’s attempt.

The next heartbeat, the soul’s shriek surged and flung Hazel off the Ghoul Warden’s crown. She hit on her back and spat blood.

When she looked up, a water-hued mana—deeper than her own—reached over the head and wrapped Skela like a coffin.

Rage flooded Hazel’s face; her hoarse, bloody shout shook the vault. “Stop! Toka!!!”

Her voice couldn’t stop him. The water mana dragged Skela backward. Adelaide’s spell reached a heartbeat later, trying to cut the tether. But the golem’s huge arm slammed between them first.

Sparks burst on impact, and Adelaide couldn’t advance an inch. They watched Skela hauled through a hidden door and vanish.

Meanwhile, the Ghoul Warden finished knitting itself. Its arms locked back on. Its bare head trembled with afterimages, the air rippling with soul tide.

Clear enough: to reach that door, they had to break it.

Adelaide saw it, bit down, and shouted to Hazel, “You’ve got spare offerings in your bag, right?”

Hazel blinked for half a beat. “Which one?!”

“All of them!”

“You’re insane?!”

“Pretend I am—just throw them!”

She said it as much to herself. What she was about to do felt stupid beyond measure. She could walk away; the Ghoul Warden couldn’t catch her. That would be the smartest play.

She had to be mad to blow her trump here.

While she wrestled with it, the golem’s floor-high fist was already swinging at her. If it landed, it’d hit like a high-tier earth Meteor spell. Meanwhile, Hazel stopped thinking and hurled her belt-satchel.

No time to hesitate; she had to choose now.

Adelaide clicked her tongue, then looked up at the bag and murmured, “You’ll owe me for this, Miss Hazel.”

A blood thread snagged the silver button midair. The flap popped; jars and vials burst like fireworks across the ceiling.

At the same instant, a scarlet sacrificial array bloomed in her palm.

Watching those bottles of human pieces arc through the air, Adelaide steeled herself.

She was the woman who dared fold Mira into her plans. Did those black-clad fools think a mere Ghoul Warden and a counter-array could pin her? How naive.

Adelaide wasn’t wide-eyed or fearless. When she cast Mira as her foil, belittling the girl to lift herself, she already braced for a grudge and a death match.

She played with fire because she knew the wind. She could keep the reins.

Adelaide knew she was stronger than Mira.

She crushed the array in her hand. But she didn’t aim for any organ overhead. She pressed her palm to her chest.

The sacrifice was herself.

“Crimson Frenzy—”

She spoke it cleanly, every word, every beat.

Her heart slammed once, thunder in her ribs. Dull pain spilled from the sigil across every limb. Her wine-red eyes turned blood-crimson, veins bursting like brambles.

Every piece of her screamed. A hollow yawned inside, a stolen space, smothering breath. And she smiled—first a small curl, then a peal of mad laughter.

It was a deranged grin she’d shown no one. If Hazel saw her now, she might not know her dearest friend.

Good thing she couldn’t.

Every bottle hung still in the air. Hazel froze mid-motion. Even the Ghoul Warden stopped.

Only Adelaide moved.

Her lips shaped a silent, crushing chant. Her fingers plucked the air like strings, leaving bright scars in the void. Her limbs danced—pure pantomime. Above, the props; below, the audience; in the pit, the band—everything else froze.

The world held still for her.