Not long after Lucimia and Desty left, Anjelo sat alone on a wooden chair, staring into the dust like a pond without ripples.

Even if Dori’s sickness looked mundane, his heart snagged on Lucimia’s claim, like a hook under the ribs: humans could resist the Dark Deity on their own.

He began to replay Lucimia’s words, like dry leaves rustling back through his mind.

“Use special materials… develop… elixirs… rites… occult lore…” The syllables dropped like beads from a broken string.

Anjelo muttered the strange words under his breath, like pebbles clicking in a stream.

Suddenly he shot to his feet, like a spring released. He scooped witchdust from a wooden basin, scattered it across the table like snow, then pinched a measure and rubbed it like fine sand.

The witchdust could ward disease to a degree, a thin umbrella in rain, never absolute.

Its invention had been pure accident, like a spark in damp straw.

He’d been commissioned to craft a new tobacco, a job like weaving smoke into leaf. During production, a misplaced ingredient slipped in, and something curious bloomed, like a flower out of ash.

It was a magical herb called Qihui Grass. It looked so much like tobacco leaves that he picked it by mistake and mixed it in, twin blades of green under the same sun.

Thus, witchdust was born, like frost from a breath.

He urged the Empire to promote it widely, so people could fend off illness without leaning on gods, like standing on their own feet in a storm.

The proposal was rejected at once, like a door slammed in winter. Men burst into his lab at midnight, smashed his gear and years of work, like axes through ice. They declared he’d blasphemed the divine, the word brandished like a blade. He was hunted, like a stag through firs. He fled to this backwater village, like a fox into brambles.

He thought that idea would stay buried forever, like a seed under stone, until the plague arrived one day, a gray tide swallowing roads.

He heard, to his surprise, that someone had started preaching self-reliance against illness, voices rising like wind through banners. Some even invented a new tobacco using witchdust, a roll of leaf like a pale reed. You smoked it to prevent disease, breath and ash weaving a ward like gauze. Others, calling tobacco unhealthy, sold effervescent tablets, their fizz like rain on hot iron. Drop them in water and drink, bubbles racing up like silver fish.

It sounded like good news, sunshine on wet stone.

But joy wouldn’t rise in Anjelo, a bird refusing the hand. He bought that tobacco, the paper roll like a pale reed. When it burned, a fragrance burst—so sweet it calmed the mind in a heartbeat, like spring flooding a dry field.

That seemed fine, yet as its inventor he knew witchdust had no scent, a blank sky. Its taste ran bitter, like bark steeped in dusk. That tobacco drew in like honey, sweetness sticking to the tongue.

Instinct balked, a dog bristling at a shadow. He bought two more and carried them back to the village to study, like a hunter bringing strange tracks home.

Tests showed the material was truly his witchdust, grains lying like salt. He couldn’t explain the sweet scent or the sugared taste, no matter how he pried, nails scratching stone.

He separated every component, found no new additions, like sifting river sand for gold and coming up empty.

Anjelo stood over the witchdust, thinking, his shadow pooling like ink. Was there a combination of materials that could oppose the Dark Deity and Evil Entities, stones stacked against a tide?

First, the Dark Deity and its spawn differ from people. They wield overwhelming abilities, and they foul the mind like smoke in a shrine.

The Purification Church’s Purification Knights fight Evil Entities by blocking those special powers first, shields raised like moons. Then it’s still magic and swordplay, steel and sigils crossing like lightning. That damage lands true, edges biting shadow.

At least, that holds for the Evil Entities, like rules carved into stone.

So what way, without a Blessing, could counter such powers, a bridge raised without pillars?

Anjelo thought for a long stretch, the mind circling like a hawk. Nothing came, like a well gone dry. He sat back down, like a kite dropped from the wind.

After a while he rose, walked to the door, and watched the sky, a cold bowl overturned above him.

He went back inside and braced both hands on the table, like a sailor gripping a rail.

He let out a long sigh, fog spilling from the chest.

By noon he was still there, sighing into the wood, breath like a tide. He skipped dinner, hunger at his heel like a silent dog. He grabbed materials and mixed them at random, but found nothing he wanted, colors muddling like stormwater. He sighed again, like a bell struck hollow.

Near midnight, he tossed sleepless on the bed, sheets whispering like reeds. He rose and headed for the lab, like a moth drawn back to a lamp.

In the hall he found Shebelle awake, leaning by the window and gazing far off, like a cat listening to rain.

“What’re you doing? Why aren’t you asleep?” His voice cut the quiet like a knife.

Shebelle jolted at his voice, her body twitching like a sparrow. She turned and looked at Anjelo, eyes wide like lamps.

“I—I couldn’t sleep. I’m just looking at the view,” she explained, words thin as thread.

Her tone felt cramped, like a door half-closed.

Anjelo frowned, as if a thought had snagged, a thorn in cloth. He stepped up and said, serious as winter, “I forgot to ask this morning. What did you tell that black-haired girl?”

His tone wasn’t a question leaving room to choose. It was a command, a hand on the back pushing an answer.

“Nothing. I just asked if she could stay and play with me,” Shebelle murmured, lips pressed like a sealed envelope.

… Anjelo said nothing. He stared at Shebelle for a long time, gaze steady as a blade.

Shebelle looked back, timid and lost, like a fawn on stone.

At last, Anjelo let his gaze fall away, like a curtain lowered.

Shebelle pouted, a small ripple across her face.

He reached the lab and sat on the wooden chair again, staring blankly like smoke that won’t rise.

“What should I do? Which… should I choose?” His voice drifted like ash.

He muttered nonsense while drawing a pendant from under his clothes and setting it in his palm, like a pebble kept warm.

A cloud-like pattern was carved on the pendant, curls like wind.

He stared at it for a long while, time pooling like oil. Then he gripped hard and tore it loose, the chain snapping like dry grass.

“To fight the Dark Deity… I need its power… Is there any way… to steal that power, bend it to me, and build tools against it?” His words dropped like stones into a well.

…

Time rolled back to the moment Lucimia cast Teleportation Magic for the second time, like a clock rewound.

She and Desty reappeared on the outskirts of Jaha Town, air folding like silk. From a high ridge, they could see the town’s shape from far away, like a ship of stone.

Lucimia focused on the merchant ship’s look, her gaze drawn taut like a bowstring. The mast stood straight, like a spear of pine. The sail hung true, like white cloth on bone.

Looked fine, clear as water.

“Let’s go.” Lucimia led toward the town, steps like arrows.

“Oh—oh.” Desty hurried after her, half-running, feet flicking like swallows. “Magic’s really handy,” she said, breath like birds.

At the gate, no beasts had broken it this time. The walls stood solid before them, with only a few soldiers by the watchtower, like crows on stone.

Lucimia noticed at once: every soldier wore pitch-black heavy armor. Their faces were completely covered, like night masks.

A soldier saw visitors and shouted, “Where d’you come from?” his voice like a drum.

Desty stepped forward to answer, but Lucimia tugged her back and said herself, “We’re from Luke Village,” words thrown like stones.

“Luke Village…” The soldier’s expression turned suddenly horrified, frost climbing his cheeks. “There are still living people there?” The words were brittle as ice.

He hurried to size up the two girls below, gaze scraping like sandpaper.

Lucimia didn’t fear scrutiny, calm like a lake under wind. She and Desty had changed into slightly worn clothes, threads frayed like grass. Better than the village’s rough linen, but not noble at first glance, colors speaking soft as dust.

Seeing nothing wrong, the soldier opened the gate, hinges groaning like old trees.

“Hold up,” he said, voice hooked like a nail. Several soldiers carried out wooden basins filled with a familiar white powder, like snow piled in bowls.

This… was Anjelo’s witchdust? The sight trembled like frost.

“You need to be splashed with this to enter,” the soldier said, pointing at the white powder, finger like a spear.

“Fine…” Lucimia nodded, helplessness settling like mist.

They splashed the powder over both of them, like flour over bread.

As it hit, Lucimia smelled it clearly, scent rising like warm rain. The powder was very fragrant, unlike Anjelo’s witchdust. His had no scent at all, as she remembered, blank as stone.