Sepa’an Royal Capital.

Palaces and walls speared the clouds, their edges gilded by sunset like blades dipped in gold. In the central square a tide of people surged, voices rippling like a river.

Vendors cried their wares, calls rising like kites in a steady breeze. Bright goods lined both sides of the street, a rainbow strewn like festival banners.

When night fell, neon-like magelights bloomed, stars pinned to stone, and the whole city glowed like a lantern afloat on the dark sea.

Aromas wandered the avenues like curious spirits, spices and steam weaving threads of far-off lands. Graceful buildings rose like carved jade, a chorus of prosperity.

Heads leaned close, whispers fluttering like sparrows under eaves. Folks traded tidings, each rumor a seed tossed on wind.

Drinkers clustered at a table, cups clinking like pebbles in a stream. They talked of grand events, words heavy as iron and light as foam.

There sat a tattooed brute, a compact young lad with taut muscle, a bearded middle-aged man, and a hooded figure with a sword, quiet as shadow.

The bearded elder popped a nut like a pebble, then spoke, his voice rough as rope: “You’ve heard, right? Bannubi Empire got invaded by a Dark Deity, and begged the Purification Church.”

“Yeah, that lapdog empire,” the tattooed brute grunted, liquor burning like fire in his belly. He flicked the bottle and said, voice gravelly, “This brew bites like a wolf.”

“Lapdog empire,” the young lad laughed, his words bright as sparks. “They keep striking north at us, and now the Dark Deity hit them. Serves them right, like thunder after boast.”

“True.” The brute nodded, chin wagging like a hammer tapping a nail.

“But a Dark Deity isn’t small rain,” the lad muttered, gloom settling like frost. “If the Church can’t solve it and the Empire falls, our kingdom’s next in the storm.”

Silence pooled, heavy as dusk in a well. Even the cups felt chill like moonlit stone.

The elder coughed twice, coughs like dry reeds, and tugged their attention back like a fisherman’s net.

“What’s up?” the lad asked, voice quick as a bird.

The elder glanced around, eyes skimming like minnows. He licked his lips, bent low, and whispered, breath thin as smoke: “I know some inside news.”

“Inside news?” The lad’s eyes jumped like startled deer.

The tattooed brute lifted his head, stare firm as an ax. The hooded man laid both hands on the table, silence coiled like a bowstring.

“I heard—just heard,” the elder said, pressing his voice flat as paper. “The Inquisitor the Purification Church sent… died.”

“Died?!” The lad’s shout burst like a dropped drum.

“Hush!” the elder snapped, hand cutting the air like a fan. The room’s roar hid them like rain hides footsteps.

“Oh—sorry.” The lad’s apology fell soft as ash.

“Where’d you get that?” the brute asked, brows knotted like rope. “Don’t spin fables. An Inquisitor’s rank is mountain-high. If he couldn’t win, he could still run like wind.”

“A merchant friend told me,” the elder said, crunching an almond like grit. “He claimed he saw the Inquisitor explode midair, flesh scattering like bloody petals.”

“He said the one pursued looked like a young girl, which felt wrong, like mist shaped into a person. Aren’t Dark Deities all twisted beasts?”

“Could be he’s just weaving tales,” the lad said, waving it off like stray smoke. “Rumors are weeds; don’t plant them.”

The elder shrugged, shoulders rippling like cloth, and let the topic fall like a stone into water.

The silent man tapped the table, knocks like knuckles on a door, and asked, “That girl—what color was her hair?”

The elder squinted at the corner-sitter, gaze pricking like thorns. He scratched his head and asked, “Who’re you? You’ve sat here like a stone in shade.”

“Oh, just an adventurer,” the man said, patting his sword like a tame hawk. His voice was level, a calm blade under silk.

“Sadly, my friend couldn’t see,” the elder said, words slow as drifting leaves. “Night was thick as ink. He heard another girl followed her, but faces were swallowed by the dark.”

“I see.” The man’s nod was a small wave, then he rose, motion smooth as a cat. He set several silver coins down, bright as moon-scales.

“Drinks on me.” His words fell like a gift, and he turned, cloak trailing like dusk.

“You paid too much!” the elder called, tossing three coins that flashed like minnows. The man caught them in one sweep, then flicked them back like sparks, and left.

“Buy yourselves something else,” he said, voice fading like a bell’s tail, and the door swallowed him like a cave mouth.

“Heh.” The elder gathered the coins, a grin blooming like spring. “Let’s order meat; wine and meat are a matched pair like thunder and rain.”

Time slid, sunset sank like a red coin, and night unfurled like black silk. Church bells rang near and far, waves of sound washing the city like tides.

Within the Purification Church lay a secret vault, papers stacked like sleeping stones. Outside stood heavy guards like a wall, inside coiled Magic Arrays like spiderwebs.

Almost no one would dare sneak in; the place was a thorn forest. Yet one man came anyway and didn’t sneak—he walked like a blade walking.

A cloaked figure approached the door, hood low as a crescent shadow, sword at his hip like a sleeping comet.

“Church restricted zone. Do not approach,” a Holy Knight warned, voice stern as a gate.

The man stopped, lifted his chin like a falcon, counted heads with eyes sharp as ice. He tapped his sword twice, soft as rain on steel.

In the next breath, sword-qi sliced unseen like wind through reeds, and every Holy Knight in sight was cut at the waist like straw.

They died confused, eyes clouding like ponds, thought never catching the hook.

He exhaled, breath steady as winter air, and watched blood trail along stone like a red stream. “They knew too much,” he said, words cold as iron. “No pity.”

He stepped over corpses, boots whispering like moth wings, and reached the door, thinking two beats like drum strokes.

Steel hissed free, and he slashed, lines bright as lightning. A glassy mirror bloomed from the door like frost, then shattered under his blade like thin ice.

“…A defense Magic Array I’ve never seen,” he murmured, voice low as a cave, and pushed the door, hinges sighing like old wood.

Inside, invisible Arrays nested like nets. Yet he saw their bones like a hunter sees tracks, and his sword nudged key nodes like needles snipping threads.

For him, the vault’s defenses were a paper screen before a storm. Pressure lifted like fog; calm returned like a lake.

He removed his hood, black, tousled hair spilling like ink. His gaze was steady, a lantern under wind.

He was Lucimia’s second brother: Xiu Lancelot, a ninth-rank Swordmaster, blade-speed like lightning, heart quiet as snow.

“Olivya’s diary should be here,” he breathed, hope flickering like a candle. “Maybe it holds the Purification Deity’s purpose.”

He searched fast, hands moving like wings. In the First Epoch section, he spotted a tattered notebook, a sparrow’s nest tucked into stone.

He lifted it, feeling neglect clinging like dust. The Church had collected it blindly, shoved it in, no ward like a door left ajar.

He opened it. Inside were doodles twisting like vines, stick figures bent like reeds, symbols warped like heat-mirage.

It looked like a child’s scribbles from the First Epoch, wild as rain on sand, careless as summer.

Yet Xiu found a core among the chaos, a seed among husks. On one page sat something he knew—a Fuzzy Orb drawn like a puff of cloud.

“This should be the one,” he said, his nod small as a pebble’s drop. Calm settled like snow on pine.

He pressed his forefinger to his blade, the cut thin as a hair, and let blood fall like red dew onto the Fuzzy Orb.

The drop touched, and the orb drew breath like a waking creature, mouth opening like a bud and swallowing the blood in one sip.

The whole book stirred, pages humming like bees. Doodles twisted and ordered like stars into constellations, symbols turning into script the world could read.

Xiu flipped pages fast, fingers a flutter of birds. Lines formed into meaning, paths into maps, truth rising like dawn.

“This… so that’s how it is?!” His shock rang like struck bronze, heart beating like hooves.

He tucked the notebook away, motion neat as folded silk, and slipped out swift as a shadow to find a safe place to read.