The four characters—Witch Trial—fell like a thousand-pound hammer on every chest, and even Violet froze mid-step, her gun hand trembling like a leaf.

“Give me… a minute!”

Lena’s face darkened like a sky before storm. For these people, the elegant, noble Nature Elf had never lost her composure like this.

Her staff tapped the ground, light rippling like rings on a lake, and a vast magic array unfurled underfoot, its intricate lines braided like roots and constellations.

She barely needed a whisper now to cast near-Transcendent spells; across this world, anyone reaching for her or her kin must weigh the wrath of a future Arcane Sovereign.

Augustus had been raising shackles for Aphelia, but the instant the array locked on, his face soured, like steel tasting rain.

“Southern Queen of the Nature Elves, you’d set yourself against the Church? A quasi-Transcendent spell might not outgun a warship’s batteries.”

His blade came free with a cold rasp, his voice like a drawn bowstring.

“When the Church slaps chains on a Hero and drags her off, it’s already standing against humanity.”

If titles were hats, Lena wore and hurled them like knives. Augustus set her against the Church; she set him against mankind.

“Hero? Who still believes she’s a Hero? Besides, the Church is just.”

Augustus dug in like a spear in earth. As the Knights’ commander, his answer couldn’t change, and he wouldn’t let it.

“Just? Please. In your hands, justice is clay.”

Phoenix’s laugh was a spark on oil. He slid his blade an inch, and heat roared from the sheath like a storm of embers, circling him in a burning halo.

Of all of them, he trusted the Church least; past scars had salted that ground. Were he not bound to humanity’s side, he’d be the thorn they most dreaded.

Augustus saw the tinder piling and stopped wasting breath. He barked to the soldiers, and they closed in like a tightening ring, while the warship drifted overhead, its belly yawning open.

A magitech heavy cannon slid out like a black maw, its aim a cold eclipse on the crowd below.

One spark would light the powder, but neither the Church nor Aphelia wanted that fire.

“I said, that’s enough.”

Aphelia’s clear shout cut the edge like a bell through fog. She walked to Augustus, each step steady as a metronome.

“Give me a few minutes. I’ll talk them down. Call it a favor for an old friend. I’m not running anywhere.”

She pointed up at the gaping cannon, a grim sun over a fragile world. One shot and this pocket dimension would be shredded like silk; without the warship, her side would be meat in the gears.

Her honest smile thawed a little frost. Augustus sheathed his sword with a click like a lid on a coffin. “Five minutes.”

He motioned the soldiers to lower weapons and turned first, heading for the warship like a shadow returning home.

“Easy, Lena. They can’t do much to me. I’m a Hero. Heroes don’t die.”

Aphelia reached Lena and smiled, asking her to drop the spell. She lifted her wrists, the shackles etched with countless tiny Runes like frost on iron.

“But, Aphelia, a Witch Trial…”

Lena’s face wavered like sun through clouds. Old memories rose: the Church roaming the continent under that banner, smoke on horizons, the innocent cut down like wheat. Even the strongest couldn’t fight an entire Church under such chains.

“Don’t worry. I have a way. If it turns the worst way, you only need to do this and this…”

Aphelia leaned in and whispered a few grains of plan, breath warm as a secret. She started to hug Lena, glanced at the shackles, and could only give a helpless, crooked smile.

Lena listened, then nodded, eyes firm as stones in a stream. She gave Aphelia a hard embrace, then turned to explain to the others, while Aphelia walked back to Augustus as promised.

“Let’s go. I don’t break my word.”

“You’d better not.”

He squinted past her at their former companions glaring like drawn blades, then triggered the magitech teleportation device. Light folded like paper, and they were on the warship.

Below, Lena stared at the golden warship tearing a seam in the sky, her voice cold as hoarfrost. “Our turn.”

On the warship, they locked Aphelia in a room carved with Runes from floor to ceiling, lines crawling like vines across stone. She sighed, dry as autumn grass, and raised her shackled hands.

“I’m boxed up in a place like this. What could you still be worried about?”

“With a former Hero, you can’t be too careful.”

His answer throbbed like a drum headache. No one wants a stone-faced man staring for hours; a blank mask is worse than a snarl.

“Then tell me this. Why declare me a witch out of nowhere?”

They had been close as campfire and road-dust once; Aphelia knew he wasn’t a man of blind orders. That meant the Church had reached a judgment. Or else—

Augustus tapped his magitech device, a sharp knock snapping thought like a twig. His tone went winter-cold.

“It’s the Pope’s conclusion.”

“That’s impossible.”

She tried to tear free on reflex, power rising like a tide. But the room’s Runes lit at once, and her Arcane Power crashed against them like waves against a seawall.

“That’s the answer, whether you believe it or not. The Church is more united than ever. With this, we can make a kingdom of gods on earth. Who could stand against us then?”

For once, a sliver of a smile cut his ice, and it turned her stomach like rancid oil. Despair pricked. So this was the heart under the armor.

Where was the fool who swore by chivalry? What changed him into this plotter? Were those easy days on the road only a mask?

She said nothing, and he mistook quiet for surrender. He went on, voice like a knife drawing a line.

“So, whatever happens, do you see any second path? You’re sharp. Even if I break your thoughts, you can reach that simple end.”

“You really are disgusting. I didn’t expect you to rot this far.”

Her face held naked loathing, and worry tugged like a rip current. This Witch Trial was a screen; the struggles behind it were a knotted forest, and five years away had dulled her axe.

She was a chess piece, pushed by an unseen hand across a cold board.

She glanced at Augustus and found that sickly smile still clinging like mold. She turned her head away, refusing the sight of a former friend.

Not long after, the warship descended smooth as a hawk on a thermal. Their destination had arrived: the Church’s heart on the continent—Radiant City.

Pilgrims dreamed of it as a holy sun, and its roster could chill any invader like a cold wind down the spine. The tiers were simple here: Low-tier, Mid-tier, High-tier, quasi-Transcendent, Transcendent, and those atop the peak—the Titleholders.

Radiant City housed no fewer than a thousand High-tier professionals, a forest of spears and spells. The dreaded Inquisition and the Knights’ Order together counted dozens of quasi-Transcendents, iron pillars around the altar.

Above them stood the Scarlet Cardinal Council, ten Transcendents whose Witch Trials had once drenched the land like a monsoon of blood.

And the Pope himself bore a Titleholder’s strength on the surface, with rumor saying one foot already crossed into the threshold of a Demigod.

Aphelia could picture the formation waiting like ranks of mountains. Power alone didn’t frighten her; she’d climbed cliffs before. But this was a whirlpool of plots, and she was driftwood caught in its spin.

The hand behind the board was likely the very Pope she once revered, a lighthouse turned cold star.

“You’ve been to Radiant City before. Why look like a fresh traveler? Move. Do you need me to teach you the paths?”

Augustus sneered at the gangway, shoving her forward like cargo, friendship tossed aside like a torn banner.

“No need. It’s not my first time. Only the people got filthier.”

Aphelia shot him a cold glance, then stepped down. Soldiers closed around her like a cage of spears as they marched toward the city’s blazing heart.