Getting caught is the right choice, like stepping into the net I laid myself.

With the Heretic Inquisitors watching me like hawks circling carrion, it’s safer to let them arrest me now, before they brew another bucket of filth and douse me in it.

Those who march beneath the banner of “justice” while doing evil wear white flags stained gray, and they’re never easy to deal with.

Even if I know the Heretic Inquisitors keep their own code like a blade kept oiled, I shouldn’t expect the enemy to ever loosen their grip.

I need a scene that makes them grab me straight, no crooked tricks, and charges like smoke that I can blow away later.

Installing a Soul Component in Gloria, giving her a human will, is a window lit by moonlight—too perfect to ignore.

The snag is simple and thorny—the installation’s a bramble patch.

Back at the start, besides warrior and Shadow Sorcerer, there was a Magus Scholar build; dust on that scroll, and I forgot too.

With years of field grit, I can chat magecraft with Raven like two lanterns over tea, but dig deeper and I’m worse than a novice paging damp books.

So I stick to the Shadow Sorcerer path and stop drifting; point is, I can read how spells are woven, thread by thread.

Pour mana in, and the cylindrical crystal blooms with light like a star trapped in glass, bright enough to shine through a pocket.

I’ve roughly read the circuit Raven handed me, a map of rivers etched in frost.

It looks like a crystal, but when it touches a Construct’s core, the whole thing turns idea into seed, implants into the hub, fuses, and locks like bark sealing a wound.

The component also guards the core like a shield of lacquer; later Princess Golia will wield the Demon Slaying Sword steadier, push harder, and won’t fear permission domains jamming her operating flow.

In short, I just slot this into Princess Golia’s heart, like a key turning in a lock; I get arrested clean, Gloria gains a human heart, and the board resets.

But reality is a raincloud; it never shines as neatly as words.

I changed into a tailcoat, crisp as night ink, walked to Gloria’s dorm, and found her waiting like dawn at the gate.

At first I was stunned by that pure beauty, a bell struck in clear air.

A blue-toned backless dress, sensual yet solemn, a plain gossamer shawl like mist on water, white gloves like snow, gold hair tied and falling on her chest.

Her half-lidded gray eyes had set down their usual weight, like a storm sheathing its thunder.

Like a rare sword washed free of blood, slid into a jeweled sheath, ribbon knotted, placed on the rack of a quiet hall, offered with both hands.

Then the stench rose like swamp gas—my body’s warning; Divine Art should feel like silk on skin, and it wound around me like threads pulling tight.

Divine Art: Uncrossable Deathline.

Once cast, it becomes a net keener than blades, tougher than steel wire, a snare of Slaughter stretched between pillars.

Maybe the Heretic Inquisitors smelled the iron in the wind; their vigilance climbed like a tower raising its shields.

This isn’t a bright hall for offering a famed sword; it’s war buried in the corners, daggers behind drapes.

War.

Gentlemen, I love war.

“Not going, are we?”

On the steps, Gloria in full finery tilted her head, voice soft as a bell wrapped in velvet.

“Of course, my beautiful Highness,” I said, letting calm settle like dust on stone.

I stepped up, dropped to one knee, and kissed the back of her hand, a Frontier Knight keeping old rites like a flame in a glass.

“Only… us, two?”

“Mm. Raven and Stini are spent; it’s just me, speaking for both, like one lantern carrying two shadows.”

“Mm. Where do we… eat?”

Right—I'd assumed the Heretic Inquisitors and Colonna would arrange a last supper carved from granite.

Especially after I chatted with Julia and dropped that pebble: “Will she still come back?”

I sifted through streets in my head, smoke and spice rising—whose grill sings best?

“Andor, though it was your suggestion, for Princess Golia’s farewell banquet, please let us arrange it,” a voice slid in like a ribbon.

As expected.

Julia still wore a plain maid’s dress, the green leaf to Gloria’s blossom, and saluted with movements clean as measured ink.

Her face didn’t ripple; the pond stayed glass.

“Good,” I clapped once, a spark in dry wood. “Then, Miss Julia, I’ll leave it to you.”

“My honor.” Her manner was better than three hours ago, yet stiffer, duller, like tea steeped too long.

Gloria’s puzzled look tugged a smile from me; I took her hand, easy and playful as a breeze, and we followed the maid toward the restaurant.

If Gloria feels nothing, then I’ll be the stone that feels nothing; that’s a gentleman’s courtesy.

I’ve treated this place as my base, a hearth I built for a year; small spells, small wards, small tricks seeded across the City of Heroes like pebbles in garden sand.

But today the Heretic Inquisition tightened their net, and those little magics lifted like birds trapped under bell jars.

One slender Heretic Inquisitor shadowed us like a Shadow, the Silent Divine Being’s Divine Art sanding his presence down to dust.

He moved through the crowd like water through reed beds; every bump was just a passerby, and no one saw the gleam of iron claws at his hands.

A worker came head-on, carrying a full tray of toasted bread like bricks from a warm kiln; the Inquisitor stepped aside onto a stone brick by the curb.

He seemed to step on something, a pebble that whispered; he glanced down, saw nothing, and walked on, a leaf carried by current.

Behind him, a man in a warrior’s dress, long sword slung at an angle, drifted past and glanced his way like a fish eyeing bait.

His left hand settled on the scabbard; his thumb flicked, crisp as a raindrop snapping bamboo.

A wall brick cracked with a thin line, a dry riverbed opening.

“Andor, what’s wrong?”

Gloria held my arm, voice like a hand to the brow.

One “Eye” I’d set into the ground buckled under the breath of a Divine Being, my magic frame collapsing like a spiderweb in rain—complaining helps nothing.

Another “Eye” on the wall was sliced clean by your house’s swordmaster, a reed cut with one stroke—complaining changes nothing.

I rubbed eyes sore from a hint of mana slip, heat throbbing like embers, and waved it off to the princess.

“Nothing. By the way, Miss Maid, are we going to Huicao Pavilion?”

Julia lifted Gloria’s long skirt from the ground like dew lifting from leaves and answered in a voice smooth as porcelain.

“Please look forward to it, Mr. Andor. You’ll be satisfied.”

Is there a need to bury it this deep? You’ll clear the venue like a tide anyway; calling my people to ambush now is sand thrown at the sea.

“Honestly, I know a little tavern; their grilled meat and wine are smoke at dusk—very good.”

“We trust the wealth of your Meifei Frontier, but as a farewell feast, let us arrange this one,” she said, polite as frost on bamboo.

I really do like their food; I don’t plan to move during dinner, because eating should be joy, not knives under the table turning flavor into sawdust.

I’ll act over dessert or a stroll, like a hand closing after the moon rises.

“Alright, fine. Sharing one last meal is already a lantern I cherish.”

“As long as you’re satisfied.”

Julia seemed not to grasp my words, head lowered, manners perfect as calligraphy, following behind Gloria like a shadow stitched to silk.