29. Void Sect

Lilith decided to start with a small dig inside Morris, like dipping a toe into murky river water.

When she left, Princess Eliza handed her a folder, silk to that cheap, ink-bleeding scroll’s burlap.

The Little White Dragon took it but hadn’t cracked it open, her curiosity coiled like a cat under eaves.

She perched on the roof of a Morris house, a lone spire amid flat huts, like a swallow on a spear-tip.

Rebellious by nature, she claimed the sharp edge, hunger for height fluttering like a banner in wind.

Lilith sat at the rim and opened the folder, pages rustling like dry leaves in a night garden.

Inside lay several parchments, not the usual roll like a river’s long body, but sheets like clipped wings.

The first pages matched that scroll’s summary, her clumsy Vampire tongue knotting like tangled fishing line.

It was stiff officialese, the ink-stained news rewrapped like old rice in new paper, all gloss, no grain.

She frowned, setting the pages aside like dull stones, hoping the next would gleam like mica in sand.

“The Void Sect.”

At last she found a vein of truth, a name glinting like a blade under moonlight.

Morris officials called that secret faith the Void Sect, a cult to an unknown outer god, a wind from nowhere.

Decades ago it swelled across Spuiset like a tide, then, after Morris sealed its gates, its footprints vanished under drifting sand.

People forgot the name like a stray bell whose sound faded into fog.

Recently, after Princess Eliza halted all exploration teams, the Void Sect’s tracks surfaced again, like moles breaking soil.

Beyond the newspaper stunts Lilith had seen, the file listed other traces, shadows branching like roots.

One photo showed a dark-purple ritual array, the color bruised with gray, ash veining the violet like stormclouds.

It felt different from the brighter purple in the Udis ruins, this one heavy like incense in a closed shrine.

Beneath sat a scene note, crisp as frost:

“In a dim room lies a gray-drawn array; touch it or feed it mana, and it glows dark purple like a dying ember.

Function unknown; even when activated, no clear response was observed, silence thick as wet wool.

Note: Multiple arrays appear in cramped rooms; investigation shows Void Sect converts repurpose bathrooms as their sites, meaning unclear, like a locked well.”

Further down sprawled analyses, citing A Brief History of Spuiset Religions and Compendium of Outer Deities, text dense as thickets.

She fought through a portion, then saw no clear conclusion, fog without lanterns, and let the papers rest.

The rest, the Little Dragon would see with her own eyes, like testing stones in a stream.

Besides the folder, Eliza gave her a list of suspected Void Sect traces, breadcrumbs scattered like seeds.

Lilith would check the places uninspected, hoping for fresh prints in the dust.

She slid the parchments back in, the folder too big for her small satchel, a tortoise shell that wouldn’t fit.

Maybe she really should find a larger storage space, a gourd that holds more moonlight.

To avoid another fight like with Qiao, hands tied like wrists in twine, she returned to Annie’s inn.

Lilith hid the folder under a floorboard corner in her room, wood breathing like an old tree, then wrapped it in a glamour shell.

Prep done, she climbed from her window to the roof, craving eaves and edges like a fox loves ledges.

Walking nice and proper down the street was fine, but she wanted rooftops, wind, and sparrow jumps.

If only a haystack waited for a Leap of Faith, golden straw like a sunlit sea.

Morris had no tall forest of towers; the sole “high-rise” was the royal palace, linked to Udis, a cliff with no safe drop.

She grumbled at Morris’s city planning, a map flat as bread, then saved stamina, her breath a steady lake.

She didn’t open constellation resonance with the Void Command Seat; she remembered the gem hoard from her dragon mentor, a trove like starlight in jars.

The Little Dragon pulled out the Wind-element gem from Lirum, a breeze in stone, not as swift as resonance but gentle on the body.

It cost little effort and no Star Energy, perfect for travel, a tailwind behind a lone boat.

Morris wasn’t large, and her target sat near Annie’s inn, a lantern not far down the lane.

She reached it quickly, footfalls soft as rain on tiles, time trimmed like a neat ribbon.

Lilith flipped down from the roof and pried open a second-floor window, the frame creaking like an old reed gate.

She slid in. “Hey.” Her voice dropped like a pebble into a pond, ripples small and fading.

She landed light, raised her Astrolabe, and stirred Star Energy, a candle-flame spell blooming like dawn in fog.

The room sat in half-dark, dust layered like ash on winter ground, silence nesting like an owl.

Abandoned a long while, she frowned and wiped the floor, her finger carving a bright line like a river through silt.

By the dust’s thickness, it had sat empty for a year or two, time like moss on stone.

Eliza’s intel rarely erred, so the Void Sect’s activity here must be small, a circle tight as a knotted string.

Likely they stayed on the first floor; the second wasn’t their haunt, an attic full of sleeping air.

Lilith moved down the stairs, nerves taut like bowstrings, listening for breath under the house’s skin.

She sensed no life below, only her own heartbeat, a drum in a quiet temple.

The first floor proved cleaner, swept by human habits like paths worn through grass.

Traces lined the room—scuff, scrape, set-down marks—human tides had surged here and ebbed.

She followed the file’s note, heading to the corner for the bathroom, the house’s hollow gourd.

Morris homes shared a pattern like tiled fish scales; she found the bathroom without much trouble.

She pushed the door, and a heavy fragrance surged out, not perfume, but like canned air from a past life.

She looked into the small room, and sure enough, a gray array lay inside, coiled like a snake on stone.

Found it.