Screams had been raking the air for a full hour, slicing it like cold wind through bamboo. They still climbed.

The chamber staged a curated torment, instruments gleaming neat as shrine tools. They looked gentle on flesh, gentle like snow that burns.

Bound tight, Cerqin watched and felt a chill of familiarity rise like fog. Back in the Sanctuary’s Law Enforcement Hall, she’d seen scenes like this. Maybe worse.

At the door, two guards stood like stone lanterns in rain. The black-robed shadow who’d stepped out at a signal never slipped back into darkness. They watched nothing. As if the room’s center held no golden-haired little princess, thrilled and radiant, testing toys on her own maid as if admiring a painting.

Fear first, then breath. Cerqin’s heart jittered like a trapped sparrow. First time meeting a true maniac—someone who fed on pain and savored ruin. One round of those devices would break any normal mind.

The maid’s eyes had gone empty, like tidewaters sucked dry. They proved it.

It would scar, one hundred percent.

Cerqin trembled, small as a leaf.

One good thing glimmered like dawn behind clouds. The little princess didn’t plan to kill her. If she did, the maid wouldn’t be on the altar.

Predators eat early and bury early—erase prints in fresh snow. This one didn’t.

By that logic, her life was likely safe. The odds of suffering like that thinned, like mist under sun.

If only she’d held it in through the scare, she wouldn’t have dampened the pretty new dress she’d just bought. She rarely wore nice things. Thankfully, it didn’t show much.

But how to get out next? She dared to hope for a clean release, like a boat slipping free of reeds.

The scene was too explosive. Screams cracked like firecrackers. Desire pulsed like summer heat, filling the room.

Restlessness bloomed in her chest like red blossoms.

Love God flared on instinct as her emotions surged. Cerqin wanted to shut her eyes. If only she could plug her ears too.

Another sort of torment scratched at her mind, cat-claw soft, relentless. In her mind-sea, a perfect face surfaced, washed in green and silver light.

This time Aileaf rose too, smiling a smile that didn’t exist. Loose garments draped her like clouds, hinting at a flawless shape, moonlit and half-seen.

Her trembling made the ropes bite tighter, like vines drawn by rain. Being unable to move could be its own strange thrill. Right now it was only suffocation.

If only she could get these ropes off.

The thought flickered like a firefly. Then a spark. She had a way.

Hand of Space—new, raw, barely learned.

Its pulse was subtle as a cat’s step. It could fetch at a distance. It couldn’t budge anything humming with magic. But ropes only needed something sharp and ordinary.

Problem: she hadn’t fully learned it. The rune pattern wasn’t even tested.

Good. Distraction was medicine. Decision set, Cerqin gathered herself, quiet as night water, and tried for the first time.

The inscription came smooth, like brushwork finding flow. Each rune ate mana like a dry desert drinking rain. Love God answered, refilling without end.

There were many runes, but each was simple, carved with an ancient, rustic beauty—different from modern slimmed spells that save cost but steepen single-rune difficulty.

With near-infinite supply and simple bones, ten-plus minutes later the lattice was almost finished. Easier than she’d feared by miles.

She couldn’t run even with the ropes cut. But she could breathe if they loosened. Eager, Cerqin cast Hand of Space.

Her view shifted in a snap, like turning a crystal. Mana drained in seconds, a torrent down a well. Love God flooded back, quick as a spring.

She held a balance, drain matched with recovery, until a sphere about two meters wide bloomed around her. Mana colored the space like pale water. Cerqin saw in full circle, a 360-degree gaze without blind spot. She watched objects and currents, every ripple clear.

That radius was her limit tonight. The grimoire warned: move a thing, the field shatters under spatial ripples. Move, then restart.

She found a shard of sharp iron tucked in the rear corner under the bed, glinting like a fish scale. On the bed lay a bracelet and a black amulet, quiet as sleeping crows.

She drew the iron shard with Hand of Space.

Cerqin sawed at the tightest cord biting her wrist. One strand snapped—and everything collapsed like a knot with a hidden switch.

Such a complex bind, undone by a single strand. It shocked her, like thunder out of blue sky. The sharp twang drew the little princess’s eyes.

The black-robed dark guard by the door flashed to Cerqin’s back, swift as a shadow crossing moonlight.

“You trying to run?”

“I’m not—I didn’t! The rope was too tight and snapped itself!”

“You think you’re safe now, and you pull tricks. You figure I won’t mind, right?”

The little princess narrowed her eyes. She held a rod wet with water, gleaming like river steel. Her voice tasted sour.

“I honestly planned to let you watch and leave you intact. But you broke my rhythm. I mind. And you look like you want in.”

She came closer, rod drifting like a snake.

“Say I invite you, plain and simple. You join. If you faint a bit from excitement—no big deal. How could you refuse a gift?”

The rod drifted closer. Cerqin, free of the bind, yanked the rope off her body with a snap.

The chair skidded back and tipped. The shadow guard caught her, steady as a pine in wind. Upside-down for a breath, Cerqin saw his eyes under the cloth. They flickered with resignation and apology, like rain over smoldering coals.

She shouldn’t have pushed it. Should’ve endured the noise, held on like a stone, and not chased distractions.

Knock knock knock—crack.

The sound cut the room. A figure appeared at the window, rapped fast, then shattered a pane. Glass burst like frost breaking.

A shout rushed in, strange and familiar at once. It mixed with glittering shards.

“Hold your breath!”

The shadow guard moved on instinct, shielding the little princess, then snapped into an attack stance at Aileaf’s voice.

He froze mid-motion. A small bottle clinked to the floor. Thick white smoke gushed out, coiling like winter fog.

Cerqin held her breath and watched. The guards and the princess sucked in air in greedy draws, movements stiff and wrong, like puppets jerking.

Seconds later the smoke thinned and vanished. The little princess and the guards crashed to the floor, bodies slack as cut ropes.

Aileaf slipped through the broken pane, small as a swift bird. She looked at Cerqin with worry bright in her eyes. Her voice stayed soft, but anger smoldered underneath like fire under ash.

“Cerqin, you okay? I just finished a job and heard you were taken. Tracking took time. These freaks didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“I’m… I’m fine.”

Understanding hit her like dew after drought. Cerqin hugged Aileaf, shaking and fierce.

So close. So close to being knocked out by someone she disliked.