A fist, now a few sizes smaller, snapped up in an uppercut like a spring uncoiling from the dark.

The potion’s fire burned out fast, like dew under noon sun. Cerqin’s gaze went blank, then sharpened by reflex, like steel catching light. His body stayed a puppet on invisible strings, refusing his will like a stubborn mule.

Still, some instinctive tremors rippled out, tapping along Aileaf’s arm like raindrops on a leaf.

Bitterness first, then a wry smile. He’d thought he could play the bully for once, yet fate tugged him back like a river’s undertow.

Cerqin gave in to it, shoulders sinking like a sail in a windless bay. His mouth wouldn’t form words, but once the drug ebbed, his eyes carried that helpless glaze, like clouded glass.

Lately, it’s always a slip, always a miss, like arrows drifting in crosswinds.

Half a month, and three different people took turns bullying me, like a relay of storms.

Since I crossed the Holy Maiden, the future looks so clear it almost waves at me, like a phantom beckoning through fog.

Maybe that isn’t all bad?

About two hours later, the night was deep as a well. Aileaf hid under her quilt like a turtle in its shell, her voice small yet cocky, threaded with apology like sugar over vinegar.

“Sorry, sorry. I didn’t know I’d go full feral once I got excited…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I’m used to it. And this one’s on me. I don’t know why I had to lick the potion…”

Who knew a fruity-smelling bottle could spark hunger, like an empty stomach hearing a bell?

Maybe it was another kind of hunger, gnawing from the heart like a fox in a granary.

While a tall and a small curled on the narrow bed and talked after the storm, the inn’s air held its breath. In another room, the Holy Maiden Spring Tide, green hair like fresh willow, and Silver Luan, a silver-haired Half Dragonkin girl, stared each other down like cats on a fence.

“Where’d that little brat go? Don’t tell me he ran,” Silver Luan muttered, her brow pinched like a stormcloud.

“Not likely.” Spring Tide’s voice was calm water. She knew Cerqin’s temperament like a map. If nothing had happened, he might’ve bolted. But with things as they are, she doubted he’d leave—body or heart.

“Did something happen?” Silver Luan’s frown dug deeper, like a knife into bark. The past two days proved Eastwind City’s waters ran deep as a gorge.

Someone might’ve made a move on Cerqin while he was alone at the inn, like a shark smelling blood.

This wasn’t something two Sixth Ranks could fix, not anymore. The Divine Officer colluding with cultists had been assassinated at home, a candle snuffed in a sealed room. The Nun who reported him vanished before they could meet her. And the Radiant Sanctuary held scenes as wrong as a warped mirror.

Spring Tide fell silent, fingers closing around a black stone paired to Cerqin’s amulet, twin pebbles from the same riverbed. She sensed for a moment, then let out a breath like steam in winter.

“Should be fine. He’s keeping the amulet on him. If it leaves a certain radius, it triggers automatically. So he should be safe enough.”

Even so, worry scratched at her ribs like a trapped bird.

“The other side clearly thinks the two of us can’t stir a real wave,” she said, voice level as a plumb line. “We can’t stop them, so they’re letting us be. They likely won’t target me alone.”

There’s no point in it. The Archbishop’s seal rests on the Holy Maiden like frost on jade, so they won’t strike lightly. And a Sixth Rank isn’t worth much before a Bishop, like a candle before a lighthouse.

The gap from Sixth to Seventh is wider than from Third to Fourth, a cliff not a step. To the high ranks, the number of middles means little, like pebbles against a cliff face.

“So what now?” Silver Luan asked, voice drifting like smoke. All signs said the cultists aimed for something big, already near the endgame. Stay in the city, and they might be blown to ash with everyone else in a couple days.

Helplessness pooled between them like stagnant water. A hopeless scene, a wall without a door.

Move too loudly, and they’d be cut down without hesitation, like wheat before a scythe. Slipping away with tails between their legs was the best move, like foxes leaving a hunt gone sour.

“There’s nothing we can do. Let’s wait for Cerqin. If he’s not back by morning, we’ll go find him.”

Yesterday at first light, the two had gone to the Radiant Sanctuary. The moment they crossed the threshold, something felt wrong, like sand on the tongue.

The Nuns wore blank faces, hollow as dolls, as if their souls had slipped out like birds at dawn. The common worshipers who should’ve been coming and going were gone, like a street after curfew.

The Nuns’ motions were mechanical, clockwork gears clicking in an empty hall. Fear crawled up their backs like cold ants. They investigated the strangeness, turning stones over one by one, and found nothing but silence.

The Nuns bore no wounds, yet couldn’t truly respond, only acting out their routines like actors after the play. No marks of control, just that distant chill, eerie as a smile carved into ice.

The Sanctuary’s Bishop and several Divine Officers were nowhere to be found. Thankfully, the Sanctuary’s records sat untouched, like ledgers in a locked chest.

In the room of records, they found precise entries for each Nun and Divine Officer. Cross-checking, they pulled the name of the reporting Nun from the page like a splinter from skin.

She wasn’t in the Sanctuary. They went to her residence and found only still air, like a pond with no ripples.

The colossal wrongness pressed on them like a glacier. Standing on the main road, swallowed by the crowd, they felt cold sink to the marrow, winter reaching the bone.

Trusting instinct, they didn’t seek help from the City Lord. When the sky is all cloud, you don’t ask which way the sun lies.

Then they went to the home of the accused Divine Officer. The door hung half-closed, like a lip bitten in thought. When they pushed it open, the iron stench of blood rushed out, a hot wave from a slaughterhouse.

His body was cut to pieces and evenly hung on the living room wall, like a butcher’s grim display. His head, face frozen in terror and confusion, dangled from the ceiling like a lantern of dread.

Spring Tide and Silver Luan stepped back on reflex, feet stumbling like stones. Silver Luan clutched her stomach and dry-heaved, a dragon cub choking on smoke. Even Spring Tide, who’d seen her share of storms, had never seen cruelty like this.

If there was any silver lining, it was thin as thread. They didn’t leave empty-handed. On the coffee table, they found a letter, clearly written to the Holy Maiden Spring Tide, the ink still dark as night water.

The warning and the threat were thick as tar. The writer even outed their identity like a knife laid bare.

Ultimate Evil.

A small, secretive, and vicious organization, more rumor than footprint, like a shadow that avoids the sun.

What’s going on? Spring Tide couldn’t grasp it, her thoughts tangling like vines. The letter claimed the plan was complete, and warned them to do nothing, or the whole city would die early, like fruit shaken from the branch before ripeness.

It was like a bit of fog lifted, only for seven more veils to fall. The discord rang louder, a cracked bell in a quiet temple.

“What do we do now, Spring Tide?” Silver Luan’s voice held a haze, her Dragon Deity blood stirring like wind over reeds. Her sense of wrongness was sharper than Spring Tide’s, a splinter under the nail. Danger whispered, yet strangely, it didn’t feel fatal, like a blade still in its sheath.

Spring Tide had no answer. If the letter told the truth, it was already too late; leaving would be the best ending, like retreating before avalanche. But abandoning this city to save only themselves would make her hate herself, a thorn under the heart.

She forced herself to think, gathering straws in a storm.

If that Divine Officer was a cultist, which faction claimed him, and why would Ultimate Evil kill him? Where did the Radiant Sanctuary’s Bishop and the other Divine Officers go, their footprints swallowed like tracks in fresh snow?

What do Ultimate Evil and that other mysterious cult want? Is it really, as the letter says, just to blow Eastwind City sky-high? If so, why throw a torch into a granary? Why say the setup’s done but not act, and why threaten to blow early if she moves?

Why the odd flex of saying they don’t even see you, like a predator yawning before prey?

The threads refused to tie, each slipping like wet silk. In the end, Spring Tide teased out what the letter meant to hammer home.

First: whatever you do now, it’s already too late, like arrows loosed into fog.

Second: if you touch their plan, they’ll light the fuse early and send Eastwind City to the sky.

To verify, they checked several sites, chasing shadows like moths to a lamp. They came back to the inn feeling humiliated and powerless, rain-soaked and empty-handed.

But the bed that should’ve held a sleeping Cerqin lay cold and flat, like snow that never fell.