"What's wrong?"

Silver Luan, trailing like a shadow at the rear, caught a ripple in Cerqin.

"I'm fine… my gift’s reacting to their fear, like reeds shivering under a chill wind."

"Uh… it won’t make it balloon faster, will it?"

"Not seeing any sign now. That ballooning only showed when I lost control; when I’m steady, the surface stays still."

Feeling excitement rise in her chest like a tide, Cerqin sensed nothing else off and let it go.

"Let’s head in and look."

"Alright…"

Spring Tide, leading like a wave, slipped through the little house’s door. The others filed in. The interior stood hollow as a shell, stripped of people and furniture.

Splintered boards and animal droppings mottled the floor like rot on bark. The stairs and ceiling were broken, ribs open to the upstairs rooms.

They split and searched, like hounds fanning in mist, and soon found a basement hatch in the parlor corner. Fresh footprints marked it like wet ink.

Downstairs, the marks of a spell formation scarred the floor. At the room’s heart rose a bulging altar, runes carved on its compass points like veins.

At the altar’s navel rested a small crystal orb, a drop of ice cupped by stone.

Aileaf knew a little of formations; her brows knit like gathering clouds.

Spring Tide and Silver Luan wore puzzled looks, shadows rippling across still water.

This core felt wrong, like a bone set crooked beneath the skin.

"This altar looks like a hidden keyhole for the array, a latch carved into stone."

Aileaf’s voice dropped to a thread. People often plant a backdoor when laying arrays, a fox trail through the hedges of a defensive weave.

For wide-area wards, they don’t just trigger under attack; the backdoor lets you open them by hand, a lever hidden under the table.

Through that device, you can tug the nodes and make the weave unravel, the array eating itself like a burning fuse.

A backdoor sitting in the core is wrong, like a snake coiled in a cradle.

"What in the fog is this…"

Silver Luan glanced at Aileaf; she only shook her head, reeds sighing under wind.

Steadying herself like a blade set, Spring Tide moved to check around the altar.

"I think I know which cult laid this array and left a door ajar, the mask showing its stitch."

Relief loosened a knot in Spring Tide’s calm voice, like a rope slackening.

The others crowded close, moths to a wick, to see what she pointed at—a warped sigil, a ghost face mid-scream.

"That’s… the sigil of the Wailing Soul. Did they do this?"

Silver Luan and Aileaf recognized it at once, meaning clear as ink. Only Cerqin didn’t get why relief slipped over their faces like a stone set down.

"What’s the Wailing Soul…?"

"It’s a very low-key, very peculiar cult. They rarely take ordinary lives… so leaving a backdoor fits. At least they won’t really blast Eastwind City into the sky."

Even if the signs say they don’t aim to ruin Eastwind City, you can’t rule out a net-and-fish break—dragging everyone down.

The Wailing Soul is an odd branch among cults. They seldom endanger commoners, their knife mostly left sheathed.

Planting a trapdoor at a core node fits their style, like a hidden hatch under floorboards.

"So we can cut the fuse on Eastwind City whenever we want?"

"That’s right."

"Then what do they want? That fear-curse on the soul—what is it? The ones who fled got marked like soot. Didn’t you say they avoid hurting civilians…"

"They won’t take ordinary lives lightly, their knife slow to drink…"

Spring Tide corrected her, thoughts sinking like a pebble into a well.

Then Aileaf picked up the thread, voice small as a moth.

"For ordinary people, the curse scrambles the soul and drops the mind into sleep, like dusk falling. It doesn’t cut the soul too deeply. Their soul’s vestige keeps the body running on habit. Lift the curse, and most will wake. They’ll carry scars and shadows, though."

"So the ones to have their candles snuffed—our awareness wiped—are just the four of us?"

Cold understanding pooled in Cerqin at once, like frost on glass.

"They aimed for holders of god-given powers from the start. But the purpose stays shrouded, and what this curse feeds into is still smoke."

"It’s not just about killing us. There’s a knife behind the smile."

Silence fell again, a drum gone mute. They still couldn’t read the foe’s aim; the puzzle was missing pieces.

"This altar isn’t just a backdoor. There’s a nest inside the nest…"

Aileaf’s sudden voice dropped like a stone into the pond of hush.

At some point she had climbed onto the altar, studying the palm-sized crystal set on a waist-high pedestal, a small moon on a stump.

Her Littlefolk height put her eye level with it. Within, faint lines packed the orb, constellations of runes.

"This crystal is the eye of the backdoor, but inside it an entirely different formation is etched—an eye inside an eye."

Packing so many runes into a palm-sized orb, even if the design isn’t too arcane, speaks of a master—silk threaded into a grain of rice.

"It feels like… gathering, an eddy pulling streams? No. Is this altar really just the core of a vitality-burst array?"

Aileaf’s surprise climbed, dawn breaking across her face as if she’d spotted the impossible.

"What a clever Littlefolk girl—sharp as a spring shoot~"

Suddenly, a rasping voice scraped through the basement like a knife on silk. Spring Tide and Silver Luan stepped before Cerqin in a heartbeat.

It came from a black-robed figure at the stair mouth, a shadow slipping from a seam none of them had seen.

"Don’t be so tense~ The voluminous robe veiled shape and face; the hoarse voice fogged the glass of gender."

Their aura drifted plain as dust, yet Spring Tide and Silver Luan drew taut like bowstrings, facing it like a storm-front.

"Elder of the Wailing Soul? What are you after?"

"Wailing Soul? Not quite~"

The figure paused, then turned, showing a sigil on the robe’s shoulder—clearly not the howling ghost-face.

"Ultimate Evil… did you write that letter, ink still wet in our minds?"

"Correct, but no prize~"

So the Wailing Soul has allied with the Ultimate Evil. We’d guessed this wasn’t a one-cult game. Two shadows had braided.

But seeing those two rare beasts hunt together made pieces fall into place for Spring Tide like rain.

"If there’s a shared thread between them, it’s this…"

"Forging weapons to slay gods… thunder bound in steel?"

"My, right again~"

At their obvious delight, Spring Tide’s heart sank like a stone into deep water.

"What exactly—"

Cerqin studied the figure, curiosity pricking like nettles. Their aura was odd—magic barely a dull ember, weaker than her old third-stage self. They felt like a long-time cultivator with poor bones.

"Four such perfect vessels—what an unexpected boon."

Use special bodies to condense fear and forge god-slaying weapons—that’s why the two joined hands. The knot finally loosened; the riddle lay bare.

"Never thought it would end here, at the cliff’s edge…"

Bitterness roughened Silver Luan’s voice, like grit between teeth.

"Looks like we’re slated to become four evil, ensouled weapons, puppets on strings."

Aileaf, face drooping like a wilted leaf, reached to hug Cerqin.

"Then let’s begin~ The curtain’s rising."

As the words fell, Spring Tide vanished like a wave folding back. She reappeared before the robed figure and drove a fist like thunder.

A dull thud cracked the air. The black robe slammed into the wall like a cloth dummy, and Spring Tide’s face shifted.

"Damn, we’re duped. This isn’t the body—it’s a shed skin. Move! Get out of here!"