Spring Tide felt her thousand thoughts scatter like leaves in wind; from what she’d just seen, surprise chased surprise like waves.

The Emperor looked allied with the black-robed figure, yet not; like two boats side by side, while he secretly loaded another ship.

Afterward, his talk with the attendant sounded like their deal with the Ultimate Evil wasn’t helpless barter, but riding the current of a dark river.

The fog of mysteries didn’t thin; it thickened like dusk flooding a valley.

A memory flashed in her mind, or a future already spent, likely triggered by that short blade that had pierced her chest like winter through silk.

Could a divine artifact truly turn back time, like a tide drawn by a second moon?

Even the Phantom God bloodline, from all inherited memory, called going back and changing history a door sealed by iron.

Could a single artifact really wrench it open?

Unless this world itself isn’t real, like a painted garden on paper.

Yet that felt absurd, like mist claiming to be stone.

She chose not to show herself before the Emperor. She lingered a moment, sifted the papers he read like rice through fingers, and found nothing.

She left the palace under a sky already dimming like ink, and turned for the Sanctuary like a bird for its roost.

The black-robed one’s trail itched at her mind, a thorn under a nail.

From their talk, at least the bishop in the Sanctuary didn’t seem tainted by Negative Energy.

In the inner branch of the Sanctuary, Cerqin and the others found White Thought. White Thought and White Feather had just left a room, then saw the three rushing like wind.

“Miss Silver Luan? What’s going on?” White Thought asked, brows lifting like willow leaves.

“Something urgent. White Thought, can you do a prophecy bounded to today?” Cerqin cut straight, her voice a drawn line.

A sour dread fluttered in her chest like a caged bird. The Sanctuary’s Negative aura was thinner than outside, yet the disturbance in her mind swelled like a tide.

“I can. What do I look for?” White Thought spoke as she moved, and she primed her Baiju on herself like lighting a lantern.

Foretelling the near future cost little, a sip from a stream. Reading herself often brought more frames, like ripples widening.

White glow pooled in her eyes like frost on a pond. Cerqin opened her mouth to ask for her own reading, when White Thought’s face went pale as paper.

“What is it?” The words fell like a pebble.

“The future changed… and…” White Thought’s gaze cut to Cerqin like a knife through gauze. “I just saw you, Miss Cerqin, get assassinated.”

“Huh?” Cerqin froze, and Silver Luan and Aileaf’s faces blanched like frost on plum.

“How did the future change?” Aileaf frowned, the crease sharp as a blade.

White Feather, the scarred woman, answered. “When we put the item in the room just now, we already prophesied. Maybe ten minutes ago. Her Highness foresaw it.”

“The scene showed a supply run, so we…” Her words trailed like smoke.

That lined up with pieces of Cerqin’s memory, like two mirrors catching the same moon. The three of them grew even grimmer, storm pressed to brow.

“What in the world is happening?”

“Why would I be assassinated? White Thought, did you see the killer? Do I die?” Cerqin’s voice was tight, a string ready to sing.

White Thought shook her head first, then nodded once, a reed swayed by crossing winds.

“Knowing the future means it can bend,” Cerqin said after a beat, her tone like dusk settling.

“Do we at least have the rough time?” Her gaze sharpened like a pin.

“Not exact,” White Thought said. “It happens when Miss Baili and Miss Qianli return.”

Cerqin frowned. Baili and Qianli had gone with Spring Tide to the palace. They shouldn’t return so fast. That left a sliver of sand in the glass.

She had no thread for motive, but the first thing was to cut that woven end.

She looked to White Thought. Prophecies weren’t whole cloth; from the moment you pulled them, the weave shifted a stitch.

A handful of frames wasn’t enough to anchor a plan; it was feathers in a storm.

You couldn’t yank the future at will like a horse by the bit.

“Knowing only the result makes prep near impossible. It’s hard to imagine an assassin entering the Sanctuary.”

Anyone who could slip in to kill wouldn’t be ordinary. At least a high-rank adept, or a shadow-walker.

White Thought’s eyes still shed pale light like moonmilk. She kept her gift open, threading prophecy to prophecy.

No matter how many times she peered, the useful pieces stayed the same, a lock giving the same stubborn click. A few edges shifted, but the spine held.

“Let’s find the bishop first…” Cerqin weighed the board like a player, then chose a heavier piece. “We shelter under a stronger hand and watch.”

The others agreed, birds folding into the same wind. After asking a few Nuns, the five moved in a line through the halls like a stream.

They neared the bishop’s quarters when a familiar voice rang like a small bell.

“Miss Cerqin? Why are you all coming here together?” Baili’s voice stopped them like a hand on the chest.

White glow flared again in White Thought’s eyes, then her pupils pinpricked like a cat’s. This time she saw the killer.

No time to unravel the why; the arrow was already loose.

White Thought lunged at Cerqin, a white streak. A violent surge of magic burst by Baili’s side like a dam breaking. Silver Luan and Aileaf moved, faces tightening like drawn bows.

Cerqin turned at the voice. In that heartbeat, her senses flooded. A dense wave of Negative Energy rose, abrupt as a cold wind.

The next instant, White Thought slammed into her, but it was already too late.

A Sixth Rank full-speed ambush at arm’s length was a thunderbolt. Even forewarned, it landed like fate.

A blade punched through her chest. The impact blasted White Thought away like a leaf in gale. Cerqin frowned at Qianli’s face. The spark was gone. Only a wooden mask stared back.

Thick Negative Energy rolled off Qianli. It rode the blade, poured through the chest wound, and spilled into Cerqin like ink.

The Love God’s gift didn’t flip it this time; the Negative wouldn’t turn, like winter refusing spring.

In a blink, the mortal wound threw her mana into chaos, a river shattered by ice. The next breath, Qianli, puppeted by Negative Energy, got swatted away by Silver Luan’s tail.

Aileaf popped a vial and poured a healing draught between Cerqin’s lips, cool as dew on stone.

Silver Luan kept her eyes on Qianli, now embedded in the wall like a broken dart, and on Baili beside her, stunned and ashen.

“This… really is beyond what I expected.” Her voice was low, thunder behind hills.

Cerqin’s state was bad. The chest wound was death’s work. A Sixth Rank striking a Fifth Rank. A heart-stab should have ended her on the spot.

She lived only because what flooded in was Negative Energy, not mana. The currents were different rivers; the Negative bit less at flesh.

If Qianli’s mana had poured in, bursting on the spot wouldn’t be strange. She could still speak only because Aileaf’s medicine braced her like a splint.

“What is going on…” Silver Luan’s voice sank, a blade still sheathed.

Everyone knew Qianli was controlled. Baili looked unharmed, but Silver Luan kept her guard up like a raised shield.

Across the hall, White Feather scooped up White Thought, who’d been blasted and knocked out. She checked her over like a careful surgeon, found no grave harm, and tipped a potion in.

In a few breaths, White Thought woke with a start, like a diver breaking the surface.

Soon, Nuns and Divine Officers across the Sanctuary felt the disturbance. They gathered like crows on a storm tree.