The golden light of the teleportation circle flashed and died, plunging the three elders into the oppressive, damp darkness of Navience. The violent, spatial tear had deposited them on a small, moss-slicked ridge overlooking the cult's clearing.
Below them, the scene was a hellish tableau. The sickly orange firelight illuminated the silent, cowled crowd. The hum of the generator was a physical, nauseating presence. And at the centre of it all, on the crude stage, was Cynthia—a broken, bleeding marionette suspended in thorny vines.
Xiah’s breath hitched. A guttural growl of pure, unrestrained fury tore from her throat. Her heavenly bow blazed into existence, its golden light a stark, holy contrast to the unholy ritual below. "I'll turn them all to ash," she hissed, her voice trembling with rage as she drew the bowstring, a bolt of pure, divine wind already forming.
"Stop."
The command was not from TatSuet. It was from Yun.
Xiah froze, her head snapping toward the demon princess. "You..."
"For the first time in a century, Xiah, listen to the Seer," Yun said, her sharp, mascara-rimmed eyes fixed on the crowd. "A bloodbath is what he wants. It's what you want. But look at them."
"They are heretics, torturing a child!" Xiah spat.
"They are Neo-Humans," Yun countered, her voice sharp. "Lost, terrified, and easily led. Our pact—the one your sister, my brother, and the Creator all bled for—was clear: We do not intervene in the affairs of Neo-Humans. We do not bring our war to their doorstep. Ever."
"He is using Heavenly power!" Xiah’s voice cracked. "He broke the pact first!"
"He did. They did not," TatSuet said, her voice finally joining the fray. She, too, was watching the crowd, her gaze analytical and cold. "A massacre here makes us the monsters and proves his every word. We must be surgical."
"I can put the followers to sleep," Yun offered, her gaze still fixed on the scene. "A mass, targeted hypnosis. They will remember tonight as nothing but a strange, unsettling dream. But the three on the stage—Marcheal, Walker, and the girl—they are our only targets."
Xiah slowly, agonizingly, lowered her bow. The divine light faded. "And we wait for Walker's signal?"
"We wait," TatSuet confirmed, her eyes closing as she expanded her senses. "He will tell us the moment..."
He doesn't have a moment.
The thought was a silent scream inside Walker's mind. His calm, detached facade was crumbling from the inside out. He wasn't watching the stage; his eyes were closed, his focus turned inward, locked on the one thread of magic he had managed to plant on Cynthia.
When he had "neutralized" her in the forest, he'd done more than just seal her power. He had slipped a second, microscopic spell into her bloodstream—a vital reader, a simple thread of his own energy that tied itself to her pulse. It was his only way of monitoring her, his only lifeline to the Clairvoyant's plan.
And that lifeline was snapping.
He could feel her life-sign, a frantic, chaotic light that was now guttering like a candle in a hurricane. Her pulse was a broken-winged bird, fluttering, weak, and dangerously slow. The last jolt of black lightning had nearly extinguished her. He knew, with an unshakeable and terrifying certainty, that her body could not withstand another. One more shock, and she was gone. For good.
His own pulse hammered in his ears. Where are they? The signal was sent. Why aren't they here? Aunt TatSuet, you miscalculated!
On the stage, Marcheal was also losing patience. The ritual was working, but the girl's defiant, hate-filled eyes, still open, still blazing at him, were an insult. He wanted her broken in spirit as well as body.
He raised a hand, and the generator whined, charging for another blast. But he paused, a new, cruel idea twisting his lips into a smile. He would make this a lesson for his followers.
"The Siphon is slow," he boomed, his voice silencing the generator's hum. "But our justice can be swift! The 'key' is broken. The 'demon' is contained. Now, all that is left is to turn the lock!"
He turned from Cynthia and faced his silent congregation, his arms spread wide.
"Who among you will be the hand of our new god? Who will volunteer to strike the final blow? Who will claim their place in the new world by slaying this child of darkness?"
A deep, profound silence fell over the clearing. The followers shuffled, their devotion warring with the finality of the act. This was no longer a ritual; it was an execution.
Walker’s heart stopped. This wasn't part of the plan.
Then, from the middle of the crowd, a single, clear voice rang out.
"I will."
A figure stepped forward, pushing back their heavy hood. Walker's blood ran cold. He knew that face. Pale skin, a scattering of freckles, and a mousy brown ponytail. It was a girl from his history class. One of the quiet ones who always sat in the back, one of the girls who used to whisper about Cynthia in the halls.
Marcheal's smile was rapturous. "Excellent. Come forward, child. Come and claim your reward."
As the girl began to walk toward the stage, her eyes filled with a terrifying, zealous light, Walker knew the plan had just failed. He couldn't wait for the elders. He couldn't wait for a signal.
He had to move. Now.
Waiting meant death. And Walker knew, with a chilling certainty that went bone-deep, what Cynthia’s death would unleash. The 'key' would turn, the 'demon' would take control, and the sealed door to the underworld would be torn open, unleashing a chaos the new world wasn't prepared to handle. The Elders, bickering on their ridge, were playing a game of chess while Marcheal was burning the board.
The mousy-haired girl was at the steps, her hand reaching out. Marcheal, his face a mask of rapture, was already holding out a jagged ritual dagger for her to take. "Do it, child, and be blessed by the new god!"
Walker couldn't let her hand touch the hilt.
Damn the plan, he thought, his panic solidifying into a cold, hard resolve. Damn the signal.
He didn't have access to his true, sealed-away power, but he had instincts. And he had one forbidden art, a desperate, last resort magic he had been warned never to use, for it would strain his very soul and send a beacon to the forces that had imprisoned him.
He had no choice.
Walker’s eyes snapped shut. He didn't just reach for his power; he tore at it, bursting past the seals with a silent, agonizing scream of effort. The strain was immediate. A sharp pain lanced behind his eyes, and he felt a hot trickle of blood run from his nose, concealed in the deep shadow of his hood. He pushed his power out, not as a scalpel, but as a hammer, projecting it past himself to envelop every single being in the clearing.
And the world stopped.
It wasn't the elegant, selective grey-scale stasis Yuni had cast in the classroom. This was a brutal, brute-force cessation. The orange fire orbs froze mid-flicker, their flames becoming solid, unmoving spikes of light. The zealous girl's foot hung suspended, an inch above the wooden stage. Marcheal’s rapturous smile was a frozen, grotesque mask, the ritual dagger still in his outstretched hand. The black energy crackling on the generator's pylons became a static, solid sculpture of dark lightning. Even the drops of blood falling from Cynthia's wrists hung motionless in the air, a string of ruby jewels.
Walker let out a ragged gasp, his body trembling from the immense, crushing strain. He was holding dozens of people in a bubble of frozen time, a forbidden magic he shouldn't be able to wield, and it was draining him with terrifying speed.
But he had done it. He had bought them time.
On the ridge, the sudden, violent ripple of temporal magic hit the three Elders like a physical shockwave.
"He did it," TatSuet breathed, her eyes flying open, her calm finally broken by a flash of disbelief and fury. "The fool! He used the Stasis Lock!" She realized, in a horrifying instant, what had happened. Walker's repeated, frantic signals—the ones she'd been waiting for—had been sent right now Yun's overwhelming demonic aura had blanketed the Citadel, jamming the frequency. He'd thought she was ignoring him. He'd thought he was alone.
"We have to move," Xiah said, her bow blazing to life again.
"Wait," Yun hissed, holding out a hand, her sharp eyes scanning the clearing below. "Something is wrong."
Walker's time-stop was already shattering. A spiderweb of cracks, like fracturing ice, appeared in the frozen air. A mysterious figure, cloaked and hooded, who had been standing motionlessly among the followers, was now moving, walking calmly toward the stage as the temporal spell crumbled around them.
Walker, dumbfounded, stared at the approaching figure. His spell, which was taking every ounce of his life force to maintain, had been broken by an outsider as if it were a pane of sugar glass. He tried to push again, to re-establish the lock, but he was spent. A wave of agonizing feedback threw him to his knees, his vision blurring. He was utterly exhausted.
The mysterious figure didn't even look at him. They raised a single, gloved hand.
Instantly, the world stopped again.
But this was different. This wasn't Walker's brutal, desperate lock. This was an act of absolute, effortless mastery. The world bled of all color, plunging into the same perfect, monochrome grey-scale stasis Yuni had used in the classroom. Everything—the fire, the blood, the half-formed expressions of terror and zeal—was frozen in a silent, grey tableau.
On the ridge, Xiah gasped. She knew that aura, that flawless, chilling signature.
Yun’s face was a mask of cold, hesitant recognition.
The mysterious figure, now the only thing moving in the frozen clearing, slowly turned their hooded head, as if looking directly up at the ridge where the three Elders hid.
A voice, low and growling, echoed in their minds, a telepathic command that carried the weight of an ancient, unquestionable authority.
"...Do whatever you think you should do."