Soon after we returned, we told Grandfather about the curse mark.
Grandfather looked at the curse mark carefully. After a long inspection he said, "The curse formula implanted on her is complex. Only a dark mage curse magic user and slave traders can do such a thing."
I activated the All-Seeing Eye.
I saw it immediately.
The dark curse was spreading slowly inside her body — thin threads moving quietly, patiently, toward her heart.
This is bad. At this rate she would lose control over her magical talent entirely.
Grandfather looked again, his expression heavy, and said, "Felix, there are three ways we can solve this."
He held up one finger.
"First — we find the person who put this curse. Second—" A second finger. "We give her mana continuously until the mark gets overloaded. But there is a chance it will explode."
He paused.
"Third. We put a slave mark on top of it."
"Slave mark?" I said. "But why a slave mark?"
"Because slave marks are designed to dominate other magical markings," he said. "If we place one over the curse mark, it will suppress the curse formula entirely. She won't suffer."
I leaned forward. "Where would we find one?"
He rubbed the bridge of his nose slowly — the motion of a man carrying more weight than he was showing. "They moved to the New Holy Land. But—" He looked at Stella directly. Something in his expression shifted. Remorse, maybe. Or something close to it. "You don't have to do it. That choice is yours."
"The second option is already too dangerous," I said quietly.
Stella took a deep breath. Let it out slowly.
"I want to do it," she said. "Let's go to the New Holy Land."
After that, we prepared for departure.
The most convenient thing — we could use teleportation.
Felix. Armin. Stella. Ready.
---
When we arrived, the first thing I saw was a long building — grey and white, clean lines, something heavy and deliberate in the way it had been built. On top, a cross.
"It's a church," Armin said.
Before he could say anything else—
I felt it.
...a chilling bloodlust.
It hit all at once — not gradually, not building. Just there, pressing against my skin like something physical. A bead of sweat slid down my temple.
Thick. Heavy.
Heavier than Keltherion's bloodlust.
"Something is off here," Armin said quietly. His hand had moved to his sword without him looking at it.
I activated the All-Seeing Eye.
And stumbled back.
The church. The building we were standing in front of — the long grey-and-white structure with the cross on top — was emitting something. Mana. An enormous amount of it, larger and heavier than anything I'd felt standing beside the World Tree replica in Leveran.
But that wasn't quite right either.
It's not emitting, I thought, steadying myself. It's what's inside it.
Something inside that church was producing this. Something that had been sitting there, quiet and patient, while people walked past the front doors and called it a house of God.
A hand came down on my shoulder.
I turned.
An old man. White beard, long and neat. A large ceremonial cap bearing the symbol of the church — a cross, embroidered in gold thread that had faded to something more honest with age. White robes. He had appeared from nowhere, or from somewhere none of us had been watching, and his hand on my shoulder was light enough to be gentle.
He was smiling.
"Inside," he said, "is where our God resides."
The smile didn't reach anywhere that smiles usually reach.
Beside him — paladins and knights in the colors of the Holy Land, standing with the particular stillness of people who had been standing in formation long enough to stop noticing they were doing it.
Armin and Stella had gone very quiet.
Understandable. None of us had felt this man approach. Not a footstep, not a displacement of air, not a shift in the mana around us. He had simply not been there, and then he had been, and the hand on my shoulder was the first indication any of us had received.
Armin stepped forward. One hand moved to his back — a small, precise gesture of respect. His voice came out steady. "May I know who you are?"
One of the knights beside the old man answered without inflection. "The Archbishop of this church."
A female knight to his left was looking at us with the particular attention of someone cataloguing details for later use. "Are you travelers? You don't look like you're from here."
"We're here in search of a slave trader," I said.
The words left my mouth.
A beat of absolute silence.
Then — the sound of steel leaving scabbards. All of them. Simultaneously.
Armin and Stella moved back and drew their own swords in the same motion.
The female knight crossed the distance between us in the time it took me to register she was moving.
Her blade came for my head.
I moved — barely, the edge passing close enough that I felt the air from it against my ear. My hand dropped to my waist.
Nothing there.
Wait.
Did I forget Crimson Death?
I kept moving. Kept dodging. She came again — fast, properly fast, the kind of speed that came from years of real training rather than drilling forms. Without the All-Seeing Eye reading every weight shift, every micro-adjustment of her grip, I would not have been keeping up.
She was stronger than I'd expected.
"She is strong!" I got enough distance to breathe. "Armin! Stella! On my signal!"
I pulled mana to my hand.
"Earth Bullet!"
A long sharp piece of compressed earth formed in mid-air and launched straight at her. Her blade came up — touching the surface of it.
"Explode!"
The detonation wasn't large. It didn't need to be. The dust expanded outward in a thick layer, swallowing the space between us and them in a single grey breath.
"Now — move."
By the time the dust settled, we were gone.
The female knight stood in the clearing air, looking at where we had been.
"They escaped." The words came out quiet. Then, sharper: "Everyone on high alert. Find them."
---
We came to rest in a narrow alley three streets away — dark, smelling of old stone and something that had been cooking nearby. Stella pressed her back against one wall. Armin took position near the alley's mouth, watching the street.
I leaned forward with my hands on my knees and focused on breathing normally.
"Why did they attack you?" Stella said. She wasn't winded. She was looking at me with the expression of someone assembling a picture they weren't sure they were going to like.
"I don't know," I said.
Armin turned from the alley's mouth. His voice had the particular flatness of someone delivering information he considers obvious in retrospect. "You said slave trading. In the Holy Nation." He paused. "Due to the New Order, slave trading is completely forbidden here. Walking up to a church and announcing you're looking for one is—"
"You couldn't have mentioned this before we teleported?" Stella said.
Armin opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Stella looked at me. Then
at him. Then at the alley around us with the expression of someone taking full stock of their situation.
"We're wanted now," she said.
Nobody argued with that.