At the same time—
On the western outskirts of Moscow, in a convent known as the Novodevichy Monastery, lamps shone through the deepening night and cast the great religious complex in clean and quiet light.
Beside the convent lay a clear lake, reflecting the sky above and the first glimmers of starlight.
It was one of the most famous women's monasteries in the Russian Empire, less than four kilometers from the Kremlin itself. From the highest floor of its towers, one could even see the distant palace that symbolized the empire's supreme authority.
And at that very moment, someone was indeed standing at such a window and gazing toward it.
"How interesting. How many years has it been since a heretic dared expose himself so openly?"
The voice drifted through the dim upper floor with a soft, lingering cadence that carried just a hint of seduction—an unmistakable mismatch with the sanctity of the chapel around it.
Yet the only listener present—the abbess of the Novodevichy Monastery, a woman nearly seventy years old—did not dare respond.
Nor did she dare offer any criticism or even judgment.
She stood only with hands folded, respectfully behind the speaker at the window.
For that presence itself carried a faint air of desecration within this place—
in voice,
in bearing,
and in beauty.
She stood wrapped in the clean black-and-white habit of a nun, yet no amount of cloth could conceal the fullness of her form. The curve of her chest, the narrowness of her waist, the line of her hips, even the pale length of her legs beneath the trailing hem—all of it made her seem at once sacred and dangerously alluring.
She was breathtakingly beautiful.
A woman whose face seemed almost holy at first glance—
until one looked longer, and felt something magnetic and perilous beneath the sanctity.
She was one of the most feared members of the Holy Church's strongest organization.
Kichijouin Kiara.
One of the "nuns" of the Burial Agency.
Every member of the Burial Agency possessed extraordinary status and authority. They were monsters holding violence in human form, creatures who found pleasure in slaughter. The abbess of Novodevichy ranked high enough within the Church to know exactly what kind of beings they were.
And thus she treated Kiara with appropriate caution.
"Still not speaking?" Kiara turned her head slightly from the window, moonlight swaying across the line of her cheek. "That's fine too. There's no need to be so frightened. I'm not going to eat you alive."
The old abbess remained silent.
Kiara, meanwhile, had already lost interest in her.
Her true interest lay elsewhere—
in the boy she had just observed through the memory of her own projection.
She thought of the young priest again.
Of his Mystery.
Of his insolence.
Of the way he had shown not the slightest inclination to compromise with the Holy Church or spare the three Executors.
Had Kiara's projection not intervened, those men would have died then and there.
As it was, she had merely tossed them aside afterward.
They had never been her true concern.
It was true that she had only just been reassigned to Russia.
It was also true that she had arrived to find herself in unfamiliar territory and in the middle of a mess.
But "troubled"?
"Unsure what to do"?
Not really.
The people of the Burial Agency were all mad.
Obsessive.
Violent.
That was common sense.
And also simple fact.
And as one of those madwomen herself, Kiara was perpetually searching for amusement.
"Lu Kang Luvister," she murmured.
"I'll give you a chance to perform. Now that you've stepped into Rasputin's place, how far can you really go?"
The voice of the Burial Agency's "nun" was clear and sweet.
Her eyes shone.
The power of her Mystic Eyes stirred in their depths as she watched the Kremlin from afar.
She was watching.
Only watching.
Rasputin was dead now. There was no replacement for him yet. And for that reason, Kiara had no real intention of moving against Lu Kang immediately.
Instead, she intended to wait.
Wait for him to follow the path Rasputin would have taken.
Wait for him to seize influence, wealth, and resources from the upper reaches of the Russian Empire.
And then—
she would take everything back.
Every piece of it.
Whatever Lu Kang had obtained, which by rights should have belonged to the Holy Church.
Perhaps that was tantamount to raising a tiger.
But Kiara was confident it would never become a real threat.
No—
or perhaps, more honestly,
she was secretly hoping it would.
Even if the odds were infinitesimal.
At the very least,
it might provide a little entertainment.
…
[You have driven away the Church Executors and Kichijouin Kiara of the Burial Agency.]
[You do not feel any immediate danger closing in after them. Even standing within the library, however, you can still sense the gaze watching you from outside. You know it comes from Kiara's Mystic Eyes. But she does not move against you at once, and that lets you breathe a little easier.]
[You understand that at your current level, you may not yet be a match for Kichijouin Kiara. Your earlier provocation was both a necessary step born of circumstance—you have come too far to abandon everything you've won in the court and flee—and an act based on confidence that you can, within a short time, gain the strength needed to contend with one of the Burial Agency's strongest agents.]
[Later, you begin to tidy the books scattered across the library, while also整理ing the knowledge you gained that night.]
[The Church's "miracles."]
[The magi's "magecraft."]
[The two different systems of Mystery coil together within your mind like intertwined vines, gradually twisting into a single strand.]
[You have an idea.]
[Only an idea.]
[In the latter half of the night, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna knocks at the library door. She talks with you late into the night.]
[Looking at her, you think of the girl named Anastasia you saw earlier that day, and suddenly find yourself laughing.]
[Mistaking this for the smile of a sage bestowed upon her, the Empress is delighted.]
[She speaks with you even more eagerly, only departing near dawn.]
[The next day.]
[Alexandra returns hand in hand with Nicholas II.]
[This time, unlike before, they have brought their youngest daughter with them—Anastasia.]
[Standing behind Nicholas II, Anastasia secretly sticks out her tongue at you.]
[Now that she has finally been granted permission to come along, she is visibly excited.]
-------
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