(Half an hour earlier)
Yulia's room lay wrapped in stillness, broken only by the faint whisper of aging pages turning.
The door opened without warning.
Zarius slipped inside, quiet as a specter. He paused at the threshold, stiff, then shut the door behind him.
Yulia didn't look up. Reclined against her pillow, she guided a small magnifying lens across the page.
Her voice came calm—too calm.
"How polite. Barging into a girl's room at midnight. What if I'd been naked?"
Zarius dragged a chair from the corner. The scrape cut through the silence. He dropped into it beside the bed.
"The door would've been locked," he said.
A faint smile flickered on his lips—never reaching his eyes.
She moved the lens to the next line, unfazed.
"Save it, half-breed. No way you came this late just to chill."
Zarius exhaled sharply and ran his hands down his face.
"Damn it… there's no one else I can talk to."
She waved him off without lifting her gaze.
"Go apologize to Hyran. I'm not covering for him tonight."
Silence.
The candle bent his shadow across the wall. Then Zarius whispered,
"I'm going… to kill… Moriana."
Yulia's hand froze mid-air.
Slowly, she set the lens and book aside and turned to him, green eyes catching the light—cold, precise.
"Go ahead," she said. "Let me know when you're done. I'll help you clean the mess."
Zarius stiffened.
"I'm not... joking here."
Yulia sighed and tilted her head toward the ceiling.
"If you were serious, you wouldn't have waited two weeks... "Does it have something to do with what you found in Arcadia?"
His breath came uneven.
Yulia looked back at him, sharp now.
"Why are you so certain about that conclusion?"
"Zarius remained silent, hiding his face in the shadow.
She leaned forward slightly, her voice lowering.
"Didn't you want to talk to me?"
Zarius folded in on himself, elbows on his knees, head held between his hands.
"The Exim," he muttered. "The Handlers' power… it affects everything."
A pause.
"And the price might be irreversible."
He lifted his head, eyes hollow.
"We traced the Arcadia manuscripts. Something like this happened before—one of the old Handlers."
Yulia drew her knees up, arms wrapped around them.
"Then why doesn't it affect the others? Or anyone near her other than me?"
Zarius's tone hardened.
"Because the Exim can't affect more than one thing at a time."
"The Fourth Prohibition," Yulia said calmly. "'Do not use the Exim on multiple targets.' Nirmalya Manuscript."
Zarius jolted.
"How—?"
"Mori didn't know about the prohibition a year ago," she continued before he could interrupt.
"However, it wasn't her first time breaking it."
He leaned forward, words coming faster.
"Did you notice any change in her Exim?"
Yulia didn't hesitate.
"It exploded. It's at least four times stronger."
Zarius slammed his fist into his thigh.
"Damn it… this thing's a nightmare. Every answer just spawns more questions."
"That's why," Yulia replied evenly,
"I don't trust these manuscripts. The pieces don't fit."
Zarius's eyes narrowed.
"…Or maybe they do."
He met her gaze.
"Don't you think that happened because the Exim's been feeding on your lifespan for the whole last year?"
Yulia blinked, as if she had missed thinking about it, then nodded—slowly.
"A... I didn't consider that, to be honest...I just thought the Exim remains inactive when the user is unconscious."
"By the way... you misquoted the manuscript," Zarius said quietly.
Yulia hummed, Eyes widened in a daze.
"'The Fourth Prohibition: Do not try to use the Exim on multiple targets.'"
Yulia's breath caught on that one word.
Try.
If even the attempt was forbidden, then the limit wasn't ability to do so—
"…So it isn't about succeeding or failing to do so," she whispered.
"It's about the intent."
She leaned forward, hands gripping the edge of the bed, patience gone.
"But Zarius, what difference does a word make?"
He stood and stepped to the window, staring out into the dark.
"That one word changes everything about knowing the Exim's true nature."
He turned back, his voice low.
"The moment a Handler intends to cross that line… the Exim shifts."
His hands clenched into tight fists.
"It stops being just power. It becomes an endless hunger. A self-sustaining predator, always hunting for lifelines to devour."
He tilted his head, locking eyes with her.
"That's why Moriana keeps growing stronger. Her Exim didn't just evolve—it found you."
Silence crashed down.
Yulia's fingers released the bed sheet.
"…So her power isn't just hers," she murmured.
"It's also my life she's feeding on."
"And when you're gone," Zarius said flatly,
"It won't stop... It will look for another... It might be any one of us."
She inhaled once, shifting her gaze from him for a second.
"That's why... you want to do it."
She rubbed her hair and looked back again to him.
"Damn it. It's not enough, Zarius. You're connecting dots that might not even be there."
"I'm not gambling," he replied, his voice dead cold.
"I might be next."
He didn't wait for a reply. He turned and stepped into the shadows of the hallway.
The door clicked softly behind him, leaving his fear lingering in the air like smoke.