The heavy doors of the cathedral boomed shut behind him.
The corridor outside was instantly swallowed by a stifling cacophony of noise and chaos. A world away from the solemnity of the assembly within, this place felt more like a betting hall just after the opening bell. The air was thick with greed, agitation, and cold calculation.
Right at the entrance stood several low-ranking clerics, their faces as blank and uniform as porcelain dolls. Each held a stack of identical, thick paper folders, all stamped with a glaring scarlet "ABSOLUTE SECRET." No roll call, no assignments. The rules were simple and brutal: each pair or individual cleric was to take one folder at random from any of these attendants as they passed. It meant, in theory, an equal start for all. The rest would depend on skill and luck.
Balthasar wrenched a folder from one attendant's grasp without so much as a glance. He then surged into a side passage with his pack of hyena-like followers, their laughter echoing as they dragged the chained sister behind them.
The other clerics moved forward in a more subdued tide, silently collecting their respective "treasure maps." They quickly huddled with their companions, voices low with conspiracy, eyes sharp as they scanned potential rivals.
Wolfgang did not move. He stood like a rock, using his broad body to shield Erika from the chaotic flow. Only when the crowd had thinned did he stride forward, take a folder from an attendant, and tuck it into his robe without looking. Then, his arm once again clamped around Erika, steering him decisively away from the main corridor and into a deserted side passage.
At a secluded corner, he stopped abruptly and turned. In the shadows, his hawk-like eyes pinned Erika, churning with an unprecedented severity, and perhaps… a faint, almost imperceptible flicker of anxiety.
"Listen," Wolfgang's voice was a low grind, like sandpaper on stone. "What you saw and heard in there—about that sister, about those Marks, about this," his hand pressed against the hidden folder, his knuckles white, "all of it, wipe it from your mind."
"This isn't a game for you, boy. Hongbo wants 'eradication.' Balthasar dreams of 'devouring.' And the Inquisitorial Tribunal…" He hissed the words through clenched teeth. "They'll just let it all rot in bureaucratic procedure, then find a few scapegoats to drag down with them! That specimen is no longer a girl; she's a bomb, a piece of meat for the hounds to fight over. Get involved, and you'll be torn to shreds long before the explosion."
The tall priestess stood by like a cold shadow, adding, "Your only wise choice now is to obey orders and survive."
Kaelen, leaning against the wall, watched Wolfgang's rare display of emotion with amusement. "Of course," he interjected lightly, "the Instructor is always so cautious. Then again, if someone hadn't poked around where they shouldn't have back in the 'Boiler' sector, we might not even be here today to have these worries, would we?"
He shot Erika a meaningful look. "Energy and pollution, treasure and trap… sometimes it just depends on your point of view."
"Enough, Kaelen!" Wolfgang snarled, cutting off the dangerous implication.
His final look at Erika was complex and inscrutable—bearing an undeniable command, the weight of some past, unspoken pain, and maybe, just maybe, a sliver of well-concealed fear that Erika might repeat a terrible mistake.
"Back to your room. Now. That's an order."
With that, he exchanged a swift glance with his two colleagues. The three of them melted into the shadows like hunting panthers, moving swiftly in the opposite direction of the main flow, leaving Erika alone in the icy corridor.
Alone in the frigid passageway, before Erika could fully untangle the complex and severe warning Wolfgang had left him with, a familiar, grating sound of dragging chains mixed with frivolous footsteps echoed from the direction of the main hall.
Balthasar had returned.
He was alone—if one ignored the blindfolded sister stumbling along at the end of his chain like a broken marionette. That cat-got-the-canary smirk was plastered across his handsome features as he closed in, his large frame casting a shadow that engulfed Erika completely.
"Oh? Has our lost little lamb not found its way back to the fold?" Balthasar's voice dripped with false concern. He stopped a mere step away, making a show of looking Erika up and down.
The image of the righteous, radiant priest from the village was entirely gone, replaced by this elegantly twisted predator.
Without giving Erika a chance to respond or retreat, Balthasar's free hand shot out with blinding speed. It wasn't an attack, but a precise, brutal grab, seizing Erika's left wrist—the one bearing the Auric Mark.
Erika stiffened, feeling as if a band of iron had locked around his wrist, the cold touch mingling with a dull, throbbing ache from the Mark.
Balthasar's strength was overwhelming. He forcibly twisted Erika's hand, exposing the golden Mark fully to his view. He bent his head, studying the Mark as if appraising the quality of a piece of meat. His thumb, with deliberate, grinding pressure, scraped heavily across the Mark's grooves, sending a sharp sting through Erika's flesh.
The entire violation lasted a good five seconds. The air felt frozen. Erika could hear the frantic beating of his own heart and the faint, terrified breaths of the blindfolded sister nearby.
Finally, Balthasar released his grip as if discarding rubbish. A twisted expression of contempt and something like satisfaction crossed his handsome face.
"The Mark is real. Pity… it's too weak. Too new." He snorted, stating it as an irrefutable fact. "Just like you."
He offered no further words about Erika's past or future, no specific threats. This simple act and verdict were more insulting and oppressive than any lengthy intimidation. It was his most direct way of declaring: In my eyes, you are nothing but an insignificant, flawed product with a shoddy Mark, unworthy of even my specific attention.
With that, he dismissed Erika from his view, as if he'd merely dealt with a trivial nuisance. A sharp tug on the chain, and he was gone, the scraping sound of metal on stone fading down the empty hallway like a sinister echo.
Erika stood his ground, the cold, violent imprint of the grasp lingering on his left wrist, the Mark pulsing with a dull ache. But what ignited in his chest wasn't pure fear. It was a cold, sharp sense of humiliation and a crystal-clear understanding of peril.
Balthasar had shown him, in the most direct way possible, that in this world, without power, you weren't even granted the dignity of being taken seriously.
He drew a sharp breath, forcing the churning emotions down. No more hesitation. He turned on his heel and strode rapidly through the labyrinthine stone corridors, heading straight back to the Hall of Mark-Forging.
He needed power. He needed information. He needed to find his own place in the coming storm, not remain a "flawed product" to be inspected, judged, and casually discarded by others.
Back within the familiar, energy-humming confines of the Mark-Forging Hall, the heavy black-iron door sealed shut behind him, momentarily muting the outside malice and chaos. Erika leaned back against the cold door and slid slowly to the floor.
He didn't light a lamp, allowing the darkness and the ambient energy glow to envelop him. Raising his left hand, he gazed at the Mark—the one Balthasar had deemed "too weak." But the look in his eyes was now one of unwavering resolve.
He closed his eyes.
The time for passive waiting, for merely stealing fragments, was over. It was time to take the initiative, to become the "ghost" haunting the shadows of the system.
He sank his entire consciousness into the Mark, beginning to fully sense the omnipresent network of the Resonance Protocol. Like the most patient of hunters, he began to lay his nets, waiting for the moment the storm broke over the Angel's Descent area—the perfect cover to slip deeper into the system's underlying matrix and steal its secrets.
Time flowed in the silence, his spirit gradually merging with the low hum of surrounding energy. Just as his focus peaked, on the verge of brushing against a hidden node in the data-stream—
Kzzhkt…
A burst of psychic static—sharp and jagged like a broken radio transmission—lanced through his highly-tuned perception!
The signature was unmistakably familiar, carrying the unique, untarnished purity of Anna's spirit. But now, that purity was thoroughly churned by terror. The signal was severely jammed, a one-way transmission fighting through immense pressure, barely able to coalesce this shred of a plea for help.
The information was fragmented, but the core pulse was clear:
"...help... me..."
Then, another, even more blurred fragment sent a jolt through Erika:
"...Mark..."
Abruptly, the signal vanished, cut off like a snapped wire, leaving only the dead hum of mental static.
Erika's eyes flew open, his deep trance shattered. His heart hammered against his ribs.
Anna? What's wrong? Why is she calling for help? Why mention the 'Mark'? Did something go wrong with her training? Or… is it something else? Balthasar's sneering, handsome face flashed in his mind, a chill running down his spine.
He tried to reconnect, to trace the fading psychic imprint backward, but the signal was gone. It was a ripple swallowed by a deep pond, leaving absolutely no trace.
On one side: a crisis threatening the very Sanctum, the fate of Cecilia, and the hard-won opportunity to infiltrate the system.
On the other: Anna's faint, panic-stricken plea, tugging directly at one of the few soft places left in Erika's heart.
Leaning against the cold door, caught between the darkness and the energy's faint light, Erika clenched the Auric Mark on his left hand. The freshly laid "nets" still hovered at the edge of the system, while a crisis in the flesh had crashed down upon him.
A choice had to be made.