The shadows of the tannery cellar didn't just hide Valeria; they obeyed her. As she looked down at Cian's mangled form—his hand still buried in his own chest—she didn't see a nephew. She saw a masterpiece that had tried to finish itself too early.
Part I: The Dark Surgery
Valeria didn't use steel. She used [Shadow Cohesion]. Her fingers turned into liquid obsidian, slipping into Cian's open chest cavity alongside his own hand.
"You have the heart of a god, little bird," she hissed, her eyes glowing with a predatory violet light. "But your vessels are those of a peasant."
She began the 'Dark Surgery.' She didn't repair his mana-veins; she reinforced them with dark-matter. It was a brutal, agonizing process. Even unconscious, Cian's body arched, his teeth grinding until they cracked.
She channeled the leaking Dragon mana back into the core, welding the ruptures in his aorta with the sheer pressure of her own S-rank aura. She was essentially armor-plating his internal organs from the inside out.
"Sleep," she whispered, leaning over him as the golden-black glow began to stabilize. "When you wake, you won't just be a ghost. You'll be the haunting the Empire deserves."
Part II: The Righteous Shield
Back at the Academy, the air was thick with the Duke's freezing bloodlust. His order to "kill anyone with white hair" hung over the courtyard like a death sentence.
"Do it now," the Duke commanded, his eyes fixed on the High Inquisitor.
The High Inquisitor, Malphas, stepped forward. He didn't draw his sword. Instead, he placed a hand on his chest, the sun-emblem on his cloak glowing with a soft, irritatingly pure light. He looked at Lucian, then back at the Duke with a face of staged, holy sorrow.
"My Lord Duke," Malphas said, his voice smooth as oil. "The Church serves the Light. We do not slaughter the innocent based on the color of their hair. To do so would be to become the very monster that did this to your son."
Lucian looked up, his eyes widening. For a moment, he felt a surge of respect for the Inquisitors. They aren't the Duke's lapdogs, he thought. They still care for justice.
"Are you defying me?" the Duke whispered, the ground beneath him cracking.
"We are upholding the Creed," Malphas replied firmly, casting a side-eye at Lucian to ensure the Hero was watching. "We will hunt the culprit with the full might of the Inquisition. But we will not bathe the city in the blood of commoners. Lucian, Child of Destiny... surely you agree?"
Lucian nodded slowly, his voice raspy. "Yes. We... we have to be better than him."
The Duke's jaw tightened. He knew exactly what the Inquisition was doing—they were playing the 'Good Cop' to secure Lucian's loyalty, isolating the Duke in his own rage. Malphas wasn't being righteous; he was being political. But the Duke could not strike the Church in front of the Hero. Not yet.
Part III: The Paradox Hunt
A week passed. Lucian became a man possessed. He refused to eat, refused to sleep, scouring the city for any trace of the boy who had broken Julian.
But Valeria was a Weaver.
Every clue Lucian found was a thread she had dyed. In the lower districts, he found a discarded white-and-gold button—the exact type worn by the Academy's elite.
"He's still inside the walls," Lucian muttered, his eyes bloodshot.
He followed the trail to a local apothecary. The owner, a frail old man who was actually a high-level Guild informant, 'confessed' under pressure.
"A boy... yes... he bought hemlock and mana-stabilizers," the old man wheezed. "He headed toward the East Docks."
Lucian raced to the docks. He found a crate marked with a symbol he recognized from Julian's wounds. He opened it, expecting an ambush, only to find a single, frozen rose—the same flower his mother used to love.
His mind began to fracture. How does he know? Is he a ghost? Is he me?
Every "witness" he interviewed was a Guild spy. Every "secret document" he intercepted was a forgery written by Valeria. She was trapping him in a Perceptual Paradox.
One lead told him the boy was an orphan from the North. Another showed evidence he was a fallen noble from the South. The more Lucian "discovered," the less he actually knew. He was a hound chasing a scent that was being sprayed behind him by the hunter.
Valeria watched him from a rooftop, a mile away, through a scrying glass. She watched Lucian scream in frustration in the middle of a deserted alleyway.
"Run, little Hero," she chuckled, her voice carried away by the wind. "Run until your legs break. The more you hunt the shadow, the more you forget to look at the man standing right behind you."
In the cellar, Cian's eyes suddenly snapped open. They were no longer just black; they were flecked with the molten gold of the Dragon's blood, settled and lethal.
He didn't speak. He just looked at his hand, which was now perfectly steady.