The Northern Capital wore its civility like a mask, polished marble streets, arched bridges of spell-reinforced glass, banners fluttering from noble estates proclaiming lineage and virtue. To most, it was a city of order.
To Albedo, it was a ledger waiting to be balanced.
He moved through the morning crowds without drawing attention, presence dialed down, mana signature diffused into something comfortably unremarkable.
Source Code ran quietly in the background, not blazing, not searching blindly, just listening. Every ward pulse, every residual spell trace, every fluctuation in ambient mana density was logged, sorted, cross-referenced against what he already knew.
Everglade didn't hunt in the open. That much had been clear from the start. The disappearances were too clean, too methodical. There wasn't any riots or mass panic. Just enough unease to be dismissed as rumor if anyone asked too loudly. That required infrastructure, logistics, compliance, silence.
