In a white room, Azad lay inside a high-tech glass chamber that fully enclosed his body. Rays swept across the surface of the glass, scanning his burned body, which was wrapped in white bandages fused into his charred flesh — a grotesque sight that most people could not bear to look at. But, of course, the two figures standing outside the room, observing the analysis chamber where Azad lay, were not like most people.
The man who had saved Azad with his black umbrella stood silently, his gaze fixed on the scans being conducted. Beside him stood a woman in a white medical coat, her long black hair flowing, her face pale, with sharp, shadowed eyes beneath.
"So this is the new awakened one. What made you find him so quickly?" she asked in a questioning tone, her eyes never leaving Azad as the life scan continued — a deep physical analysis attempting to salvage his condition.
"Naturally, the life aura the Great Guardian revealed to me made it easy to trace his steps from the point he exited the Vaticanus Library. But truthfully, had I arrived a moment later, he would've been death... How is he now?"
"He's certainly far from well. The state-sealing spell you placed on him managed to momentarily suspend his critical condition, but he's gone far beyond any recognized degree of burns. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said he needs an entirely new body."
The man smiled. "Looks like your sense of humor has improved."
"I'm not joking." Her tone sharpened with irritation.
"Alright."
She ran a hand through her hair, casting him a sidelong glance. "Wha he's belief is? Didn't you retrieve the test sample?"
He drew a white sheet of paper from inside his coat and extended it to her with his left hand. Her eyes widened, and the cold expression melted from her face. In a tone laced with suspicion, she asked,
"Doesn't this person pose a threat?"
With subtle indignation, she replied,
"In terms of loyalty, we still don't know. But he comes with the recommendation of the Great Guardian Amanos — that alone should silence any doubt."
"If it's the great one's word, then I suppose it's settled."
"How long will it take for his skin to regenerate?"
"About five hours. But even then, significant changes will occur throughout his body. The damage was extensive, far beyond what the radiographic scanner alone can repair."
•••••
After twenty minutes, in a place where all whispers of life had vanished, stood a lone, abandoned single-story building, surrounded by a massive wall enclosing an empty, deserted sports yard. At the heart of this vast wall was a great gate linking its entrance and exit, which connected to a wide, long street. About a mile away, at the end of that street, a man — revealed to be Meguras — took a single step into the dimensional circle.
This action separated him from the darkness and noise of the night he had left behind, and the world suddenly transformed from night's darkness to daylight, as if he had arrived in a different place, as if reality itself had split in two. Looking around, he whispered, "This is the place." With deliberate steps, he advanced along the long path leading to the massive building.
Within the building lay a stately hall lined with dozens of seats. At the forefront, a young man sat quietly, dressed in a white coat. His medium-length gray hair framed a calm face, his hands tucked beneath his arms as he listened intently. His gaze was fixed on the professor—a woman with jet-black hair, a delicate beauty mark beneath her lower lip, and glasses perched on a slender nose—as she stood beside a narrow podium, calmly unraveling the threads of a historical narrative.
In a measured, thoughtful voice, she posed a question: "Now, the second question. Suppose there is a fierce war raging among several factions—how might we uncover the hand behind it?"
The young man's lips curled into a faint smile. Tilting his head slightly to the left, his blue eyes steady, he answered in a low, composed tone:
"Well then, the one who benefits the most after the war is always the one behind it all, my professor."
The professor lowered her head slightly, her voice quiet but edged with finality.
"So, this is your answer?"
His expression remained unchanged—calm, resolute. Confidence radiated from his eyes; he was certain he had answered correctly.
She looked up once more, a gentle, almost serene smile gracing her lips.
"Correct," she said. "Well done... and as a reward..."
Then, in a movement far too swift to be human, she tilted her head to the left, mirroring his earlier gesture—but with something deeply unnatural beneath the surface.
Her smile widened—not in warmth, but in malevolence—stretching beyond the limits of human anatomy, the corners of her mouth tearing open to reveal the raw interior of her cheeks.
And with that, she whispered:
"I'll kill you."
As Meguras walked toward the building, its roof suddenly exploded from above.
The man with gray hair soared through the air, followed closely by a woman who drew out a ruler and declared, "How dare you give the correct answer."
The ruler grew massive in an instant and was hurled toward him at supersonic speed.
With a calm voice, he replied, "Anyone who sees you would surely be deceived by your beauty, vile entity."
His eyes briefly met Meguras's gaze from below. The latter smirked and said, his tone dripping with mockery, "Need a hand, Rayo?"
The infuriating grin never left his face.
Rayo shot back, "No—just let your tiny little ass witness the greatness of my work."
He dodged the incoming blow with ease, then slashed three times through the air.
Rayo and Meguras were Dominators of the Eternal Covenant, and their mission was to obtain the Book of the Beginning.
With both hands, Rayo struck a powerful double-palm blow that hurled the black-haired woman backwards. She slammed violently into a nearby building. Landing before Meguras, Rayo demanded, surprised, "Why are you late?"
Meguras, as always, replied with the same unshaken expression, "Some things happened."
"Things? Wait—Where is the Book of Beginning?"
"Well... it ended up in the hands of the Vaticanus Library. My apologies."
"What do you mean, apologies? Didn't we just secure it today? How did it end up with the Vaticanus Library?!"
"Well… something unforeseen occurred."
"What was it?"
"The Vaticanus Library acquired a new Awakened. It was because of him the Book of the Beginning reached their hands. That… was not part of my calculations."
Rayo raised a hand to his forehead, while Meguras took a step back, murmuring, "Oh, bye bye," upon sensing the sudden shift in Rayo's demeanor—and upon noticing the presence of the Incarnated Belief looming silently behind him.
The woman's form had twisted grotesquely, casting off the human guise she once wore. From beneath her feet, a dark aura began to unfurl, spilling outward and engulfing everything in its reach. Buildings and surrounding structures were transfigured into elongated, blade-like shapes—each resembling a ruler sharpened into a sword—rising by the hundreds into the air like an ominous storm of steel.
Her spectral figure was now a grotesque shadow—distorted, black, and formless. In an instant, she unleashed the entire swarm of spectral blades toward Rayo.
With a sudden motion, he turned, tilting his head slightly to the left. The smile that spread across his face bore no trace of joy—it was carved by tension, marked by the veins that surged across his skin, tracing jagged paths of pressure and fury.
Then, in a voice far removed from his usual tone—gravelly, wrathful, and heavy with restrained violence—he uttered:
"Localized void."
Suddenly, darkness engulfed everything.
Then the light returned, but everything else had vanished. What remained was a circular void of utter blackness, where everything within the dimensional circle had been erased and crushed by the force unleashed by Rayo
In the blink of an eye—or even less—it erased the manifested belief from the third level. Only the upper half endured, left adrift by Rayo. He approached the lingering fragments, withdrew a pristine sheet of paper, and carefully gathered the remains into it until they vanished and the paper's color shifted from white to black.
His gaze lifted to the sky, which was fracturing, unveiling the night's deep expanse. The dimensional circle encasing the area gradually dissolved, revealing the battlefield beneath—intact and unscathed, preserved by the very circle some Dominators wield to combat embodied beliefs on occasion.
Meguras stood firm as night waned and the moon's pale light bathed the scene. "Had it not been for the dimensional circle still in place, everything within a mile in every direction would have been utterly erased. And who exactly was it you were battling?"
Rayo looked at the guide paper and said, "The deceased professor was sadistic; she believed that rulers were the real instruments of torture and was killed by one of her students." After he spoke, they exchanged glances in silence, then suddenly laughed. Meguras said, "This world contains many different kinds of people."
"Alright, let's go to the community foundation, take the reward, and return to the organization... Damn, we have failed miserably."