Clive remains seated as Simon, Bell, and the other two detectives rise and leave the room, moving quickly to verify the name he has given them.
They do not invite him to follow.
Instead, Bell drops a thin stack of papers onto the table before leaving.
"Autopsy reports," he says. "First four victims."
The door closes.
Clive exhales slowly and pulls the papers toward him.
He starts with the first report.
The victim's kidneys were removed.
The examiner's notes are blunt, almost dismissive—*stitches crude, uneven, amateur work*.
Clive's brow furrows.
He moves on to the second report.
A different organ was removed.
The stitching is cleaner.
Still rough, but improved.
The third victim shows another organ missing, the cuts more precise, the stitches tighter.
The fourth report stops him.
The technique is refined.
Confident.
Nearly professional.
Clive leans back slightly and closes his eyes.
The image of the fifth victim flashes in his mind—the stitching immaculate, efficient, unmistakably done by an expert surgeon.
Too perfect.
He lowers his gaze back to the papers.
Questions begin stacking in his mind, each heavier than the last.
The first question is impossible to ignore.
How does someone go from amateur stitching to expert-level surgical closure in less than a month?
Even prodigies need months of practice, repetition, failure, and correction.
Human hands do not learn that fast.
The second question disturbs him even more.
Time.
Each murder occurs within minutes.
The body is killed, organs removed, flesh cut, and then stitched back together.
No hesitation.
No mess.
No wasted motion.
No human, no matter how skilled, can perform that sequence so quickly.
His thoughts drift briefly toward knights.
Enhanced bodies.
Faster movement.
Sharper senses.
But knights are warriors, not surgeons.
They are trained to destroy bodies, not reconstruct them.
Clive rests his face against his palm.
Something fundamental is missing.
Something that does not fit into ordinary explanations.
—
Elsewhere in the city, patrolmen surround a small, unremarkable house tucked into a narrow street.
A patrolman steps forward and knocks firmly.
No answer.
He waits.
Knocks again.
Still nothing.
A minute passes.
Then another.
Five minutes of stretching in silence.
The patrolman glances back.
Jake looks at Bell. "Your call."
Bell sighs. "Break the door."
The patrolman nods and drives his shoulder into the wood.
The door splinters open.
They rush inside.
The house is empty.
No Linda.
No Lia.
But the search does not end empty-handed.
In a storage chest, they find cloaks stiff with dried blood.
In a wash basin, faint traces that no cleaning could erase.
Medical tools, carefully cleaned, carefully hidden.
Drawings.
Notes.
Patterns.
The evidence is overwhelming.
Linda is the killer.
By the time they return to the station, the case has taken a turn.
Charlie is released without ceremony, pale and shaken but free.
Clive leaves as well, his mind still churning with unanswered questions.
Linda fits the evidence.
But not the impossibilities.
—
At dawn, the Iron Fortress wakes to the sound of footfalls.
Alex runs along the training track, breath ragged, sweat pouring down his face.
Behind him, Elodie runs with effortless precision, her stride even, her breathing calm.
Alex stumbles, nearly trips, and forces himself forward.
His legs burn.
His lungs feel like they are tearing apart.
He collapses onto the ground, gasping.
"El—Elodie," he pants, voice breaking.
She stops beside him.
"Get up and run."
Alex tries.
His arms shake violently.
His legs refuse to respond.
He falls flat again, tears streaking down his face.
"I can't," he sobs. "I can't… my hands and legs feel like they're falling apart."
Elodie looks down at him, expression unreadable.
Then she speaks, her voice sharp and precise.
"Remember their faces."
Alex blinks.
"Your master," Elodie says. "The villagers. Standing helpless in the field."
The images slam into him.
Martha's hollow eyes.
The frozen bodies.
The silence.
Alex screams.
Silver light bursts from within him, raw and uncontrolled.
It floods his limbs.
His pain dulls.
He pushes himself up.
And runs.
Elodie slows and stops, watching him go.
The silver light flickers around Alex as he moves, unstable but present.
This is the point of the training.
Not to summon divine power only in despair.
Not only in rage.
But at will.
Under control.
In any situation.
Elodie folds her arms as she watches Alex stumble forward, silver light flickering weakly around him before sputtering out.
She studies him with a calculating gaze.
The priests she has encountered before are fragile, their bodies no different from ordinary civilians, their strength limited to borrowed miracles and ritual casting, much like the legendary alchemists of old.
Useful, but vulnerable.
Elodie wants more.
She wants to know whether a priest can be trained like a knight.
Not just to channel power, but to endure, to move, to survive on a battlefield.
Minutes later, Alex collapses again, face pressed into the dirt, chest heaving.
This time, Elodie does not tell him to stand.
She claps her hands once.
Two knights step forward immediately, appearing from the edge of the training grounds.
"Take him," Elodie says calmly, "and throw him into my private medicinal pool."
Alex whimpers weakly as the knights lift him by the arms and legs.
He is too exhausted to resist.
They carry him away.
Elodie remains where she is, arms still folded, gaze steady.
One by one, the knights of her unit enter the field.
They form ranks without a word.
This is routine.
Without any command being spoken, they unsheathe their swords and charge her.
Elodie does not draw her weapon.
She steps forward.
The first knight swings.
She slips past the blade, strikes his throat lightly with the edge of her hand, then twists and drives a kick into his knee.
He collapses with a cry.
The second and third come together.
She ducks, pivots, and snaps her elbow into one's ribs while her palm strikes the other's jaw.
Both go down.
She moves fluidly, weaving between attacks, never retreating, never rushing.
She does not use fighting energy.
Only technique.
Only timing.
Knights fall after two or three precise blows, groaning on the ground, unable to rise.
Not a single strike touches her clothes.
Within an hour, the training ground is silent except for laboured breathing.
Every knight lies on the ground.
Elodie walks away without looking back.
"They don't give me any pressure anymore," she mutters. "I need a new training partner."
She heads toward her private medicinal pool.
The chamber is warm and faintly misted, the water glowing with herbs and refined substances dissolved over the years.
Alex floats inside the pool, unconscious, with only his head above the surface.
Elodie makes no sound.
She removes her outer clothing, leaving only her undergarments, and steps into the pool.
The warmth seeps into her muscles instantly.
She closes her eyes and begins refining her fighting energy, drawing the medicinal essence into her body.
An ordinary person with spirit blood can become a knight once they learn to mobilise that blood within themselves.
That marks entry into the knight apprentice realm.
To advance to intermediate knight apprentice, one must cultivate a compatible fighting energy technique and condense fighting energy inside the body.
From there to peak knight apprentice, it is a matter of accumulation and control.
But the true wall comes next.
To break through into the official knight realm, one must draw power from the outside world and refine their fighting energy into a fighting seed.
Elodie has already done this.
She is an official knight.
The official knight realm has twelve steps.
Each step requires refinement of the fighting seed and the breaking of a barrier between the body and the spirit space.
Twelve barriers.
Twelve steps.
Elodie has broken only one.
She is in the second step of the official knight realm.
The medicinal pool helps stabilise her seed, smoothing imperfections, preparing her for the next barrier.
Beside her, Alex stirs faintly.
His body absorbs the medicinal energy differently, reacting in unpredictable ways.
Elodie senses it without opening her eyes.
Good.
—
Back in Olden City, Clive steps out of his house and pauses as morning sunlight warms his face.
The case with Carrie Smith is technically over.
Robbie Smith is dead.
But closure is not payment.
He still needs to explain what he found—and what he could not.
Before that, he decides to check on Charlie.
Clive hires a steam carriage and gives an address in the Sigil District, one of the city's upper-class quarters.
The streets grow cleaner, quieter.
The carriage stops before a small estate.
Guards inspect him, then step aside when he gives his name.
Inside, a servant escorts him through manicured grounds to a large mansion and leads him into a waiting room.
"Please wait, sir," the servant says. "Master Charlie will be with you shortly."
Minutes pass.
Then more.
Voices rise outside.
Footsteps run.
Clive frowns and steps out of the room.
Servants rush through the hall, faces pale.
He stops one of them.
"What happened?"
The servant swallows hard. "Master Charlie is missing."
Clive's stomach tightens.