Erika's finger remained pressed to his lips.
Those grey eyes, which had just been brimming with tears, now resembled dusty mirrors, reflecting no emotion—only pure alertness.
Anna, cowed by his sudden gesture, immediately held her breath.Her small body froze in place, not even daring to blink.
Time crawled in the silence.
The faint sting between Erika's brows had long vanished, but the sensation of being "touched"—and Wolfgang's warnings about "overextended spirit" and "do not attempt connection"—buzzed in his mind.
He couldn't be sure what it was, but any unnatural, external touch of energy meant danger now.
Several breaths passed.
Nothing unusual happened outside the door—only the distant, rhythmic hum of the Sanctum's energy, steady as a heartbeat.
He slowly lowered his hand, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly.
Only then did he look at Anna.
The girl was still pale, her large eyes wide with lingering fear, now mixed with confusion at his strange behavior.
"It wasn't your fault, Anna."
Erika's voice was hoarse, weary from the ordeal.
"That 'Mind-voice'… it's dangerous."
He weighed his words carefully—needing to comfort her without revealing too much, without pulling her deeper into risk.
"Instructor Wolfgang said my spirit… is unstable. Easily disturbed."
Anna nodded, not fully understanding, but the worry in her eyes didn't lessen.
"Then… how do you feel now? Does it still hurt anywhere?"
"I'm fine."
Erika shook his head, attempting a reassuring smile that came out stiff.
He shifted the focus to what he needed most to understand.
"Anna, this 'Mind-voice' you used before—what did it really feel like?""You said it was like a speaking-tube, and that the… channels get mixed up?"
Mentioning this seemed to animate her a little, perhaps glad she could finally help.
"Mm-hm!"
She nodded vigorously, trying to organize the description of that strange experience.
"It's like… you focus your mind, think of the person you want to talk to, and then it feels like your thoughts turn into an… an invisible 'wave' that you send out."
"But you can't be too far away, and…"
She scrunched up her small nose, recalling something unpleasant.
"…sometimes, you suddenly hear fragments of completely strange voices.""Very fuzzy—you can't make out the words—but you can feel the emotion."
"Sometimes anger. Sometimes… fear."
"The Sister said it's because many people in the Sanctum use 'Mind-voice', and everyone's 'waves' sometimes bump into each other."
She searched for a comparison.
"It's like… like being in a noisy market.""Hard to hear just one person."
Mixed channels.A noisy market.
Erika's heart gave a violent jolt.
An incredibly bold—almost insane—idea struck him.
If the essence of 'Mind-voice' was modulating mental intent onto a specific frequency or wave for transmission, and cross-talk was possible…
Then was the sting between his brows not an attack, but an accidental tuning—a brief alignment with a particularly strong Mind-voice channel nearby?
And had Anna been able to contact him before precisely because his Mark, or his special state, made him an easy receiver—something that specific frequencies could knock against?
Wolfgang had warned him not to "connect", fearing he would actively expose himself.
But what if…
He didn't connect?
What if he just listened?
The thought sent cold sweat down his back—and with it, a thrill of secret excitement.
This might be the only crack he could pry open in this tightly sealed prison of information.
"Anna."
His voice dropped, taking on an unprecedented seriousness.
"Can you… tell me more precisely how the 'Mind-voice' works?""How exactly do you 'think' of that wave?""Are there specific techniques—or… limitations?"
Anna grew nervous under his intense stare, but she tried hard to recall the Sister's teachings.
"It's… it's like meditation."
"You visualize the other person's… 'feeling of presence' in your mind."
"Then your focus has to be very sharp—like shooting an arrow.""You 'send' the words out…"
"The Sister said, the purer the spirit, the sharper the focus, the clearer the sound, and the less chance of cross-talk…"
She paused, then added sheepishly:
"I… I'm probably not pure enough yet.""So I disturbed you…"
"No. You did well."
Erika countered immediately.
"It's very… interesting.""I want to know more."
His gaze was sincere.
"Anna, do you know where I could find texts that explain the principles of 'Mind-voice' in more detail?""Not prayer books—ones about its underlying mechanics."
Anna's eyes lit up.
"Yes! In the junior sisters' library!"
"There's a very old book called An Analysis of Spiritual Resonance.""The Sister said it talks about the principles of 'Mind-voice' and other mental techniques!"
She hesitated.
"But… that book can't be borrowed.""You can only read it inside."
"That's fine."
A plan was already forming in Erika's mind.
"Could you… go look at it for me?""Just see what it says about stabilizing frequency and avoiding interference.""Remember the key parts—and come tell me."
He had to send her away.
If something went wrong, she wouldn't be implicated.
Anna hesitated only briefly.
Looking at Erika's pale, earnest face—and thinking she might have harmed him—a sense of responsibility welled up inside her.
She nodded firmly.
"Okay!""I'll go now!"
She slipped out as silently as she had entered.
A white butterfly vanishing into the corridor's shadows.
The door closed.
Erika was alone again.
Only the Sanctum's unchanging radiance glowed beyond the window.
He slid down the cold wall and sat on the floor.
Closed his eyes.
He stopped thinking of Anna.
Stopped trying to connect with anyone.
He recalled her words—
"Feeling of presence.""Focus like an arrow.""Wave."
He let his spirit grow still.
No signals sent outward.
Instead, he slowly unfurled his perceptual antennae—not aiming, not reaching—
like stones dropped into water, waiting for ripples to arrive on their own.
Waiting for fragments of information to wash up on his shore through channel cross-talk.
He emptied himself.
Lowered his own mental fluctuations.
Became a pure, passive receiver.
Time passed.
At first, there was only static—a quiet hiss, like wind sweeping over snow-covered plains.
Then, gradually—
Something surfaced.
Faint.Blurred.
No clear meaning.
Only emotion.
Anxiety.Numbness.A barely perceptible fervor.
He waited patiently.
His spirit slowly draining under the total concentration of listening.
A fine sweat beaded on his temples.
Suddenly—
A 'conversation' of abnormally high clarity, with an icy texture, forcibly pierced his perceptual range like two beams of harsh light!
This was nothing like Anna's immature fuzzy fluctuations; it was full of power and purpose.
[Channel A (voice steady, lacking inflection)]:...Target area secured. All contacts have undergone preliminary scan. No secondary contamination detected.
[Channel B (voice slightly rushed, evaluative)]:Specimen's mutation rate exceeds baseline model by seventeen percent. Energy siphoning traits manifesting. Shows rejection reaction to low-purity Lumen force fields. Recommend elevating quarantine level.
[Channel A]:Acknowledged. Application submitted for Level Three containment wards. The family's 'retained observation' request has been filed, will not affect standard purification protocol preparations.
[Channel B]:Understood. Energy reflux analysis indicates the specimen exhibited brief energy feedback during mutation, vector appears directed towards—
[Channel A]:Noted. Priority is containment. Purification Ring pre-heat sequence accelerated. Estimated time to critical threshold: three standard cycles. Maintain channel integrity.
The dialogue cut off abruptly.
The two powerful consciousnesses vanished as suddenly as they had appeared.
Erika's eyes snapped open.
He gasped for air as if surfacing from deep water.
A violent headache assaulted him, worse than before.
Warm liquid trickled from his nose.
He wiped it with his hand, his fingers coming away stained with red.
He leaned against the wall, letting the nosebleed drip onto his white novice robes, blooming into a small, stark patch of crimson.
But his eyes were no longer lost.
They held a sharp, almost cruel clarity.
"Specimen's mutation rate exceeds baseline model by seventeen percent..."
"Energy siphoning traits... rejection reaction to low-purity Lumen force fields..."
"Energy feedback phenomenon... vector directed towards..."
"Purification Ring pre-heat accelerated... three standard cycles..."
These icy phrases chiseled at his nerves like poisoned ice picks.
Cecilia, that arrogant red-haired girl, was now, in the eyes of the Creed, just a number—an anomalous 'specimen' to be processed.
Three days. She only had three days left.
Why should he care about her fate? Erika asked himself.
They shared no bond, only hostility.
Pity?
In this Sanctum that had devoured his homeland, pity was the cheapest and deadliest poison.
A colder, more practical reason surfaced in his survival-instinct-driven calculations.
Cecilia was the only 'exception'.
The Creed's doctrine proclaimed the 'Blight' to be pure filth, an absolute opposite that must be purified.
Auric energy was its absolute bane.
But everything happening to Cecilia mercilessly refuted this—
Her abnormal mutation speed, her rejection of low-purity Lumen fields, even the bizarre 'energy feedback'!
What did this mean?
It meant the power of the 'Blight' might be fundamentally different from what the Creed claimed.
It wasn't simple corruption, but a... perhaps more complex phenomenon—possibly sharing a common origin with Auric energy, or at least possessing some unknown connection.
Cecilia was the living proof of this shocking truth.
Save her?
No, Erika immediately dismissed the naive and impossible notion.
Snatching someone from under the Purification Ring in this fortress built of Auric power, constantly monitored by powerful Clerics, was like an ant trying to shake a tree.
His objective had to be more practical, and more concealed.
He needed to obtain crucial evidence or information from her, or from her place of isolation, before she was utterly 'purified' and this unique 'specimen' destroyed.
It could be energy residue from her mutation process, a data crystal recording her state, or simply getting closer to 'read' the energy anomaly occurring within her using his special perception.
This wasn't just curiosity.
This was potentially the only bargaining chip he might ever have.
A clue capable of subverting the very foundation of the Creed was immeasurably valuable.
It could be used to threaten certain individuals, help him understand the true relationship between his own Mark and the world's energy, or perhaps... one day, if he himself became an 'anomaly', serve as his ticket to negotiation or self-preservation.
The risk was extreme.
If discovered, his fate would be no better than Cecilia's.
But the potential reward was equally immense.
This could be his first step in shattering the information prison, truly glimpsing the rules governing this world.
Not to save an arrogant girl, but to... carve out a sliver of a chance to survive in this cruel world.
Just then, the Mark on the back of his left hand throbbed with a faint, uncanny resonance—
a subtle, yet undeniable echo of the 'energy feedback' phenomenon described in the black-clad Clerics' channel.
This sudden connection sent a jolt of ice through his veins.
Could it be...?