The hour had already slipped past midnight by the time Rover and her companions decided to conclude their day.
"Make sure to meet us at Panhua's tomorrow," Chixia called out, waving with a bright smile. Rover offered a simple nod in return. "Sure."
With those parting words, the trio went their separate ways. Chixia and Yangyang departed for their home, leaving Rover to make her way toward City Hall.
She was about to ascend the stairs leading from the city square when she suddenly felt someone gazing at her. Pausing, she cast a wary glance over her shoulder.
Finding the space behind her empty, she shook her head to clear her thoughts. 'I must be imagining things?'
Nonetheless, she turned back toward City Hall and ascended the stairs. As she climbed, a rhythmic sequence of thoughts surfaced, leading her to a conclusion regarding the hidden significance of the tokens.
"It's just as I expected..." Rover gave herself a nod before she inwardly remarked, 'Sir Kurian's hint and my hunch — both were right.'
She reviewed the mysteries uncovered as she remembered what had transpired earlier.
First, there was the sundial, which had appeared to be missing a crucial component. However, through the assistance of Dr. Mortefi — one of the pioneering researchers at Jinzhou's Hanxu Academy — the device was restored.
Once fixed, the sundial pointed directly toward the Grand Library of Jinzhou, its precise alignment hinting at an incredibly sophisticated method of recording time, which in the current age was used by the Grand Archive.
Second were the sugar pearls. These had proven to be entirely ordinary, tied merely to a local event from a decade prior when the treats were distributed to citizens following their vaccinations.
"What my gut is telling me is that the Magistrate was running out of time, and that she needed to mislead some people — an enemy of some sort." She adamantly remarked.
That was the conclusion she drew: The Magistrate's hands were tied by an extremely urgent matter which demanded her full attention. She was running out of time, whilst having an agenda to mislead certain parties.
But the question lingered: "Who?"
'If I could just have another chance encounter with Sir Kurian, perhaps I could uncover mo—' Rover was beginning to consider searching for him when suddenly — BANG!
The sharp crack of gunfire echoed through the air. Rover spun around, her eyes narrowing. 'Aha, there was someone there.'
Without a second thought, Rover sprinted toward the source of the commotion. She was not the only one drawn by the sharp crack of the blast, however, as the Jinzhou patrols were already converging on the site.
"Rover!" Chixia called out, spotting her as she descended the stairs. Rover looked toward Chixia and Yangyang, asking urgently, "Are you two also..."
Both Yangyang and Chixia nodded in confirmation before Rover suggested, "Let's tread with caution."
"Right," Yangyang agreed, while Chixia offered a firm, complying nod.
As the three of them, accompanied by a handful of patrollers, made their way toward the sound, the Magistrate's dutiful bodyguard, Sanhua, stood watching the ongoing skirmish. She remained poised, considering, 'Should I intervene?'
A short while ago, Sanhua had detected the presence of two troublesome individuals who appeared to be taking an interest in Rover.
However, midway through her surveillance, another party she recognized had joined them in an unexpected rendezvous.
"¡Vaya, vaya! (My oh my)... What an unexpected encounter."
"—!!?"
The trio spun toward the source of the voice, their eyes widening as a collective gasp escaped them.
Sanhua: "Sir Kurian."
Scar: "Monster."
Phrolva: "Hypocrite."
"Fractsidus Overseers, Scar and Phrolova..." Kurian called out, his voice low and laced with unrestrained hostility. "En garde."
"You—" Scar produced a deck of cards that ignited in a sudden flash. He clicked his tongue, narrowing his eyes at Kurian, who merely replied, "As if I would let you."
BANG!
The roar of Kurian's firearm echoed, but the shot was not directed at the two Overseers. Instead, he fired behind him, shattering a door that was beginning to materialize before it could ever see the light of the night.
Crack—
The sharp snap of a whip fractured the air.
Kurian felt a sudden, jarring resistance as the thorny lasso of Hecate — the macabre puppet construct dancing at the end of Phrolova's invisible threads — ensnared one of his dual firearms, pulling it from his grasp.
With the grace of a grand maestra, she directed its elaborate movements through the rhythmic gestures of her hands and the crimson spider lily wand she wielded.
"Hmm." Kurian's lips curled into a cold, sharp smile as he accepted this brief trial of physical strength. "You dare to separate these siblings — Hansel and Gretel — do you?"
Firearms: Hansel and Gretel
With a sudden, forceful wrench, he swatted his hand away, tearing Hansel free from Hecate's constricting lasso.
Once his weapon was reclaimed, he took a measured step back, pivoting his body exactly ninety degrees with mechanical precision, as if bracing to evade an imminent strike.
Yet, the assault did not come from the front or the rear; it descended from above. Scar had materialized a portal directly overhead, sending one of his sickles screaming downward like a falling meteor.
The blade slammed into the earth with a violent impact. Before it could recoil, Kurian snatched the hilt in a firm grip.
The resonance energy within the sickle surged, rampaging and on the verge of a cataclysmic explosion, only to be instantly smothered and contained by the overwhelming force of Kurian's own power.
"Tch." Scar clicked his tongue, a sharp snarl curling his lip. "Phase deflection, is it?"
Kurian was not a Sentinel's Resonator by title, yet the resonance he wielded was of a caliber that could easily rival the authority of those top-tier echelons.
It was a power inherited from the dying will of the Jade Maiden, a mother who had envisioned nothing but a luminous future for her child.
Elevated and evolved from that will, Kurain had calcified into a dominion of absolute sovereignty: The Jade Emperor.
This ability manifested as a Havoc-attribute resonance, though it functioned with a unique mechanical twist.
Unlike standard Havoc, which annihilates matter, leaving an irreparable void, Kurian's influence was temporary.
However, what it lacked in permanent destructive potency, it more than compensated for through its staggering range.
Among his most formidable passive traits was Phase Deflection, a power he could evoke with a mere touch. By contacting with an opposing resonance, Kurian could deflect its energy phase by exactly π/4 (45°).
In the physics of resonance, this represents the "Half-Power Point."
Once the phase deflects by this much, the amplitude drops to about 70.7% of its peak, and the energy transfer is halved. At this point, the system is no longer considered to be "at resonance".
Such was the mechanism behind "The Decree: Phase Shift." But Kurian's standing as a threat was not defined solely by his Resonance.
"Phew."
Exhaling a cold mist, Kurian gripped the giant, heavy sickle he had snatched from the air. He raised the weapon high above his head. "Sakuryu Miscellaneous Arts: Thousand Petal Fall."
Like thunder, he swung. The motion was a blur of insane speed, a simple horizontal slash that suddenly, and violently, halted mid-air.
By abruptly stopping a swing of that velocity, Kurian generated a level of torque and counter-torque so immense it defied human biology. A sickening pop echoed as his own arm dislocated under the strain, but he didn't flinch.
It was the sickle that broke instead, as the opposing forces acted on it like a vise, deforming the metal until it reached its breaking point.
CRACK—SHATTER.
The blade exploded into thousands of jagged shards. Each piece, propelled by the residual kinetic energy, tore through the air at supersonic speeds, creating a deafening sonic boom that shook the very foundation of the city.
Krrrrrrrr—!
It sounded like a Gatling gun firing rounds at Mach speed. Scar's eyes darted with frantic precision as he flicked seven cards in a desperate attempt to wall off the first wave. It wasn't enough.
The shards shredded through his defenses, forcing Phrolova and Hecate to step in, their movements a frantic blur of threads and wands to deflect the metallic hail.
By the time the storm of steel subsided, Kurian was calmly gripping his shoulder, slamming the joint back into place with a grimace of satisfaction.
Scar had burned through ten of his cards just to survive a single "art," and Phrolova was no longer the composed maestra.
"If you want to fight, do it properly!" she snarled, her voice losing its melodic edge. "Seriously, toying about just to gather attention... Do you truly think we are incapable of escaping in your presence?"
Kurian's chest heaved as he let out a dark, mocking chortle. "Haa... For the first time, some truth. You lot of the Fractsidus are surely good..." He paused, his gaze piercing through them like a cold blade. "...at running away, that is."
"You bastard, hypocrite!" Phrolva gritted her teeth, commanding Hecate to attack in a series of teetering, jagged whip arcs.
Kurian merely parried the strikes with the broken blade in his arm, his expression shifting to one of annoyance.
As he deflected the final, screeching strike of the whip, the environment turned dark. Huge, black cards slammed together from all sides, forming a windowless box that swallowed him whole, sealing him in a claustrophobic tomb of resonance energy.
Then, the night was torn apart by a sound that wasn't human.
A guttural, bone-chilling roar echoed across the battlefield as Scar abandoned his human facade.
Within the darkness, his form twisted and surged, manifesting his Aberrant Nightmare form. It was a physical transformation into a Baphomet — a towering, demonic horror with curled goat horns and eyes that burned with pale yellow.
Scar lunged toward the card-prison, his monstrous Baphomet form cutting a terrifying silhouette against the moon.
His sickle glowed in amethyst, prepared to slice through the box and trigger a chain reaction that would detonate the cards in a cataclysmic explosion.
Suddenly, an unimpressed voice resounded from within the enclosure. "If you are not up for the job, don't do it."
To be continued...