The weak morning light bled through the tall windows of the study, casting long, pale shadows across the mahogany desk.
Alaric had managed to get a solid five hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep, waking up with his mind completely sharp and the lingering fatigue of the Vath Hills finally washed away. Now, he sat perfectly still in his leather chair, the low, subterranean thrum behind his ribs pulsing in tandem with the quiet arrival of dawn.
Spread out across the desk were seven or eight different parchments.
Each sheet was covered in a frantic, dense web of gibberishstrings of unreadable characters and chaotic numbers that served only to anchor his complex calculations.
But in the exact center of the desk lay a single, definitive parchment, completely clean except for one massive, dominant diagram.
It was a large, heavy circle drawn in thick black ink. Inside the circle, two distinct triangles intersected.
Within the first triangle, Alaric had aggressively scratched the name Volt Tor. Within the second triangle, three names were written in a sharp, precise script: Mark Kruch, Will Amkrik lek, and Eldrin Ashworth.
Dark, jagged lines ran back and forth between the two geometric shapes, visually binding the three opportunistic businessmen to the noble who pulled their strings.
It was no longer a balance sheet, it was a blueprint for a slaughter.
Alaric pushed the chair back and stood up. He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a mask crafted entirely from dark, polished wood and interlocking strips of bamboo a stark, faceless visage. Before even leaving the room, he pressed the mask to his face, tying the thick straps securely behind his head.
The wood felt cold against his skin, hiding his fractured features completely.
He threw his heavy coat on over his shoulders and exited the estate into the crisp, freezing morning air. The snow of the Western Sector crunched quietly under his boots as he marched toward the nearest public communication hub.
Within twenty minutes, he approached a cold, iron-framed phone booth tucked into a quiet alleyway. Sitting just outside the booth, wrapped in a heavy wool uniform, was a phone booth officer tasked with monitoring the public lines. The officer looked up, his posture instantly stiffening as his eyes locked onto the unsettling bamboo mask. He barred the door with a gloved arm.
"State your business, sir. And let me see your documentation," the officer ordered, his voice laced with suspicion. "No masked individuals are permitted to use the public lines without verification and if you are not a resident of Western sector than you know it's a death penalty."
Alaric didn't hesitate. With a smooth, deliberate motion of his right hand, he slid the wooden mask upward just enough to expose his eyes and jawline. He reached into his inner pocket, pulled out his high-tier identity document, and handed it over.
The officer took the papers, his eyes dropping to the stamped seal. His face instantly drained of color. He looked from the name on the paper back to Alaric's cold, living gaze, his fingers trembling slightly.
"M-Mr. Xyle?" the officer stammered, his eyes widening in sheer confusion and surprise. "But... the rumors say you were—"
"They were rumors," Alaric cut him off, his voice flat, razor-sharp, and entirely unyielding. He snatched his documentation back from the officer's paralyzed grip, pulled the bamboo mask down to lock it over his face once more, and pushed past the man.
Stepping inside the phone booth, the heavy glass door clicked shut behind him, completely cutting off the whistling winter wind. Alaric lifted his right hand, his fingers gripping the cold metal receiver with flawless, unscarred precision. He reached for the rotary dial, his mind instantly flashing back to the instructions on Tylor's parchment. Without a second of hesitation, Alaric dialed the number 291011.
He held the receiver to his ear, listening to the mechanical clicks clear the line, waiting for the voice on the other end to pick up. After thirty to forty seconds, someone finally picked up the phone.
"Who's there ?" The Voice sounded glitched and a little with more base.
"Tylor ?" Alaric answered slowly.
"Yes." This time the voice sounded more glitched and with more base.
"It's me...Alaric Xyle." Alaric answered while letting out an audible sigh.
"Al-alaric you ?....you are alive..oh man i thought you are gone....is something wrong." The voice suddenly sounded a little happy but not emotionally.
"Don't play with me...you left that parchment without explaining several things...so i guess you should begin and i have something to tell you."
"Not a good place you see....I'll come at your home in umm...two hours and we'll talk I'm in still in southern sector."
Without waiting for Alaric's response, the phone went off. Alaric cursed slowly and walked out of the phone booth. Without even looking at the phone booth officer, he walked toward his estate while kicking a pebble.
After covering a certain distance walking, Alaric suddenly stopped. As he was thinking something, after some seconds he shook his head and continued to walk.
"Cathedral is just not my type anymore...last time I went was.." Alaric couldn't help but lampoon.
---
After ten minutes, Alaric was again lying in his bed with his eyes closed.
*Man... I should have slept more... but planning was more important.*
*Now what? I just need Tylor's information to finally start unfolding my plan, my masterpiece.*
*Well, should I name it? ... I guess no. If I'm the only one who knows it, then why should I name it?*
The silence of the bedroom was different now. It wasn't the heavy, suffocating vacuum of the void, nor was it the sharp, biting quiet of the Vath Hills. It was the expensive, hollow silence of a luxury he no longer cared about.
Alaric lay flat on his back, staring up at the intricate plaster moldings of the ceiling. The amber glow of the gas lamps had been completely swallowed by the bright, unyielding winter sun outside, casting sharp geometric squares of light across the silk sheets.
Two hours. A simple, finite metric of time, yet tracking it without a watch or a ledger felt like trying to count the grains of snow falling in the courtyard. To pass the minutes, Alaric closed his eyes and tried to force his body to rest, but his mind refused to settle into the ledger of sleep.
Instead, it rhythmically mapped out the geometry of his current existence. Beneath his ribs, the Conduit anchor pulsed—a slow, heavy, subterranean thrum that felt entirely detached from his physical fatigue. He focused on it, trying to gauge its depth, its volume, its capacity. He flexed his fingers against the mattress, validating the presence of his bone and flesh.
The fear was still there, coiled tightly around his resolve like a parasite. He was terrified of the knife. He was terrified of the agonizing cycle of mutilation the Voice had demanded. But as he rolled his head to the side, his gaze caught the sharp black ink lines of the diagram drying on his desk: Volt Tor, Mark Kruch, Will Amkrik lek, Eldrin Ashworth.
The fear didn't vanish, but it calculated a baseline. The pain of the blade was a fixed cost. The liquidation of his enemies was the return on investment. In the mathematics of vengeance, the transaction remained entirely profitable.
He shifted his position, rolling onto his side to face the frozen window. He watched a single crow fight against the northern wind, its dark silhouette cutting through the pale blue sky. He didn't think about his wealth. He didn't think about the frozen assets or the rumors of his demise that were currently circulating through the communication hubs of the Western Sector. He simply let his thoughts drift into the empty spaces of the upcoming conversation.
Tylor knew the rules of the game. He knew about the moon, he knew about the medicines, and he knew what the other Arcanists were capable of. Alaric just needed those variables to complete his equation.
A grandfather clock somewhere down the hallway chimed the hour, its heavy brass pendulum swinging with a rhythmic, predictable click. Alaric let out a slow, controlled breath that barely fogged the cool air of the room, patiently waiting for the footsteps of his past to arrive at the front gate.
Alaric just closed his eyes and didn't care to open them anymore. It was unknown when he was already in deep sleep.
"Sir..?...Sir?" It was Kale shouting from outside the door of Alaric's room.
Alaric was still sleeping. Kale violently punched the door, and it was more than enough to make Alaric wake up. Alaric jerked, he stood up, his black hair messy with heavy eyes.
Alaric opened the door angrily. "What!"
Kale was already gone from there. Alaric stepped out of the room and walked downward.
Downstairs, a man was sitting on the couch. For a second, Alaric felt a sense of deja vu. The man noticed Alaric, and a smile came onto his face as he stood up and walked toward Alaric. Alaric stopped there as he focused on the man's face.
It was none other than Tylor Vanevold.
Alaric didn't welcome him with a warm smile, he simply walked toward his room. And Tylor didn't seem bothered at all, he followed Alaric calmly.
When they both were alone in the room, Alaric yawned and finally opened his mouth. "Long time no see."
"Yeah..yeah don't sweet talk...just ask your question we both know we are not friends just an fellow arcanist."
Alaric silently nodded. "So...Tell me about it."
"About what ? Medicines ?"
"Obviously."
Tylor didn't look all that interested in a conversation about Conduit medicines. "There are medicines that help you to heal damages caused by conduit and they only sell in black market."
"And ?"
"Nothing...that's all."
Alaric's mouth fell open, but he only sighed.
Tylor slowly opened his mouth. "You asked one question for me...Now it's my turn tell me what's your Conduit nature ?"
Alaric was taken aback.
*I never decided something like this... but fine, I'll answer this once.*
"Divine and yours ?"
"Devil, divine is preety good like you can inject conduit energy into objects and throw it or use it as a conduit weapon."
Finally, something useful. Alaric narrowed his eyes as he grew serious.
"Tylor...the thing is I'm planning something and I need some information for it."
"Like ?"
"Limits of a person , How to channel conduit and can I use Lumen Siphon without the sacrifice."
Tylor chuckled dryly. " I'm not your mentor...but anyways I'll answer because what you want is ultimately i want."
Almost immediately Alaric asked, " What you want ?"
"What I want is what you want."
"Just give me the information..don't play with me." Alaric answered a little angrily.
"Being a newspaper is not that bad...hmm so listen limits of person is just what are your limits where you can push yourself that's all."
Alaric opened his mouth, but Tylor waved his hand to silence him as he continued, "to channel conduit it's pretty simple there are normally two ways first think it as blood flowing in your veins...you only have to do is to use it."
Tylor stretched out his hand. And slowly, at the center of his fist, blackish-red particles started to form around it, and then gradually disappeared.
"And second thing is breathing...think it is you are inhaling and exhaling but instead from nose you are doing it from every cell of your body."
Tylor sighed, but continued, "and about Lumen Siphon yes you can use it unless you speak the incantation and for incantation you have to sacrifice something else than what you sacrificed for using conduit and everytime you need different sacrifice."
Alaric absorbed the final explanation in dead silence. His face remained completely expressionless, but beneath his ribs, his new heart gave a heavy, mechanical thrum. He didn't blink, he didn't twitch, and he didn't let a single ounce of his inner turmoil surface.
Every time requires a different sacrifice.
The words mapped themselves onto the blueprint in his mind, calculating the terrifying cost of using Singularity at its peak. He was already calculating the variables, but he forced the thoughts away as Tylor leaned back, his eyes narrowing with a sharp, probing intensity.
"Now," Tylor said, his voice dropping all previous humor as he stepped closer. "I've told you everything you asked. Now it's my turn."
He gestured to the messy parchments scattered across the mahogany desk, his gaze locking onto the dominant diagram in the center—the heavy black circle and the two triangles binding Volt Tor to his three merchant hounds.
"First... what exactly are you planning here?" Tylor demanded, a cold curiosity flaring in his eyes. He then stepped right into Alaric's space, his voice turning dead serious. "And second... where the hell were you missing for eighteen days?"
Alaric stayed silent for more than a minute, as if recalling what had happened and filtering it to what he could tell. He finally answered, "First thing I can't answer that's a thing it's beyond explanation and second thing a conflict between me and volt occurred so I was hiding from him."
Tylor didn't seem convinced, but he still nodded.
Alaric again opened his mouth. " Well for first thing I can tell you one thing it's a thing in which your help will be partially required."
"For what ?"
"To not make it suspicious."
"And what is it ?"
"The last party."