Shyme stood in silence.

Shyme need to give it to that guy. No one would expect a prodigious warrior, a member of 33 Stars, and the most sadistically devious mind she ever encountered to live here.

Super Rider Ω: General Good and Medicine.

Cytortia put a cardboard cutout of a mascot resembling a smiling ramen bowl with large cartoonish eyes and a caterpillar track holding a giant lollipop. The goddess nodded with satisfaction like she was witnessing the work of Bob Ross.

“What is that?”

“It is Super Rider Ω,” Cytortia answered, tapping the cardboard with pride. “My friend and I design this mascot together. No one will expect me to run this kind of shop.”

Shyme agreed, but she had one more question.

“Why set the shop up in the Wind-quarter?” Shyme yelled at the boy. “Why not Earth? This area functions as storage and utility complexes. It is pretty much stranded. No one wants to live here.”

“Trade Secret,” Rem said.

Shyme looked at him and the at Cytortia.

“Cy, are you agreeing with him?” Shyme implored. “You are staying in one of the most inconvenient places in Venistalis. Even the Fire-quarter military district has more service than this place.”

Cytortia sighed. She already discussed the scenario with Rem beforehand. Everyone heard the plan and agreed to it. If a little inconvenience could guarantee the safety of the people, then they didn’t mind sleeping on concrete.

“Yes, I want to run a shop from this warehouse, Shyme,” Cytortia said. “Who knows? It might become popular.”

…

Melody walked into their new base.

The whole district smelled musty. No, you could say the entire quarter was devoid of all liveliness. Wind-quarter was an industrial area for workers which maintained Venistalis’ utilities plant. Melody reflected deeply on her surroundings. The Melody six-month ago would dismiss the entire Wind-quarter as unimportant. She wouldn’t bat an eye for this dirty place with grime and smog. However, month hanging around a person who spent days planning how to deconstruct the nation down to its foundation changed her perspective on what was important.

The quarter she resided in was responsible for water and waste utilities, garbage disposal, Mana power-production, and storage of goods. If the city was a body, this place was its liver. It was a priority target in all of Rem’s plan to protect the city and vice versa. It wasn’t the most sanitary place or the liveliest, but it must be maintained at all costs to preserve order.

If the Fire-quarter and its military infrastructure fell, the military could relocate. Water-quarter and its research and financial institution might be vulnerable to infiltration, but its information could be back-up frequently. Earth-quarter might be an all-important civilian’s housing area, but evacuation-plan existed for a reason. But Wind-quarter was the city lifeblood containing all the back-up food, water, and goods. Army and citizens need food to live, and in time of the siege, this area couldn’t afford to fall.

Hence, Horizon Dawn came to an anonymous decision to put their base here and guarded this quarter to the last man.

Melody walked into the warehouse they had been remodeling for the past five days.

She wasn’t disappointed.

The moment they got the ownership of this warehouse, the Dawn pulled out all stops to remodel their new base. Hikma dug a sizable garage Arcane to hide away extra-supplies. A humongous map of Venistalis draped the far side of the wall with Rem’s notes scribbled all over it.

Meanwhile, on their forensic table, the two eggheads of the group sat down in an attempt to decipher a mysterious text.

“Any luck?” Melody said, putting down her groceries.

“We did it,” Hikma said.

Melody’s eyes widened.

“That fast.”

Cytorita’s chest puffed up with pride.

“It all thanks to Hikma’s Astral Tracing and [Decode],” Cytortia said.

[Decode] was one of Hikma’s skills focused on the ability to read code and mysterious language. Melody believed it represented his skill in Archeological analysis and his vast knowledge of the ancient language.

“That is strange. I believe Enma clan knows someone with [Decode], and they still failed to decipher this language.”

“Because they do not have Astral Tracing,” Hikma said. “I have to combine [Decode] with Astral Tracing to get the skill that did the trick.”

Melody perked up. Skills could combine and evolve under the right condition. Examples of this phenomenon were [Alchemy] and [Armory Grace]. Specific material-crafting techniques must merge into [Alchemy]. While [Armory Grace] required multiple weapon mastery on top of [Sword Grace]. Melody was always curious about this wonder ever since she was a kid. She smiled. Her mother often groaned in frustration whenever she boasted about the combination she came up with thin air.

“What skill is it?”

“It is called [Psychometry],” Hikma said, showing her his status card.

…

Hikma De Darwin

Stat

Str: 95 [E]

End: 200 [D]

Mag: 634 [B]

Wis: 570 [C]

Dex: 131 [E]

Skill

Active

Psychometry [A]

Deep Meditation [A]

Conceptual Seal [S]

Force of Will [C]

Passive

Defensive Mastery [B]

Memoria Revision [N/A]

…

“Impressive growth,” Melody said. “Congratulation on reaching Rank C in less than a month.”

Cytortia suddenly turned glum for a reason Melody knew very well.

“Still no change in your stats?”

Cytortia nodded.

Melody didn’t know what to think about this. Cytortia’s ability barely rose after learning True Magic while the rest of the gang-raped all commonsense with their growth rate. This discovery brought one fact to the surface to Melody’s mind.

“Do you two check the book the boss recommended yet?”

Hikma frowned.

Cytortia nodded.

Melody noticed her shaking hands. Cytortia was afraid. What she discovered in that text terrify her. Melody thought about how Rem gave up. She shivered. One of her first friends and confidant was faking a reassuring smile. The smartest and the most determined man she ever respected hit the brick. The goddess they trusted went silent. The disaster didn’t even start yet, and what she saw so far did not shore up her confidence.

What the hell would be happening in Venistalis?

Suddenly, a voice called out.

“Good job,” Rem plopped a familiar octopus and the table. “We finally have good news. Za Wa is waking up.”

“Who?” Hikma asked.

“Oh yeah, you never met him,” Cytortia said, pointing to the octopus. “He is a pet octopus boss sent to us. He is part of the reason why we succeed last time.”

Hikma looked at the snoring golden octopus.

“Our boss pet is an octopus who snore in yano?”

“Satholia once punch out Hermes in stop time. As far as I am concerned, the octopus that is essentially a bank is par on course.” Rem turned to Hikma. “To bring you up to speed, he went offline a few months back after we stopped the dragon. The blood we stored inside his body did something weird to him. Now we see the result.”

Za Wa perked up. His eyes sparkled with electricity, and he loudly declared.

“YANO!!!!!!”

And then he spun faster than the eyes could see and turned into a laptop.

“What is that?” Cytortia said.

“It is a laptop,” Hikma said.

Rem flipped Zawa opened and began typing.

“The user interface looks okay. Access to the internet, check. Wow, what with this connection speed. Now let check the programs. Heh, a user instruction is here so. Ah, he even has an updated Status ID.”

…

ZA WA

The Machine

Stat

Str: 10[E]

End: 55,050 [SS]

Mag: 300 [C]

Wis: 200[D]

Dex: 3[F]

Skill

Gambler Bank [A]

Mass Manufacturing [S]

Divine Server [EX]

Universal Input [A]

Interconnectivity [S]

Passive

Immortallity [SSS]

Boneless [A]

Blessing of Center [Ex]

…

“What did this even mean?” Cytortia said.

Rem answered with a burst of renewed hope as he read the skill description.

“[Universal Input] allowed Za Wa to process any analog input in a digital format,” Rem breathed a sigh of relief as he scooped up two hundred pages of documents and dangled it before the computer. “Okay, Zawa, please input all of these documents as a digital file.”

A tentacle emerged from the computer screen, wrapped up the papers, and dragged them into the computer.

Everyone stared.

“And here I think nothing could surprise me anymore,” Hikma stated.

Cytortia nodded in agreement.

“This is great,” Rem could hide away his excitement. “Za Wa just give us a fighting chance. This computer-mode more than half the time to dissect our data. We only need to code the algorithm."

“Do you think you can find the culprit?” Melody said.

“Hikma, there are several million entries,” Rem said. “Zawa can narrow that range down to around thousands, but it will still be diving under a haystack. I need more criteria.”

“Yeah, I think you about to have the criteria,” Cytortia looked disturbed. “We are certain we knew what ritual they are pulling off.”

“Isn’t that good news?” Melody asked.

“Yeah,” Hikma said. “If you think facing an army of undead is good news.”

…

“Thank you very much,” Luxinna said to a shop keeper.

“Alright dear, come back again anytime,” an old lady in the butcher-shop waved at the smiling elf.

Ever since she was young, Luxinna was the social butterfly. She knew every shop and store in Lightwell, mastered the art of sweet-talking, and charismatic enough to get along with everyone she met even with her bolstering, upbeat attitude. Years in the forest might decline a touch of her social-skill, but it wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Horizon Dawn contained a cocktail of a confidence-impaired goddess, a smart-ass demoness with attitude, and a borderline sociopath. Luckily, Hikma’s recruitment helped to bolt their leaking PR for now.

Hence, to avoid adding to the overwhelmingly negative atmosphere the Dawn gave off, all members voted Luxinna to be the face of an organization. The duty which came with responsibility dreaded by both Melody and Rem: interacting with society.

That morning Luxinna picked up a newspaper, helped an uncle unpacked his box, shopped for supplies, and chatted with patrol guard. Now, she was touring the city, trying to accomplish the mission Rem gave her.

While they had data from Marley and Shyme, Rem still stressed that a fly-over data couldn’t stand up to grass-root observation.

And that was how Luxinna Latoria found herself playing kick-the-can with a bunch of kids in the street.

“Emilia! You skip my turn!” Luxinna yelled.

“Ms. Luxinna would win in seconds, so it won’t be fun!” Emilia said, closing her eyes. “I will start counting! One. Two. Three.”

The game continued as Luxinna bolted alongside her ten little friends. Unlike Rem, who would break the game by scaling the roof, Luxinna knew how to play with the kid. Hence, she decided to hide inside the bush with a boy named Lucas instead.

“Geez, Emilia is way too good at being it,” Luxinna complained.

“I know, Ms. Luxinna,” Lucas sweated nervously. “She found us every time.”

“Yes, catch you!” Emilia said, dropping from the branch hanging over the duo and tagging them in the arm.

Luxinna sighed. When did kids pull off a tactical maneuver during kick-the-can?

…

Lucas and Luxinna sat inside the pen. The boy looked conflictedly at Luxinna, switching between facing her and turning away. Luxinna knew that behavior, he wanted to talk about something.

“Lucas, you don’t have to say anything you don’t want to say,” the elf said.

Lucas looked down.

“Ms. Luxinna, I think I saw something I shouldn’t tell anyone,” Lucas explained.

“My friend often said secrets is like a parasite that would eat you from the inside. No one can keep secrets forever. What you have to do is timed when it will get out.”

Lucas turned silent for a second.

“Ms. Luxinna, do you know about the scary murder that starts recently,” Lucas finally said. “I think I saw the killer.”

“I don’t know about the murder, Lucas,” Luxinna said. She muttered a silent thanks to her luck. “I only moved here recently.”

“A few days ago, someone got killed close to my house,” Lucas shivered. “My mother stopped me getting out to see the body. But I heard people said there is blood everywhere. But before that person get killed, I saw someone loitering around the street.”

Luxinna perked.

“Luxinna, I think the murderer is a blue-robe,” Lucas trembled.

Clang!

Someone managed to kick the can, and Lucas ran away at full speed, but Luxinna did not move.

Blue-robe was slang for a mage of the royal family.

…

Rem read the translation one more time.

“A five-point anchor marked by haunted soul with the circle drawn by one mind to stir the lord,” Rem read. “To call the lord’s empire, and raise the bone from the abyss of death, kneel before him and waste a soul of an innocent for 111 nights. Sacrifice five thousand lives to be the king of the haunted. A thousand more each for thy knights. Finally, offer five million ghosts to reach godhood.”

“Holy fuck,” Melody said. “This is a murder ritual. You need to kill five people to even start it. Then you need to offer 111 more as setup.”

“Innocent souls, Melody,” Rem said. “It specifically dictates you to sacrifice a kid for 111 nights total.”

Melody looked like she was about to lose her lunch.

Hikma clenched his fist.

“Who would do this?” He yelled.

“Vengeful and desperate men, Hikma,” Rem answered. “But he couldn’t be a nobody.”

Cytortia agreed with Rem.

“A mage who could sneak past Shyme’s security, decipher a text one of the most powerful factions in Phantasia gave up on, resourceful enough to kidnap children to sacrifice every night, and hid his activity under the radar must be a financially and magically powerful.”

“And luckily for us, the big shot will be gathering in a party in a few days,” Rem said. “Our man will be there.”

…

Luxinna walked down the street of Lucas’s house, and she felt it. Some kind of immense darkness resided in this place. Her skin crawled, and her breathing labored, as she felt the void of a Primordial beyond the stars.

Something seared her leg. Out of blind panic, Luxinna pulled out that mysterious object. It was Sage Force’s Original Recipe #3: Ghost Detecting Crystal. The crystal was glowing sickly green as it sizzled and cracked. Virid smoke erupted from the gem, forming a massive skull that swallowed Luxinna whole, turning her entire world into a pit of darkness.

In that pitch blackness, deep inside the Mana Core of the elf, something reacted for survival. An innate power roared as it sprouted vine and root to take her mind.

What was once Luxinna roared. A golden lotus bloomed below her feet. The glass flower snarled as beastlike teeth sprang from its carpel and bit into the darkness, dispelling the power of the Primordial.

The elf stood in shock, not realizing the shadow of a monster inside of her.