The surrounding people gather around Eleanor. They reach for her wings and beg her to save them—from injuries to sickness to even a stiff knee. She heals those seriously injured and orders the rest to evacuate. But the more she saves the more people gather around her and their chanting of “Angel! Angel!” grows louder.

Eleanor tries to heal everyone she can but her mana is drying up fast, so she has the bright idea of siphoning it from the surrounding people. That’s when Eleanor makes a surprising discovery…

“I can use their mana directly?!”

Can she?! Doctor Nina?

Holy magic is based on the idea that people can link up and share mana with one another. As the crowd worships my disciple and opens their heart to her, it creates an invisible network that allows Eleanor to transfer power back and forth and even cast spells by using others as a medium.

Whoa, I didn’t know holy magic could do that!

High-rank priests and priestesses use it all the time in sermons. But… the girl took it to a whole other level…

“Interesting… I can definitely use this!”

She tests out this ability by casting a wind spell to lift her to her feet. Eleanor stands up and spreads her wings. All eyes are on her.

“Everybody. Everybody, please listen to me. Right now our beloved city is under threat by a hidden enemy—the one who calls himself the Devil! His evil machinations seek to destroy everything we hold dear unless we can locate the explosives before it’s too late. So I like to ask you this request: those among you who have the ability and are brave enough, please help me search for the bombs. The rest, please evacuate the city in an orderly fashion. Do not riot in the street or trample upon each other, but help those who can’t help themselves. Remember, the lord above is always watching. Act with reason and compassion and he will keep you safe. I implore you all, please listen to this request and I promise to do everything in my power to bring this nightmare to an end. So please, I beg, go now.”

The crowd looks at Eleanor and then at each other. They talk among themselves, and soon a number of brave men step out as the rest evacuate from the city.

Eleanor and her party travel to the other district and tell them to do the same thing. By midnight, most citizens of Ivory City had moved to a safe distance. Eleanor looks at the battle that is still going on at the royal palace—specifically at the king and the duke who are commanding clouds and lightning high above.

“I hope mommy and the royal brat are safe, at least. Now, let’s get to work!”

Aww, Adrian. You do care about me.

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Shut up! It was a slip of tongue!

Eleanor looks at the group of a thousand or so volunteers around her and orders them to sweep the city. She tells them to pay extra attention to underground areas and hidden passageways, not that finding places like that would be easy.

“If I can cast spells through them, then maybe I can use them as a relay point… A spell that detects powerful mana resonance… Perhaps, I should ask that crazy stalker bitch.”

Eleanor picks out four strong-looking volunteers and asks them to bring her to Doctor Nina’s laboratory. She opens the door and searches for the doctor.

“Hello? Teacher? Dr. Nina Norris, are you here?”

Yeah, Doctor Norris, where were you in all of this? Why didn’t you help his majesty and Duke Ambrose fight off the cultists?

That’s right. You barely showed up in the devil’s memories so far, despite being her teacher. Last we saw was when you were kissing Doc August’s portrait.

The same doctor who turned out to be a ten-year-old girl in disguise. Creepy.

I was… A-hem! I had my hands full with other matters at the time!

What WERE you up to, Nina?

I-I told you, Ashton. I was pouring all my focus into researching and… and…

Eleanor sees Nina sleeping on the table and attempts to wake her. When shaking doesn’t work, Eleanor slaps Nina across the face.

“Ouch! I’m up! I’m up! You?! What do you want?”

“I want to learn a spell that can detect powerful individuals in a certain radius.”

“Where would you want to learn something like that—?! What the heck is going on!?”

Nina jumps on her feet when she senses the powerful crashes of magic at the center of the city. She dashes out the door and looks up at the ongoing battle with her jaws on the floor.

“What did I miss!?”

“A lot. Long story short, three powerful mages are hiding in the city. I need a spell that can track them down.”

“In the middle of this chaos?!”

“I’ll manage. Point me to a book and I’ll be out of your hair, Doctor.”

Nina shifts her eyes between Eleanor and the battle. She runs into the house, rummages through her stuff, and hands a notebook to Eleanor, before soaring up to join the battle.

Eleanor looks at Nina’s back disappearing and shrugs. She absorbs what she needs from the book and puts her idea to the test. She reaches across the invisible network to her agents across the city. She closes her eyes and commands everyone to cast a tracking spell all at once.

“Cool. It’s like I have a sonar image of the entire city… Now, where are you? Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Even with the map of the city at her fingertips, Eleanor has a hard time pinpointing the herald’s location thanks to the battle in the sky and the fact that the enemies must be concealing themselves. She searches and searches until she finds an odd mana fluctuation in the slums.

“Bingo!”

She quickly makes her way there with her guards. The fluctuation leads them down a storm drain and into a large sewer. Eleanor stops before a brick wall. The source is coming from behind it. She thinks back to how Prince Gael opened the path in the dungeon and sends mana into the bricks. It cracks open, revealing a path. Eleanor looks back to her four guards.

“This is your last chance to turn back.”

“We’re with you till the end, angel!”

“Yeah!”

“That’s right!”

“Let’s get moving.”

“You’ll live to regret that.”

Eleanor shakes her head and steps forward. Her body is being manipulated by wind magic like a marionette on strings.

The party moves through the darkness until they reach a brick chamber that’s very similar to the catacombs, with eastern runes written on the walls and a tall skinny man standing at the center. Eleanor and her crew hide behind a pillar to observe the environment. That’s when she notices something else in the chamber…

“Carter!?”

The teenage boy who would one day grow up to become Sword Saint Carter Cage is strung up on a wall with knives sticking out of him!