The day wound down with a flurry of departures and imposed tasks.

The Vyris twins had left immediately for Nolmes through the Signa Gates, while Celio was called back to the Moons’ estate by his mother with the pretence of separation anxiety.

Ace, being his usual enigma, returned to the Odeen capital library to dig deeper into the mysteries of Weisha and the Seven Conquerors.

That left Edris himself. After enduring the consequences of his coworker’s unhinged rage, the man had valiantly stepped forth to handle tonight’s dinner.

Edris had never claimed to be a good cook, but he tackled the task with his usual ebb-and-flow mindset.

Nearly three hours of kitchen combat later, a laden of dishes were spread across the table, their odour attracting the attention of Ives and Yukioe as the two hovered over with intrigue.

Both fell silent, eyeing the smear of colours before them.

Gauging the dishes with a concerned gaze, Ives seemed to be transported back to moments of her past. There would be times when she’d argue with Darcie and Gran, leading the seven-year-old to stomp onto the streets and spend a day or so outside.

At that time, the meals she had been given looked unfortunately similar to the ones currently spread before her eyes.

“...”

A prolonged silence filled the room, weighing down even the lingering smoke from the stovetop.

“Why aren’t you two eating?” Edris said, pushing the plates closer. “I made these strictly adhering to the recipe. Shouldn’t taste too bad.”

What kind of recipe did you follow?

The two to-be victims exchanged a look. Yukioe was the first to break the silence. He stared at the dark-haired man, an unreadable expression on his face.

After a long pause, he released a sigh. "…Let’s just eat out."

Moments later, the three of them found themselves back at the Alchemist Eatery, the cozy restaurant Edris, Ives, and Celio were at just a day ago. They ordered some of the specials they had enjoyed earlier, and the elderly store owner, ever generous, even gifted them with a dessert to take home.

Once they returned to the cabin, Ives voluntarily headed towards her room, much to Edris’s content. At the door, she briefly glanced over her shoulders.

“I will sleep early today and grow tall.”

Edris responded with a hum, waving her off. With the seven-year-old taken care of, he then turned to the curly-haired man’s room across the hall. “Will you also be getting some early beauty sleep?”

“Sleep is for the privileged.” Yukioe scoffed, pulling out a binder of paperwork from his bag. He sat himself before the wooden desk, cracking his neck and knuckles as he stretched.“The Healing faction has its bimonthly meeting tomorrow. I need to look over these materials and prepare.”

“They’re really working you like a dog, I see.” Edris shook his head sympathetically, slipping out the door just before Yukioe could bust him out himself.

A moment of stillness dawned upon the living room as it was emptied out.

Now alone, Edris made his way to the balcony on the second floor.

The cabin, though small, had an attic that led to a rooftop balcony, a feature he and Yukioe had added themselves a few years ago, much to their landlord’s initial dismay.

As he climbed up, Edris wasn’t surprised to find a certain white-haired man already there, sitting on the edge of the roof, gazing out at the night sky.

Edris settled beside him, the cool night air a welcome change after the hectic daytime.

"Any useful information from your diligent search?"

Ace didn’t respond immediately, his eyes still locked on the glowing sphere in the sky. Tonight was a full moon, with silver light casting a serene blur over the city landscape.

After a moment, he turned to Edris, only to realise the latter had been staring at him this entire time.

"Where were you when we got out of the Labyrinth?"

It was a question Edris had been meaning to ask but hadn’t had the chance to with everything else going on. With the whole situation at hand, discussing his amnesiac self hadn’t seemed like timely thing to do.

"I was up Mount Echo," Ace replied, his voice even.

“Hm?”

Edris blinked.

“All the way up?"

“Yes.”

Edris’s gaze drifted to the distant outline of the mountain, which was faintly visible even in the dark. The mountain reached up into the clouds, as though trying to touch the moon itself.

He gulped.

As expected from the man.

Ignoring his reaction, Ace then began to recount the strange sense of familiarity that had washed over him while reading Weisha’s diary, as well as the lingering feeling of a connection between himself and the heroes of the past.

Despite their frequent disagreements, Edris and Ace had a strange synchronicity when it came to more personal topics like this. Edris was one of the few who knew as much about Ace’s past as Ace himself did.

"Maybe they’re your ancestors?" Edris suggested, half-jokingly. He eyed Ace up and down, ruminating on the idea. "If you take genetic competence into consideration, it’s not completely impossible."

Ace responded with a silent scoff. His eyes remained fixed on the moon, letting the light breeze brush the strands of hair out of his face. There was a quiet, persistent air to him, a sense only seemed to intensify under the solemn full moon tonight.

The next moment, the man’s gaze sharpened, and he straightened his back. The sudden shift in his demeanour caught Edris’s attention.

"What is it?" he asked, turning to follow Ace’s line of sight.

The latter signalled for him to glance down, and when Edris did, his eyes widened.

Below them, a small figure was leaving the cabin. Her dessert-patterned sleep gown swayed in the wind as the silhouette disappeared into the dimly lit streets.

Stolen story; please report.

"Ives?" Edris creased his brows.

Where was the seven-year-old going at this hour?

***

Ives moved with haste, her small feet carrying her swiftly through the quiet streets of the capital.

The moon hung ominously above her head, an enormous silver orb bearing down on her like a boulder. Its light, cold and unyielding, cast shadows that stretched long and deep across the ground, dawning upon her like a silver cage.

At first, her pace was quick but controlled, each step deliberate as she navigated the darkened path. But as she drew closer to the Dene Jungle, an urgency began to build within her. Each breath came faster, heartbeat pounding in rhythm with her increasing speed. She glimpsed up at the full moon once more, its light trailing her path like a curse.

By the time she reached the jungle's periphery, she was at a full sprint, her small form darting through the darkness with a speed that defied her age.

Ives bolted into the darkness without hesitation.

Beyond the wall of darkness was where limb-like trees stood tall and twisted, their branches clawing at the sky. The foliage was dense, the leaves and branches so thick they blotted out most of the night sky, leaving only patches of dull light to filter through.

The jungle was alive with the quiet rustling of the unseen, and it was obvious that the seven-year-old wasn’t the only one there.

However, none of the lurking creatures came out into view.

Or rather, they didn’t dare.

If one looked closely, past the oppressive darkness, they would see the black puddles that pooled beneath her feet. Thick and oily, the substance bubbled and splurted with every step she took. It seeped into the ground, ravenously devouring everything in its path, eroding all signs of life and leaving nothing but emptiness in return.

The trees that touched the edges of the puddles seemed to wither slightly, their branches recoiling in pain.

Ives bit her lip, hard enough to draw blood. Her entire body trembled uncontrollably, not just from exhaustion but from fear.

She knew what was happening to her.

Every full moon, for as long as she could remember, her black mana would go out of control, violent and rampant. She called it a "mana purge," and it was as terrifying as it was inevitable.

Before she had joined Edris and his group, she had endured these nights alone, venturing into the Nolmes Forest to keep herself away from her family.

The last full moon, she had been pulled into the Labyrinth, sparing her from the purge.

Ives thought—hoped—that this time would be different. She had entered the notorious Labyrinth, survived, and became acquainted with all these impressive adults. She thought she had gotten stronger.

Now, she knew it’d been nothing more than naive optimism.

The truth was stark and unforgiving; her mana purges would only grow worse, not better.

Ives released a shaky exhale. Her teeth pressed harder into her lip as she fought to control the emotions swirling within her.

She couldn’t let the black mana take over, couldn’t let it destroy everything around her.

Her heart pounded relentlessly, the bold vibrations intermixing with the blood rushing to her head. Every step she took felt like a struggle, as if wet cement were pulling her down, but she forced herself to keep moving.

Only one thought repeated itself in her mind, a mantra Ives clung to with all her strength:

I have to get away from the others.

She had to get away—away from the cabin, away from Edris, from Yukioe, from anyone who could be hurt by her uncontrollable power.

It was a curse.

It would never let her go.

The memory of her first encounter with Edris at the underground prison flashed through her mind. The shock that came upon his face as her black mana eroded through his cape and into his flesh, the pain in his eyes, the stunned at the depth of her power… these vivid imageries circulated in her mind over and over.

She would never let it happen again.

Ives didn’t know how long had passed since she entered the jungle, but she kept going.

As she ventured deeper into the jungle, the black puddles at her feet spread wider, bubbling more violently, threatening to consume all around her. Her breath grew heavy, her fear growing with every passing second.

As though reacting to her attempt at control, the black mana contorted and compressed from within, oscillating waves of sharp pain throughout her body.

Another throb of pain harrowed through Ives’s chest, finally bring the girl to her knees. The wind whistled through the trees, and a bird’s hoots echoed hollowly. Ives faced the ground, her ragged breathing filling the midnight air.

Snap.

The sound of a splintering twig cut through the silence. It was instantly captured by the seven-year-old’s heightened senses as her head jerked up the next second.

And in that moment, as the full moon continued to shine down on her, Ives was faced with an unprecedented sense of despair.

Edris and Ace stepped out from the shadows. The former’s voice retained its usual calmness as he took a step forward.

“Ives.”

Ives drew back, horror filling her eyes.

No.

“Don’t come close!” she screamed, black substance encircling her. “Leave me alone!”

Please!

If they could just turn around, forget about everything they saw and leave this place, Ives could bite her lips and get through the mana purge, like she had always done.

And when morning comes, she’ll be back at the cabin, having breakfast with Yukioe and Edris while waiting to meet up with Celio.

As long as they turned back now, everything could be back to normal.

Just—don’t come closer.

Don’t push her.

“LEAVE!”

Devastation ripped through her voice, and the fluctuating emotions caused her to lose grip on the reins controlling the black mana for a slight second.

Before she could stop it, a deluge of black mana blasted towards the two in the distance.

No!

Ives instinctively shut her eyes. She knew what she was capable of. The destructive potential of black mana was enough to undo even the sturdiest shields.

She expected to hear the familiar agonising cries, the sizzling sound of erosion, the disintegration of whatever the black mana deemed in its path.

However, none of that came.

Instead, a faint white light seeped through her vision, and Ives slowly reopened her eyes.

A sword, glowing as brilliant as a torch, gleamed in Ace’s grip as the man straight up cut the black mana into pieces. The slabs of substance splattered all over like ink, smearing sharp dashes of black onto the ground around them.

The specks of black mana floating in the air were overwhelmed by the streams of white flowing out of Ace’s sword, which expanded outwards, enveloping the former whole. The two ends of the spectrum intertwined, flickering under the moonlight.

For the first time, her black mana was the one devoured.

“Ives,” Edris said again. Under the seven-year-old’s dazed look, he took another step forward. “It’s fine.”

Unlike regular mana, which followed a constant cycle of input and output in close bounds with nature itself, black mana was inherently destructive. It can only act as output, an unstoppable flow of substance meant for nothing but destruction.

Edris’s Tempest didn’t work on black mana due to its fundamentally distinct makeup from regular mana. Where the latter was nullifiable, the former was not.

However, that didn’t mean he couldn’t counter it.

After interaction with the black mana, Edris became sure of it. The way the black substance had wriggled in an attempt to struggle, quivering as Ace’s mana sword countered it…

It was like a child throwing a tantrum.

Like the seven-year-old, her black mana was also in a child-like stage.

More stubborn than regular mana, but still tameable.

Last time at the Slums, the black mana was able to erode through Ace’s teleportation circle due to it being a passive spell. But what about those on the offence side?

That’s where Ace came into place. He had used Edris’s mana channel to fuel his own attacks, confronting the black mana head-on and forcibly breaking it apart.

From a glance, the black mana seemed to have been devoured, but that was only a temporary facade. It was only a matter of time before the black mana eroded through the thick walls of regular mana that Ace put up.

However, that wasn’t a problem.

Although black mana was inherently stronger, their goal wasn’t to beat it in the first place.

It was to frighten it, just as one would do to a disobedient child.

He wasn’t normally good at dealing with children, but when it came to the misbehaving ones…

Edris considered himself quite good at putting them in their place.