With the Porter Miracle unlocked, walking or riding back seemed primitive and cumbersome. It would be too slow compared to what Manziholet was now capable of. Efficiency was important.

He could only travel to where the curtain of mist reached, obviously, but another thing about <> was that the mist it had manifested would persist in reality even after he ceased converting vaepor, drifting downwind toward the entrance like a creeping veil.

As Manziholet went over the scene one more time to make sure all traces linking to Relias’s wristband had been properly disposed of, he activated the Miracles at intervals. Each occurrence, dense mist took over the place where fresh air once resided around him in an act of swift transmutation, before following the flow of the breeze. Soon, it would create a continuous mass of mist that reached where Gersimi was being tied.

Naturally occurring mist could also be incorporated into this Miracle upon contact, vastly expanding his range of operation. Under the right conditions, Manziholet had the means to take charge of an entire District’s transportation network as its Admin, much like the trail of smoke that governed movement in Old Bell District. With potentially billions of humans relying on his Miracle everyday, the sheer volume of wealth he could extract out of them would set him for life, which was why Fliker was understandably sore. More than just losing a job, he had watched a river of forisma reroute itself straight into the account of Mirish’s mother.

After all was done, Manziholet let the Miracle lift him up and drift him forward through the Ruin. His pace was steady at first. The twist-and-turn design that the Quorathene had used when building the tunnel meant moving too fast recklessly would crash him into the wall, not to mention the reduction in his visibility due to the mist.

As he picked up speed, some quirks of <> became clearer in his mind. He had observed other Porters wielding the Mist Domain in the past, and the knowledge that flooded his brain when the seraph rose in Sphere was more than enough to use the Miracle properly. But, even when one had read a thousand books about how to fly sa-ravens, no lesson on wind resistance or weight distribution could be taught more effectively than by the unforgiving education of reality, which was delivered in the form of broken bones and pride along with the occasional face-first introduction to the ground.

Here, his suffering got limited to minor bruises and getting entangled in vines, while his clothes were further smeared with glowing pulp and juice. In exchange, the Miracle became less of a tool he used and more of what he was. His confidence in manipulating its influence increased, as did his speed.

The air pressed against his body with rising force as <> kept on accelerating him forward, while applying abrupt and violent shifts to correct his course through the windy tunnel. The fruits blurred from glowing dots into lines. The moisture seeped its cold into his skin yet it did not condense, another quirk of the Miracle that he was grateful for.

A journey that had taken him some hours on horseback was reduced to less than ten minutes. Manziholet brought himself to a halt then landed where he had left Gersimi. She was not there. Only the leather ropes remained, lying in a loose coil where she had been bound, with neither signs of blood nor torn straps.

He sighed in self-disappointment. The plan had been simple: tie her up just convincingly enough to fool both Relias and Fliker, but loose enough that she could slip free when the moment was right. He had even left the horses alive for her. The delicate balance was supposed to be a masterstroke in deception.

He had failed. She undid the ropes much earlier than anticipated, a harmless yet grand folly on his part. It made the plan look like the work of a particularly incompetent kidnapper. Manziholet made a mental note to spend some time studying superior ropework upon returning home, before travelling further downwind.

[Seraph: 21877υ of vaepor

ArchSoul: 5532υ of draeg]

The quantity of draeg was accumulating. As of now, a fifth of his total reserve was being locked behind that unproductive state in his ArchSoul, waiting for a destructive release of <> upon the fabric of reality to regain usefulness. Once he did just that, the number of vaepor units at his disposal would touch twenty-seven thousand, a respectable figure for a non-Greatling novice who had yet to go through the Proving but ultimately still the first tiny step in a very long race.

He would need one million to ascend to the Third Sphere and unlock a Form, thereby imbuing the impossibility of Miracle into his physiology itself. From then on, the climb grew steeper with a staggering one hundred million to grasp the Fourth, which only a small population Seraphist ever did. Beyond that was the truly unfathomable Fifth Sphere, where a person ceased to be a person and instead assumed a form of existence so alien and incomprehensible that even the stars themselves would recoil in terror. Its price was ten billion units of vaepor – the price of Extraordinary.

The race was very long indeed, but he could make it more manageable by killing both Raka and Mirish then cannibalizing their vaepor. They had been defenseless in front of Manziholet when he only had an Armament. With his new Porter Miracle, the weakened Seraphists would not have time to suicide with Ruin Scars before he positioned himself behind their back and began cutting off heads.

Such an ambush failed to justify the effort, however. He doubted their seraph still held ample vaepor in them after the fights as well as those punishing backlashes. The nearby mortals must also be removed, because spinning a tale into the government report to explain why two Seraphists died, when the threat had been eliminated, was already messy enough without adding eyewitnesses to the mix. On the contrary, the narrative that he had saved not only the Pneuma Heart, a Quorathen artifact that displayed dissonant characteristics, but also the life of two valuable ArchSouls from the hands of despicable Daemoneers sounded much more impressive.

While he was deep in thought for future plans, Manziholet flew past Gersimi at first. He then backtracked and landed down beside a twisted heap of bodies piling up next to the wall. Their equipment marked them as part of the Fireguards’ medical attachment. Despite the expressions of undeniable horror on their face, not a single drop stained their fabric or pooled on the floor. They were victims of Relias.

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Each of their eyes bulged hard, straining against their sockets as if seeking escape from the torment that consumed them, while their jaws were locked open in eternal, voiceless agony. The mortals’ death seemed to have been swift, but far from merciful. No blade had touched them. Instead, the crimson liquid that once nourished their body had been unraveled from within and siphoned away under the control of a force beyond their comprehension. Their bodies had been withered, drained, and hollowed to feed Relias’s blood tide.

Undoubtedly, grim spectacle like this would meet him time and again before he arrived at the entrance. Such was the fate of mortals in this world, foreordained to relentless suffering and inevitable demise ahead of potential realized. If those physicians had survived, their knowledge would have preserved many lives, possibly contributing more good to society than a Bastion Seraphist.

In the end, they had been harvested like livestock for an utterly futile attempted murder, their ambition defiled and their skills lost forever. At least, even in their demise, they served a purpose. They had shielded another mortal from prying eyes.

“It’s safe,” he said. “You can come out now,” but Gersimi did not bother to reply back, continuing to play dead.

<>’s primary usage was mobility enhancement for the Seraphist, but simultaneously it could be used to provide him with an advantage in moving other objects. Once he grasped a leg among the heap, under his will, the Miracle’s influence spread out and took hold of all topmost corpses.

Manziholet drifted up, and so did they, revealing inside the heap a girl with green eyes and auburn hair. The expenditure in vaepor to manipulate that much mass was considerable, but the stunned look on her face made it feel like a bargain.

Having lowered the corpses to the side, he stopped the Miracle, then extended a hand out to the priest. Reluctantly, she took it and stood up with anger on her face.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Manziholet said, smiling. “I’m not the kind of person who so readily betrays his friends. In fact, it might please you to know that two agents of great harm to the mortal population had been eliminated by my action.” He gestured to the corpses. “They have been avenged.”

Her irritation softened. “I’ve had my doubts that you will do just that. It is an admirable deed. However, you tied me up against my will. Granted, it was so easy to undo that I escaped as soon as you three disappeared from view–”

“As I have planned.”

“But I really hoped that you would give me more clues. Do you have any idea how infuriating it is to be restrained by someone you thought was better than the rest? It brought back memories.” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “You reminded me of my aunt and uncle, Seraphist.”

It was quite amusing, in his opinion, to see a mosquito lecturing a dragon. He wondered, when he brought her with him to the highest speed that he could endure in <>, how would her meager body break under the force? “Won’t happen again, I promise. But if it ever does, trust me when I say this. My reasons will never be treacherous, just for a convoluted plan that may save us both just as I did from those two. I would sooner betray myself than betray you, Gersimi.”

She sighed. “One part of me insists that your words are like shifting sand, unstable and unworthy of my trust – yes, I know, one more quote from the Scripture – but lucky for you, the other bigger part considered yours tolerable. I’m willing to forget about this.” She paused, looked down at the physicians, then back at him. “You really killed them for good?”

“Let’s just say their brains are having a permanent vacation now,” he replied with a grin. “Why were you hiding, by the way? Where’s your horse?”

“The mist spooked it. I lost my grip and fell. Since I didn’t know whether you or the other two were coming, I decided to hide.”

“My bad. On the bright side, we can now ride this mist back to the entrance grand and gloriously.”

It took less than a minute as his Miracle brought them through the last stretch of the tunnel and up the stairs. Here, the mist was widely dispersed, revealing a vast sky shimmering with countless stars. Wooden walls enclosed their immediate surroundings, obscuring the island’s full expanse, but even such a limited space felt more open and freeing than in the suffocating Ruin.

By all accounts, it would have been a wonderful night, had desiccated corpses not been not littered everywhere like unpleasant autumn leaves. The air was no longer bitter, yet carrying a far worse offense – a thick, putrid stench of decay that hammered into the deepest part of their noses. It came not just from humans, but also the weird chemicals leaking from wreckage of sa-ravens, their carriages half-opened with mortals trying to escape. With the Guild of Caelivagantes treating even the slightest repaint of their products as an act of unforgivable vandalism, that must be akin to rape in their eyes.

Most of the tents had been burned down to crisp as well, a result of the host’s mercenaries valiantly defying the pair of Seraphist and Daemoneer. The governor’s navy surrounding would not come to inspect the smoke, which had become a familiar sight wherever Fireguards were employed. Those natives were also under strict order to stay out of TerraSol’s official business. Even if they had, they would be of little help against the threats anyway. And for all he knew, the entirety of Marwind might have fallen under the control of the Defiant Path already, with a spatial lock set up to block any reinforcement via sa-serpents.

But as it turned out, the governor was fine, as with the rest of the planet. After receiving the news from Manziholet and having a fierce discussion with Raka (in which many dramatic gestures and exasperated sighs were employed), he came to the conclusion that the central government was ultimately more competent at protecting him from the Daemoneers than the people who shared his last name. He could not care less about informing Osiri first so that she had time to prepare. Safety of the planet was the priority.

Lucky for the man, too; otherwise, Manziholet would have had no choice but to carve a bloody path through his palace just to smash the signal gem like a barbarian. In fact, he would not have needed to ransack the whole structure. The governor had conveniently brought the gems with him here, storing them in a heavily armored box and having them flanked by a squad of guards so decked out in metal that they could double as battering rams.

After an unnecessarily tedious process of fumbling through a comically excessive number of locks, the governor finally pried open the box. Inside, three gems of different colors were suspended gently in soft velvet. Since the protocol on what gem to use for Daemoneers had yet to be sent from TerraSol, the governor chose the one designated for detection of daemonic anchors.

Upon crushing it into pieces inside his palm, he had committed the concept of destruction upon its counterparts on TerraSol as well. The causation was instantaneous. No doubt, within minutes, a sa-serpent would be rerouted at great expense and a host of Knight Purifiers had been assembled, while millions of mortal warriors and scribes stood ready to provide more help. They had to act fast, because being a little late might lead to a planet getting so infected that the only effective solution left was to scorch everything and everyone, like with Bastion Kylla’s birthplace.

Coincidentally, in what can only be described as an almost scripted turn of events, the red-haired woman was among those who were dispatched to assist Marwind. Also included, much to Manziholet’s sorrow, was a man whose presence he recognized immediately. On the one hand, having one of the most renowned Third Sphere Breakers of Sun as protection would guarantee a peaceful trip home. On the other hand, relying on the same person for help repeatedly was not exactly the height of etiquette.

“Manziholet, for the love of all things sane,” Tamajiang said with a sigh, before staring down at him; his eyes were glowing white hot under the effect of the Form Miracle. “Tell me, on a scale of nonsensical to absolutely ridiculous, how bad is it this time?”