I had speeded so many times along the streets of the now-named Nova that I had become immune to the looks I constantly got. At some point, I supposed, everyone would get used to seeing me and my energy-made arms flying at impossible speeds.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Yasmin’s message. And the more I thought about it, the less it made sense. If the Order had really commenced their offensive, the last place I would expect to find them was inside the Church in our own city.

Also, Yasmin hadn’t said that we were under attack, just that they had come. Who had come? Why wouldn’t she just say the Order, the Sanctum, or whoever it was? The message was too short, and I was already drawing conclusions.

I rushed through the steps, still completely oblivious to how many of them there were. There were people at the entrance, but none of them were Yasmin or whoever had come to visit. I somehow managed to hear them point me to the garden.

The blur of white walls passed by as I reached the central garden of the building, a green space of peace and quietness blessed by sunlight. And certainly, there were two figures sitting by one of the benches, along with two more standing right behind.

“Yasmin,” I immediately said as I stopped in front of them. “Charlotte.”

She was Charlotte, if a worn-down version of the woman I had met when I first reached this world. I raised my head to face the two people behind her. Women, slightly younger than Charlotte herself, were wearing what might have some time ago been an all-white tunic that covered them from hair to toes. Now, it was a grayish fabric filled with holes.

Charlotte wasn’t in the farmer outfit she had worn back then, but she was neither in the soldier armor I once thought she used. She was a knight of the Second Sanctum Division, which sounded important enough to warrant a golden armor to strike fear in their enemies.

Instead, the dark circles under her eyes and her dark, torn-down robes spoke of a story of misfortune and hardships. She barely raised her eyes when I said her name, either because she didn’t care or because she didn’t have the strength to do so.

I was torn. What I had in front of me was not the Order or the Sanctum. It was a desperate person looking for asylum. One that had barely managed to reach us before collapsing.

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“Charlotte, why did you sacrifice so much for me?”

I knew why she looked like that. I had been the cause. When she refused to carry out her summons and saved me instead of killing me, her contractor made her go to hell. Maybe the Order itself had left her in that state.

“She saw what the Congregation was doing,“ Yasmin spoke for her, ”the extremes it was willing to go to obtain power. We have always known that it is possible to free oneself from the System, but it was the first time it experimented with a human summoned from another world.“

“And how’s that different from what I’m doing?”

Maybe it wasn’t the place or the moment, but I needed to know she wasn’t having second thoughts about me. I was spreading corruption, and soon enough, it would extend to humans.

“You are not forcing it on anyone,” Charlotte’s weak voice suddenly interrupted. “You are not leaving kids blind. You are not robbing someone of a life in some other world. And you are not planning to enslave and use them. If they had corrupted you as they planned, instead of running into an error, you wouldn’t even have had free will.”

I studied her as she struggled to swallow and breathe.

“Yasmin filled me in; I know what you are doing. And you know what?” She coughed a few times before she could continue. “I’ll fight Mother herself to see your vision come true.”

“Charlotte, Yasmin. We are not the good people in this story. We will be seen as terrorists. We will conquer and dominate wherever we go. We might not kill innocents, but that will not be what they see. We will kill their loved ones, and we will abruptly kick them out of their lifestyle. Is that really something you can get behind?”

Yasmin nodded immediately. She had already gone through this thought process and reflected on what we were doing. But I saw Charlotte hesitating. She blinked and moved her head from Yasmin to me.

“You don’t have to answer now, Charlotte. Think about what I’ve said, and think if you can do that.” I paused for a brief moment. “Yasmin, please take her of her and her…”

“Assistants,” Yasmin filled me in.

“Of her and her assistants. See that they are well cared for.”

I had to go back to my business, spreading corruption as far as I could. The city would still be left out of the corruption zone, but I needed to make it much harder to reach.

“Darian!” Charlotte stopped me in my tracks. “They are coming.”

I turned to look at her, a gesture I didn’t need to do but that I knew would put people at rest.

“I still have friends inside the Sanctum. Not many, and they wouldn’t cross the line that I have, but they are trustworthy. They are mobilizing the Fourth. For now, you are not a big threat to their eyes, but they are not willing to ignore the fact that you killed an [Oracle]. They’ll make an example out of you if they can.”

I smirked.

“The Fourth? Let them come; I’ll make sure my message is loud and clear.”