Wisesa, in the guise of a sleek black pig, slinked out of the inn and into the expansive backyard dotted with a few small trees.

As for Alicia herself, she affixed her gaze to the candle with fierce protectiveness. Her tightly clasped palms cradled around its flame as if it were the only thing keeping her tethered to reality. Though the night wind was mild, Alicia was wary of any threat to very flicker and dance of the yellow flame. Just as soon as Wisesa exited the building, her vision seemed to expand and shift, revealing the darkened cityscape of Alas Purwo in all its glory without overlapping her actual sight. Not only that, Badra, who stood sentinel at the door, peered at Alicia and found the lass' eyes to be bright, shimmering yellow. The same yellow hue as Wisesa's own.

"Wisesa, can you hear me?" asked Alicia in a whisper.

The lad's voice resembled the resonant bell echoing from the depths of her heart. "Loud and clear. You can see through my eyes, can't you?"

Alicia nodded. A broad smile of excitement illuminated her features. "I can! But... the colour is wee odd."

"It's a pig's eye. What do you expect?"

"But I can see certain things that glitter in gold!"

Wisesa agreed with that statement. In his porcine senses, he found the vivid golden luminescences of coins and money, the jewellery in the boxes, and even the humble Orb glimmered like a star. The closer they were, the clearer the details, but the farther away, the more the objects blurred into mere flickers of gold.

"One of the specialists of this Knowledge. My visibility is longer than an ordinary pig, even a human. It even can penetrate through the densest walls to locate the most valuable treasures."

"Well, then, try looking towards the palace. Can you see anything precious in the basement?"

The black pig turned and sniffed the air, scanning towards the palace. "Found it!" he exclaimed. "The only collection of heirlooms buried underground is in the palace."

"Excellent! You just need to approach the cube where the heirlooms are kept, and Bathara Kala is yours!"

Rather than opting for the standard public route favoured by most pigs, Wisesa chose to dig a hole in the backyard and created a tunnel that led directly to the palace's basement.

"This is too easy," The Pig Wisesa muttered under his breath. He had already entered the hole, a quarter of the way down. His blunt hooves continued to paw at the grainy soil before him. "For the sake of the gods, I hope your theory isn't wrong, because there’s no way I’ll spend hours scouring the entire palace for the Moon Eater once my mana-jamming spell wears off."

"The room where Bathara Kala is kept is the most secure in the entire palace, heavily guarded by soldiers," Alicia replied confidently.

After ten minutes of tunnelling, Wisesa had already traversed half the distance, an impressive feat considering the extent of his excavation project. The two of them could now see the shapes of the magical heirlooms stored in the underground vault with increasing clarity. Though the sand cube still seemed some distance away, the small mounds inside were visible to both Wisesa and Alicia. Too many, in fact, lined up in such a way that they all fit in one box.

The pig paused, squinting his eyes in disbelief. "Are you kidding me, Alicia?" he grumbled. "How many servant dolls can it hold?"

Alicia, unperturbed, peered through the wall of the inn and turned her gaze to another corner. "Didn't you hear my conversation with your father earlier? He said there were two thousand entities trapped in yon box."

"You know whenever someone says something with an absurd number, that person is exaggerating, right? Especially when it's that delusional old man!"

"Well... this one doesnae seem to be."

The whimpers of the pig were swallowed by the thick layers of soil and stone that shielded him from the outside world. He could not help but resign himself to keep burrowing, and there his hooves kept blindly groping and groping until they came into contact with something solid and unyielding—a steel barrier. The magic vault of the Alas Purwo Sunanate loomed before him, and the excavation had taken nearly half an hour of intense labour.

Alicia's eyes scanned the contents of the vault with interest. "I see all those glittering objects, but I dinnae see people. Can't we see them from behind the walls?"

Wisesa paused, pressing his ear against the cold metal surface. "One moment," he muttered. Within seconds he then reported back, "I can hear the faint murmur of voices. There are still guards stationed here, and a new shift is due to arrive to watch over the magic cube."

"Hm. I don't think it's possible to break this wall and sneak around. Too many armed soldiers."

"I'll take a detour."

Wasting no time, Wisesa quickly penetrated the left side of the earthen tunnel. He had activated his mana signal disruptor magic ten minutes ago since he felt he had entered the palace area, chattering as he dug into the ground. He could not afford to waste Orb's blessing of extended time. His nails hit a hard surface again, and he pressed his ears against it. With a swift transformation, his blunt nails turned into sharp, twisted drills, and then pierced through the metal wall with ease. Two new guards were just crouched by the door, with hands idly swapping cowrie shells in the board of congklak. Indeed, exemplary soldiers with the most normal behaviour in the entire world.

Wisesa made a circular hole as big as his body, and then silently crawled through it. "I'm already near the cube."

His four tiny feet trod in cute footsteps as they approached the hieroglyphic-covered cuboid. The hatch door was anchored in the centre of the box's moat that formed lines inside like the plan of a maze. Perhaps behind it was an elaborate mechanism where one had to go through certain labyrinthine paths in order for the hatch to be turned.

"That seal mechanism seems very difficult," Alicia said. "If only we had the time to study it..."

"Alicia!"

"Okay, okay. Sorry. You can steal it through the friction of your bum. Wait, this door mechanism shouldnae interfere with your abilities, eh?"

The pig had not yet rubbed his bum against anything. He was still silently forcing Alicia to take a gander at the gold items most precious to the Sunanate. Of course, such observation was crucial. Who knew what men-slaying, world-shattering monstrosity would flee from confinement if their choice was the poor one?

"Which one do you think resembles the most Bathara Kala?" asked Wisesa.

"But I dinnae ken what Bathara Kala looks like!"

"The image you saw on the temple murals, Alicia! How long does a Westerner's memory stay in his brain?"

Alicia frowned; Pig Wisesa had already imagined her reaction. "The form I remember in the temple was a large head eating the moon," she answered patiently after a moment.

"You saw what I saw—there are several big-headed ushabtis here, and some of them are holding moon attributes. The problem is, they all have intact bodies."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"I mean, Bathara Kala is a shaman from your land, innit? You should know more about his stature than I do!"

"Missy, I'm only nineteen years old. I am centuries away from knowing his stature."

"Much less me, by the Silent Divine!"

Wisesa peeked around for a while. The soldiers were still squatting and joking near the door. A tranquil state they were having, indeed. They probably would not even care if the giant seal box was dragged through the earthen tunnel.

As Alicia watched the magic vault through Wisesa's eyes, she realised something peculiar. She did not feel the wind, but the flame’s tongue she was guarding began to dance around erratically. Even forming a hand dome could not protect it from the strange phenomenon. "Wisesa, Wisesa!" Alicia stuttered. "I can't see anything, but something's happening to your candle!"

"Oh, shit, oh no!" Pig Wisesa piped up. "I feel my mana shield fading, and it's messing with my mana. I need to get out of here immediately!"

"What? No! We haven't got the mage's ushabti yet!" snapped the girl.

"Fool! We can't check each ushabti one by one!" grumbled Wisesa.

"No need, Wisesa! Remember the giant head and the moon attributes? Take them out of the box and we'll sort them out one by one!"

Pig Wisesa let out a sigh. "Two minutes, Alicia. That's less now!" He started rubbing his bum against the stone box. Suddenly, the ushabti began to pop out one by one, until Wisesa decided to stop.

"Fifty?" Alicia gasped. Her hand accidentally threw the pink candle into a frenzy like her own, causing Wisesa to see the silhouette of his hand appearing behind the black furry arm due to the distortion.

"Oi, stop playing with that candle flame! You're messing up my disguise!" Wisesa snapped.

"I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to!"

"Listen to me! We just need to look separately. Fifty is not too many. Do it, Alicia, now!"

Yelling was not the right way to calm Alicia down, of course. Her trembling hand hovered near the candle, and the flame on her index finger caught fire! The flame flickered as the girl's burning hand fluttered, and Wisesa transformed into a pig-headed humanoid in the magic safe.

"Quit panicking, by the gods! Come on, do you want to save Pulomas or what?"

"Sorry, sorry!" Alicia pleaded. She did not care about the small fire anymore. Her hand was better used for clutching the other hand, and Alicia rocked back and forth against the blistering pain.

Their eyes were forced to take in the fifty ushabtis quickly. At times, their body systems could do it. Even in a tight moment, their focus increased tenfold. And it seemed the bespectacled girl had her attention drawn to one ushabti whose colour was the brightest among the others. The doll's face was bright red, bare-chested, and sheathed in green cloth with a bathik pattern, familiar to the ones she used to see in Yawadwipa.

"Wisesa, on your right!" said Alica "The red man with the green sarong!"

Using his snout, Pig Wisesa picked up the doll and noticed the many inscriptions on its body. He recognised the characters and found the writing near the navel that they were searching for.

"Kala! Here it is!" Wisesa cheered until it reached Alicia's ears. "Oh, Evil Ancient Shaman. Your face is the ugliest of all the statues and you still manage to blend in."

"Yaldy!" Alicia cheered too. "Let's go home Wisesa! We're saving Pulomas!"

A minute had passed. Pig Wisesa bit the ushabti and quickly made his way through the tunnel he had created earlier. He ran as fast as his four legs could carry him, while Alicia gathered his clothes and pulled Badra by the hand to the backyard. The mana detection distorting magic had vanished, and Wisesa was about five feet away from the Alas Purwo palace. He kept pacing his feet without the slightest thought of breathing a sigh of relief. He knew that they still had to take care of the Bathara Kala situation.

Alicia and Badra heard oinking noises coming from the burrow in the backyard. Pig Wisesa's snout appeared with the Bathara Kala doll in his mouth, drooling. After he put the shaman doll on the ground, the black pig stretched itself wide before bending its back into a tense position. The dense fur on all four legs infiltrated its tan-coloured skin again. Its dark back peeled away into the black cloth it had been wearing earlier.

The pig had completely transformed into a real Wisesa. Alicia offered his clothes while looking away.

Badra did not even mind hovering over Bathara Kala's ushabti covered in pig saliva and holding it as if it were a national treasure (it basically was). He spoke in Yawa's tongue, admiring how uniquely carved the Moon Eater's fierce face was on the doll's head, as well as the statue's exquisite colour matching, unfaded by the unforgiving centuries.

"Bathara Kala is in our grasp," Wisesa said, already dressed in his proper attire. "How about you ask Orb to purify this evil thing? Let Bathara Kala truly be a servant in Layaloka."

As a human connected to the Arcane Orb, Alicia hesitated. Orb indicated an irregularity. It came out of Alicia's bag and examined the doll with its white eye.

"That's strange,” Alicia said. "Orb and I don't feel any Khaos on this ushabti."

"It's a sealing magic, Alicia. You're not supposed to sense anything. If you can, there is a crack in the seal and Bathara Kala would've broken free at any time."

"Although your theory makes sense, that's not necessarily how it works," the lass countered. "Orb can detect Khaos' presence without any obstruction."

"So what? You consider our mission tonight a failure?" Wisesa spread one hand. "You didn't bother trying to do the purification first? Well, that's okay. I did the hard part anyway, so it won't affect you that much—"

"Ugh, fine, fine!" Alicia grabbed the ushabti and drew out a glimmer of Arcane might, enveloping the clay doll until it floated. No purple essence drifted into the dark sky. Perhaps because Wisesa's bitter words made her unable to contain her emotions, Alicia and Orb agreed to infuse more Arcane into the ushabti's particles until they broke into a handful of grains of sand.

The trio of individuals gawked. A few grains of sand were blown away by the wind. Yet, no sign of buzzing mauve light, evil laughter, or black smoke burning their lungs as far as they could see or for as long as they stood. Bathara Kala's Ushabti seemed to just fuse with the empty space.

Wisesa muttered a theory, "Maybe Bathara Kala's soul in the ushabti has expired—"

"It's fake!" Alicia screamed in panic.

"It's fake?"

"There's no such thing as an expired soul, Wisesa, ye daft!"

"It's fake!" Wisesa turned to Badra, "It's fake!"

Badra shook his head in bewilderment.

"Iki palsu, goblok!"

"Iki palsu?" The spy's face contorted until his nose was raised like a pig's snout. His hands were clasped behind his head as he paced back and forth.

Suddenly, the air was filled with a whizzing sound.

Badra fell to the ground. Torrents of blood stained the side of his chest.

Wisesa scrambled for cover, while Alicia remained where she was, creating a protective dome of Divine Grace!

The barrage of machine gun fire and searchlights from above blinded their vision. A line of automaton-like figures—Alas Purwo's Elite Bhayangkara unit, armed to the teeth with blaring golden glare—suddenly appeared on top of buildings, while shamans with unsheathed krises and hands full of giant rings blocked their path on the ground. Not only were the shamans of Yawadwipa present. The air became thick with the influence of Khaos. A few white-veiled mages—the Leyaks of Girah—were among the practitioners' coterie.

"Surrender yourself!" a loud voice boomed from the zeppelin. Another shot struck the ground near Badra. "Any attempts to escape are vanities!"

"How did they find out about our plan?" Alicia asked Wisesa frantically.

"I don't know! All I know is that we've been set up," Wisesa replied. "Either the short man of your dreams set us up or we were set up in some other way!"

No way! Mars has promised! Alicia kept denying herself.

Wisesa's body trembled as Barong grumbled from within, "Cursed Alas Purwo! Wisesa, it's time for you to unleash my power—"

"Let's just give up. We'll find another way out," Wisesa suggested, peeking his hand out from his hiding spot. He gradually stood up, revealing himself to the guards, and turned his face to the lass as he spoke.

Alicia frowned. "What? What do you mean to just give up?"

"Yeah! You are mages with two most potent might! Destroying the ships will be a piece of cake!" Barong agreed.

"Shut up, Barong. I will never use your power," Wisesa retorted.

A deafening roar echoed in the man's ears, inaudible to Alicia and the others. "Imbecile! Do you want to be under your father's control again? What's the point of me being here—"

"By the Soul of Durga, isn't it enough for you to hitch a ride on my body? Now shut up, shut up!"

"Hey, hey, it's alright!" Alicia comforted Wisesa, who was rambling to himself. "I'll bless you with Arcane, and we'll get out of here—"

Before the ley lines could even reach the young man beside her, Alicia and Wisesa felt a slight sting at the nape of their necks.

A new deep voice blasted through the loudspeaker, piercing their ears. "Move your finger, and we'll inject the poison into your neck. You do nothing, not even turn around!"

Alicia's canthus caught a glimpse of white cloth fluttering in the wind. Leyaks, they both suspected.

How can I not feel the Leyak inside my Arcane barrier? Alicia bewildered.

Giving up was a major aversion for Alicia, especially if it meant Orb would be separated from her.

Alicia, it's okay. Don't push yourself. Follow their orders, Orb urged.

"Orb..."

The white glowing sphere nodded.

Reluctantly, Alicia disconnected from Orb, and it fell to the ground.

"I've been waiting for you for four years. Where have you been, Wisesa?" the unfamiliar voice spoke again.

Wisesa's eyes darted around to locate the source of the voice. He then spotted a man rising from the rooftop of the three-story inn. His ever-frowning eyebrows plunged even sharper.

"Don't ask questions as if you care about me, 'Father'," the young man retorted. []