Shiloth's door opened slowly.

Creak...

The door stopped halfway. Perhaps startled by the creaking sounds, whoever was opening the door stood still just in case there were overheard. However, as nothing seemed to happen, the door opened a little more, barely wide enough for someone to squeeze through.

Two eyes peeked through the gap. Seeing that Shiloth is still sleeping, Rosie entered the room and gently closed the door.

Rosie giggled silently when heard the elf's loud snores. She stealthily tiptoed to Shiloth's bedside, where her right hand was dangling off.

Being extremely careful not to step on a creaky floorboard, Rosie knelt beside Shiloth. She then muttered something and rubbed her hands, causing both of her palms to glow in an eerie green light.

Rosie hovered her glowing hands over Shiloth's right arm. The light from her palms quickly dispelled the black marks, causing them to quickly sizzle and turn into thin wisps of smoke.

Seeing that the light was fading, Rosie hastily rubbed her hands and repeated the process several times. Beads of sweat rolled down Rosie's forehead due to the physical and mental strain she was in. Nevertheless, Rosie persisted until the marks were completely gone.

Feeling immensely tired, Rosie lied down spreadeagled on the floor. Despite nearly falling asleep, she managed to rouse herself and leave the room.

After making sure that Shiloth is still asleep, Rosie gently closed the door and tiptoed back to her room. A short while later, she was already sleeping in her own bed with a satisfied smile on her face.

* * *

Silence and darkness permeated throughout the whole house.

Several minutes later, two glowing cat eyes appeared in the rafters above Shiloth. Unbeknownst to Rosie, Tabby was in the room the entire time.

After removing his invisibility spell, Tabby stood up and stretched himself. Rather than dropping down directly onto the bed, he leaped towards Rosie's bedside, twisting his body midair to land properly in an upright position.

Tabby landed silently on the ground thanks to his fantastic paw pads. He stood still for several moments, but walked closer to Shiloth when he was certain she was fast asleep.

Tabby sniffed Shiloth's right arm. He carefully cover Shiloth's left hand with two paws and channeled some mana into her body.

Tabby eyes widened as he moved his mana throughout Shiloth's body. Unlike Lee's medicine which could temporarily suppress the corruption, Rosie's magic wiped out all the corruption inside Shiloth's body. Tabby channeled his mana a few more times and stopped when he got the same results.

"Interesting..," Tabby muttered and released Shiloth's hand. He carefully pulled the blanket over Shiloth and left the room.

* * *

Lee watched Tabby's recording from last night with rapt attention.

"I never knew Rosie could do that." Lee stood up and stretched his back. "She's really getting more and more mysterious, isn't she?"

"As if she isn't already mysterious enough." Tabby dispelled the recording that was hovering in the air.

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"That's true," Lee nodded. "Speaking of, did you notice anything else?"

"The spell that she used is..." Tabby frowned, "... odd? I don't know how to explain. It feels very different to a purification spell. The green energy she released seems more similar to an 'authority' than a spell."

"Authority huh... Why do you describe it like that?"

"Err... this is a bit hard to explain. Gimme a moment." Lee went to freshen himself. Meanwhile, Tabby walked in circles as he struggled to give a proper analogy.

"I got it!" Tabby suddenly stopped. "Let me put it this way. You know how neutralisation works in chemistry right"

Lee nodded. "Of course, it's basically a chemical reaction where equivalent amounts of acid reacts to alkali, causing there to be no excessive hydrogen or hydroxide ions."

"Exactly. As the two of us know, purification spells work the same way. When there's lots of infernal energy, a sufficient quality and amount of divine energy is needed to offset the amount."

"Our main mistake was equating chaos energy to infernal energy. Infernal energy has corruptive elements, but it's main effect is actually not corruption, but consumption. That's why beings from the infernal dimension are constantly at war, they need to consume other beings to sustain their powers. It has some corruptive elements, but ultimately users who are affected by infernal energy seek to consume energies from others."

"However, chaos energy is very different from infernal energy. Chaos energy is unpredictable. It main effect is change. Except for beings native to the In-Between, everything in other dimensions, including us, are generally 'ordered' and 'systematic'. That is why we mistakenly thought that chaos energy is similar to infernal energy. Chaos energy throws us into a disorderly state, which is usually a change for the worse."

"That's very impressive Tab, how did you find discover this?"

"I've been conducting my own research in the shed. There's nothing else to do in the truck anyway."

"Are you sure you aren't trying to escape playtime with Rosie?"

"That's not the point." Despite Tabby's refusal, the nervous swish of Tabby's tail told Lee that his guess was right.

"Where was I?" "Chaos energy causing change."

"Ah, yes. As I was saying, since chaos energy causes change, that is why I hypothesised that the unknown mana that Shiloth and the Elves felt was chaotic mana. We both agreed yesterday that it's similar to the energy we felt from the In-Between, but now that we know the main effect of chaos, we can easily explain why Shiloth and the elves are affected in different ways."

"I see, and how does this relates to the 'authority' that you mentioned Rosie was using?"

"I'm getting there. Before I answer that, do you now know why the purification spell you used on Shiloth was ineffective?"

"Because the divine energy I used was not meant for chaos energy?"

"Bingo. Most energies used for spell-casting have their own counterparts. Therefore, chaos can only be countered by order."

"However," Tabby continued, "What we observed from Rosie in the past few weeks was that her magic was anything by orderly. Weather manipulation, empathy, mind-reading, healing, and on one occasion, fire-breathing. She either has many different powers, which is too unlikely or one power with very unpredictable effects."

"This brings me back to the 'authority' I mentioned earlier. Since Rosie does not possess order magic to counter chaos, the only way to counter chaos is by introducing stronger chaos to drive the energy in Shiloth away."

"That's why I described Rosie's method last night as an 'authority'. By showing a stronger chaos energy, it caused the energy inside Shiloth out of her body."

"Does that mean the energy was dispersed and not eliminated?" Lee asked.

Tabby nodded. "You're right. However, this shouldn't be an issue as it was dispersed too finely for it to cause any actual effects for now."

"Since we are on this topic, might the chaos be removed if we cast dispel magic?" Lee wondered aloud.

"Theoretically, we can. Practically, we can't. Dispel works if we can accurately gauge the amount of mana in the target spell, or we can at least gauge if the amount of energy in the target spell is increasing or decreasing. Unfortunately, chaos energy is too erratic for dispel to work. Unless the caster can constantly change the amount of energy used in real time, it will be extremely difficult to pull this off."

"Well, I suggest we just keep an eye on her for now as usual. There's still more things we need to observe about Rosie. Sparky is doing a good job monitoring her as well." Lee remarked. "In the meantime, as our plans to enter Drumagah are severely hampered, we now need to rethink our entire plan."

Tabby groaned in response.

"That, and hopefully save all the elves in the process." Lee sighed and put on a T-shirt. "Ah well, we can think up some plans over breakfast. Can you go wake up our guests? I will ready the stuff in the kitchen."

"I'm too old for this 'save the world' shit," Tabby muttered.

"You and me both Tab, you and me both."