After Liam gave the nod, Mize was gone in a sharp burst of wind.
She didn’t bother with the castle gate and the carriage this ti. Instead, a re flick of thought pulled her out of the space entirely.
Above, the sun glared down, its heat llowed by high clouds drifting in lazy trails. Far off on the horizon, dark clouds began to form, dense and swollen, hinting at rain to co.
Mize hovered in midair, unadorned.
No wings, no glow, just her figure suspended effortlessly above the land.
Another blink of thought, and she vanished.
Reappearing high above the town.
From that height, she looked like nothing more than a speck, lost in the vast sweep of blue.
Below, the town buzzed with life. Busier than before.
Far busier.
Streets once half-empty now swelled with people. Caravans crawled in from beyond the walls.
And scattered along the town’s edges, new construction zones had sprung up like mushrooms after rain, wooden scaffolding, the clatter of tools, fresh stone walls.
“Elias is expanding the town already,” she muttered, arms folded as her gaze swept across the view. “Smart enough to avoid the western edge, though… That part belongs to .”
She smiled faintly.
And again, before anyone below could so much as blink in her direction, she was gone.
'Harapan did call just now, he said there was sothing urgent that I needed to see, huh?'
This ti, she followed a faint pulse, a quiet glimr in her mind, the thread that connected her to Harapan.
The space twisted, and in a flash of pale light, she materialized inside a quiet ho.
It was a modest two-story house tucked into the suburbs.
Nothing ornate. The furnishings were simple, clean. It felt lived-in. Peaceful, even.
Until she looked ahead.
Harapan stood stiff near the far end of the room. When he saw her, he turned swiftly and bowed, his voice clear.
“This humble one greets the Mother.”
"I am sorry for disturbing at this hour, but... " He exhaled, "There's an issue that I needed Mother's help with"
Mize floated a little closer, her gaze drawn to what lay past him.
Her expression shifted imdiately. Her nose wrinkled in distaste.
“At ease,” she said, waving off the formality with a flick of her fingers. Her eyes sharpened as she gestured toward the bed. “What is that?”
The sight was… unpleasant.
Two malford puddles sat atop the mattress, curled close as if clinging to each other. It was flesh, or sothing pretending to be. Mixed with sothing else. Sothing worse.
The sll hit next. Not the usual reek of rot, but sothing foul in concept alone.
The stench clung to the room, labeling itself as unclean the second she inhaled it.
Harapan stepped forward. “This is why I called for you, Mother" he said, voice taut.
He scanned the room slowly, as though still searching for a trace he might’ve missed.
“Stop with the honorifics. Talk normally,” Mize said, not looking at him.
He dipped his head. “Right… sorry. So... this morning, I was checking on the church’s recruitnt session when I caught this scent. It was… wrong. Death clung to it. Not the usual decay, but sothing more.”
He raised a hand and dragged his fingers lightly along one of the bedposts, watching the wood like it might answer for what had happened.
"I tried following it... "
“The sll was everywhere, like it was deliberately trying to confuse . It took a while to trace it back, and by the ti I found the house, this is what I walked in on.”
Mize’s frown deepened. She floated to the nightstand and picked up a small picture fra resting there.
The couple inside smiled back at her, ordinary, happy.
Human.
“They were mortals,” she murmured, her thumb brushing against the edge of the fra. “No trace of energy in the room. No magic. No aura.”
'this looks like sothing out of a horror movie or sothing' She cursed her bad lucks to stumble upon this issue.
She turned the fra toward the wall and set it down, face hidden.
“They didn’t even have a chance.”
“What now?” Harapan asked, voice lower. His expression was calm, but his eyes held a heavy tightness. “I think… sothing terrible is coming. And this, this might be the beginning.”
Mize didn't answer right away. Her brow knit tighter as she stared at the ruined bed. “We’ll report it.”
A silent call summoned the sentry guards. Within minutes, the house was cordoned off with a strip of yellow tape, and patrols moved in and out of the building with swift precision.
Mize and Harapan stepped outside, standing just beyond the cordon. The street had gone tense.
A few curious onlookers lingered, but they were soon pushed away by guards maintaining the periter.
Then an old woman arrived.
She tried to enter the house. The lead guard stepped in her way. There were words exchanged, sharp ones, but they barely lasted.
Her resistance crumbled, and she collapsed to the ground in tears, her sobs cutting sharp through the hush.
'A mother?' Mize thought, she heard the conversation of that woman and the guard.
Mize watched in silence. Harapan stood beside her, unmoving.
A soft rustle of air, and Elias appeared next to them.
He greeted Mize first with a proper salute, then gave a polite nod to Harapan. They didn’t waste ti with pleasantries.
“Any other cases like this recently?” Mize asked directly.
Elias clasped his hands behind his back, gaze fixed on the house. “I’ve scoured the records. Yes. Several similar incidents, all equally bizarre.”
Mize’s brows pulled together. “You brought it to Liam?”
“I did,” Elias said with a short nod. “But… the lord is not prioritizing it. As long as it doesn’t spiral out of control, he doesn’t want to get too involved.”
Mize’s eyes sharpened. “Liam said that?”
“He did.” Elias exhaled slowly. “I’ve sent n out to investigate. But whoever’s behind these attacks… they appear and vanish like smoke. Not a single trace left behind.”
Mize turned her head slightly. “Great. And here I was thinking I’d get a clean day to open the dungeon.”
“A fateful encounter,” Elias muttered, half-sarcastic. “I even expanded the search beyond the borders. Sent scouts to the nearest city to look for similar incidents.”
He reached into the air and twisted his fingers. A thick folder blinked into existence in his hand.
Mize took it, flipping through the pages.
Her expression shifted line by line. The deeper she read, the tighter her face beca.
“There were thousands of these cases,” Elias said quietly. “In just one week.”
"Before, there was none"
Harapan’s shoulders tensed. His jaw clenched. “Thousands…?”
Mize closed the file, her lips a thin line.
"Doesn't sound like coincidences"
And for a mont, no one said a word.
Then, the realization struck.
Mize’s gaze snapped to Elias. “This week?”
Elias gave a firm nod. “Nothing before this date, Your Highness.” His tone held no doubt. “And based on the patterns, there’s a high likelihood this is tied to the presence of other Lords.”
“I figured.” Mize’s reply was quiet, but laced with discomfort.
She turned her head toward Harapan, sothing heavy sitting behind her eyes. “Lords are just like us, no different from anyone else.”
She tossed the folder back to Elias, the papers rustling as they hit his chest.
Her voice followed, sharper now. “They walk the sa, eat the sa, think the sa.”
Then she floated slightly off the ground, hovering without thought. Her gaze darkened.
“But the worst part?” she said, looking down at the empty air beneath her. “They’re worse than the natives here. Their greed has no ceiling.”
Harapan didn’t flinch, but sothing flickered behind his eyes.
He gave a slow nod. “There were stories passed down to us,” he said, voice lower than before. “Stories that one day, the sky would split open and people from above would pour into our world.”
“The prophecy ca true. And with it ca fear, of what might still be coming.”
Elias tilted his head, interest flashing through his features. “I’ve never heard that one. What kind of prophecy? Can you elaborate?”
Harapan nodded slowly. “It’s common knowledge among us. No one rembers where the tales began… they’ve always just been there. Rooted in sothing ancient. Lost to ti, perhaps. But believed all the sa.”
He folded his arms across his chest, thumb brushing the edge of his cloak as he spoke. “These weren’t just prophecies. They were preparation. We were conditioned to brace for whatever fate was waiting for us, whether we liked it or not.”
Mize raised a brow. “So what’s next, then? After the sky people arrive?”
Harapan took a steady breath. “The world falls into chaos. Death spreads. But eventually, salvation cos… not on land, but in heaven.”
Mize’s brow twitched. “Heaven?”
He nodded, then pointed downward, toward the ground beneath their feet. “That’s why most of us ca here. This territory, shaped by the skyfolk, it’s what we believed to be heaven.”
“And frankly…” Harapan let out a breath and smiled, soft but certain, “we weren’t wrong.”
He held out his hand, palm open to the air. “A roof over our heads.”
He closed it slowly. “A al on the table.”
A pause. His eyes softened. “Children laughing in the streets.”
He turned back to her. “There’s no constant fear of dying every hour, no more running, no more hiding. That’s heaven to .”
His smile stayed.
Mize and Elias exchanged a brief glance.
Neither spoke, but both were lost in their own thoughts.
Then Mize exhaled sharply through her nose, folding her arms. “Since Liam won’t lift a finger, I’ll handle it myself.”
"Whoever is the one behind these deaths, I will crush them and torture their souls for eternal"
She turned to Elias with a firm look. “Give the Church special clearance to recruit and assemble its own forces. I’ll need troops.”
Elias nodded without hesitation.
“Understood, Your Highness.” But curiosity got the better of him. “What are they for, if I may ask?”
Mize turned slightly, her eyes catching the light as the sun peeked through the clouds. “To counter everything wrong in this world.”
Her words were calm, but her tone left no room for doubt. “Whatever’s behind these twisted deaths… they aren’t random Awakeners"
"These might be the doings of another lord. The kind that slip between the cracks and vanish before anyone notices.”
Her hands settled on her hips, posture firm, voice steady. “But I’m not like them.”
Her eyes narrowed, sharper now. “They don’t see . Not until it’s too late. There are only a few among them who can go head-to-head with .”
"And I doubted those high ranking lords would be stupid enough to co to one of the strongest lord's territory to make a ss"
It sounded like boasting, but she wasn’t wrong.
“And I’ll form a unit of my own. Strong enough to crush those things before they spread.”
Then she added, with a small, crooked smile, “Not a bad way to spread my na, right? Clean the filth out while I’m at it.”
There was a beat of silence.
Elias, as expected, didn’t argue.
Mize’s decisions rarely invited resistance, especially not when Liam himself stayed silent.
He gave a small bow, then reached into the air.
With a practiced flick of his fingers, a sheet of parchnt shimred into existence, forming neatly in his grip.
“There won’t be any obstacles. Her Highness’s command will be enacted imdiately.”
“Good.” Mize gave a short nod, then turned her eyes toward Harapan, who had stood quietly throughout.
“Co with .”
The air shuddered.
In an instant, the two of them vanished, not even a ripple left behind.
Elias stood still for a mont, then adjusted his glasses with a smooth tap of his finger and walked away in no particular rush.
From start to finish, not a single soul had noticed they were ever there, Mize had cloaked their presence from the beginning.
Just a few more ghosts, passing through an unaware world.
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