Darkness descended, but it was not the calm darkness of night. It was a raging, burning flame.

Dennis was still roaring, still resisting. The strength he had secretly been gathering exploded all at once in that instant. It was the foundation of his desperate last gamble... but even at full strength, there was no way he could have confronted the Black Flame at such close range, much less now, when he was nothing more than a pitiful prisoner with his heart exposed.

The Black Flame leapt like a black fairy from some twisted fairy tale and, in an instant, devoured Dennis’s flesh and blood completely.

At the very last moment, when he realized his death was unavoidable, another flash of incomprehension passed through Dennis’s eyes.

Another power they knew nothing about. Muen Campbell, in just two short years, how had you become so—

"And now it’s quiet."

Everything ended. The Black Flame flowed back into Muen’s palm.

Perhaps because he had been repeatedly forcing his spirit past its limits before, Muen’s control over the Black Flame had improved quite a bit as well. In even less time than he had expected, all that remained before him was the bloodstained torture chair.

"Now then, next..."

Muen closed his hand and withdrew the Black Flame, then shut his eyes.

"Black Book."

Rustle...

The faint sound of pages turning echoed through Muen’s mental space. That black sun still hung at the highest point, coldly looking down upon the scattered afterimages blossoming out from the pages below.

The afterimages circled around Muen like fragments in a kaleidoscope, gathering into a small stream built from all of Dennis’s information. Muen needed only to extend a hand to snatch out one corner of Dennis’s life from the current.

Perhaps because his control over the Black Flame had strengthened, the Black Book’s ability to extract information from souls seemed to have grown stronger as well. But looking at that constantly flickering stream, Muen still frowned instinctively.

"So this is the information read out of Dennis’s soul? Why does it feel like there’s less than I expected?"

By now, this was far from the first or second time Muen had extracted information from a soul. He could roughly estimate how much soul-information an entire life ought to contain, yet the amount being displayed before him from Dennis was clearly much less than normal.

"Could this guy have been some kind of prodigy who died young? Is he actually only eighteen, right in the prime of youth?"

The guess surfaced in Muen’s mind, but he laughed at himself almost immediately. If Dennis really had been that talented, he would not have been so shocked by the powers Muen had displayed.

And if it was not a case of Dennis dying young, then that meant...

"Something fishy is going on?"

Muen’s expression sharpened.

Besides venting his anger, another major reason he had come here was because Dennis’s body had obviously been branded with a curse meant to lock away secrets. And Muen no longer had the time or patience to wait for the warden to slowly strip those complex curses away one by one.

But from the look of it, what had been imposed on Dennis was not as simple as a bodily curse mark?

"Still, no matter what, the only thing to do is try."

Speculating any further would be pointless. Only an actual investigation would reveal the truth. Muen immediately calmed his breathing, cleared away distracting thoughts, and then let his consciousness plunge downward... until it sank completely into the chaotic, fragmented lights of information.

Countless images began flashing before his eyes.

The information was still fragmented, and even if it was not as enormous as Muen had expected, these pieces—most of them stuffed with useless detail—were still enough to make his mind ache with sharp pain. Naturally, Muen did not have the time or energy to read through the entirety of Dennis’s first half of life in full.

Fortunately, he still had the omnipotent Dora-Black-Dream.

"Black Book, drag the progress bar a little farther forward," Muen said.

Rustle—the sound of turning pages answered exactly as expected.

The images before Muen began flashing rapidly. The previously fragmented light and shadow even started forming complete scenes. If one ignored the already-distorted details, it almost felt as if Muen were watching some boring movie compressed into ten seconds.

Ten seconds later, the movie finally returned to normal speed. And in a dazed instant, Muen realized he no longer seemed to be inside his mental space. Instead, he was standing in a gloomy, shadowy forest.

"Third Seat’s orders have come down."

Someone was speaking.

Muen looked up. Though the image flickered constantly and was full of broken light specks and static, he still recognized the man.

Arthur—the peerless "genius" who had planned the attack on the ducal estate.

"We’re to infiltrate Belrand and assassinate the Church’s Saintess while she’s in Belrand."

"The Saintess? The Saintess is in Belrand? Wasn’t she on tour?" another person said. Muen recognized him too. It was Dog Lover Bukadi, the man Ariel had nearly beaten to death.

"The tour has already ended, and she’s on her way back. According to our intelligence, for some reason this time the Saintess did not choose her original route. Instead, she passed through Belrand again, and she concealed all information about her movements. It seems even within the Church, very few people know where she’s headed," Arthur explained.

"So the Saintess is already separated from the Church’s main force of protection? Heh... that’s a perfect opportunity."

The one speaking this time was Muen—no, rather, Dennis, the original owner of the viewpoint Muen was currently seeing through.

"But I’ve got a question. If our intelligence already has the Saintess’s location, why not deal with her somewhere out in the wilderness? Why insist on doing it in Belrand?"

Dennis asked curiously. As always, he displayed intelligence not in the least inferior to Arthur’s and very quickly spotted the key point.

"Trying to carry out an assassination in Belrand doesn’t seem like a wise choice."

"Right, right, Belrand is no good at all. I’ve always hated that place. It makes me feel uneasy down to the bone," a fourth person said. In the dim light, her still-alluring silhouette was outlined clearly. There was no need to guess—this was naturally Perfumer Lucy. Muen remembered her quite well.

"True. Dealing with the Church’s Saintess somewhere she definitely has no reinforcements would obviously be the best option. But there are two problems with that."

Arthur lifted a finger and said coldly,

"First, we haven’t fully grasped the Saintess’s exact movements. We only have a rough idea of her route, so the odds of intercepting her halfway are low.

"Second, the focus this time isn’t the Saintess. It’s Belrand. We must create enough chaos in Belrand, and the Saintess is only one of the means to that end."

"I see."

Dennis reacted at once, lifting a brow.

"So it’s to help the Empire and the Kingdom’s frontal war? The Kingdom’s had the advantage for so long—are they finally running out of steam?"

"Whether they are or not doesn’t matter. Don’t forget the purpose of this operation. The Kingdom is only a chess piece we’re using," Arthur said disdainfully.

"The purpose..."

Bukadi’s eyes suddenly lit up, and clear fanaticism appeared on his face.

"Has Third Seat really finished the preparations for that matter? That’s wonderful! I never thought I’d live to see that day with my own eyes!"

That matter?

The moment he heard those words, Muen’s focus sharpened. He concentrated even harder, unwilling to miss a single detail. If his guess was right, then this next part of the conversation was the real key.

"Yes. I didn’t expect that day to come so quickly either. I thought we would only see it once our souls had ascended to the Ark of Cleansing. I never imagined that Holy Lord would complete its construction ahead of time."

Even Arthur, usually calm and composed, had eyes full of longing and intoxication when he spoke of this.

"Though it’s only a prototype, it is a true *****—something capable of making the world **** and ******!"

And then, suddenly—

Arthur’s voice became strangely distorted, like an old radio with a bad signal. In Muen’s field of vision, Arthur was clearly still talking, his mouth continuing to move, yet what reached Muen’s ears was nothing but blurred static.

...Damn you.

Muen froze for a second, nearly cursing out loud.

What the hell was this? Had the information in Dennis’s soul just happened to become incomplete at the exact worst possible moment? Or had even the Black Book run into trouble parsing the soul?

Could the interruption have come at a more precise moment?

How was this any different from one of those cheap little videos that cuts to an ad right before the best part and leaves you so startled the mood dies on the spot?

No. To be cut off at a [N O V E L I G H T] moment like this was even worse than being brought right to the edge and stopped there.

Gritting his teeth, Muen forcibly suppressed the ominous unease rising inside him for the moment. His consciousness detached from Dennis’s viewpoint, and he took a hard step forward through the dark forest.

He needed more information—clearer information. He had to know what exactly Arthur meant by "that matter"—

"Young man, don’t go any farther."

And just then... a gentle warning, warm as a spring breeze, sounded at exactly the right moment.

"What lies ahead is not something you ought to see."

"..."

Muen’s steps stopped.

Arthur was right there, not far ahead, his mouth opening and closing as he repeated over and over the Salvation Society’s hidden purpose in this incident. Muen felt that if he only took one more step, he would know what Arthur had said.

But he could not take even one step farther.

This was clearly a projection constructed inside his consciousness. These were clearly fragments of information parsed by the Black Book. And yet some strange and powerful force had somehow, through its connection to Dennis’s soul, seized control here.

"Come over. Let’s talk."

"..."

Any resistance from Muen was useless. He could only turn around as instructed.

Heavenly light fell, driving the darkness away.

Just a moment ago he had still been in that grim, shadowy forest, but once Muen fully turned, the rich fragrance of flowers and grass flooded straight into his nose.

Flowers bloomed in glorious abundance. Green fields stretched for miles.

Butterflies and bees danced among the blossoms. White birds gathered in flocks and swept across the clouds.

All kinds of beasts wandered leisurely, playing and drinking water. One little deer even walked boldly up to Muen, its eyes clear and limpid as it looked over this uninvited guest with curious interest, showing no fear of a stranger at all.

Muen’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. In the space of a single instant, he seemed to have arrived in a paradise... a beautiful paradise, a refined paradise, a flawless paradise.

And at the very center of that paradise, in the brightest place touched by the falling light, an old man finished brewing tea with practiced ease. Like a host welcoming a guest from afar, he extended a finger and tapped the seat before him.

"Come, young man. Sit."