Chapter 26: Loupulan

But.

The Murks passed straight through him, like wind slipping through an open window, nothing more.

"Told you, Lucian. This is only a memory. It has nothing to do with you."

Lucian’s heart was still hammering, but he forced his breathing back into something steady. Lumina finally released her grip on his chin.

When he turned to look behind him, following where the Murks’ attention had actually gone, he realized they weren’t interested in him at all. Their focus had locked onto Miyu and Alayna, still crouched over the sick woman on the bed.

Neither of them had noticed. A swarm of Murks was closing in, and neither woman had the faintest idea.

If those creatures got their claws into someone, the damage wouldn’t stop at flesh, wounds from a Murk didn’t just fester, they unraveled a person’s mind along with their body. That was exactly why evil spirits like these were feared the way they were.

"This wound’s been sitting infected with dark mana for too long. Do you have any clean cloth?"

Miyu spoke to the boy while still holding his mother’s hand, a thread of holy mana flowing from her fingertips toward the woman’s nose. It lasted only a moment before something else answered it, a thick stream of black fluid forcing its way out instead.

The boy, startled into motion, turned to grab a cloth from behind a nearby chair, and came face to face with a Murk. He screamed the instant he saw it, the sound raw with pure terror.

Miyu’s gaze snapped up, sharp and unflinching, fixing directly on the creature that looked ready to devour him whole.

Strangely enough, the Murks froze the second her eyes met theirs. It wasn’t that she’d unleashed any visible power against them, they simply went still, as though something about her alone terrified them more than anything they’d ever hunted.

While the Murks stood paralyzed, none of them noticed Alayna was already moving into position behind them.

She drew out a brown Grimoire marked with the crescent symbol of Selenea. Though she hadn’t been born with a white Awakening herself, the Grimoire let her call on and shape holy mana all the same.

Light gathered along both her arms, condensing into a spear that blazed a brilliant yellow, its tip aimed squarely at the frozen cluster of Murks.

She hurled it with everything she had. The spear struck true, tearing straight through the mirror-shard faces of all eight creatures at once, and every single one of them shattered on impact.

Alayna hadn’t looked panicked while she fought, but the moment it was over, her legs betrayed just how much it had cost her, trembling badly enough that she had to brace herself against the crumbling wall to keep from collapsing.

"Haa... is everyone all right?" she managed, looking to Miyu and the boy.

The boy only nodded, still shaken.

Lucian watched Miyu’s shadow shift, though she wasn’t moving toward him. Instead, she crossed the room toward the corner where the Adenium pots sat.

The flowers had looked healthy enough only moments ago, but the instant Miyu reached for one, they wilted right in front of her, all the life draining out of them at once, as though whatever had been sustaining them was gone.

Her attention turned to the boy.

"Where did you find this many Adenium flowers?"

The boy looked away, refusing to answer, even though her question had been gentle enough. But then a warm hand settled on the side of his head, a touch he clearly recognized, and he turned toward it instantly.

The bed creaked as the woman lying in it slowly pushed herself upright.

The boy’s eyes went wide the moment he saw his mother sitting up, and he threw his arms around her without a second thought.

"Please forgive my son’s manners, Moonmaiden Miyu. He wasn’t trying to be rude, he’s just scared that if too many people learn where the flowers grow, in the eastern cave, we’ll lose access to them for good."

To the people of Loupulan, Adenium flowers were valuable trade goods, something they could sell to distant regions. The flowers native to the Red Lands carried a scent unlike any found elsewhere, something between honey and blossom, prized as an ingredient in high-end perfumes. It wasn’t unusual for people from the far-off Green Lands to travel all this way just to secure some for themselves.

The woman’s voice, still hoarse, drew Miyu’s attention at once, and she hurried to her side, lifting the hem of her robe to move faster.

"You shouldn’t be moving yet, ma’am."

Miyu studied her carefully. She’d only meant to send a small trickle of holy mana into the woman’s body, just enough to nudge her systems back toward normal function.

But with the Murks gone from the house entirely, the whole room seemed to breathe easier. The veins that had gone black across the woman’s skin were already fading back toward their natural color.

Miyu let out a slow breath of relief, watching the change take hold. What remained now was simple, gradual recovery, nothing more.

In theory, both Miyu and the priests of the Order could heal someone almost instantly. In practice, every body responded differently. Some people absorbed that kind of healing in a single session with no trouble at all. Others needed it delivered in careful stages, or the strain alone could do as much damage as the original wound, even those with unusually high Mana Cores couldn’t always be healed in a single pass if the injury ran deep enough.

This woman had been fortunate to cross paths with Miyu at all. Forty percent of her body had already succumbed to dark mana infection, a level of damage even a Cardinal might not have been able to reverse.

"I feel much better now, thank you, Moonmaiden Miyu. I don’t know what would have happened to me, or my son, today if you hadn’t come."

Even with the woman insisting she was fine, Miyu kept checking her pulse carefully, searching for anything else out of place.

After a while, satisfied there was nothing left to worry about, Miyu finally relaxed.

"There’s no need to thank me, all of this is thanks to Goddess Selena’s grace. But tell me, how long have you been gathering flowers like these?" Miyu asked, glancing toward the now-wilted Adenium blooms.

The woman’s answer left both her and Alayna puzzled. She explained they’d only discovered the flower’s location thirteen days earlier, from a man in a black robe that concealed his entire face, though something in his accent marked him as someone from the Green Lands.

He’d wandered through the slum at first, telling anyone who’d listen that he’d found a patch of Adenium flowers nearby. Most people had simply ignored him. But this woman, unemployed for a long stretch and raising her son alone, had swallowed her doubts and decided to check the location he’d described for herself.

Just as the stranger had said, the flowers grew in dense clusters inside that cave, though the path leading in was treacherous, slick rock that sent people sliding if they weren’t careful. Still, she’d pushed through it and managed to carry home a sizable haul.

At first, she’d sold what she gathered to Green Land traders passing through the market. But then, unexpectedly, someone from the Order of Selenea had approached her, wanting to buy a large quantity for today’s festival ceremony.

Eager to meet that order, she’d gone back into the cave four days ago. The trip started the same as always, until she slipped on the wet stone and fell.

At the time, she’d assumed it was some kind of warning from the Goddess, punishment for her own greed, and decided to head home without the flowers she’d come for. The fall had left her with nothing worse than a dull ache and a small scrape, or so she’d thought.

That changed the moment night fell. Her whole body went limp without warning, and she lost consciousness entirely. Her son, realizing something was terribly wrong, had run to find help.

But every time someone tried to approach the house, they claimed to see something inside that sent them running the other way.

The boy said he’d gone to the Order of Selenea’s other priests for help, but they’d demanded a steep price first, more Adenium flowers, before they’d agree to heal her. He’d spent days on his own gathering as many as he could carry, only for the Order to turn him away when he finally brought them, claiming they’d already collected more than enough.

"WHAT? How dare they toy with a child like that!" Alayna, who’d been sitting quietly, shot to her feet the instant she heard the full story.

Miyu, though, had gone quiet, turning something else over in her mind, something that didn’t sit right.

"You said earlier that a mysterious man told you where to find the flowers, and that he spoke with a Green Land accent, correct?"

The boy’s mother nodded.

That detail nagged at Miyu. Why would someone from the Green Lands, a place that prized Adenium flowers just as highly as anyone else, go out of his way to hand valuable information like that to a total stranger? Was he simply a kind man, or was something else going on entirely?

"Alayna, we need to get back to the Order of Selenea. Now."

Miyu was already on her feet, the calm, easy warmth she usually carried replaced by something far more guarded. It made sense. She’d just discovered, firsthand, that evil spirits had been hiding inside those flowers all along.

They said their goodbyes quickly. The mother tried to press something on them in thanks, but Miyu waved it off without slowing down, already heading for the door.

But why, out of everything, would this happen right as the Awakening ceremony is about to begin?

Watching the memory unfold around him, Lucian turned to Lumina.

"Could that many Murks together actually be enough to destroy this whole city?"

He remembered clearly what Lumina had said, right before they’d stepped through the yellow door: something about a civilization on the verge of collapse. But her expression, when he asked, carried something close to amusement.

"My Lucian, there’s no way something as small as an evil spirit could bring down a civilization built by Goddess Selenea herself."

Her answer only deepened his confusion. If it wasn’t the Murks, then what was it?