Chapter 37: Irregular

The spear cut through the air in a single, blinding arc, splitting straight through the melee still raging between Kai’s side and Zoria.

Right behind it came the woman in white, moving fast enough that she was past them before Lucian’s mind caught up. The instant Zoria’s eyes found her, something hungry sparked behind them, a killing thrust already forming, aimed at drinking whatever blood she carried.

Kai caught it a heartbeat before it landed. His talisman shot out on reflex, throwing up a barrier around her just in time, denying Zoria the meal that would have tipped this fight entirely out of their favor. The clash between them tore back into motion an instant later, as brutal as before.

Lucian’s hand drifted to his left arm, still tracing the spot where he’d been grazed, the strange sensation of it lingering under his skin.

Was that actually real, or did I imagine it?

He genuinely couldn’t say what he’d felt in that brief contact with the woman, Alayna, and a glance at Lumina told him nothing either, her expression showed no reaction to Alayna at all. Her focus stayed locked entirely on Zoria instead, searching for something buried deep inside him.

Then came the sound of a spearhead shattering iron, the chain that had bound Miyu to the altar floor for so long finally giving way. Alayna’s blade tore through the last of the links holding her down, and though the metal fought her at first, she cut Miyu free.

The instant she was loose, Alayna pulled her into her arms, worry etched hard across her face. Miyu hadn’t fully surfaced yet, still lost somewhere beneath the wreckage of what Kai’s forced intrusion had left behind.

Alayna shook her gently, then pressed two fingers to her throat, checking for a pulse, and something in her shoulders loosened with relief the instant she found one, faint but steady.

She tried channeling her own mana into Miyu next, an attempt at healing, but Miyu’s body rejected it outright, her mana recoiling from anything holy on instinct.

It made sense, given what she’d been born with. Alayna didn’t flinch at the sight of it, though, no shock, no fear crossing her face at all, as though she’d already known exactly what to expect long before anyone else in this room had.

Her right hand dove into a pouch at her side instead, searching, until she came up with something long and slender, a delicate glass vial catching what little light reached them.

She cracked the seal open fast. Thick black fluid welled at the rim, and the smell of it hit hard enough that Alayna’s own hand flew up to cover her nose and mouth on reflex.

Lucian watched, confused, as she angled the vial toward Miyu’s lips instead of pulling it away.

Sure enough, she parted Miyu’s mouth and poured the black liquid straight down her throat. One vial wasn’t the end of it, either, three more sat waiting beside her, each one emptied into Miyu in turn.

By the fifth vial, something changed. Miyu’s fingers, limp until now, began to twitch. To anyone capable of seeing dark mana directly, a visible cluster of it had begun gathering around her, drawn inward, settling into her body like something finally coming home.

That gathering pull didn’t just draw in the last of the scattered Murks. It caught Zoria’s attention too, his head snapping toward the two women kneeling behind him.

Kai clicked his tongue, sharp and urgent, ordering Rhaiven to do something, anything, to drag Zoria and the Murks’ focus back where it belonged before either of the girls became a target.

Zoria’s stare had locked onto them like he’d already decided exactly what he wanted.

"You never stop nagging, do you, old man!"

Rhaiven barked it back at Kai, though he was already moving, a bell drawn from the folds of his cloak, ringing out a summons.

Skeletal warriors answered it, rising up in cloaks that mirrored his own, each one carrying a Grimoire of their own, each capable of calling on a different element entirely.

He sent them forward at once, driving them into the path of the Murks still closing on Alayna and Miyu, while Kai and the four guards threw themselves back into the fight against Zoria.

A small explosion rang out somewhere in the chaos, and Miyu’s eyes finally cracked open. Her vision swam, blurred and distant, and through the haze she made out Alayna above her, tears already falling freely down her cheeks.

"Alayna... why are you here..." Miyu’s voice came out cracked, barely audible.

Her hand rose, gentle despite everything, to brush the wetness from Alayna’s face. Alayna started apologizing immediately, for arriving too late, for whatever plan of Zoria’s had kept them apart until now.

Miyu shook her head. It hadn’t been Zoria’s doing at all, she admitted. She’d arranged it herself, deliberately keeping Alayna clear of the fight, something she’d already seen coming long before it happened.

Regret crept into her voice as she said it, though, the guilt of failing to stop any of it, the toll visible everywhere she looked across the ruined tower.

She didn’t feel like she deserved to call herself a Moonmaiden, not when she’d been powerless to save the people scattered dead or dying around them.

Alayna’s head dropped the instant she understood what Miyu had done, deliberately shutting her out. Anger flashed across her face, and she took Miyu’s face in both hands.

"Why didn’t you trust me with this, Miyu? This isn’t like you at all."

"If you’d told me, we could have done something about this sooner."

Miyu saw it differently, though. She shook her head, holding Alayna’s gaze steady, her star-shaped yellow pupils fixed on something no ordinary eyes could have caught.

She insisted this had been the right call. Someone needed to be free to carry what mattered most, to see the mission through, getting the Kirana crystal into the right hands.

Her eyes drifted toward the space beside the Oracle’s chair as she said it, and the moment they landed there, something in her expression cracked. The crystal was gone.

Panic flickered across her face, and she squeezed her eyes shut, reaching for something only she could sense.

A thread of yellow light answered her, tracing forward through the chaos.

It led straight to someone standing well ahead of them, past the four Green Land guards, to Yunxi, the staff bearing the Kirana crystal still gripped tight in her hand.

"She’s too far!"

Miyu’s gaze swept the space around them. Skeletal warriors clashed with the last of the Murks close by, while dozens of meters ahead, Zoria’s fight against Kai and the others still raged in full force.

Cutting through that gauntlet, past that many high-tier combatants locked in open battle, wasn’t something either of them could do easily.

Alayna caught the look on Miyu’s face, the desperate pull toward reclaiming that staff herself, and made her decision before Miyu could voice it.

She gripped Miyu’s shoulders with both hands, her expression set hard with resolve, willing her to trust this to her instead.

Miyu’s fists clenched at her sides, eyes locked on the staff still gripped tight in Yunxi’s hand, some part of her still aching to go after it herself. But she nodded anyway, yielding to Alayna’s plan.

Alayna moved fast, summoning her spear of light from her Grimoire, angling into a low charge meant to close distance and strike true, minimizing every unnecessary clash along the way. Her only target was the staff itself.

Mana gathered beneath her feet, coiling tight. Behind her, Miyu raised both arms above her head in a wide, sweeping arc, and the motion tore a single yellow star into being above her, blazing bright against the dark.

Dark mana surged through her body, and her voice rose with it, sharp and commanding.

"IRREGULAR: SIN!"

The single star split apart the instant the words left her, multiplying into twelve blazing points of yellow light, and the Murks scattered on sight, fleeing the glow in open terror.