Chapter 173: The City Changes

The blackness continued leaking through the crack in the Black Moon.

At first, it looked almost harmless from a distance, like dark smoke escaping from behind the Moon’s surface. Then it began descending.

It spread across the rooftops, flowed down buildings, and covered the streets in darkness that seemed to absorb the light around it. Wherever it passed, the already damaged city became strangely quiet, as though Marvello itself were holding its breath.

Reinhard watched carefully. "That isn’t smoke."

Emily stood beside him, her fingers tightening around Aeon. "Then what is it?"

"I don’t know."

The answer made Lily look at him, but Reinhard had no explanation to offer. His perception could detect changes in the surroundings, yet whatever was leaking from the Black Moon was unlike anything he had encountered.

Then someone screamed.

One of the civilians they had rescued stood near the center of the building, trembling violently.

Emily immediately approached him. "Are you all right?"

"I... I don’t know." His breathing became ragged as he looked around. "Something feels wrong."

Emily reached toward him. "Stay calm. You’re safe."

The man’s eyes suddenly widened. The color disappeared from them, leaving them completely black except for a single white pupil in each.

Emily froze.

The man lunged at the nearest civilian.

She caught his arm before he could strike. "Easy!"

"Get away from me!" he screamed, fighting against her grip with enough strength to surprise even her.

"I’m not trying to hurt you!"

He twisted violently and tried to bite her hand. Reinhard appeared behind him and struck the back of his neck with controlled force, causing him to go limp. Emily caught him before he hit the floor and lowered him carefully.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I don’t know," Reinhard replied.

He looked toward the others. "Keep everyone separated for now."

Maki immediately guided the civilians away from one another while Yuna lifted a pile of rubble blocking the nearest exit. She increased gravity beneath the debris, forcing the broken concrete to rise, then carefully shifted its direction until it settled beside the wall instead of falling onto anyone.

Lily watched the unconscious man. "His eyes..."

"I saw them," Maki said quietly.

Emily stared at his face. A few minutes ago, he had been thanking her. Now he had tried to attack someone.

"Could it be some kind of ability?"

Reinhard shook his head. "I don’t think so."

Before anyone could respond, an injured civilian collapsed against the wall. His breathing had become shallow, and the wound along his side had started bleeding again.

Reinhard immediately pulled an Advanced Healing Potion from his storage space. "Drink this."

The man accepted it with shaking hands. The potion rapidly restored the damage in his body. His wound closed, his breathing stabilized, and some of the color returned to his face.

"I... I’m healed."

Emily smiled faintly. "Good."

For a few seconds, everyone relaxed.

Then the man’s hand began trembling.

"Reinhard," Emily warned.

His breathing became uneven. His eyes widened, and the same blackness spread across them, leaving a white pupil in each.

He suddenly swung at Reinhard.

Reinhard caught the fist, pushed him backward, and knocked him unconscious before he could hurt anyone.

Lily stared at him. "Again?"

Nobody answered.

Another civilian began trembling, followed by another. A woman grabbed her head and cried that she couldn’t hear herself think. A man began breathing rapidly before attacking the person beside him, while someone else screamed that everyone in the room was watching him.

Reinhard moved between them, knocking people unconscious without causing serious injuries. Emily helped restrain another civilian while Maki knelt beside an injured woman whose arm had been cut by falling glass.

"Hold still," Maki told her.

Mana flowed through the seals forming beneath Maki’s fingers. She pressed a glowing seal over the wound, and the bleeding slowed as the seal tightened around the damaged tissue. It did not restore the lost flesh, but it held the wound closed long enough to prevent further blood loss.

The woman stared at her arm. "What did you do?"

"Stabilized the wound. We still need to treat it properly."

Maki helped her stand and guided her toward the others.

Outside, the blackness continued spreading.

Emily’s expression slowly changed. "The longer someone stays here, the more they change."

Maki looked toward the Black Moon. "It’s affecting people directly."

"And getting worse," Yuna added.

Reinhard nodded. "Which means staying here is becoming more dangerous every minute."

Emily looked at the unconscious civilians. She did not want to leave them behind, but there were still people outside who needed help.

"We can’t leave them," she said.

"I know," Reinhard replied.

"We have to keep moving."

He studied her expression before nodding. "All right."

They left the building, and the situation outside was worse than before.

The blackness now covered entire sections of Marvello. Some civilians ran toward the Ashcrofts, begging for help, while others fled from them in terror. Several groups had barricaded themselves inside stores, and people wandered through the streets calling for their families.

A man stumbled out of a damaged building.

"Please! My wife and children are inside!"

Emily immediately approached him. "Where?"

"Second floor!"

She looked at Reinhard. He nodded, and they entered the building together.

Several walls had cracked, and the ceiling groaned under the weight of the damaged floors. Reinhard searched the structure with his perception.

"Three people upstairs. One injured."

Emily rushed up the stairs and found a family hiding inside an apartment. The father immediately raised a broken piece of furniture as a weapon.

"Stay away!"

Emily lowered Aeon. "I’m here to help."

"My family stays with me."

"I know." Emily slowly lowered herself to his level. "I’m not taking them anywhere. I’m getting you out."

The man’s hands shook, but after several seconds, he lowered the weapon. Emily helped the mother stand while the father carried their youngest child. They made it outside just as another section of the building collapsed behind them.

The father looked at Emily with tears in his eyes. "Thank you."

"Stay close to us," she told him.

They followed the Ashcrofts through several streets. For a few minutes, everything seemed fine.

Then the mother stopped walking.

Her hands trembled, and her breathing grew faster.

Emily immediately turned. "Wait."

The father grabbed his wife’s shoulders. "What’s happening?"

"I don’t know," the woman whispered.

Then her eyes turned black.

The white pupils appeared, and she suddenly attacked her husband. He stumbled backward, barely avoiding her hands.

"Help her!"

Emily caught the woman’s arms. "I’m trying!"

"She was fine a second ago!"

"I know!"

The woman screamed and struggled against Emily. The father stared helplessly at his wife.

"Please! Don’t let her hurt herself!"

Emily tightened her grip without hurting the woman. "I’m not going to."

She looked toward Reinhard. "Can you fix this?"

His expression remained serious. "I don’t know."

"What do you mean you don’t know?"

"I can heal injuries and restore Mana. I don’t know how to remove whatever the Black Moon is doing to her."

Emily looked back at the woman. Despite the blackness covering her eyes, her face was filled with fear and confusion.

"We just saved them," she said quietly.

Reinhard understood. They had pulled this family from a damaged building, protected them, and carried them through the city. Yet it still hadn’t been enough.

The woman eventually stopped struggling after Reinhard knocked her unconscious.

The father stared at his wife. "Is she going to be okay?"

Emily hesitated. "We’ll do everything we can."

It was the only answer she could give.

They continued moving, but now every rescue came with a timer.

They found an injured man beneath fallen debris. Reinhard lifted the rubble while Emily pulled him free. His chest was badly damaged, so Reinhard immediately used an Emergency Recovery Elixir. The man’s breathing stabilized almost instantly.

Reinhard glanced at his remaining supplies. One elixir was gone, but he didn’t dwell on it.

Later, they reached a collapsed building where several civilians were trapped beneath a fallen section of the upper floor.

Yuna stepped forward and extended her hand. Instead of activating her Mana Domain, she focused her Gnosis on the debris itself. She increased the gravity on one side of the broken structure while reducing the effective force pulling the other side downward, carefully shifting the load away from the people trapped beneath it.

The rubble groaned as the weight moved.

"Everyone, stay back!" Yuna warned. "I’m moving it now!"

She gradually lifted the heaviest pieces, using controlled changes in gravity to keep them from sliding into the opening. Once a gap appeared, Lily crawled through and brought two children out, carrying one while guiding the other by the hand.

"Keep coming," Lily encouraged them. "You’re almost out."

Maki hurried to an injured civilian whose leg had been cut open by a piece of metal. She placed a seal over the wound, stabilizing the bleeding before helping Reinhard pull the man clear.

"Don’t try to stand yet," Maki warned. "This will keep the wound closed for now, but you still need treatment."

Another civilian had severe internal injuries. Reinhard used a second Emergency Recovery Elixir, saving the man’s life.

Afterward, Yuna lowered the last piece of rubble safely to the street. Her breathing was heavier from the sustained effort, and Reinhard handed her a High-Grade Mana Restoration Potion.

"Drink."

Yuna accepted it immediately. "Thanks."

Her Mana returned rapidly, allowing her to continue helping the civilians.

But Reinhard knew what their inventory meant.

Thirty restoration potions wouldn’t last forever. Neither would ten elixirs or the Mana Recovery Crystals. He had prepared for prolonged combat, not an entire city that needed to be saved every few minutes.

They kept moving.

An Awakener’s attack nearly killed several civilians. Emily threw herself between them and the blast, using Blood Mana to block the attack. Her Mana reserves dropped sharply, and Reinhard immediately crushed a Mana Recovery Crystal, pressing the released energy into her Gnosis.

Emily looked at him. "You’re using another one?"

"You needed it."

She glanced at the remaining crystals. "You’re going to run out."

"Then I’ll buy more later."

"This isn’t the time to joke."

"I wasn’t joking."

Emily studied him for a moment before nodding. "Thank you."

They moved again.

Another group needed help, then another, and then another.

The Black Moon continued spreading. Its darkness covered more streets, and the people they rescued kept changing. Some lasted an hour. Others lasted only minutes.

The Ashcrofts began to recognize the pattern. The longer someone remained inside Marvello, the more unstable they became.

Reinhard’s resources slowly disappeared. Emergency Recovery Elixirs were used whenever someone suffered life-threatening injuries. Mana Restoration Potions were consumed after prolonged fighting, while Advanced Healing Potions were needed for less severe wounds. Mana Recovery Crystals were crushed whenever Emily or Yuna exhausted themselves.

Maki continued using her seals to stabilize injured civilians, but sealing a wound only bought time. It could not reverse the Black Moon’s influence, and it could not replace proper treatment.

They were saving people, but every rescue cost them something.

By the time they reached another crowded street, even Lily looked exhausted.

"We’ve been doing this for hours," she said.

Maki glanced at the civilians around them. "And the city is still getting worse."

Emily looked toward another group crying for help. "We can still help them."

Reinhard turned toward her. "Emily."

She looked at him.

A woman was begging them to find her missing son. A wounded man was calling for a healer, and a child was crying beside a burning vehicle.

Emily tightened her grip around Aeon. "We can’t just leave them."

"I know."

Reinhard looked around. The Black Moon dominated the sky, darkness covered the rooftops, and fires burned throughout the city. Their supplies were decreasing, their Mana was being consumed, and people were changing around them.

They had already saved hundreds.

But there were thousands more.

Then Reinhard noticed something else.

A faint disturbance moved through his own body. He closed his eyes for a moment and turned his S-Rank perception inward.

Nothing had changed yet, but the sensation was enough to make him open his eyes again.

"We need to stop."

Lily looked at him. "Stop what?"

"Saving people one group at a time."

Her expression hardened immediately. "No."

"Lily—"

"No. We can’t just leave them."

"I know."

"Then why are you saying this?"

Reinhard remained calm. "Because every minute we stay here, more people change. Every person we save may have to be restrained if they turn. Every injury needs Mana and medicine, and every minute we spend moving between these streets is another minute the Black Moon has to spread."

Lily shook her head. "But they’re still people."

"I know."

Emily’s hands tightened around Aeon. Yuna frowned, clearly disliking the decision as much as Lily did. Maki looked toward Reinhard, then toward the Black Moon.

After several seconds, she finally spoke.

"He’s right."

Lily turned toward her. "Maki?"

Maki’s expression was serious. "If we continue like this, we’ll eventually have to restrain everyone we save. Then we’ll have to heal them, and then restrain them again when they change. We’re already using resources faster than we can replace them."

She looked at the others. "And there’s another problem. The Black Moon is affecting the people around us. We don’t know whether repeated exposure will eventually affect us too."

Nobody interrupted.

Maki looked directly at Lily. "I doubt any of you want to be forced to hurt each other."

Lily froze. Her face went pale as she looked at Reinhard, then Emily, Yuna, and Maki.

The thought clearly terrified her.

"No," she whispered.

Emily closed her eyes.

She had spent the entire disaster trying to save everyone. She had refused to stop even when people attacked her, accused her, or turned against the very people trying to protect them.

But now she understood what Reinhard was asking.

It wasn’t whether they cared about the civilians. It was whether they were willing to risk becoming unable to protect anyone at all.

Emily slowly opened her eyes. "All right."

Lily looked at her.

Emily tightened her grip around Aeon. "Let’s go to the Heart."

Reinhard nodded. "Then we stop the Black Moon."

They turned toward the center of Marvello.

Behind them, the civilians continued crying out for help. Emily hesitated for one final moment, looking at the people they were leaving behind.

Then she forced herself to turn away.

The decision hurt, but they moved forward anyway.

Above them, the Black Moon continued spreading its darkness across Marvello.

And somewhere beyond that darkness, something continued pressing against the crack in its surface.