Beyond the Gate of Hell.

  In the deepest chamber of the prison, Madam Firework reclined in a cushioned chair. Beside her lay a black notebook and a teapot of red tea that steadily breathed steam.

  Across from her stood several Transcendents. At their head was the Philosopher, Xistos.

  “This matter is too grave. We must ask you to divine once more—use the Book of Prophecy. Under the protection of The Spear of the Sun King, invoke Velthyr might and perform the highest-grade divination.”

  Xistos and Jacob bowed deeply. “This is for the kingdom!”

  “Yes… for the kingdom.”

  Madam Firework’s calm eyes didn’t ripple in the slightest.

  Fiona, among those present, could not bear it and turned her gaze away. She knew perfectly well that Madam Firework’s body was already failing; one more top-tier divination could kill her on the spot.

  Xistos and the rest—herself included—were the murderers.

  But when faced with an event that might endanger the kingdom, the Bureau still chose, without hesitation, to sacrifice this diviner.

  The Bureau itself was on the verge of collapse. What did a single diviner matter?

  Madam Firework rose. There was not the faintest trace of her shadow on the floor. Her eyes swept the group; her tone remained level.

  “I am not of the Shadowless Cult. The Faceless One may not answer my request every time. Even so, I will do my best to try.”

  The most essential aspects for divination were Forged Light, Umbral… and Veil.

  Madam Firework was clearly neither a Machinery Mentor nor a Black Umbral Beast. She was The Shadowless.

  No wonder the Bureau had carved out living quarters for her in the depths beyond the Gate of Hell—where The Spear of the Sun King’s seal was strongest. In any other place, she might have slipped directly into the Ethereal Realm and teleported away!

  Xistos said nothing. He simply communed with The Spear of the Sun King, and pure-white radiance spilled down.

  Any rite that invoked Velthyr would carry risk. Yet The Spear of the Sun King could isolate that danger—especially for those outside the ritual. For them, it was the greatest protection.

  Madam Firework remained impassive, as though nothing in this world could move her. The black hardbound notebook in her hands was an Angel-grade arcane artifact—

  the Book of Prophecy.

  With all conditions met, Madam Firework traced the ritual lines with practiced ease, lit the candles, and sang the litany in an airy, unearthly cadence:

  “We beseech The Faceless One, the god of myriad visages—He shall reveal the truth!”

  …

  With only a single Spirit Language incantation, Xistos’s expression changed.

  He saw Madam Firework’s face blur, turning into the face of a child. In the next instant, it became the visage of an old man.

  Man, woman… face after face flashed by. In that moment, Madam Firework became anyone—anyone at all—except herself.

  With only one prayer, she drew a spontaneous response from The Faceless One*’s power?*

  Jacob murmured, “If Madam Firework joined the Shadowless Cult, she’d be treated as a saintess.”

  The Faceless One was an exceedingly strange Velthyr—manifesting in countless forms, yet no one had ever seen His true face.

  At the same time, He rarely answered believers’ pleas. Even an automatic feedback of power was uncommon.

  Someone like Madam Firework… was rarer still.

  Fiona sighed soundlessly. As a diviner cultivated by the Bureau, Madam Firework had never truly had a choice.

  Rustle—rustle—rustle!

  Firework, her face still shifting, flipped open the Book of Prophecy. The black notebook turned its own pages, and abruptly arrived at a pristine, blank new sheet.

  Light and shadow overlapped, and a clear scene surfaced.

  Wynchester. A subway platform.

  A gentleman in a brown, long, buttoned frock coat stood immaculately dressed beneath a top hat. A white mask covered his face from just above his handsome little mustache upward.

  His mouth split wide—stretching all the way to the roots of his ears—revealing two rows of razor-sharp teeth.

  “The finest delicacies should be enjoyed by epicureans!”

  “Everyone—the appetizers are finished. Next comes the main course!”

  Gentlemen and ladies—dressed as though bound for a banquet—howled as they tore apart the subway guards who tried to keep order, seizing the entire platform.

  Another black-clad figure, dressed like a clown, wrenched the track-switch lever with all his might, diverting the rails toward a new direction.

  A hidden platform.

  A route leading to the Bureau’s entrance gate.

  These Transcendents moved with drilled precision. They lashed piles of explosives to the steam locomotive, and with ecstatic cheers, sent the train surging forward.

  …

  Countless strips of light and shadow compressed into one or two seconds. Other than Beyond Mortality existences with exceptional sight, almost no one could see the rushing silhouettes clearly.

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  “It’s the Bloodcoat Club—and behind it is The Epicurean Society!”

  Jacob ground his teeth. “Those damned carrion-eaters… are they the main force attacking the Bureau?”

  “Firework, we need more intelligence.”

  Xistos watched, brows drawing together. “Divine Pontiff Feret’s speech as well, if you can!”

  A single sheet rose into the air, trembling on the verge of collapse. The Book of Prophecy struggled to turn to the next page.

  Xistos’s expression shifted violently.

  He saw his own corpse.

  A corpse in plain robes, a clear puncture wound through the chest—blood spraying out in torrents, soaking the cloth red.

  Then the body was discarded on the ground.

  Bureau buildings were annihilated in droves. Investigators died—one after another—or were surrounded by ghoul servitors and devoured…

  Flames—

  swallowed the entire Bureau headquarters.

  In the next instant, the image changed again.

  It arrived at a plaza. Upon a rain-flower stone rostrum guarded by soldiers, Pontiff Feret—draped in a magnificent purple robe—waved warmly to the crowd.

  Behind him loomed a darkness so dense it could not be dissolved.

  The shadow was like a curtain, slowly drawing back to reveal—

  Crack!

  The Book of Prophecy snapped shut, like a beast clamping down its blood-soaked jaws full of fangs.

  All ritual lines detonated. Madam Firework’s face blurred in an instant, and she screamed with voices that were not one voice but many.

  A man’s scream, a woman’s, an elder’s, a child’s—

  as though, in that single moment, countless people were butchered, or suffered something far worse.

  Even Fiona’s face twisted with pity.

  At last, the anomalies faded. Only Madam Firework remained, collapsed limp where she was.

  Her hair had turned ash-white.

  Her hands were withered. Her skin was deeply wrinkled.

  In the span of a breath, she had lost all youth and vitality.

  Her voice was hoarse, yet still composed.

  “I saw the black night—Velthyr might.”

  “A mortal who peers at Velthyr is guilty.”

  “I saw my own death… and I saw the date the Bloodcoat Club will assault the Bureau.”

  “Tonight.”

  “Thank you.”

  Xistos forced out the words. Then he turned away without hesitation, taking the others with him. A shrill alarm began to wail.

  Fiona looked back at Madam Firework—now an old crone—and for a moment, she could not bear it. Yet she clenched her teeth and left, stepping toward battle.

  She knew that after this backlash, Madam Firework’s life had reached its end…

  Javon arrived at the prison’s deepest section. He found the diviner known as Firework.

  Now Madam Firework was not only unimaginably old—her limbs had also twisted, stretched, and lengthened. One hand clawed at the crack beneath the door; the other coiled up around the chandelier overhead.

  Across the surface of her body, black fissures opened one after another. Within them, countless shadows writhed.

  Plainly, at the threshold of death, this Shadowless could no longer control her extraordinary abilities.

  She was falling—degenerating—mutating.

  Yet this was also the core of The Spear of the Sun King’s seal.

  So Firework’s end held only two possibilities:

  Either she died as she was—

  or she mutated into a Veil demon, and was purified by The Spear of the Sun King.

  Javon watched without joy or sorrow.

  Heaven only helps those who help themselves…

  He observed Madam Firework’s changes in silence.

  Facing death and mutation, her wrinkled face was still perfectly calm.

  Her eyes were gentle. Strands of white hair fell loose as she grasped candles, essential oils, and other items, forcing her body to arrange the simplest possible ritual.

  This is… a Binary Secret-Pact rite?

  Javon’s brows knit.

  Pray to any existence in the void— even an Malevolent Spirit. Whoever answers first claims the prayer.

  And what she’s asking for is… to stop the mutation.

  If she stops the mutation, she’ll die immediately.

  She wants to die calmly—as a mortal—rather than as a monster?

  Perhaps there were higher, better rites for her situation.

  But Madam Firework no longer had the time or strength.

  Besides, she had just invoked The Faceless One today.

  To invoke that Velthyr again— the most likely to answer—would be disrespect.

  And worse: that Velthyr might prefer her as a Veil demon.

  So Madam Firework turned to the void itself:

  O great existence in the unseen—grant me a death with dignity. Everything else… take as you wish.

  This woman…

  Javon was, for the first time, moved.

  After a moment’s thought, he reached out and linked himself to the ritual.

  In an instant, Firework felt her rite connect to an unknown existence.

  The presence was vast—majestic—indescribable—like mystery itself.

  Her consciousness was already blurring. She could not think.

  I ask only for a dignified death.

  She could only transmit that final plea with her will.

  In the next moment, she saw—

  light.

  Pure white light poured down, bathing her whole body.

  Her grotesquely elongated frame began to retract. From each fissure, something black and indescribable was forced out—falling to the ground, twisting and squirming.

  These were the lingering consequences of her countless divinations. Now they were cleansed, utterly.

  Not only that—

  her hair returned to black.

  Her skin regained its sheen and elasticity.

  She became the girl she once was.

  Her awareness snapped back into clarity.

  Firework realized, in shock, that she had neither mutated nor died.

  She had returned to her most perfect state.

  “This…”

  She looked instinctively to her side, only to find the pitch-black Book of Prophecy lying quiet as a dead thing.

  Even the Velthyr of September—The Raven Sage—can only balance corruption, not purge it completely…

  In the hidden world, only one existence is said to cleanse all madness and all taint: the obscured existence worshiped by the Null-Spirit Sect, revered as the sole symbol of salvation and free will—yet never proven—Spirit of Null Observance.

  Madam Firework trembled—then sank to her knees with reverence.

  She pressed her hands into a strange gesture against her forehead, leaned forward, and kissed the floor.

  It was a fragmentary rite passed down within the Null-Spirit Sect, recorded in the Bureau’s grand library. Madam Firework had read it.

  Javon did not recognize it.

  “Thank you… for granting me a second life…”

  Firework whispered. “I no longer wish to remain in the Bureau.”

  “I will leave this place and live under a new identity.”

  “From today onward, Firework is dead.”

  “The one who lives is—Yevna Virel!”

  Oh? So she’s given up on the Bureau? Planning to defect?

  Javon watched, thinking silently.

  Still—she’s at least a Beyond Mortality existence. If we bring her into The Unseen Order*, our association finally gets its first Beyond Mortality existence.*

  Before this, our highest was only me at the third Sephiroth. It’s embarrassing to even greet people outside.

  He considered briefly, then sent an image into Yevna’s mind.

  In an instant, Yevna saw a prison cell— and within it, Lattrell Lyte asleep.

  “Thank you for your guidance.”

  Though Spirit of Null Observance offered no oracle, this single image was more than clear enough.

  As a master diviner, Yevna could not possibly fail to understand.

  Javon severed the link and returned to Lattrell Lyte’s body.

  Lattrell Lyte climbed out of bed, stretched lazily, and knocked on the iron door.

  “Lily. Jessica. Have you decided?”

  “This is your last chance.”

  “My sister and I agree.”

  Lily spoke through gritted teeth, already resolved. “How are you going to get us out?”

  “Very simple.”

  Javon burst into laughter. “Keep waiting…”

  He nearly choked Lily with rage.

  She had thought for so long, heard the Bureau’s alarms, assumed an opportunity had arrived, and finally made her choice—

  only to receive that answer?

  “Ha! That kid’s lying to you!”

  “I told you—how could he possibly get you out?”

  “But just now, a bunch of higher-ups passed by, and alarms went off. Why don’t we riot together?”

  “Spit. Unless The Spear of the Sun King’s seal is lifted, we’re all ordinary people—we can’t even open this scrap of iron!”

  While the other inmates roiled, a girl of striking presence—cradling a black notebook—walked slowly into the corridor.

  Every prisoner fell silent.

  They all recognized her.

  The Beyond Mortality existence in the deepest part of the prison—

  Madam Firework.

  Before a Beyond Mortality existence, one had to show respect.

  Madam Firework stopped before Lattrell Lyte’s cell.

  For now, she was still of the Bureau, and within the seal she held permission to use extraordinary abilities.

  Shadows spilled from her feet, crawling up the iron door.

  Creaaak. Creaaak.

  The door groaned under a crushing strain, twisted, and then—

  with a thunderous crash—swung open.

  Javon stepped out at leisure. He looked at Madam Firework, inclined his head with a smile.

  “I have received my lord’s revelation…”

  “You did well.”

  Behind countless tiny windows in iron doors, eyes turned vacant in the same instant.