Drevos Hollow faded behind him, swallowed by the mist and ash.
Pedro didn't look back. Towns like that—once you walked away, you never wanted to see them again. The kinds of places where memories clung like mold to the soul. Where evil didn't scream… it whispered, patient and close.
He followed a trail only he could see—faint glimmers in the air, fractures in reality left behind by demonic influence. His Domain Mapping glyph pulsed faintly on his wrist as he tracked the corruption. A sigil of Envy didn't just rot wood or poison minds—it bled into the earth like ink in water.
And someone had to clean it up.
Behind him, footsteps crunched through the dirt.
"You really are going to ignore the Inquisition's direct orders?"
Pedro sighed.
"I thought you'd have gone back to file a report or whatever it is Church girls do."
Sister Mara strode beside him, her spear now slung across her back. The blue eye watched the horizon. The hazel one watched him.
"You found Envy's sigil. That makes this my mission too."
Pedro gave her a side glance.
"You're not scared?"
"Of you? No."
He chuckled. "Of Envy, genius."
She didn't answer right away.
"…I've been trained since I was eight to fear nothing but God."
"Cute," Pedro said, tightening the strap on his satchel. "I've been surviving since I was eight. Bit different."
They walked in silence through the cracked hills outside Drevos Hollow. In the distance, a decaying church bell tower leaned like a snapped spine. Crows circled it, cawing without rest.
Pedro knelt beside a stretch of dirt that shimmered faintly.
"Here."
He unrolled a strip of black cloth and began setting up a circle of chalk, ash, and rust. At the center, he placed a mirror. Cracked. Old. Engraved with a serpent on its handle.
Mara raised a brow. "That's not a standard exorcism relic."
"Nope," Pedro replied. "It's an anchor for Law of Reflection—a tracking method from the old Pao archives. It bounces residual envy like light. Shows you the path they've taken, if you know what to look for."
He flicked a pinch of powder across the mirror's surface. It sizzled.
The reflection twisted—images danced across the glass. A cloaked figure walking through a ruined cathedral. A hidden chamber filled with mirrors. A wall lined with masks.
And then… a name.
Spoken in a distorted whisper.
"Zairan…"
Pedro's breath caught.
"Zairan," he repeated. "That's one of the Monarchs' Heralds. Been off the radar for years."
"We need to inform the Inquisition."
"No."
Pedro stood, eyes burning.
"We hunt him."
They followed the reflection's trail for hours, across skeletal plains and broken highways where rusted cars had fused with asphalt. The world had never recovered from the Fall. It had simply learned to rot slower.
Along the way, they passed makeshift shrines to saints—most defaced. One had been smeared with green wax and cracked glass. Pedro paused.
"This was Zairan's doing. Envy infects beauty. That's how he works."
Mara touched the edge of the broken shrine.
"He corrupts what people cherish?"
"Exactly. He doesn't just want to win. He wants what others love to suffer."
She shivered slightly. "That's worse than I imagined."
Pedro didn't respond.
By nightfall, they reached a crumbled watchtower at the edge of a dead forest. The mirror's glow pointed straight at it.
"He's inside," Pedro said.
"Let me go first."
Pedro snorted. "What, in case there's a trap that kills whoever goes first? That's sweet."
"No. I just don't trust you to not trigger it on purpose."
She crept in first, spear drawn.
Pedro followed, fingertips brushing the walls. Every stone was engraved with faint, looping scripture—familiar, yet off. He paused, tracing one.
"This is Pao writing…"
"I thought your family's knowledge was lost."
"Not all of it." Pedro's voice dropped.
"But this… this is older than anything I've seen. Even our founders didn't write like this."
In the chamber beyond, a single mirror hung suspended from the ceiling by chains.
The surface was black.
Not reflective—swallowing.
A figure appeared behind it.
Cloaked. Unmoving.
"You've come far, boy," it said. Its voice echoed with many voices, layered like cracked glass.
Pedro stepped forward.
"Zairan."
The figure tilted its head.
"You carry your family's arrogance. Good. We feared it might have died with them."
Mara aimed her spear. "Reveal your face."
The Herald laughed.
"What need have I for faces? I wear yours when I wish."
The mirror pulsed—and Pedro saw his own reflection twist. It showed him—older, twisted, with green fire in his eyes.
"No thanks," Pedro muttered, and reached into his coat.
Law of Severance: Chain Sequence.
Three threads flew from his belt, slashing in a curved pattern designed to collapse demonic projections. They struck the mirror.
It shattered—but instead of glass, liquid envy splashed outward like tar.
Pedro threw up a ward. Mara jumped behind him.
"That wasn't the real Zairan," Pedro spat. "Just a fragment. A trap."
"Where's the real one?"
Pedro knelt, placing a new glyph into the floor. The remaining residue bled toward a single crack in the stone, pointing east.
"Where the green river runs," Pedro read aloud.
Mara looked confused.
Pedro grinned.
"I know that place. It's not far. It's where the world ends and memory dies."
"That… sounds awful."
"It is."
He stood and turned to her.
"We can still split here. Go back to the Inquisition. Report it. Be safe."
Mara didn't move.
"You're an idiot. But you might be right. We can't let Envy rise. And if you're really the last Pao… then you won't last long alone."
Pedro raised a brow.
"…Was that your way of saying you like me?"
"That was my way of saying you need someone to stab things."
They left the tower side by side, the stars overhead flickering through toxic haze.
And in the shadowed hills far behind them, Zairan watched from another mirror, his true face hidden beneath a mask of envy.