An Adept wields knowledge as a weapon!

  Only a pure Tower Transcendent could accurately judge what kind of contamination a given esoteric transmission—or a mysterious artwork—contained, and how severe it was. Only with that understanding could one treat a Transcendent’s symptoms with precision.

  And yet, even then, there was always the risk of overdosing. If Roselyn’s contamination was light, but she stared at The Putrid Fly for too long, her aesthetics might not merely be neutralized—they could be twisted beyond repair, and then…

  Still, after the Professor forcibly intervened, Javon could clearly feel the warped contaminant-bodies—those funhouse distortions—grow noticeably weaker.

  Because Roselyn’s fixation on beauty had been blunted and diluted.

  “Roar!”

  Xander the gorilla pounded his chest, seized one of the monsters, and tore it apart with brute strength.

  Langley’s hand produced a slender rapier. With elegant precision, he thrust—and pierced another contaminant-body squarely through the chest.

  At the same time, Javon fired several shots, each one landing cleanly in the last contaminant-body’s head.

  “All right. Take it away.”

  The moment the contaminant-bodies were gone, Roselyn snapped her head aside and glared at the Professor with feral hatred.

  “If you ever make me look at that disgusting thing again, I’ll kill you. I swear it!”

  “Of course.” The Professor answered mildly, drawing the oil painting back. Then he looked at the surrounding blackened ruins and sighed. “No wonder it’s called the Fallen City. Here, Transcendents fall easily—and this is only the outermost layer of resonance and contamination. If we enter the inner districts, it may awaken the darkest parts of us.”

  “If I didn’t possess the ability to neutralize contamination, I would never have chosen to explore this place.”

  “Falling is Umbral’s domain.” Langley voiced his guess. “This city must have been steeped in power on the level of a Velthyr…”

  “Perhaps,” the gorilla said, his body seeming to shiver, “there are marks of a Velthyr war at the city’s core. Even after a thousand years, the mystic connections inside might still injure us terribly…”

  “If we encounter something we cannot resist, you may withdraw on your own,” the Professor said with a sigh. “But within this city, we seem unable to leave the dream at will. We must first walk out of Diat.”

  “Keep moving.”

  This time, Javon didn’t wait to be told. He kept a sheen of radiance around them, shaping a protective layer.

  They passed a ruined park where grotesque plants grew—things that looked as though they had crawled out of an abyss. Even the Professor only spared them a glance before urging the group away, not daring to go deeper.

  As he walked, Javon thought in silence: The real secret of this city should be at the headquarters of Redemption’s Light. It looks like they were destroyed by a Velthyr of the Umbral Path? The Fallen Corona? Or some other Obscured Existence?

  As for a Velthyr war—you're overthinking it… because the Spirit of Null Observance will never act.

  Then Javon swept his eyes over the others and felt something off.

  Roselyn watched the surroundings warily, yet her gaze lingered a little too long on Xander the gorilla, again and again.

  Is this a side effect of “treating” contamination? That’s… horrifying.

  A chill struck Javon’s spine.

  Compared to the Spirit of Null Observance’s absolute purification, this kind of “therapy” carried an ugly cost.

  A Transcendent’s madness isn’t always singular. If you introduce too many counter-contaminations, and fail to hold the balance… the consequences can spiral beyond prediction. No wonder the Professor hardly dares to treat his own addiction to knowing…

  Still, it seems that those who walk the Tower Path alone may be able to weaponize knowledge—actively spreading mental contamination…

  “I don’t like this.”

  Xander, walking point, stopped. “Something’s watching us.”

  Roselyn reflexively shifted her gaze away. Langley tightened, scanning the dark.

  “Yes.” Javon’s left hand closed as if gripping the air; a white-hot sphere of light flared into being in his palm and he hurled it into the depths.

  Pure radiance exploded, briefly driving back the dark.

  From that darkness, a beast leapt.

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  Its entire body burned with black flame. It had the frame of a hyena—yet its head was a woman’s face. In those eyes, there was no reason, no mind—only corruption and madness, distilled.

  A Black Umbral Beast!

  Javon’s pupils tightened.

  So it really is tied to The Fallen Corona. After The Breaking Dawn stole most of its strength, the remnants of the old Black Sun still survived the chaos that followed… and it seems to be doing rather well.

  Among all the beings of that era, The Fallen Corona had been the weakest.

  When the sun fell, the old divine powers were maimed, and the Velthyr were born—there had to have been another war.

  The Black Umbral Beast gave them no time to stare. It lunged.

  A pressure of rank descended on the other four at once.

  “It’s an Ethereal Realm creature comparable to a Beyond Mortality-grade being!” Xander shouted, despair sharp in his voice.

  They had no Beyond Mortality-grade being among them.

  “How?” The Professor’s voice shook. “We haven’t even reached the core, and we’re already meeting one?”

  He was frightened, but not broken. A pocket watch appeared in his hand. He pressed its mechanism.

  In an instant, the Black Umbral Beast—mid-lunge, swift as lightning—slowed to a crawl.

  A Beyond Mortality-grade arcane artifact. The Professor really did have a hidden card.

  Something that manipulates sequence or timing… You’d have to petition a Velthyr to forge something like this!

  Light flashed in Javon’s eyes. He raised his revolver and aimed at the beast, now almost a fixed target in the air—and squeezed the trigger.

  Flame burst from the muzzle. The bullet tore through the beast and turned it into a mass of burning fire.

  A flame avatar.

  This was an ability the Umbral Adept already possessed—Javon had seen it in the fight against Lynn.

  Javon’s expression sharpened. His gaze snapped to the shadows beneath them.

  “Watch out!”

  The warning and the attack arrived together.

  A bestial shape erupted—choosing the Professor. It burst out of the Professor’s shadow and drove straight at his chest.

  Shadow prowl.

  The Professor didn’t have time to react. The Black Umbral Beast’s claws ripped through his defenses and plunged into his chest.

  The ambush succeeded. The Professor lost his fighting capacity—and the team was forced into a corner.

  “Split first, then strike from the shadow. Same hunting pattern as always,” Javon said evenly.

  “This beast has no reason left… but it is the purest Umbral Fourth Sephiroth.”

  Ignoring Langley and Roselyn’s panic, Javon calmly opened his revolver’s cylinder and began loading special rounds.

  He wanted to kill it—use it as a resource for his own advancement.

  He raised his gun and leveled it at the Black Umbral Beast.

  The beast did not rush a second strike. It circled them, searching for its next target.

  At the center, the wounded Professor howled in pain. Fortunately, he was only a spirit here—no true vital points—so he didn’t die instantly. But the contamination from the Black Umbral Beast had latched directly onto his soul. He knelt, unable to move.

  His pocket watch still shed a thin, pearly glow—like the last sliver of shelter.

  Javon fired.

  The bullet struck the Black Umbral Beast—and then detonated into countless points of light. Like tiny insects, they began to gnaw at the black fire on its body.

  Javon’s special round—an impact comparable to a Beyond Mortality-grade being’s single blow.

  It cleanly disrupted the beast’s next assault. The woman’s head atop it screamed, furious, its gaze locking onto Javon.

  Best not to expose a Malevolent Spirit if I can avoid it. A Beyond Mortality-grade being always has a trail. If I draw attention and investigation, it becomes trouble.

  I’ll avoid using Malevolent Spirit abilities directly. Right now, I am a Third Sephiroth Forgebearer. I can hide behind Beyond Mortality-grade arcane artifacts—use that level of force to kill a Black Umbral Beast.

  If I must, I’ll use the Malevolent Spirit. But if I do, my identity will inevitably be exposed…

  While Javon’s mind raced through options, Xander’s shaggy arms swelled thicker. He hefted a boulder and hurled it at the beast.

  Langley, rapier in hand, guarded the Professor while dragging him backward.

  Boom! The boulder struck the ground—easily avoided.

  Roselyn seized the opening her companions created. Orange flame bloomed in both hands. She predicted the beast’s landing and cast in coordination with Xander.

  The fireballs hit.

  And something happened that made Roselyn’s eyes widen in disbelief.

  The flames slid off the beast’s body like rain on oilskin. Not a single hair burned.

  The Unburned trait of the Black Umbral Beast.

  If Javon had been the one casting, he would never have used fire against it.

  The woman’s eyes turned pitch black, impatient. A hiss tore from its throat.

  The sound compressed countless syllables into a single incantation.

  At once, a viscous darkness expanded outward from the beast. Within that darkness, a layer of shadow clung to Roselyn and Xander’s bodies. Their faces contorted as they stopped, fighting the pull of corruption.

  Their deepest madness had been provoked.

  Javon reached into his coat and produced a black case—Roberts’s Arcane Insect Box.

  Bzzz—bzzz!

  A swarm poured out, vast and crawling, wings vibrating. The demon-insects could devour anything—seen or unseen. Their black mandibles tore open the canopy of darkness, revealing Diat’s true scene again.

  “Light.”

  Javon spoke a Spirit Language incantation and called down a flood of pure white radiance that washed over the area.

  “His control of light…” Roselyn stared, murmuring. “He… he is definitely a Third Sephiroth Transcendent!”

  “And that arcane artifact—Beyond Mortality-grade, at minimum. Thank the gods… Elvander is the Forgebearer!”

  Langley watched, exhilaration cutting through terror.

  In a fight like this, the stronger your ally, the higher your chance of living.

  The Black Umbral Beast screamed again. Black flame surged through its body, sealing the earlier damage—and reducing the insects to ash.

  The woman’s head cast Javon a deliberate glance. Then its entire body slipped elegantly back into shadow.

  The next instant, a black claw thrust from the shadow behind Javon, seeking to punch through his heart in one clean strike.

  Javon was already ready.

  A strange shield—woven from black beetles—formed behind him.

  Clang!

  The beast’s strike landed on the shield and turned into blazing black fire.

  Another avatar.

  When Javon turned, the true body of the Black Umbral Beast sprang from the shadows. The woman’s face was carved with pure madness and ruin as it howled.

  Invisible sorcery erupted again—this time as a black fireball, slammed straight at Javon.

  Javon’s figure scattered like flecks of light. On the other side, beneath a veiling insect swarm, his armed silhouette appeared again.

  He aimed at the beast’s head and fired once more.

  Bang!

  The round hit true. A cold breath rolled out.

  A Malevolent Spirit curse round.

  This time, the beast’s skull cracked. Blood spilled.

  Javon fired Ghoul’s Embrace into himself, drew The Weeping Blade, and rushed in without expression—choosing close combat.

  The Black Umbral Beast’s head roared by instinct.

  Syllables of praise—hymns to a great existence—shook the air. Borrowing the terrain, the darkness deepened, swelling like a tide to crush Javon.

  In that moment, the Black Umbral Beast became a servitor of The Fallen Corona.

  Here—

  this was its home ground.