For an entire week, Lucien did little else but baptize people.

It had begun, unsurprisingly, with Clara.

"My Lord," she had said, "many wish to be baptized."

Lucien had already expected it.

At first, the request came mostly from those aligned with light and healing. Divine energy worked too well with those paths to be ignored. Light magic under divine energy became cleaner, denser, and more punishing to corruption. Healers found their restoration more stable. Purifiers found their methods vastly more effective.

Then the second wave came.

People simply wanted to be closer to what their lord used.

Lucien understood that too.

So he agreed.

Vivian organized everything before the process could collapse into chaos. Lists were made. Schedules formed.

Those who wanted baptism first had to speak with her, not because Lucien distrusted them, but because divine vessels were not toys. A mana vessel could be reshaped. A divine vessel required steadier intention, better discipline, and enough inner coherence that the person would not simply waste what they were given.

The work became strangely smooth after that.

It was easier now than it had ever been before.

Lucien stood at the center of prepared circles. He drew power through the merged Origin Core fragment, and guided it into those waiting below. What once demanded intense individual focus could now be done in controlled groups.

He siphoned force from the fragment, refined it through his own understanding, and used it to transform mana vessels into divine vessels.

The merged fragment had changed everything.

It was larger now and more responsive. It’s also easier to draw from without waste.

By the third day, he had fully settled into the rhythm of it.

By the sixth, even large groups could be processed in stable cycles.

And when the week ended, the change in the territory was visible.

Those newly baptized stood differently.

Divine energy did that to people.

It was purer and denser than raw mana. Its capacity carried weight without feeling dirty or unstable. It allowed stronger spells, more efficient formations, cleaner purifications, and, perhaps most importantly in Lucien’s mind, better resistance to miasma.

That last reason mattered more than the others.

He smiled when he watched the people rejoicing, but there was an iron thought beneath that smile.

This was preparation.

If the Black Mass rose again, divine energy would keep his people alive longer. It would let them endure where others might collapse.

Lucien had no intention of being caught unprepared twice by the same category of nightmare.

When the final group left the baptism grounds, Lucien stood alone for a short while and looked over the territory.

Good.

That was one more piece in place.

Now he could finally move on to the next matter.

The Origin Core fragments.

The Covenant of Pathless Sovereignty had enough energy again.

That settled the timing.

Lucien told Vivian he would be leaving briefly and left the territory in her hands without concern. She had long since proven that he could trust her with the core of Lootwell’s living order.

"I’ll return as soon as I can," he told her.

Vivian only nodded once.

"Be careful, Lu."

Lucien smiled. "Always."

Then he left.

The transit was clean.

The void disc drew him across the distance with its usual unnerving elegance, and when the path resolved, Lucien found himself before a familiar corridor and a familiar door.

Before he could even raise a hand—

the door opened.

Seran stood there like someone who had already been listening for the exact moment of arrival.

"Good," he said at once. "You’re here."

Lucien stepped inside and gave him a measured look.

"You’re not pulling a prank this time, are you?"

Seran placed a hand over his chest as if offended. "I think if I did that to you now, you’d have a heart attack and die again."

Lucien snorted.

"Fuck you."

Seran laughed first.

Lucien followed a beat later.

That was how it always went with him. The man had the irritating talent of making even serious meetings feel like old familiarity in motion.

Soon they were seated across from one another.

Seran did not waste time.

He placed a delicate dark box between them and opened it.

Inside lay the promised Origin Core fragments.

Lucien’s eyes sharpened at once.

Every fragment carried that strange quiet weight to it. Like a piece of a truth too large to fit inside ordinary matter had been forced into lawful shape.

Lucien smiled.

Seran saw it and leaned back with obvious satisfaction.

"I wanted to watch your face when you saw them."

"You need a better hobby."

"I have many. This is one of the healthier ones."

Lucien reached toward the box but did not immediately take the fragments. Instead, he looked up.

"You really handed them over."

Seran shrugged lightly. "I said I would."

Then his expression shifted into something more amused.

"I also want to see what happens if the world is forced to deal with something like a modern smartphone."

Lucien laughed under his breath.

"A cultural collapse."

"A communications revolution," Seran corrected.

"An addiction epidemic."

"That too."

They spent the next stretch of time talking through the consequences.

At first it was practical.

Public devices versus restricted devices. How quickly information culture would spread once convenience became habit.

Then it became more dangerous.

How rumors would accelerate. How local powers would lose control over distance. How slow governments would be forced into panic. How merchants would reshape routes once direct contact became normalized. How criminals might try to exploit it. How much easier it would become to catch them if the system quietly remembered enough.

At one point Seran leaned forward, resting his chin on one hand.

"You know," he said, "if we spread this properly, half the world will call it a miracle."

Lucien nodded.

"The other half will call it suspicious."

Seran smiled. "And all of them will use it anyway."

That was the part both of them liked best.

Soon enough the conversation moved on.

Lucien spoke about the Ascension Spire.

Seran’s reaction genuinely surprised him.

The man looked delighted.

"You built a vertical death-education engine."

Lucien blinked once. "That is the most hostile way to summarize it."

"It is an excellent idea."

Lucien shook his head.

He explained the limitations after that.

When he mentioned needing more fuel sources, Seran’s pupils widened slightly.

Then he laughed.

"Now that," he said, "is a problem I would be delighted to help solve."

Lucien raised an eyebrow.

Seran tapped the arm of his chair thoughtfully. "The world is full of terrible people. We should become more efficient about appreciating them."

That answer was so Lucien-coded that Lucien almost felt insulted hearing it from someone else.

He nodded slowly.

In truth, Lucien still had other options in reserve.

The caged ancient beasts were one of them. If they continued refusing every reasonable path set before them, then eventually he would stop treating them like beings waiting to be persuaded and start treating them like fuel waiting to be used.

The void entities sealed inside the black cubes were another matter entirely. Those would not remain stored forever either.

The real issue was no longer whether Lucien had possible fuel sources.

It was whether he could gather enough of them before the higher floors of the Ascension Spire were ready.

Still, even with those sources, Lucien knew the truth.

It would not be enough.

Not if he wanted floors capable of recreating Celestial and someday Eternal level monster patterns with convincing weight.

Seran understood the scale too.

"I’ll help you find more," he said simply.

Lucien believed him.

Just then, Seran stood.

"I have someone to introduce you."

Lucien looked up.

Seran opened the door.

A woman stood beyond it.

She wore white, but not in the ceremonial or fragile sense some people preferred. On her, the color looked clear rather than delicate. She was beautiful in a composed way, the sort of beauty that grew sharper the longer one looked. But what Lucien noticed first was not that.

It was the expression in her eyes.

Guilt.

Which immediately confused him.

Before he could ask, Seran raised both hands in an exaggerated kung fu posture and said, "Do not get any ideas. She is my wife."

Lucien actually coughed.

The woman pinched Seran sharply at the side.

He winced.

"That introduction could have been less stupid," she said.

"I disagree," Seran replied, still rubbing the spot.

Then he straightened and gestured more properly.

"This is my wife, Aurelia. She’s the Liberators’ diviner. And before you ask, yes, she is a true Liberator."

Aurelia smiled then, small and warm and somehow already familiar in a way Lucien could not explain.

She lifted one hand in greeting.

"I finally get to meet you again, brother."

Lucien blinked.

"Again?"

Then, because manners still existed, he added, "And nice to meet you, sister."

Aurelia laughed softly.

That only made him more confused.

He felt it too.

That same strange pull he felt with many of the true Liberators. That sense that there was already an old familiarity here and only his own memory had failed to walk far enough to touch it.

He had ignored that feeling before.

Now it returned with force.

They sat together after that, and the confusion only deepened.

Aurelia eventually explained the guilt Lucien had noticed in her.

She had forgotten him too.

Or rather, Oblivion’s interference had stolen the shape of him from her mind for a time, just as it had from the others. Seran had been the one to bring her attention back to the wrongness, but the final break had come through her own methods.

She used her cheat and her law.

The Law of Divination did not simply show futures to her. It also let her interrogate patterns and find the outline of things that should have been there but had been unnaturally removed.

Once she realized something in her own memory had been cut, she used that very contradiction as leverage.

And she broke Oblivion’s influence on herself.

Lucien found that genuinely impressive.

"I’m beginning to understand why Seran married you."

Aurelia tilted her head. "Only beginning?"

Seran laughed in open triumph.

Lucien rolled his eyes.

The conversation flowed easily after that.

Talking with them felt like talking with old friends, and though Lucien could not place the memory firmly enough to claim it, the comfort of it was undeniable.

Aurelia looked at him more than once with that same strange gaze, as if a long-lost reunion had happened in one direction only.

Lucien did not press.

Some truths arrived better if not chased.

Eventually the conversation turned toward what she had seen.

Aurelia sighed.

"I did see your death," she admitted.

Lucien leaned back. "You say that as if it is embarrassing."

"It is," she said. "Because I saw it and we still could not prevent it."

"You also saw that I lived?"

She shook her head and smiled faintly at that. "No, that’s why we were devastated at first."

Just then...

Seran, who had been suspiciously patient for too long, decided to unveil whatever he had actually been leading toward.

"Do you remember what I told you before?" he asked Lucien. "About true Liberators reaching a certain point in life, fulfilling the right conditions, and then being given a specific location by their system?"

Lucien nodded slowly.

The elemental women had already received such guidance. The system had begun leading them toward something they would one day have to visit.

He himself had not received such a summons yet.

"What about it?"

Seran’s smile became faintly teasing.

"You’ll be interested in this one."

Lucien said nothing.

Seran continued.

"You have already met the person involved. In the East Continent."

A pause.

"She wants to go to the location the system told her."

Lucien’s attention sharpened fully.

Then Seran said the name.

"It’s Seraphine."

Lucien’s eyes widened just a little.

Seran caught it instantly and smiled like the vile friend he was born to be.

Lucien glared at him. "Continue."

Seran leaned back in his chair and looked altogether too pleased.

"You must know, that crazy girl remembered you."

Lucien went still.

Seran’s tone lost some of its teasing then, though not all.

"She said there was a void in her heart she could not explain. A feeling of loss without shape. She locked herself inside her laboratory, insisting she had forgotten something important."

Aurelia nodded quietly. "That part is true."

Seran went on.

"Eventually she used her cheat and her Law of Remedy to treat the damage itself as a sickness of the self."

Lucien breathed out slowly.

That warmth he felt then arrived too quickly and too honestly for him to hide from himself.

Seraphine had remembered.

Not because someone forced the truth into her.

Because she could not bear the wrongness and healed herself through it.

Seran enjoyed every second of Lucien’s silence.

"She asked about you several times," he added. "Quite insistently."

Lucien looked away for exactly one moment.

Seran saw that and made it worse.

"So," he said lightly, "how about it?"

Lucien looked back at him.

Seran’s smile turned maddeningly mild.

"Do you want to come with her," he asked, "to the location the system showed her?"