Chapter 525

Thunder shook the guest room’s glass windows with a rolling vibration that was felt throughout the manor. Outside, a squall from the plains swept in, pounding Oakenhollow's trees with sheets of freezing rain.

"The scars are deep," Nick said, pulling his mind back from a servant's soul, his voice a low rasp. "They are grafted into the brain's emotional centers. A simple dispelling ritual will merely scratch the surface, leaving the root intact, or worse, rupture the mind as it tries to tear it free.”

Claudius watched him in silence, waiting for him to work through his findings.

The old man might not have been particularly powerful, but he was wise enough to recognize when he was out of his depth. Though Nick suspected he was seeing much more than it might have seemed, he couldn’t afford to hide too much now. Not that he needed to.

“We’ll have to take a different route," he continued, standing and rolling his shoulders. "We must bring the souls of everyone she touched into the ether, pull the corrupted parts to the surface, and wash them clean.”

He took a deep breath. “I won’t lie. Something like this requires a Great Work. A ritual spanning the entire town.”

Tim looked up from his stepmother's prone form. "You want to affect all of Oakenhollow at once?”

“It’s the only way. I doubt her soul can withstand more than one attempt,” Nick replied.

Ritualism in this world was something of a lost art beyond religious ceremonies. People simply didn’t need to sacrifice so much when mana was so abundant, but that abundance also limited them.

Nick wouldn’t go so far as to say the System stifled growth, but it certainly enclosed people in boxes by assigning them classes.

Claudius shook his head in disbelief. "The mana required for such a working... it would drain a ley line. You are strong, my Lord, but anchoring thousands of mortal souls while delicately manipulating their minds? I don’t know if even Tower Master Bluetear could do that.”

I’m pretty sure he could. The old man's power is unfathomable. But then again…

"I do not need to power it myself," Nick said. He walked to the table where he had left the staff Candra had given him. He picked it up, feeling the cool, smooth grain beneath his fingers. The sapphire at its head caught the lightning’s reflection, splitting it into a dozen rays before going dark as it passed.

"Gift-giving is an act of conceptual binding," Nick murmured, turning the staff over. "When she handed this to me, she surrendered a piece of her intent, especially since it was given under false pretenses. Such an act forms a bridge. We will use this staff as the conduit and her soul as the framework. She will provide the resonance needed to affect the scars, and the storm outside will supply the raw power to wash them away.”

There was a moment of silence. This kind of magic was often consigned to legend, and now he was telling them he’d set it up and cast it right then and there.

He could feel their disbelief, but also their trust. It was a mess of conflicting emotions, but as long as they’d follow him, he didn’t care.

Tim swallowed hard. "What do you need from me?”

"I need your authority," Nick said, turning to face his friend. “As I’m not even the Crowley Heir, I have no claim to this land. If I try to drag these people into the ether, the World will resist me as an invader, and the ritual will fail. You are the heir of this town, and its acting Lord. You must stand at the center of the array and grant me the mandate to act.”

Tim squared his shoulders as determination to do all he could for his people coursed through him. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

Nick gave him a small, proud smile. Yes, Tim was no longer the nervous boy he’d met a year earlier.

“Set up in the central plaza," he instructed. "Under the largest oak. Drag her there, and bring as many of the affected people out into the rain as you can manage. They need to be near the epicenter to ground the working, and the rain itself will need to wash over them to ensure cleansing.”

"And you?" Claudius asked.

"I have a boundary to draw," Nick replied.

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He drew the Stillness from his spatial ring and draped it over his clothes, fading from mundane sight as he slipped out the window into the howling gale.

Though he could have avoided the elements if he had wanted to, he needed them to cooperate, so he let the storm touch him. Rain hit him like a volley of icy needles, soaking his hair and plastering his coat to his skin. He ignored the cold, flew above the roofs, and welcomed the howling gales into his fold, using them to speed himself up.

Setting a Great Work across an entire settlement required more than just precision. He could not afford a single interruption. If a panicked townsman or a straggling guard broke the lines while the ether was flowing, the backlash might fry the minds of everyone connected to the array, or perhaps just his.

I’m much stronger than I was when I failed the ritual of Icarus in Toneburg, but this is also much more powerful. Better not to risk it.

Nick moved to the northern gate, dropping into the mud. He drew a stack of silver coins from his pocket and channeled lightning into them until they glowed cherry-red and melted into a stick. Shielding himself from the downpour with a pocket of compressed air, he began carving the foundational runes into the wet timber.

He worked in silence, letting the storm mask the faint hum of his magic. He wove a story into the runes, laying down the conceptual tracks the System would follow. A Great Work required a narrative structure to function smoothly, and while some might have advised against using the same myth twice in such quick succession, Nick knew better.

The ritual he’d cast for Rose still clung to his spirit and would for some time. Introducing a new myth here might cause trouble, so he used the tale of the same lost king on a strange island, whose men a beautiful witch turned into mindless swine. To save them, the king forced the witch to undo her curse at sword point, aided by a holy herb gifted by the gods.

Here, Candra was the witch. The charmed townsfolk were swine. The ironwood staff was the holy herb.

It’s fortunate Odysseus was so adventurous. If I’d chosen a different myth to help Rose, I might be stuck now.

And so, Nick flew around the town, drawing the binding circles on the walls. He connected the lines to the sprawling root system of the ancient oaks, turning the trees into natural conduits that would carry the spell into every home and tavern.

It took two hours of meticulous labor. Even with his physique, his fingers grew numb, and the sheer concentration required to calculate the array’s intersecting angles made his temples throb. He slipped through the shadows, avoiding the few citizens peering out their windows at the storm, ensuring everything was flawless.

When the final rune connected to the starting point at the northern gate, Nick let out a ragged breath. He still did one last lap around town, just to be sure, but saw nothing out of place and flew toward the plaza.

Beneath the colossal oak, Tim and Claudius had worked relentlessly. Candra lay unconscious before them, her silk gown ruined by the wet earth. Around her, in a wide circle, were hundreds of sleeping guards, servants, civilians, and even the magistrate, their faces pale in the flashes of lightning.

Tim stood near his stepmother, soaked to the bone, his tunic clinging to his thin frame. Claudius sat on a nearby stone bench, his breath puffing from the exertion of levitating so many people.

Huh. I forgot that flight is considered an extremely rare and power-intensive skill.

"The ritual is set," Nick announced as he flew in, dismissing the Stillness, his voice carrying over the thunder. He walked to the center of the circle and drove the ironwood staff deep into the mud near Candra’s head. The sapphire pointed toward the boiling black clouds.

"Take your place, Tim," he requested.

His friend did as bidden and stood beside the staff.

A low thrum echoed through the air, one that had very little to do with the storm itself. Power built as Nick’s intent sharpened.

"The mandate," he prompted, and the air seemed to ripple.

Tim closed his eyes, tilting his head back into the freezing rain. He reached for the core of his identity, stripping away the fear of the boy who had fled and embracing the duty of the son who had returned.

"I am Timothy of House Poules," he shouted, his voice cracking yet firm, cutting through the gale. "I am the heir to Oakenhollow, and in my father’s absence, I rule this land. I claim these people as my own. Nicholas Crowley, I grant you authority to cleanse my home!”

The World acknowledged the claim. A thrum vibrated up through the ground and into the branches of the ancient oak, rustling them more than any wind had before.

Nick reached out, grabbed the ironwood staff, and let his power flow. He expanded his awareness, casting his net over the entire town, and felt the minds of the sleeping guards, the bakers hiding in their homes, and the merchants tossing in their beds. Thousands of flickering lights in the dark.

Every single one trembled as they felt his presence encompass them, and before they could even think to do anything about it, the runes he’d spent so long carving responded, glowing with power and granting him the control he needed.

He pulled.

The physical world vanished, replaced by the vast expanse of the ether.

Nick floated in an endless sea of colors, but forced himself to focus on the silver threads. Each thread linked to a soul in Oakenhollow.

He looked closely at the nearest thread—a guard lying in the plaza. A pink scar, woven tightly around the man's emotional core, dug deep into the silver of his natural loyalties.

He looked across the sea. The pink rot was everywhere, a sprawling infection binding thousands of minds to the witch's dark soul, hovering at the center of the web.

Nick focused his will on the ironwood staff and, between one thought and the next, stood above Candra and plunged the staff into her core.

Her mana surged up the staff, and drawing on the insights he’d gained from watching Rhea work, he transformed her unique resonance into a spiritual solvent. The staff pulsed, projecting a wave of inverted charm magic across the soul-scape.

When the inverted wave hit the pink scars, they began to fade ever so slightly. There was no active magic for him to affect, but that didn’t mean no residue remained, and he focused on cleansing it at first.

But loosening the scars was not enough. They had to be washed away before healing could occur.

That was when Nick reached upward, tapping into the storm's fury raging in the physical world.

A bolt of lightning struck the sapphire, and the storm’s untamed energy flooded into the ether. Nick did his best to channel the cleansing power, directing it through the web of silver threads.

It was hard work. He had to modulate the voltage perfectly—too little, and the scars would remain; too much, and he would scorch the minds of the innocent townspeople.

Still, the lightning served as a scouring pad, burning away false devotion.

Next, he let the wind in, bringing freezing gales into the ether. They bucked under his control, but he’d proven his might against a Wyvern and had no trouble directing them to flow over the captured souls, loosening the scar tissue further.

Finally, the rain began pouring, and he let it wash it all away.

Yet, by the time it was done, only a portion of the scars had gone, those inflicted very recently.

Alright, let’s try this again.