The late-afternoon sun cut through the marketplace, its light fading toward black and white as it crossed the massive white tent, turning the canvas pale and cool.

Inside the tent, many Practitioners had gathered; even the Lunari leader, Silverlight Zephan, and the Gorathim chief, Soulforge Throgar, were among them, all waiting in a hushed stillness and watching the big hole set in the very center of the tent.

While everyone waited and began counting the seconds under their breath, a voice broke the silence.

"Is he back?"

From the tent’s massive entrance, a small figure drifted inside, riding a white cloud.

Her short height, the compact, muscular build that looked strong for her size, her lightly bronzed skin, and especially the large breasts that seemed too developed for her height were what made everyone recognize her at a glance.

"Liora the Earthshaker."

The other titled Practitioners murmured her name in greeting as to an equal, while the lower ranks bowed their heads and welcomed the newcomer with quiet respect.

Liora Virell ignored them all and moved straight toward the goatman standing alone at the side.

"I offer my respects, Revered Wanderer Merchant." She bowed her head in greeting and then asked quickly, "May I ask, how is the situation?"

When the other Practitioners returned, she had been in the Velari kingdom, guarding her territory and meeting Adyr’s strange friends—the researchers—but as soon as she received the news, she rushed back here, wanting to witness with her own eyes whatever was happening.

The Merchant accepted her greeting with a nod and replied without hurry. "It’s been a while since the Legacy Domain started to crumble. We are still waiting."

Looking into the wide hole, faint tremors pulsed out of the darkness, and the stones and soil at the rim had begun to flake and crumble, as if the opening were folding in on itself.

Seeing that, Liora’s expression tightened. Fixing her light-brown eyes on the black goatman, she asked, "Can’t we do something? Go in and take them out?"

Though she knew the answer, she asked anyway.

The Merchant shook his head. "If that was something I could do, I would have done it already."

Even if his face did not show it, he was worried as well, especially after hearing from the other Practitioners everything Adyr had revealed inside so far.

A Rank 5 Adept being the reason for a child of an Elder Race to die—especially one originating from the Central Region—felt like a curse settling across his shoulders.

Liora found nothing else to say and only nodded. "I understand." Then she stepped back and went to stand by Lucen and Mirela.

"Sis, don’t worry, he will be alright," Mirela spoke in a low tone; it was not clear whether she was consoling her sister or herself.

Then something caught her eye, and the worry on her face shifted to curiosity. "Sis, what are you wearing?"

She looked at Liora’s pants—blue jeans with wide cuffs rolled as if adjusted to her height—and the white T-shirt, loose on her body and tied at the waist to fit.

The style was surprising, since clothes like that were not seen in the Outer Region.

Liora gave a short chuckle. "Ah, these clothes. Adyr’s friends gifted them to me. They are quite comfortable."

"Adyr’s friends?" Lucen asked this time, his interest sharpening.

"The ones who came from the Pacthold to help dig the crystal mine. They are not Practitioners, but they seem extremely smart and good girls." She answered casually, laughing as if she had already made close friends.

Then her face changed again. "Anyway, can you tell me the details? What happened?"

Because she had not been here, she did not know the specifics—Adyr’s newly revealed bloodline talent, the likelihood that he was a follower of two paths, and the fact that he was chasing a Rank 4 Spark.

To explain everything, Mirela looked to Lucen, thinking he was better at this, but before he could open his mouth and speak, a voice cut across their hushed talk.

"Liora the Earthshaker." Silverlight Zephan approached with small, measured steps, his face unnaturally serious. "Did you know what kind of man you took into your kingdom?"

His tone was not threatening or hostile, yet the words were strange enough to make Liora pause.

"What are you implying?"

She knew what he was referring to, but she could not understand why he was saying it here and now.

She could hardly be blamed; apart from Liora herself, everyone already knew what—or who—Adyr was.

Before she arrived, the Lunari and Gorathim Practitioners who had come out of the Legacy Domain had already explained everything to their leaders and elders in detail, including the fact that Adyr possessed two opposing bloodline talents.

Liora glanced around at all the eyes turned toward her. She looked to Lucen, then to Mirela, noticing their slightly flustered, uneasy faces. "What’s going on here?"

She had always believed she understood Adyr and his background better than anyone, but now, with every face fixed on her, it felt as if the others knew more than she did, the realization pressing her down.

What she thought she knew about Adyr was already overwhelming, and now, as she realized there was more and read the grave faces around her, her mind hovered on the verge of short-circuiting from overthinking.

"Lady Liora, it looks like Adyr revealed his background to the others inside," Lucen began with a heavy sigh. "It seems he is not just someone from an Elder Race but from a lineage far deeper than we thought."

His voice faded at the end, and Silverlight Zephan finished the thought for him.

"He is not only an Astra Path follower. We assume he also follows the Nether or Aether path—a 2-path follower." As he spoke, his silver eyes shone with keen interest and curiosity, the kind that wants to dig into every layer of a mystery.

"He what?" Liora blurted as the meaning hit her. "How did you come to that conclusion?" Her voice turned sharp with shock. She needed to hear what had happened and what they knew that she did not.

Before anyone could answer her question, the ground began to tremble.

"The passage is collapsing." The Wanderer Merchant’s face creased as he looked at the hole, now cracking and folding inward, as if a vacuum had formed and was pulling everything down.

"Thalira..." Silverlight Zephan murmured, looking at the opening growing smaller and smaller, his jaw tight. A thin line of blood dripped from his fist where his nails had broken the skin.

Soulforge Throgar stayed quiet, though a small change crossed his round, dark-green face. The thought of losing the tribe’s finest youth, the one chosen as his successor, was something the old ogre could not accept.

The hole kept shrinking, and with it their hope for the loved ones inside.

They wanted to act... Wanted to prove their titles were not empty claims but a measure of the power they carried.

Yet when even a Rank 5 Adept could only watch, helpless, there was nothing they could do.

Not until someone did what they thought they could not.