Chapter 228: Search and Contingency

"Wang Yu went in place of Captain Hugin to release that presence from the Abyss with the Mirror of the Stars, didn't he? According to the smoke demon, he was with Wang Yu by the edge of the Abyss when Wang Yu urged him to seek out Hugin. That means Wang Yu was still with us—at least at that point."

Charles frowned as he analyzed the situation, trying to pinpoint the moment when Wang Yu lost contact with them.

"He was there when the god's corpse lying beneath the Abyss was unleashed. I saw it with my own eyes—he and those floating stones rose together to the surface of the capital."

Avia's voice rang out in Charles's mind through the Prayer Network, narrowing things down further.

"Then the period during which Wang Yu vanished without a trace must have occurred during the battle between the God of Terror and the presence beneath the Abyss.

"Damn it. That fight was cataclysmic. They didn't spare even a shred of thought for anything around them. Don't tell me..."

Charles's expression darkened further. He loathed to believe that someone as reliable as Wang Yu would lose his life mid-mission.

But considering Wang Yu's absolute silence and the divine devastation wrought by the God of Terror, the possibility grew harder to ignore.

"No. He isn't dead. I'm certain of it."

The girl's voice rang firm, dispelling Charles's grim speculation. She didn't hesitate to utter the word he was avoiding—death. Yet her certainty brooked no doubt.

Within her mindscape, Avia could still sense the layer of psychic shielding Wang Yu had once placed there. He had created it back at Villa Mayene, when he was exploring whether or not he even possessed a soul. The barrier had formed through some strange process even Wang Yu couldn't fully explain.

It now cloaked the outer edge of Avia's spirit, shielding her soul from direct attack. It was the reason she alone had not fallen unconscious during that incident at Stevenson Academy.

Later, she and Wang Yu had tried to study the shield's properties. But without sufficient knowledge or materials, they were unable to uncover its origins.

One thing, however, was certain: the barrier was tied to Wang Yu. As long as he lived, it would endure—like a projection of his mental energy anchored in her very soul.

She was still able to feel it clearly. Wang Yu was most certainly alive.

"I see..."

Charles might not understand the basis for her certainty, but the knowledge that Wang Yu still lived was definitely a relief.

"Can't we enlist the aid of the Lady of the Night to find him? Wang Yu is the archbishop of the Church of Nightfall, isn't he?"

Charles' eyes gleamed. Now that the Prayer Network was operational again, perhaps they could turn to divine power for aid.

"...He no longer has access to divine magic," Avia said after a pause. "And the Lady of the Night cannot locate him either."

If Roland's key were still intact, the goddess could easily trace Wang Yu's presence through faith. But that key had been destroyed. Without it, even divine perception could not pierce the veil that shrouded Wang Yu's mind.

"In any case," Avia said solemnly, "I ask you all to help me investigate. From what I know of Wang Yu, no matter what he's up against, he'll fight with everything he has until the very end. And if he's now imprisoned or trapped... he would have left us a clue."

Her voice, grave and resolute, didn't match their image of the warm, cheerful magician they all knew.

"Of course. I'll not let what happened to Captain Hugin repeat itself," Charles replied. "And you're right—Wang Yu would've left behind a clue. Judging by what we know, the place he disappeared is likely near the battlefield where the God of Terror fought that thing from the Abyss. We'll search there first."

"I'm in." Sieg raised his hand. "I owe both Wang Yu and Miss Avia a great debt. As a friend, I can't just stand by."

"Wang Yu is, in many ways, a benefactor to all of Nightblades," said Gilbert, speaking for the team captains of the organization. "We must repay that debt—and we don't intend to abandon even a single comrade."

Few knew Wang Yu had been the creator of the Prayer Network, but those who did understood what that miracle meant. It had freed the Nightblades from the curse of Heaven's Gloom and spared countless lives from mental corruption. That alone made him irreplaceable.

"Thank you, all of you. Then we mustn't delay. Let's move."

Avia's words echoed through the Prayer Network, earnest and urgent. The others needed no urging. The longer they waited, the fainter Wang Yu's trail would become.

"Miss Avia, you're in the capital's shadow, aren't you? I'll bring you over myself," Sieg offered. With his grand knight's strength, such a task would take barely any effort.

"No need. The Lady of the Night gave me a spatial marker near your position. I'll be there in no time."

As she spoke, a rift in space opened in the room before them. Slowly, it widened, forming a modest portal. Avia stepped through, her face pale but resolute.

"Let's go."

Flames flickered in her eyes. She pulled a mana-restoring potion from her pocket and downed it in one gulp.

It was the first time she had used The Gate of Phases on this scale in the material world, and the mana cost had nearly drained her. But there was no time to waste, and she had no intention of hesitating now.

"Let's go!"

Charles glanced at the portal. As a fellow magician, he knew just how masterful Avia had to be to cast such a directed, long-distance spatial spell. He drew out a tarot card from his hand—The Wheel of Fortune, which could restore scenes from the past. It was one of the few tools that might help them recover the trail of their lost companion.

As the investigation began in earnest, Sieg reached out to all Nightblades. "Did any of you encounter anything unusual while searching for survivors?"

"Let me think... Oh, right—I remember now. As we were advancing toward the heart of the capital, there was a sudden explosion nearby. When we approached the site, all that remained was a heap of rubble. We had no idea what had happened."

Sieg, holding a magitech communicator, was exchanging updates with the Nightblades who had ventured into the capital's central district. The strange incident they reported caught his attention—and that of everyone present.

"You're absolutely right," Charles said excitedly to Avia. "Wang Yu's not the type to go quietly. If he used a reality anchor as a bomb, it'd totally leave a massive mess."

Avia had suggested questioning the Nightblade investigators directly, and her idea had provided the clearest lead they'd had so far.

She turned and headed straight in the direction indicated by the communicator, toward the site of the incident.

When they arrived at the location the Nightblade operatives had mentioned, the devastation was even worse than they'd imagined.

The explosion had erupted at the center of the street, and the shockwave had obliterated the surroundings. Walls in the vicinity had disintegrated into molten shards under the intense heat, and the ground looked as though it had been plowed by some colossal force—there was barely a patch of level earth to be found. Collapsed buildings littered the area in utter ruin.

Charles stared grimly at the scene, The Wheel of Fortune still held in hand. After several unsuccessful attempts to channel its power, he finally put the card away.

"The destruction here was far too extensive. The Wheel of Fortune can't reconstruct what happened in the past."

It was clear that Wang Yu's disappearance was likely tied to this explosion. Someone had tried to cover something up.

"..."

Avia closed her eyes. When she opened them again, a bronze ring encircled each of her irises, with a steel cross at the center.

The Seeker's Eye, a hybrid mana- and void-based spell, generated a magical lens that allowed her to perceive the lingering traces of magic and the fluctuations of void energy in the air.

"The explosion was carried out in haste. If the perpetrator had more time, a more subtle method would definitely have been used to erase the evidence. An explosion might be effective and immediate—but it also puts everything on display.

"Wang Yu would never let an opportunity like that go to waste..."

She had absolute faith that Wang Yu would do everything he could to resist whatever had happened to him. She wouldn't let his efforts be in vain.

𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Though most of the residual magic and void energy had dissipated, Avia's profound affinity with the void and her deep knowledge of spatial spellcraft allowed her to sense something others would miss.

At a certain location, there had once existed an independent space constructed entirely from void energy. Oddly, though this space should have collapsed entirely, she could still detect faint traces of its presence...

"Right here..."

Her fingertip gathered a wisp of highly concentrated void energy. Guided by insights from The Gate of Phases, she began to trace invisible lines through the air—searching for that supposedly shattered pocket of reality that somehow persisted.

As her finger passed through several unseen nodes, spatial ripples spread outward. The fragile boundary leading into that space gave way, revealing a hidden realm: the Doomed Cycle, a pocket space born from a wizard's latent ability during that wizard's duel with Wang Yu.

By all rights, it should have collapsed with its master's death, ejecting Wang Yu in the process. But something indestructible had been left behind, forcibly holding the crumbling space together and preventing its complete destruction.

As Avia unlocked the pocket space, the Doomed Cycle finally expelled the object that had been anchoring it to physical reality: the Endless Pages, Wang Yu's curio.