Supreme Hunter of Beautiful Souls

Eleonor did not touch the box.

The Direction Eye’s needle remained pointed toward the sea, even though the compass had already stopped spinning. The sentence had disappeared from the inner surface, but a thin layer of silver mana remained over the glass, recording the exact point where each word had appeared.

Elion brought an instrument close to the box.

"It was not an automatic reaction."

"Are you certain?"

"A compass points. It does not write messages."

Eleonor kept her eyes on the object.

"Then someone used the connection."

"Or something."

Elion adjusted the measuring crystal. The energy it detected did not resemble the Cartographer’s. Nor did it carry the red lines found in the Well. It was too clean, too organized, as if it had been produced by a structure that still lacked enough personality to leave imperfections.

"The Cradle sent the message," Elion concluded.

Eleonor looked at her.

"A place does not send messages."

"Perhaps it is not merely a place."

The communication crystal attached to Eleonor’s waist lit up. She called Amelia first. Then Yggdrasil. Only after all three confirmed that the direction still pointed toward Old Orla did Eleonor allow them to inform Kael.

They did not need to wake him.

When Amelia reached his chambers, she found Kael sitting on the bed, struggling to put on his shirt because of the bandages around his shoulder. Sylphie stood in front of him, holding the garment and preventing him from pushing his arm through the sleeve.

"You are not going out."

"Amelia would not come here in the middle of the night to wish me good night."

"She can speak while you remain in bed."

Kael looked at Amelia.

"What happened?"

"The Direction Eye reacted."

Sylphie closed her eyes for a moment.

Kael released the shirt.

"How?"

"It pointed toward Old Orla. Then it wrote a message inside the box."

"What did it say?"

Amelia watched his reaction before answering.

"The Cradle is ready."

Kael remained silent.

Umbra slowly emerged from the shadow beneath the bed, already awake.

"That sounds like an invitation."

"Or a warning," Amelia replied.

"They are the same thing depending on who sends it."

Kael stood. Sylphie did not try to stop him this time, but wrapped a green band around his chest before he could take the first step.

"You are going to the analysis room. You are not going to Orla."

"I have not said I was going."

"Your face did."

Kael looked at Amelia.

"This is spreading."

"Because it is true."

They found Eleonor, Elion, Irelia, and Yggdrasil gathered around a wide table. The map of Old Orla occupied nearly the entire surface. The city stood on the eastern coast, built around a natural harbor surrounded by cliffs. The partially submerged fortress remained away from the shore, linked to the old docks by a stone bridge that had collapsed during the plague. The observatory stood at the highest point, while tunnels ran beneath the city and reached both the harbor and the base of the cliffs.

Mariel sat in one corner, restrained to a chair and watched by Violet. Her face was still pale, but her remaining eye stayed focused on the map.

Kael stopped in front of the table.

"Does she know what it means?"

"She has not answered yet," Violet said.

Kael looked at Mariel.

"The Cradle is ready."

The Cartographer did not pretend ignorance. She merely shifted her eyes toward the point where the fortress appeared.

"Ready for what?" Kael asked.

"To receive."

"What?"

"A name."

Amelia opened her notebook.

"Explain."

Mariel rested her head against the back of the chair.

"A body is not a person. It can possess blood, muscles, magical channels, and even instincts, but it will remain empty until it receives a stable identity. The organization calls that identity a name."

"The Well supplied memories," Sylphie said.

"Memories, will, and behavioral patterns. Most of them would be destroyed during the transfer. Whatever survived would become the name."

Kael placed his hands on the table.

"We destroyed the Well before the transfer."

"You destroyed that Well."

The room became quiet.

Kael did not look away from her.

"There is another one?"

"I do not know of another archive of the same scale."

"That was not what I asked."

Mariel took a deep breath.

"There are smaller ways to preserve an identity. Artifacts, sealed bodies, memories divided among descendants. The Well would have allowed them to choose, combine, and alter a name before placing it inside the Cradle. Without it, they must use whatever was already prepared."

"So someone possessed a prepared identity," Amelia concluded.

"Probably."

Kael looked at the point in the sea.

"And the Cradle just accepted it."

Mariel did not answer, but the tension in her face confirmed it.

Irelia placed three reports beside the map.

"The observers reached the region two hours ago. No movement on the roads. No ships entering or leaving. The city remains officially abandoned."

"Officially?" Kael asked.

"They found recent footprints near the houses in the lower district. No fires, camps, or pack animals. Only tracks of people walking toward the harbor."

Amelia opened the second report.

"There has also been a change in the tide. The water should be receding, but it continues advancing into the city."

Yggdrasil touched the fortress area.

"An absence is forming here."

"Like Nemet?" Sylphie asked.

"No. Nemet was a forgotten entrance. Orla is being removed from the place where it exists. Little by little."

Kael understood first.

"They are turning the fortress into part of the Dead Paths."

Mariel finally looked at him.

"Not the fortress."

Kael pointed toward the drawing.

"What, then?"

"The Cradle."

She asked Violet to bring the map closer. The commander did not release her arms, merely moved the chair toward the table. Mariel leaned forward and indicated a circular structure drawn beneath the fortress’s central section.

"This did not exist when Orla was built. It was added after the plague. The Cradle is inside a mobile chamber. Once the body is ready, the chamber will be moved through the Dead Paths."

"To where?" Amelia asked.

"To any place where the name can find a connection."

Kael looked toward the Direction Eye inside the box.

"It pointed toward Orla because the chamber is still there."

"And it will stop pointing the moment it leaves," Mariel confirmed.

"How long?"

"If the message was emitted at the instant of completion, perhaps a few hours."

Sylphie grabbed Kael’s arm before he could speak.

"No."

"No what?"

"You are still not recovered."

"I do not need to run to Orla."

"You will find another way to make things worse."

Kael turned toward Amelia.

"We have observers nearby. Tell them to inspect the fortress."

"I already did."

The crystal on the table lit up at that exact moment.

Amelia activated the communication.

"Report."

A low voice answered.

"Team Three. We are on the northern cliff. The fortress is still visible, but something is wrong with the distance."

Kael looked at Mariel.

"What is happening?"

"We are observing the main entrance through instruments, but the readings keep changing. Sometimes it appears four kilometers away. Then seven. Now it is less than two, although it has not moved."

"Do not approach," Amelia ordered.

The voice took a moment to reply.

"There are people on the docks."

"How many?"

"Twenty or thirty. They came out of the houses and are walking toward the water."

Kael became serious.

"Description."

"Ordinary clothes. Some appear to be residents. Others wear old uniforms. None respond to our signals."

The voice failed for several seconds.

"Their shadows are moving ahead of them."

Umbra let darkness spread around her feet.

"The Cradle is pulling everyone who has a connection to Orla."

Mariel nodded.

"Memory of place. Anyone who lived there, lost someone there, or crossed the tunnels can serve as a reference to move the chamber."

Kael took the crystal.

"Team Three, do not let anyone reach the water. Physical restraint. Do not use magic on their shadows."

"There are too many for two agents."

"Retreat and mark the position. A larger team is coming."

He returned the crystal to Amelia.

"Portal thirty kilometers away. Nothing directly over the city. I want Violet with the containment agents in the streets. Eleonor keeps the fortress anchored to space if it begins disappearing. Yggdrasil blocks every natural connection to the coast."

Amelia wrote quickly.

"And you?"

"I am going to the cliff."

Sylphie tightened her hold on his arm.

"Kael."

"I am not entering the fortress alone."

"You said that about the Tower of Aster."

"And I did not enter alone."

"You threw yourself into the Well."

"That happened afterward."

Sylphie did not seem convinced.

Kael approached her.

"The Cradle could leave Orla at any moment. If the identity inside it finds a connection, we lose the trail before discovering who received the body."

"You are injured."

"Then I will remain behind Violet."

Umbra looked at him.

"That was a bad lie."

"It was an initial intention."

Eleonor interrupted the argument.

"Sylphie goes with him. No transportation through Celestial Step. No direct connection with the Cradle. If any channel opens again, she removes Kael from the operation."

Kael nodded before Sylphie could demand more.

"Fine."

"Too quickly," Sylphie said.

"I am learning."

Preparations took fifteen minutes. Amelia opened the passage in an area protected by hills, far enough from Orla to avoid touching the distortion. Violet crossed first with twenty agents. Yggdrasil followed, accompanied by witches specialized in roots and territorial containment. Eleonor, Sylphie, Umbra, and Kael went with the last group.

The smell of salt struck them as soon as they emerged.

The sky was still dark, but a pale line had begun to appear on the horizon. Old Orla stretched below the hills, formed by low buildings, narrow streets, and partially destroyed rooftops. Seawater already covered the docks and advanced through the first streets, although the tide should not have reached that height.

The fortress appeared beyond the harbor.

For several seconds, it was close.

Then it seemed much farther away.

The towers leaned in the wrong direction whenever Kael looked away, and sections of the walls vanished beneath the water before reappearing intact.

He felt the change before the others.

It was not a mark.

It was the same absence he had perceived near the Dead Paths, but concentrated inside a single shape. Something was removing the Cradle from the world, piece by piece.

Kael descended the hill without using the technique.

Team Three waited near the first houses. One of the agents held an unconscious elderly woman. The other had immobilized three men with enchanted ropes.

"How many reached the docks?" Violet asked.

"Seventeen. Others continue coming out of the houses."

"Did these people live here?" Kael asked.

"Orla has been abandoned for decades," the agent replied. "There should not be any residents."

Kael crouched in front of one of the restrained men. The clothes were recent, but the symbol stitched onto the collar belonged to Orla’s guard from before the plague.

"What is your name?"

The man did not answer.

Kael held his face and turned it toward the light.

His eyes were open.

There was no consciousness behind them.

Umbra touched the shadow stretched across the ground.

"It is not a complete person."

"A memory?"

"Placed inside a body."

Kael looked toward the fortress.

The Cradle had not produced only one vessel.

It had tested dozens.

Incomplete bodies were emerging from the houses and walking toward the sea, responding to the same call as the main structure.

Mariel had said that the Cradle was ready to receive a name.

But perhaps that identity had already begun spreading before choosing its final body.

A wave struck the harbor.

Every figure in the streets stopped at the same time.

Then they turned their faces toward Kael.

Seventeen people on the docks.

The three restrained men.

The unconscious woman in the agent’s arms.

More shapes emerging through the doors of the houses.

All of them opened their mouths together.

"Kael Scarlet."

Sylphie immediately moved to his side.

Violet drew her sword.

Umbra covered the ground with shadows.

Kael remained still, watching the bodies.

"You know me."

The mouths answered together.

"We remember you."

The fortress disappeared for one second.

When it returned, it was much closer to the coast.

A solitary figure stood atop the wall.

Tall body.

White hair moving against the wind.

The same scarlet and golden lines of Celestial Step glowed beneath the skin of its arms.

Kael felt his own channels react.

The Cartographer’s needle had recorded only part of the technique.

But someone had managed to send the map before he tore out the Direction Eye.

The figure atop the wall raised its head.

Even from that distance, Kael saw the smile.

"Finally," the voice said through every body scattered across Orla. "I found a body capable of keeping up with you."

Kael placed one hand on his sword.

The operation had not merely created a vessel capable of crossing the Dead Paths.

It had created an opponent using everything it had managed to steal from them.

He looked at Violet.

"Remove the copies from the streets. Alive, if possible."

Then he looked at Eleonor.

"Anchor the fortress where it is."

Scarlet mana began circulating through his body, but Kael did not use Celestial Step.

Not yet.

First, he needed to discover how much of that movement truly belonged to the enemy.

The figure on the wall disappeared.

An instant later, it appeared in the middle of the street in front of him, leaving a golden line across the air.

The Celestial Step was wrong.

The hips had corrected too late. The left shoulder had rotated more than necessary. The movement possessed the speed, but not the understanding Kael had gained during the battle.

Even so, it was fast.

Very fast.

The figure raised its fist.

Kael dodged without using mana and allowed the strike to pass beside his face.

The air exploded behind him, destroying the facade of a house.

Kael caught the opponent’s wrist.

Up close, he saw that the face was still incomplete. It shifted subtly, searching for proportions, age, and features capable of stabilizing an identity. Only the eyes remained unchanged.

White.

Without pupils.

"You stole my technique," Kael said.

The creature tilted its head.

"No."

Its other arm drove toward his chest.

Kael blocked with his forearm and was pushed several meters down the street.

The creature smiled again.

"I was made to surpass it."