The ritual continued.
There was no dramatic pause, no immediate reaction to their arrival. No head turned. No voice cracked.
The hooded figures continued chanting as if the space they had just entered hadn't been violated, as if five intruders hadn't literally fallen from the wind into the heart of their ceremony.
That, somehow, made it worse.
Nero felt his skin prickle. Not from a direct threat, but from utter indifference.
Those figures weren't ignoring them out of carelessness, but out of conviction. As if, within the order of the ritual, they were nothing more than irrelevant noise… or something that had already been foreseen.
The chanting was cyclical, heavy. It neither accelerated nor weakened. Each repetition deepened the pressure in the air, as if reality itself were being pushed into a specific form.
The runes on the ground began to emit a faint, barely perceptible glow that pulsed to the rhythm of the voices.
Lux clenched his jaw and leaned slightly toward Nero.
"I don't like this," he muttered. "They're not even looking at us."
"That means we haven't interrupted anything," Sunday replied quietly, "yet."
Kōri stood still, her arms crossed over her chest, trying to regulate her breathing.
Each syllable of the chant ran down her spine like a slow, persistent shiver.
She didn't understand the words, but she did understand the intention: this wasn't invoking something from the outside… it was awakening something that was already there.
Merlin, on the other hand, was smiling.
Not a broad or obvious smile, but a slight curve to his lips, almost imperceptible.
He walked slowly around the circle, his hands behind his back, observing the gestures, the timing, the inflections of the ritual like a musician listening to a familiar melody played by others.
His footsteps made no echo.
The leader was to the east.
Nero didn't know how he knew, but he felt it with the same certainty with which one recognizes an old wound.
Among all the hooded figures, one stood out for subtle details: his posture was slightly more upright, his gestures more precise, his voice barely a tone deeper than the rest. He wasn't directing the ritual with visible commands, but the rhythm responded to him.
Merlin had noticed it too.
With each turn around the circle, he closed in the space. Not directly, not threateningly. Simply… narrowing the options. The leader didn't move, but something in his body changed: a sudden, almost imperceptible stiffness, like an animal sensing a shadow too close.
The chanting continued.
The runes glowed brighter. The central symbol began to sink slightly into the stone, as if the platform were breathing.
The air grew denser, charged with an energy that wasn't violent, but immense, ancient, patient.
Lux tensed his shoulders.
"Merlin…" he whispered.
"Wait," he replied without turning around. "This isn't over yet."
The leader took a step forward, following the pattern of the ritual, and at that instant Merlin stopped right behind him. So close that, if the man turned around, their robes would brush against each other.
He didn't turn around.
Merlin inclined his head slightly and spoke in a murmur that didn't interrupt the chant, but pierced through it.
"You're late."
The leader shuddered.
He didn't break the ritual. He didn't stop chanting. But his breathing became uneven for a single second. It was enough.
Merlin raised a hand, and the wind responded.
It didn't burst forth violently. It didn't extinguish the torches or scatter the robes.
It simply… closed the space.
An invisible pressure surrounded the leader, isolating him from the rest of the circle as if he had been cut out of the scene.
The chant continued.
The others didn't react.
The leader, however, did.
"It's not yours," he whispered, still chanting. "You arrived too soon."
"Or too late," Merlin corrected. "It depends on who's telling the story."
The runes' brilliance intensified suddenly. The platform vibrated. Something, somewhere beyond sight, responded to the ritual's call with dangerous attention.
Nero felt that something brush against him, just like the wind before. Recognizing him. Sizing him up.
Merlin took another step.
Now, the leader had no room to move without breaking the circle.
"Finish it," Merlin said softly. "Or it will finish you in."
The leader grew tired of Merlin's dirty provocations.
His body reacted before his mind.
He abandoned the chanting rhythm and spun around sharply, his fist traveling straight for the mage's face, charged with fury and despair.
It was a clumsy, impulsive movement, born more of wounded pride than true strategic intent.
Merlin dodged it.
He didn't jump, he didn't back away dramatically.
He simply bent his body just enough, with the same ease as snatching candy from a distracted baby. His fist grazed the air where his face had been a fraction of a second before.
The leader opened his eyes, surprised.
Merlin was already moving.
He thrust his foot in with surgical precision, hooking the man's ankle at the exact moment his weight was still unevenly distributed. It wasn't a violent kick, but an almost careless gesture, elegant in its cruelty.
The leader lost his balance.
His song broke.
He fell backward, crossing the invisible boundary of the circle carved in the stone.
And the ritual reacted.
The runes burned.
The faint glow transformed into an intense crimson red, vivid, pulsating, like freshly exposed blood.
The central symbol lit up suddenly, and the entire platform trembled with a violence that had been held back for far too long.
The chanting stopped.
Not gradually. Not with shouts. It simply… ceased.
The hooded figures remained motionless for an eternity. Then, one by one, their bodies began to harden.
The fabric of their robes stiffened, clinging to forms that no longer breathed. Skin disappeared beneath a dull gray layer that advanced from their feet upward, silently devouring them.
Kōri took a step back, bringing a hand to her mouth.
Lux gripped the hilt of his weapon, unable to tear his gaze away.
Sunday felt a knot in his stomach. This wasn't an impromptu punishment. It was a mechanism. A consequence etched into the ritual since its inception.
The hooded figures (all except the leader) were turned into stone statues in various poses: some with their hands still raised, others with their heads bowed, as if praying for the last time.
Then the wind returned.
Not as before. Not obedient or gentle.
This time it was violent.
An invisible explosion ripped through the space, and the statues cracked simultaneously. Fine cracks crept into the stone from within, as if something wanted to break free… or escape.
And then they shattered.
Thousands of fragments exploded in the air, reduced to dust and splinters that the wind immediately caught, carrying them into the surrounding darkness until not a trace remained.
Silence.
Only the leader remained alive, lying on the ground outside the circle, breathing with difficulty. His eyes were wide open, reflecting the dying red of the runes.
"The ritual…" he stammered, "you ruined it."
Merlin looked at him from the edge of the circle, his expression calm, almost bored.
"No," he corrected, "you did. I only helped you reach the correct ending."
The runes began to slowly fade, the crimson dissipating into inert black lines on the stone. The pressure in the air dissipated, but not entirely. Something was still there, watching from beyond the torchlight.
Nero felt that something retreat slightly, like a predator deciding not to attack… yet.
Merlin turned and walked toward the group.
His gait was calm, almost nonchalant, as if what had happened had been nothing more than a minor interruption on his path. He stopped beside Lux and Sunday, glancing sideways at the leader lying on the ground, still panting, unable to tear his gaze away from the extinguished circle.
"Tie him up," Merlin said matter-of-factly. The order carried neither anger nor urgency. It was simple. Functional. Like asking for a door to be closed.
Lux blinked once.
"Here?" he asked, looking around. "After… all that."
"Especially after all that," Merlin replied without looking at him. "He no longer has a ritual to protect him."
Nero took a step forward.
He closed his eyes for a moment. In his mind, the image was clear: a thick, strong rope, rough in texture, dark in color, made to not give way.
He concentrated on that idea, and the rope appeared.
It fell to the ground in front of them as if it had always been there, solid, real, obedient to the shape Nero had imagined. There was no strange sound or reaction from the surroundings. The Sinner's power had acted in the simplest way possible.
Nero opened his eyes and let out a sharp breath.
Weariness washed over him immediately. His shoulders slumped, his legs felt heavy, and he had to lean briefly against the nearest wall to keep his balance. His mind felt foggy, as if thinking took twice the effort.
"That's it," he said, his voice low.
Kōri looked at him with concern.
"Nero…"
"I'm fine," he replied, though he didn't sound entirely convincing.
Sunday took the rope without a word and approached the leader. When they tried to lift him, the man reacted with a violent spasm.
"Don't come any closer!" he spat, struggling with what little strength he had left. "You don't understand what you've done. This isn't over."
Lux pushed him against the stone with his foot, pinning him down.
"Believe me," he said coldly. "If it were over, you wouldn't be breathing."
The leader let out a broken laugh.
"He'll come," he murmured. "He's been awakened. He's already—"
Sunday slammed his mouth shut with a swift, efficient blow and began tying his wrists behind his back. Lux secured his ankles tightly, leaving the man completely immobilized.
Nero watched the scene in silence, breathing slowly, waiting for the dizziness to subside.
Merlin, meanwhile, stared at the blank circle, the black runes etched into the stone.
"And now what?" Kōri asked softly when they finished. "What do we do with him?"
Merlin finally turned to face the prisoner.
"Now," he said calmly, "he's going to tell us everything we want."