Late at night, Hela City was reduced to a few blurry outlines under the moonlight.
Celeste stood at the mouth of the alley, her black dress blending into the night.
She lifted her head slightly, gazing at the battered wooden door deep within the alley.
If nothing went wrong, that was the rendezvous point.
The air in this narrow alley was thick with the musty smell of dampness and the rotting stench of garbage pileup in the distance.
Occasionally, a rat scurried through the shadows of the corner, making a rustling sound.
This place was too remote—so remote that even the patrolling City Guard couldn’t be bothered to step foot here.
She walked toward the door.
When she reached it, she stopped, raised her hand, and gently knocked three times, paused for two seconds, then knocked twice more.
It was the secret signal.
From inside the door came a rustling sound, followed by very light footsteps.
Soon, the door cracked open, and a voice came from within.
“C-come in.”
Celeste slipped sideways through the gap, and the door closed silently behind her.
The room was tiny—so small it could barely fit a worn-out wooden table and two rickety chairs.
In the corner, piles of yellowed books were stacked, and the air carried a strange burnt smell.
A single candle flickered on the table, its weak flame only enough to illuminate a small area.
The contact was an old man.
He was about sixty-something, with sparse, graying hair combed neatly.
On his nose sat an old pair of pince-nez glasses, and behind the lenses, his cloudy eyes still held a scholarly air.
He looked exactly like an old academic who lived a life detached from worldly affairs.
Celeste stopped by the table and asked softly, “Are you the contact?”
The old man was momentarily taken aback, then came to his senses.
He studied the young girl, then, as if struck by a thought, his voice trembled slightly as he cautiously ventured, “You… are the Nightingale Witch?”
Celeste gave a slight nod.
“Mm.”
That single word made the old man’s eyes light up immediately.
“I’ve heard so much about you!”
He was visibly excited, rubbing his hands together unconsciously, pacing back and forth in the cramped space, then turning around again.
His cloudy eyes glimmered with hope.
“If you’re handling this matter, then we can definitely foil the Empire’s conspiracy!”
“It’s about the mission. Can you give me the details?”
The old man took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
Then he returned to the table, pulled a folded piece of parchment from the pile of yellowed books, and carefully spread it out.
“Alright, alright, I’ll explain now.”
He adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat.
“My name is Marcus. I was a scholar at the Imperial Academy, worked there for thirty years. Three years ago, I was expelled for opposing one of their research projects, and that’s when I joined the organization resisting the Empire.”
His finger lightly tapped the parchment.
“What they’re building is a Mana Experiment Tower.”
Celeste’s gaze fell on the paper.
“What’s the purpose?”
Marcus was silent for a moment.
“To be honest, I don’t know the exact reason either. The Academy is extremely secretive about the real purpose of this project. Even the scholars involved in the design only know the part they’re responsible for.”
“But from what I do know,” he said, word by word, “once that tower is completed, it will be a disaster for witches—and for all magic power holders.”
Saying this, Marcus took a deep breath and pulled another neatly folded parchment from his pocket.
He held it with both hands and solemnly handed it to Celeste.
“Fortunately, there’s an infiltrator in the underground laboratory. He risked his life to get a map. With this map, I imagine destroying the Mana Experiment Tower will be much easier for you.”
Celeste took the map and unfolded it.
Under the candlelight, the dense lines and markings were clearly visible: the entrance, passages, guard rooms, trap magic… and at the deepest part, a position circled in red.
The core of the Mana Experiment.
Her gaze lingered on the red circle for a moment.
In theory, she only needed to destroy the core.
Marcus knew that too, but he was still nervous.
“However, this mission is definitely not simple.”
He explained:
“Even with the map, the magic barriers inside are terrifying—especially that barrier that can seal magic. An ordinary witch without some real skill absolutely couldn’t break through it.”
He looked up at Celeste, a hint of expectation in his eyes, but even more worry.
“Can you… really do it?”
With a soft laugh, Celeste’s blood-red eyes, faintly visible in the shadows, remained calm.
“Just watch when the time comes.”
Leaving only that casual remark, she took the map and vanished from the room.
Marcus stood frozen on the spot, all his words stuck in his throat.
Only when the girl’s scent had completely faded from the room did he lower his head and let out a soft sigh.
…
The map was real.
Following the map’s annotations, Celeste quickly reached the Mana Experiment Tower hidden underground in the forest outside Hela City.
The soldiers patrolling here all wore standard armor, their steps uniform and disciplined.
According to the map, Celeste stepped precisely into the blind spots of the guards’ vision.
She passed silently behind them, her black dress melting into the shadows, her breathing minimized to almost nothing.
First floor, second floor, third floor.
The deeper she went, the colder the air became, and faint magical patterns began to appear on the walls.
She stopped.
Ahead was an invisible barrier.
Her magic perception told her this was the “magic-sealing barrier” that Marcus had mentioned.
Celeste reached out her hand.
The moment her fingertip touched the barrier, that area seemed to lose all magic power, becoming no different from an ordinary person.
The barrier was indeed strong.
If it were an ordinary witch, she would probably become a normal person upon stepping inside, and then when the soldiers surrounded her, there would be almost no chance of escape.
But she was no ordinary witch.
[Target: Mana Shackles Barrier]
Eros Energy surged.
After she confessed to it, although the Mana Shackles Barrier hadn’t dissipated, it had become ineffective against her.
There were many patrolling soldiers inside the barrier, but to her, who still had her magic, they were no different from ordinary people who had lost their sight.
Deftly bypassing the Mana Shackles Barrier, before she knew it, she had reached the deepest part of the Mana Experiment Tower.
Here was a vast hall built with Magic Ores.
At the front of the hall stood a giant door roughly ten meters high.
Even before approaching, she could feel an extremely dense magic power filling the air.
If she wasn’t mistaken, behind that giant door should be the core of the Mana Experiment Tower.
She only needed to destroy the core, and the tower would lose its function—her mission would be complete.
But things were never that simple.
Roar!
With a huge roar, a bizarre-looking monster dropped from the hall’s ceiling and crashed heavily in front of Celeste.
It was about three meters tall, its entire body covered in dark red scales, with vicious bone spikes protruding from its spine.
The most frightening thing wasn’t its appearance, but its eyes—filled with pure bloodlust.
It had no reason, no fear—only the instinct to kill.
Silver rank.
Celeste’s heart sank slightly, and she also felt a twinge of strangeness.
This was clearly the Empire’s experiment tower.
Why would something like this appear here?
Wasn’t this the specialty of an organization like Snake Eye?
Before she could think further, the monster sensed the intruder.
It slowly turned its head, its blood-red eyes locking onto her position.
A low growl rumbled from its throat.
It scraped its front claws against the ground, then lunged!
Celeste sidestepped to dodge.
The claws grazed past her ear, the wind shearing off a few strands of hair.
She conjured a longsword from magic and stabbed at the monster’s abdomen, but its scales were too hard.
The sword only left a white mark.
The monster turned and pounced again, incredibly fast.
She rolled to evade, her back slamming into a stone pillar.
The pain made her gasp, but at the same time, the magic array she had set was triggered, and terrifying Divine Thunder fell from the hall’s ceiling.
Boom!
The monster was slammed heavily to the ground by the Divine Thunder.
Following the principle of “strike while the iron is hot,” Celeste unleashed several more Divine Thunders and other offensive spells.
But a Silver rank was a Silver rank.
After tanking so many of her spells, the monster still hadn’t fallen—only suffered serious injuries.
Even so, for Celeste, the scales of victory had already tipped.
The ensuing battle was a long, grueling ordeal.
Celeste lost count of how many hits she took from the monster.
Her shoulders, back, arms—all covered in wounds.
Her blood made the black dress even darker.
And the Silver-rank monster, under the bombardment of her spells, finally collapsed to the ground and couldn’t get up again.
Only when its breathing stopped completely did Celeste let out a sigh of relief.
She won.
She actually won.
She had defeated a Silver-rank monster!
A trace of joy rose in her heart, but she quickly suppressed it.
Deep down, she knew that the only reason she had won was that the monster had no reason from the start—only its instinct to kill.
If the monster had true combat intelligence, she would have been the one to fall.
She had been too reckless.
From now on, unless absolutely necessary, she would never fight across ranks again!
However, just as Celeste was reflecting—
Clap, clap, clap.
Applause came from the back of the hall, making Celeste’s body tense instantly.
She looked up and followed the sound.
A familiar figure walked slowly out of the shadows.
Graying hair, a neat dark robe, the old pince-nez on his nose…
It was Marcus.
Celeste’s pupils contracted.
“Marcus?!”
Marcus stopped a short distance in front of her.
He smiled at her.
In those cloudy eyes, there was a hint of appreciation, but mostly a condescending, amused look, as if observing prey.
“What’s wrong? Surprised to see me?”
His voice was still gentle, with that unhurried, scholarly drawl.
Celeste stared at that face, her mind racing, and understood everything.
She narrowed her eyes and sneered, “You… you’re the head of the experiment.”
She realized it now.
This mission had been a setup from the start—a trap targeting witches.
And not just any ordinary witch.
Marcus smiled, a smile tinged with indescribable eeriness.
“As expected of a witch capable of taking on this mission.”
His voice held genuine admiration.
“Copper-rank strength, yet able to defeat a Silver-rank monster. You’ve really opened my eyes.”
For him, it truly was an eye-opener.
Cross-rank combat wasn’t unheard of, but cross-tier combat was different.
There was an insurmountable gap between the Copper and Silver ranks.
And yet, Celeste had managed to defeat a Silver-rank with Copper-level power, and with only minor injuries…
The appreciation in his eyes grew stronger.
Celeste used her sword to prop herself up and slowly stood.
Her wounds were still bleeding, but she ignored them.
“Why?”
“Why?”
Marcus repeated the word and chuckled lightly.
“To screen witches’ abilities, of course.”
He pulled out a file, speaking as if giving a report:
“Not every witch’s special ability has research value. In fact, the vast majority of witches’ abilities are quite ordinary.”
“That’s why I set up these trials—the barrier, the monster—all to wait for a witch with exceptional abilities. And fortunately…”
He looked at Celeste, his cloudy eyes now burning with greedy fanaticism.
“I’ve found one.”
Celeste’s fingers tightened slightly around the sword’s hilt.
At the same time, while talking with Marcus, she continuously healed her wounds.
“Researching witches’ abilities? What do you get out of it?”
Marcus had long seen through Celeste’s little actions, but he didn’t stop her.
Instead, he raised his head and looked at the dome above.
In those cloudy eyes, an indescribable devoutness appeared.
“To obtain the power of the Deity, of course.”
Celeste said nothing, waiting for his explanation.
“As everyone knows, the Deities were born at the beginning of the world. Their existence is ethereal—almost no one has seen them—but their power has always lingered in this world.”
He raised his hands high, his expression growing more fervent, no different from the cultists Celeste had seen before.
“If I can truly grasp that power, won’t I become a Deity? Then I can naturally save the world.”
He smiled.
The smile was gentle and devout, as if he were truly a saint concerned for all mankind.
Celeste laughed coldly, with a hint of disbelief and mockery: “Save the world? With you? Ridiculous!”
Marcus’s smile faltered slightly.
“Ridiculous?”
He repeated the word, gently shaking his head.
In those cloudy eyes, a nearly pitying understanding appeared.
He looked at Celeste, as if regarding an ignorant child who had uttered some laughable nonsense.
“It’s just that no one understands me.”
Ding!
The moment his words fell, Celeste thrust her sword forward, trying to kill Marcus while she had the chance.
But to her shock, Marcus caught the blade between two fingers.
“But I don’t need anyone to understand me either. After all, heroes are always lonely.”
At that moment, his body began to change.
Something was squirming, swelling, and tearing beneath his skin.