The capital's moonless nights were becoming quieter.
Too quiet.
Not from peace… but from fear.
Doors closed early. Tavern musicians lost their notes. Even the rats had grown silent. A creeping hush had settled into the bones of the outer districts, carried by rumors of strangers with lavender eyes and impossible calm.
And all the while, the cult grew.
The Cult's Inner Mechanics
Beneath a rotting trade guild warehouse near the northern market, the Children of the Violet Flame held initiation sessions. Recruitment was slow, selective. They didn't want numbers—they wanted believers.
"Pain is the echo of truth," a masked preacher whispered to a shivering recruit. "Only by drowning your past can you be reborn."
The Hidden Crown's Umbra agents—Yui and Vell—watched silently from shadowed alcoves, cloaked by illusion.
These cultists weren't mindless. They were broken people—exiled scholars, mana-scarred veterans, failed nobles, and even a few discarded academy aspirants. Each one bore a brand on their skin—a small violet flame on their chest, pulsing with emotion-based mana.
"What they lack in structure," Yui murmured over their shared telepathic link, "they make up for in faith."
Vell's voice was calm, but ice-cold. "I want to know who taught them to brand mana into flesh."
The Masked Circle
In the deepest part of the hideout, five figures sat around a table carved from hollowed petrified wood. Each wore a different mask:
One shaped like a tear.
One like a scream.
One like cracked stone.
One featureless.
And one—like a crown.
They were the Violet Hands—the cult's inner circle. And the Crown-shaped mask was their speaker.
"The false harmony of the Kingdoms trembles," the speaker said. "The Silent Path will offer stillness. The System is our enemy—it binds us to fate. We will burn it from the world."
Yui caught the words and narrowed her eyes.
This wasn't just a cult.
It was a revolution in the making.
Crown's Counteraction
Back in the temporary HQ beneath the Hidden Crown's orphanage front, Elira stood over a mana-projection showing dozens of cult operations—ritual spots, safe houses, and "cleansing circles."
Sylvie was organizing coded messages delivered through enchanted raindrops across the city.
Talia's tech-division had started planting spell-interference seals in areas of heavy cult activity.
Kai and Rhea were preparing for open combat should things escalate, though Kieran had given strict orders: no open warfare yet.
"We're close," Elira told him via private channel. "But they're smarter than we thought. Their communications are organic—spell-imbued whispers passed between minds. No paper trails. No magic circles we can track."
Kieran replied only with a single thought: "Plant a mole."
A Double Game
Three nights later, Vell allowed herself to be "converted."
She passed every test—ritual cuts, mind clarity trials, even a symbolic "mana drowning" that should have killed anyone with impure flow.
But her necrotic affinity let her play dead perfectly.
They welcomed her as a "Seer Initiate."
Now deep inside the cult, she began to feed back secrets, slowly, carefully.
Ripple Effects in the Academy
At the Academy, something had shifted.
Whispers of students disappearing during weekend leaves had started. A professor's assistant was found dead—mana stripped from his body.
During his lecture, Professor Caelus—the Ice Mage—paused mid-sentence, his breath catching.
"Something unnatural is spreading," he muttered aloud, without realizing.
Kieran's clone watched silently from his desk.
Later, behind the dorms, he would check the assistant's corpse himself. It wasn't just drained.
It was purified.
All traces of mana… removed completely.
Chapter End Tease
Vell knelt before the Violet Hands.
They marked her skin.
They gave her a whisper-stone and a task: "Deliver the Invitation to the Academy."
She bowed low, hiding her grin.