"Dammit!" Pascal cursed.
"It's typical Magus logic," Wayland sighed. "He's used climate magecraft to create artificial rain. The ubiquitous water elements in the air act as a natural jammer for our sensors. But a Bound Field of that scale should still be producing a detectable spike in Prana. How is he bypassing our localized monitoring?"
Wayland watched the autumn rain streaming down the glass of the monitoring room window.
Stones.
When he'd first seen the young man at the station, he'd been running a stall selling small, ornamental stones.
'If enough people bought those stones... could they be used as anchors for a distributed Bound Field?'
It could be a unique form of fragmented Mystic Code.
"Director Harbor, switch the magical sensors to 'Load' mode and focus them on the civilians who were near the station this afternoon," Wayland command.
"The station? Are you certain that's where the field is centered?"
"It's not a centralized field. It's a decentralized ritual powered by a specific catalyst. Those stones."
"Understood."
Amad Harbor shifted the sensor feed to the monitoring room's main display. In an instant, the screen was flooded with a pale, pulsing blue.
That was the rain.
As the 'Load' filter activated, several deep, vibrant indigo points appeared on the map of the city.
"Found them!" Pascal shouted.
"We don't have time to waste," Wayland said. "The ritual is already active. As the demand for Prana increases, the field will start drawing more heavily from the hosts. If we don't act now, people will start getting hurt,and then they'll start dying."
Wayland turned to Amad. "Director, you have the numbers. Take your field agents and my six remaining team members. Use the sensors to track down every one of those indigo points in Oxenholme and confiscate the stones immediately."
"The stones?"
"Exactly. The Magus used them as decentralized anchors for his ritual. Follow the points, take the catalysts, and the field will collapse."
"On it," Amad replied.
"As for the three of us... we follow the Prana flow to the source."
"Let's go!" Pascal couldn't wait any longer. He was already out the door.
Wayland looked up at the sky. "Bazett, I'm going to need you to lead. The terrestrial tracks have been masked, but the sky is the primary conduit for the gathered Prana. There has to be a trace up there, even if it's too high for the street-level sensors to pick up."
"Understood."
Bazett nodded. Her magenta eyes narrowed, her magical perception expanding to encompass the atmosphere above the city.
In her vision, the pale blue world of the rain was bisected by a massive, deep indigo channel of energy that was streaming away toward the southwest.
"Southwest," she said.
Pascal scrambled into the driver's seat of the limousine and slammed the car into gear, the heavy vehicle roaring toward the city limits.
"We're here."
Bazett leaned out of the car window, her eyes fixed on the end of the indigo channel. Following the flow of Prana downward, she saw a river.
The banks were choked with tall weeds and stunted trees, the water winding away into the distance like a dark, glossy ribbon.
The trio stepped out of the car roughly five hundred meters from the target. Bazett deployed a concealment barrier, and they began their final approach on foot.
As they drew closer, the atmosphere became increasingly oppressive.
The massive torrent of Prana from the sky was still descending, yet the area was deathly silent.
It was as though the entire world had been frozen into a still life painting. Wayland, Pascal, and Bazett felt like the only living things in a world of ghosts.
"Careful," Wayland whispered, the sense of unease in his gut tightening into a knot.
Pascal and Bazett both nodded. They felt it too,a wrongness in the air that was almost physical.
They reached the riverbank and spotted a low, red-brick house partially hidden by a thicket of trees. It looked as though it had been abandoned for years.
The red walls were almost completely covered in thick, wild vines.
This was the nexus.
The Prana collected from across the city was converging here, forming a brilliant white circle that hovered above the roof of the house.
"He should be at the center," Wayland whispered. He signaled a '+' formation, and they carefully hugged the wall of the building, peering into the yard.
The house was in a state of decay. Both the windows and the front door were long gone, leaving only gaping holes in the brickwork.
Wayland could see someone lying on a bed inside, unmoving.
But standing over the sleeper was not Eliza.
A woman stood at the bedside.
Wayland's view was partially blocked by the crumbling doorframe, but he could see she was dressed in a low-cut black evening gown. A cascade of vibrant orange hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back.
[System Warning: Grand-rank magus detected in the immediate vicinity. Self-protection protocols active. Entering hibernation.]
The message flickered across Wayland's vision in a pale, icy blue before slowly fading into nothingness.
'Irigal?'
Wayland called out in his mind, but there was no response. The goddess was gone.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]