Jurgen stood frozen, his body locked in the defensive posture he had tried to raise before the attack landed. His hands remained suspended mid-motion, unable to complete the reaction. Sweat ran freely down his face, unrestrained.
At first, it came slowly.
A single drift… then another.
Bubbles.
They floated faintly before his eyes—small, weightless, almost out of place.
He had been stabbed. The motion had been clear, precise, aimed directly at his neck. And yet… there was nothing. No pain. No pressure. No sensation at all.
His mind urged him to move, to reach for his neck, to confirm what had just happened — but his body refused to respond. The delay unsettled him more than the attack itself. He had expected pain, even if delayed. Instead, there was only absence.
The masked attacker staggered back.
The movement was unsteady, as though the act itself had not gone as intended. The knife was pulled away just as quickly, the figure retreating with visible shock overtaking whatever resolve had driven the strike.
Jurgen's gaze dropped instinctively to the weapon.
There was no blade.
Only the hilt remained.
The inconsistency forced a brief, disjointed thought. Why strike with something that had no edge? Or
His focus shifted.
The attacker's expression had changed. The fear was no longer directed at him. Their eyes flicked past Jurgen, drawn toward the figure few steps in front of him.
Jurgen followed that line of sight.
Lord Nemesio.
He stood a short distance in front of Jurgen, composed as ever, his hands resting calmly behind his back. His gaze was fixed on the attacker, steady and untroubled. There was no surprise in his expression, no urgency — only quiet awareness.
It became clear, in that moment, that this had not caught him off guard.
The earlier glance within the spring — the subtle shift Jurgen had dismissed had not been idle. Nemesio had already sensed the presence long before the attack revealed itself.
And now, he simply stood there.
Unmoved.
Because he was Nemesio Aurelius after all.
Jurgen drew in a deliberate breath, the air catching slightly as he steadied himself. His body wavered before he shifted, one hand reaching out to brace against the stone frame of the Swan Spring.
The attacker attempted to flee in that same moment, but the motion never fully formed. His body resisted him, movements stalling unnaturally, as though the very concept of motion had been suppressed. It was not restraint in the physical sense, but something more absolute — an invisible denial of action itself.
Nemesio remained as he was, composed and unmoved. There was no visible exertion behind it, no gesture to suggest control, yet the effect was unmistakable. The presence surrounding him felt faintly familiar, not in the way of someone known, but something distant, lingering at the edge of recognition.
The mask began to break apart.
It did not fall off; it dissolved. Fine grains of sand slipped away from the surface, drifting downward until the face beneath was revealed. A young man, blonde, with a hairstyle that curved forward in a shape reminiscent of a comma. His features were striking in a refined, almost deliberate way, made more pronounced by deep brown eyes that dilated faintly, giving him an unsettling intensity.
For the first time, Nemesio's expression shifted.
A subtle reaction, but present.
His head tilted slightly, brows lifting just enough to suggest recognition — not complete, but enough to imply the face before him was not entirely unfamiliar.
"L–Lord Nemesio…" the voice shifted as it came out, uneven and strained.
It carried a pleading tone, one that suggested something far more ominous beneath it.
"I–I didn't mean to. It wasn't me, it was—it was N—"
The words never finished.
The fear in his voice broke into something sharper, his expression collapsing into shock as a sudden, violent pain took hold deep within him.
Recognition settled across Nemesio's face, followed by a quiet understanding. The reaction was slight but clear — enough to suggest he had already grasped the situation. The young man was not entirely in control.
His hands slipped from behind his back, a faint shift that marked the change.
At the same time, the restraint on the boy vanished. His body regained movement all at once, confirming what had already been implied — that the entire situation had been under Nemesio's control from the beginning. The missing blade, the halted motion, even the mask dissolving into sand had all been deliberate.
Jurgen remained where he was, one hand still gripping the stone frame of the Swan Spring. The shock had not left him, both from the attack itself and from the realization that Nemesio had known this person.
Blood suddenly spilled from the young man's mouth, heavy and uncontrolled. He reached for his chest instinctively, his body faltering as his eyes locked onto Nemesio, wide and desperate. Tears streamed freely as he staggered forward, closing what little distance he could, his hands stretching out only to grasp at empty air.
"Lo–Lord Nemesio…"
The words barely formed.
A muffled sound followed, something internal and wrong, as though something had given way beneath the surface. It came with a sharp, cracking undertone.
His chest began to swell.
The change was immediate and violent, pushing outward with unnatural force, as if something within him had ruptured and was forcing its way out. Flesh and bone distorted under the pressure, rising in a way that was both abrupt and deeply unsettling, enough to turn Jurgen's stomach.
And then,
It gave way.
His chest and heart burst from within.
The motion stopped as suddenly as it began.
"Naoki…"
The name left Nemesio's lips quietly.
His gaze lowered, eyes tightening shut as he turned away just enough to avoid watching the body fall. It hit the ground with a dull, final thud, blood continuing to pour steadily from the boy's mouth.
He recognized him. A new recruit; one who had joined a division only days ago. To watch him die like this, in such a brutal and senseless manner, weighed heavily even on him. It was suffocating in a way he did not often allow himself to feel.
It was not that he had chosen not to act. If anything, he would have done anything to stop what had just unfolded.
But he couldn't.
His abilities, which had governed everything moments ago, simply failed to reach the boy once the bleeding began. It was as though they had been nullified at that exact point. He had released his hold, yes — but everything that followed had been completely outside his control, leaving him in a rare and unmistakable position of helplessness.
He understood it immediately.
The one method that could have saved the boy had been rendered ineffective from the outset. This had been planned deliberately, precisely. Whoever was behind it knew him. Knew what he could do, and how to bypass it.
"What insolence…"
The words came low, his tone carrying a restrained but palpable anger.
"Who would dare do such a thing?"
At that moment, members of the defense corps rushed onto the scene, their arrival abrupt against the stillness that had settled.
They were met with blood.
And the body.
Recognition spread quickly among them as they took in the familiar figure lying motionless.
Silence followed.
Healers moved in without hesitation, kneeling beside the body to assess what little could be done. It did not take long. The confirmation came quietly, but with certainty.
He was dead.
The defense corps had responded to a reported infiltration, drawn here by the alert. But the figure before them was no unknown intruder.
There were only two possibilities: either the detection and reporting had been incorrect, or the infiltration had already occurred from within Mercedes itself.
It was clear which one was true.