"We should leave someone here," King Theodore said calmly, his eyes scanning the semicircle of powerful figures standing before him, the Eight Pillars. "It's almost certainly a trap, but that doesn't mean we can afford to ignore it."

They had just received intelligence from a secure facility on the outskirts of the capital, an emergency report stating that it had come under siege by the largest force Whisper had ever mobilized. The sheer scale of the attack was staggering.

"Did they always have this many people?" Rudius asked, half-muttering the words between sips of his drink, his tone light and slightly amused. "The numbers are shocking. Maybe they're pulling fighters from outside the kingdom en masse? If that's the case, someone's clearly not doing their job." He cast a sidelong glance at Jeremiah, waiting for the bait to land.

Jeremiah's voice remained calm, but there was a sharpness beneath it, like glass under velvet. "The borders haven't been breached, not to the extent that would allow such a massive force to slip in unnoticed. I suggest you stick to your own responsibilities, Rudius, and leave mine where they belong." He raised an eyebrow. "Wasn't it just a week ago that information from the testing centre was leaked? What exactly were your people doing?"

Rudius grinned, unfazed. "Seems I struck a nerve. But I won't bother with excuses, yes there was a little breach, and fine, that was on me. But the kid's safe, right? No harm, no foul."

Audrey sighed, exasperation slipping into her voice like an old habit. "Can you two stop bickering? Just for one meeting, please."

Olivia, who had been standing quietly until now, finally spoke. "I'll stay behind," she said, her voice steady but firm. "Leave a minimum force with me, we'll protect the palace and monitor the nobles. The rest of you should take the strongest units we have and focus on wiping out as many of those zealots as possible."

"Excellent idea," King Theodore said with a nod, clearly pleased someone was cutting through the noise.

"Are we really going to ignore the poison?" Lazarus asked quietly, his brow furrowed in genuine concern as he glanced around at the remaining nobles many of whom were still unconscious or clearly disoriented from the lingering effects. "Shouldn't we be trying to heal as many as we can? It's subtle, but dangerous."

All of the Pillars had noticed the poison before even tasting their drinks; their senses were far too honed to fall prey to something so crude. And yet, the nobles had been struck down so easily, their bodies writhing or lying still with vacant stares and trembling limbs.

"Honestly," Tricia said, her tone neutral, almost bored, her face unreadable beneath her ever-present veil, "I think it suits them, proud nobles grovelling on the floor, shaking and foaming, too dull to recognize poison when it's right under their noses."

"This goes beyond your stupid sadism," Desmond snapped, his voice laced with irritation. "Let's be honest, we're not helping because we don't care. It won't kill them, and most of the warriors we rely on didn't drink. So it doesn't matter." He folded his arms, turning to Lazarus with a faint smirk. "No one here has the time or energy to heal this many people... except maybe you, Grand Scholar."

Lazarus didn't respond right away. He only looked down at his hands for a moment, those same hands capable of weaving miracles from runes and then up at the chaos around them, eyes clouded with quiet frustration.

"Enough," King Theodore said at last, his voice cutting cleanly through the noise, deep and composed, but pitched just low enough that only the Pillars around him could hear it. "Gather your people we leave now. Quietly evacuate your families if you must, but do not cause panic. Understood?"

There was no argument. No one lingered.

The Pillars dispersed with smooth precision, peeling away into the crowd or vanishing through side passages, each moving with the quiet efficiency expected of legends. Olivia remained where she was, seated at the edge of the hall, unhurried and curiously watchful. She had no husband, no children, no familial obligations to burden her, and so she simply folded her hands and observed the others as they mobilized.

And it was... revealing.

Rudius, unsurprisingly, had already begun the evacuation of not only his immediate family but also several extended relatives and retainers, he had always been the soft-hearted one, the so-called "compassionate strategist" who feared death more than he let on, though he cloaked it in well-meaning concern. Olivia didn't begrudge him for it; fear of death was natural, and he, at least, did not pretend otherwise.

Jeremiah, on the other hand, was a colder creature altogether. He did nothing, not even the bare minimum. He made no move to warn his family, not even his son, Jacob, who was still seated at a nearby table, downing glass after glass of poisoned wine with the weary determination of someone who no longer cared. Olivia watched this and raised an eyebrow, not out of surprise but out of faint intrigue. It was very like Jeremiah to treat even his kin as tools in a larger game.

Turning to one of her personal guards, Olivia spoke without shifting her posture. "Keep an eye on the two Skydrids," she said, her voice soft but clear. "Don't interfere unless they're truly about to die. If you find an opening, replace them quietly and take the originals to the lab."

The guard gave a slight nod and moved off without a word. Olivia leaned back, allowing herself a brief smile, one touched with curiosity more than malice. "It wouldn't be a bad thing to experiment on a Skydrid for once," she murmured to herself. "I'm sure the king would be interested in that as well."

Her gaze lingered on Jeremiah's retreating form.

'Jeremiah... you're always so interesting.'

She had no doubt he was trying to bait her, leaving his children behind so carelessly, as if hoping to push her into some revealing action. It wasn't the first time he'd tried something like this, far from it. Time and again, he had skirted the edges of her secrets, circling closer, only to be pushed back by her or by Theodore himself. But to offer up his own children so plainly? That level of performance was almost... theatrical.

'Fine,' she thought. 'I'll bite. But don't be shocked when the play ends with you bleeding on the stage.'

The Pillars had all but vanished by the time Olivia shifted her focus back to the hall. The banquet had come to an uneasy halt. Laughter had given way to stifled murmurs and confused glances, and the symptoms of the poison were growing steadily worse. A few of the nobles were now hunched over, clutching at their heads or shivering, while others were staring blankly ahead, their eyes glassy and unfocused. It wasn't a lethal toxin, at least not immediately but it was clearly designed to debilitate both body and mind.

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It was a clever concoction, she had to admit. Uncommon. Sophisticated.

And still, despite the veil of calm she wore, Olivia remained on high alert. Her senses were extended outward like invisible threads, monitoring every shift in breath, every flicker of mana, every unfamiliar step on polished marble. She was waiting. Whisper would come. The king knew that, too, had counted on it.

And that, more than anything else, made her spine twitch.

She caught herself thinking it again, bastard, not even with venom, but as a natural conclusion. King Theodore, for all his regal bearing and practiced kindness, was as much a manipulator as any of them. He had sensed the poison long before most, and instead of reacting with concern, he had seen it as an opportunity. A lure. A beacon.

He had allowed the nobles to remain here as bait, all so Whisper could be drawn out and then massacred.

'Efficient,' she admitted silently.

And so she sat there, still and poised, eyes sweeping the ballroom with clinical detachment, waiting for the first ripple of chaos. Because if even a single enemy operative managed to realize she was here, if word got out that Olivia was present then the entire plan could fall apart.

No one must leave. No one must speak. That was what had been agreed upon, unspoken but fully understood.

That was when she noticed Jacob.

He was crawling toward her across the polished marble floor, dragging himself with unsteady arms, his body trembling from strain and poison. His voice was low, barely a slurred murmur beneath the rising hum of confusion in the hall, but Olivia's ears, trained to isolate and discern meaning from chaos picked out the words clearly enough: "The drink... is poisoned."

A flicker of genuine surprise passed through her. Of all the people here, she hadn't expected him to realize it. She didn't have a good impression of him and as far as she was aware he was the weakest of the Skydrids.

She didn't lift a hand to help him. Nor did she instruct her guards to. Instead, Olivia stood there for a few seconds, simply watching him, silently weighing her options.

The thought formed quickly and cleanly in her mind: 'Take him to a room. Isolate him. 'Treat' him. Replace him with a replica. Test the boundaries of a Skydrid's biology.'

It was simple, elegant, and viable. But just as she had resolved to act on it, someone interrupted her plan.

Princess Leah.

The royal arrived with silent urgency, slipping through the crowd and kneeling beside Jacob. She slid his arm over her shoulder, steadying him with practiced grace, and without hesitation began guiding him toward Olivia.

That changed everything.

The plan dissolved the moment Leah became involved. Olivia couldn't risk acting under the gaze of a royal. The king had warned all of them, and any attempt to substitute Jacob, no matter how subtle, would be detected almost instantly. Disguise, misdirection, sleight of hand all worthless under royal scrutiny.

So, with a quiet sigh, part annoyance, part resignation she knelt beside him instead.

Her palm rested lightly on his abdomen. At once, she could feel it, the slick, acrid heat of the poison threading its way through his inner pathways. It had settled in the stomach, but already it was moving toward the brain, clinging to nerve endings, dulling senses. With a delicate pull, precise and practiced, Olivia drew the poison out, neutralizing the threat even as she began to repair the internal damage.

It only took a moment.

Jacob stirred, his breaths steadying, and then with no warning he sat up and shouted, "The drinks are poisoned!"

Heads turned. A ripple of confusion spread through the hall. Olivia stood up, brushing her fingers against her trousers in a gesture that might have looked casual to an observer. She was about to return to her seat, to resume her scan of the hall, when the doors exploded inward with a deafening crash.

The atmosphere shifted in an instant.

Olivia's eyes narrowed, not because they were under attack, but because she hadn't sensed the attacker's approach. That could only mean one thing.

'There's a rank zero among them.'

Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later when a grey blur struck her mid-torso with such force that the air seemed to collapse around her. She didn't even have time to react before she was launched backward, crashing through a marble wall and landing in the grass outside the banquet hall with a soundless, thudding impact.

For a second, she remained still, blinking up at the pale clouds drifting across the early evening sky.

Then she glanced down.

Her entire front was a ruin, her ribs shattered, caved inward like splintered wood, bone protruding grotesquely through the skin. Her lungs had likely collapsed, and her stomach had been ruptured.

She exhaled slowly through bloodied lips, murmuring almost wistfully, "And I liked this suit."

Then, without a flicker of visible effort, her body began to pull itself back together. Bones slid back into place, organs repaired themselves, flesh knitted over broken muscle. In seconds, she was whole again, perfect and untouched, save for the shredded fabric of her bloodstained attire. Unfortunately, her suit couldn't regenerate as easily as her body. The silk clung to her in ruined tatters, torn through by blunt trauma and friction.

She stood, brushing dirt from her knees, then reached for the belt at her hip. Her fingers closed around the hilt of a small curved blade, lightweight, balanced, and silent. She drew it in one motion, her eyes already locked on the shattered opening.

A faint smile touched her lips.

"Let's see what kind of rat Whisper brought out of hiding this time."

When Olivia caught sight of the man approaching through the wreckage, she let out a quiet breath through her nose and shook her head in clear irritation.

"Of course. They sent you."

She didn't need to guess. Each of the Eight Pillars was intimately familiar with Whisper's rank zero fighters, they had crossed paths with them too many times to forget the names, faces, and peculiarities. And the one now walking toward her in his flowing black robes, tailored like a bishop's vestments, with a slender scimitar at his side and that distinctive grey aura twisting around him like distorted light there was no mistaking him.

They called him Bishop.

One of the more frustrating zealots, Olivia thought. Not because he was the strongest, though he was dangerous enough, but because he simply wouldn't shut up. Every fight was a sermon, every blow accompanied by scripture, and every wound suffered only deepened his religious fervour. He believed wholeheartedly in judgment, repentance, hellfire, and sin, concepts that had never been proven, but which he clung to like sacred truths.

And now here he was, face carved in stern reverence, aura curling around him like a divine mist.

"Olivia," he said, voice dripping with piety, "the greatest sinner in all of Eterna. You always said you were untouchable, but we found your precious research facility." He tilted his head slightly, eyes gleaming with zeal. "I brought a few of the surviving experiments with me, consider it poetic justice."

At that, Olivia's smile vanished. Her eyes narrowed into thin slits, and her grip on the knife at her hip tightened. A faint yellow hue began to rise from the blade, dull and steady, like light filtered through diseased glass.

"You stole my research?" she said, her voice rising into something close to a snarl. "You touched my work?"

The Bishop merely raised his arms, palms out in mock horror. "Research?" he echoed, voice now thunderous. "What you did in that place was a violation not just of divine law, but of natural order. What you call research, the rest of us call sacrilege. You're not a scientist, Olivia you're a heretic. A monster in human skin."

Without warning, he moved, no incantation, no battle cry, just a sudden burst of movement as he surged forward, his scimitar gleaming in the light.

The blade plunged straight into her chest.

She didn't flinch. She let it pierce her heart, allowed it to stay buried there for just a moment longer than necessary. Then she lunged forward and buried her own knife into his gut, twisting it once before she pushed off him and leapt away.

Both landed in crouches several meters apart, blood already pooling between them.

Olivia straightened, the hole in her chest rapidly closing, flesh knitting over cracked bone as if nothing had happened. Her breathing was calm, her expression unreadable.

The Bishop was already whispering a prayer, his voice calm and measured. A soft white glow, laced with that nauseating scent of faith, wrapped around the wound in his abdomen and sealed it shut in an instant.

Olivia watched him with a cold scowl, her fingers flexing once around the hilt of her blade.

"Well then," she muttered, tone dry but dangerous, "let's see which is stronger, faith or me. Let's see who breaks first."

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