It was early morning. Usually, the streets were noisy, but now they were quiet and calm, as most residents were still asleep thanks to how the celebration went on way past midnight, almost until dawn.

  "Mmmhm…" Reignar moaned, stretching with a rexed face, walking out of the brothel where he had spent the night. "I love sleepy mornings like these," he smiled at the clear sky as he walked down the empty street, humming happily, dressed lightly, not bothering with the slightly chilly weather. "Hm?" Yet just then, he noticed something in an alleyway as he passed by, and it looked like a pair of fair, tiny legs sticking out from behind trash cans. "I know the homeless situation is not the best in this district, but father told me it has vastly improved in the past years…" he sighed, then started to walk towards it. "Hey!" he shouted. "You'll catch a cold like this."

  But when he got closer, he realized that something was off. The owner of the legs did not react to his voice, and when he got close, his peaceful expression turned serious.

  "What happened to you…?" he murmured, crouching down as a little girl, around the age of eight at best, was sitting there... Looking like she had already died. Her skin was pale and slowly turning blue from the cold, and the ragged clothes she wore offered little protection against the winter. Yet the most disturbing thing was the complete bnkness on her face... Because her eyes were open. Her long, messy bck hair was clinging to her body from the morning dew, and her brown eyes were without light, staring forward without reaction while drool ran from her mouth, almost freezing into a popsicle.

  "Hey…" he said softly, touching her cold body, but nothing happened. She had a feeble pulse and was breathing dangerously slowly... a minute more and she could die... "Did someone drug you…?" Reignar murmured with a concerned face, checking her body but finding nothing out of the ordinary. Finally, he pced his fingers inside her mouth, releasing his powers, but found nothing suspicious, no drugs or poison in her. "You are not injured… I can't feel any medicines in your blood either… what happened to you?" he asked again, furrowing his brows, but no answer came. "Tsk… come, let's take you home!" he picked her up in the end, going towards the pace, unable to just leave her there.

  …….…..

  "Did you find anything?" Sentios asked, biting into his toast and having breakfast as the others returned from their search only a few hours ago. Most of them shook their heads, but one of the Naulins stepped forward.

  "I may have found a clue. The royal family clearly masks their presence from the masses, but there are always small rats scurrying around in a big city."

  "You went for the beggars? What are they good for besides taking up space?" Yurik rolled his eyes, sipping on a hot cup of tea.

  "What did you find?" Sentios continued asking, ignoring Yurik's comment.

  "At first, nothing much." The warrior expined, "The adults were useless, going on about the celebrations, but soon I came across some kids who were more attentive to the small details. Also, they often look up and spot pieces that adults who look only down miss."

  "Get to the point." Yurik groaned.

  "One girl said to me, and I quote: I saw a pretty dy with funny ears. I probed her mind, and she spoke the truth... She was st seen near the Vanguard's General's house, clearly a fox demon."

  "Oh? Xendar's pce? That complicates things. But it's a logical outcome." Sentios nodded, munching on his breakfast.

  "The father of that bitch?" Yurik snorted. "We need to scout out the pce anyway. It's good if we can hit two birds with one stone! We can use our family ties to get in; my sister can't ignore me."

  "I hope your clear mind keeps it cool, too, and not just now." Sentios looked at him with one eye, "We can't let them have another win."

  "Hmf."

  "Did you wipe her mind?" He turned back to the reporting man, no longer bothering with Yurik.

  "Yes. Her mind was weak; it probably broke after I invaded it."

  "Good." Yurik nodded. "We don't need witnesses about us, asking around. I hope the others you asked also got silenced."

  "Yes." Everyone answered in unison in the room.

  "And we don't need corpses, especially not children's!" Sentios snorted, but then recollected himself as he pced a letter on the table, "What is done is done... Haah... Deliver this letter to their household, and we will go and visit them in the evening... Don't. Kill... People. We are not in Rozex!"

  …….…..

  "Third Brother." Leinor nodded as he and Ren arrived at the pace after being invited by Reignar, which surprised them both.

  "Fourth." He smiled, then, seeing Ren, his face became stiff and twitchy. "Ren."

  "Yo~ You look good now, not trembling at all when seeing me~!" She giggled pyfully.

  "Please, spare me… Sorry… okay? I said it a few times already!" He sighed, shaking his head, giving up on understanding Ren at all.

  "Ahahaha, no worries~! Soooo, why did you call us here?"

  "Come." He waved his hand, and his serious voice interested them even more as they followed him to his own courtyard.

  "Nice pce." Ren whistled as the garden was filled with exotic flowers, painting it in the colors of the rainbow, while the small pagoda-like structure in the middle radiated warmth and peace, even in the middle of winter.

  "I always like a pce to return to and just rex. Helps calm my mind, too. I don't keep anyone near; it keeps the aura of this pce pure." Reignar commented as they stepped inside, and on the bed, a small girl sat, leaning against the headboard, facing the window. She was cleaned up and dressed in a silk gown, while her hair was held up in a bun with two jade needles as she stared into emptiness, drooling into her p. "I took care of her as much as I could…" he sighed, sitting down on the bed and wiping her mouth. "But as you can see, she is not responding to anything."

  "What happened to her?" Leinor asked, concerned, looking at his brother suspiciously.

  "It wasn't me. I found her like this!" He snorted, "I couldn't find our father to ask for help, to come and look at her, so I called you."

  "Where did you find her?" Ren walked up to her, checking out the kid, looking into the empty eyes, but only saw a pair of bck pupils, almost as wide as her irises.

  "In an alleyway. She was probably an orphan." Reignar muttered, "I don't know if she was drugged or if this is some kind of sickness... I couldn't do anything about it."

  "Let me check," Leinor muttered as he crouched down, holding her hand, but she didn't react, not even when his powers slowly and carefully probed her. "Damn…"

  "What?" Ren and Reignar asked at the same time.

  "Her energy channels are broken completely; it's a mess! Her mind was scrambled up by a powerful force." Leinor muttered, exploring her body as carefully as he could, "Clearly... This is the work of a cultivator. She never practiced, her body couldn't take it, and her mind was the first to break down..."

  "It wasn't me!" Reignar said immediately as Ren looked at him, raising an eyebrow.

  "It really wasn't. There is no trace of our affinity inside of her." Leinor backed up his brother calmly.

  "You can check her if you still don't believe me; she is a virgin," Reignar added, crossing his arms while pouting, as both of them looked at him with raised eyebrows. "What?"

  "..."

  "We can tell if we check her..." Reignar repeated, then his mouth twitched, "What… oh… oooh, fuck. I meant, with our powers!"

  "Yeah, your powers…." Ren whispered, chuckling to herself.

  "Damn, anyway! Focus on the important thing! You say it's done by a cultivator?" He looked at his brother for help.

  "I'm sure." Leinor nodded, "Someone with some special ability or skill, like hypnosis or something… I'm not really versed in that. He overpowered her mind or even read it... It's that forceful intrusion that made her this way, I can feel it by just following which energy points suffered the most."

  "Do we have a list of affinities that can do this?" Reignar asked, tilting his head.

  "Not really… hypothetically, Uncle Boursat could do it with his blood powers," Leinor replied, scratching his chin. "But I don't see him doing something like this."

  "I can also do it." Ren commented, "I may be able to reverse it... No guarantees."

  "You?" Reignar blinked his eyes, surprised.

  "Yup. My affinity can influence a human body, and I cut open enough corpses to know how they work." She giggled while her words immediately made Reignar shudder, confirming his thoughts that he should avoid his fourth brother's future wife as much as possible.

  "Wouldn't it kill her?" He gulped back his fears before asking.

  "There is the possibility." Ren nodded, "The attacker was at the Harmony Realm, and another interference may cause her body to colpse under the pressure. That is why I said there is no guarantee..."

  "You should do it!" Reignar sighed in the end, "Look at her. She is as good as dead like this."

  "I agree, Ren." Leinor stroked the little girl's head. "At least she has a chance with you..."

  "Mm. Let me try then!" She nodded as she held the small girl's head with both hands, then directed her energies to the girl's brain.

  As they watched, the girl started to convulse and foam at the mouth while her eyes rolled backward, blood dripping out of her nose.

  "Come on, kid… You can take it… Endure it, just a little more..." Reignar murmured as Ren focused on guiding her powers, establishing a connection between her consciousness and her body, trying to overwrite the synapses in her brain while building new connections over the broken ones. The whole thing took only a minute before Ren let her go, and the little girl just fell over, blood flowing from her nose.

  “Is she…?” Reignar gulped.

  "She will live!" Ren let out her breath, standing up with shaking legs, "Still, I don't know how she will be after she regains consciousness..." She gasped, wiping her forehead, helping the girl to lie down on the bed, "We will see how damaged she is then... Maybe she will recover, maybe she won't. Until then, take care of her..."

  "Me?" Reignar blinked his eyes, unsure about the idea.

  "What? You are the one who picked her up! It's good training to take some responsibility at least once, not just disappear after the sun comes up." Leinor elbowed his brother, grinning.

  "Ugh…"

  "Good luck!" Ren agreed, finishing wiping the girl's bleeding nose.

  "Call us when she has woken up." Leinor patted his shoulder as they left, leaving a stunned Reignar, who just sighed, shaking her head.

  "What do you think?" Leinor asked as they were leaving the pace

  "No ideas yet." Ren muttered, biting her lips, "I'm not sure how the attacker did it or what kind of power they had. I'd need more simir cases to search for patterns or recognizable clues and follow them back to the source... Let's go to Isha and Boursat and inform them to keep an eye out and search for others."

  "What if it's them?"

  "Them? The Naulins? But why would they do it?" Ren asked with a raised eyebrow. "It doesn't make any sense, only…."

  "Only if they are not here because of us, and it's only a front, masking whatever they really want." Leinor finished for her.

  "..."

  Furrowing her brows, crossing her hands across her chest, Ren suddenly stopped in her tracks as Leinor looked at her patiently, also thinking about what it should be.

  "I'll go back and speak with Niji and Emi; you go and talk with Boursat." She lowered her arms.

  "You think it's them?"

  "I don't have any other reasonable thoughts, so you may be right." She nodded, "It's either them or an act of revenge against your father and mine for exiling your Uncle when they fought for the throne. Or it may be really a coincidence, and they are only here to fuck things up, for the fun of it, and to torture my mother and me! Either way, they may not leave this city at all. I'm starting to get pissed off!"

  "Got it. I'll go speak with Boursat and Isha, then hurry back!" Leinor nodded, looking as serious as possible.

  "No need to hurry or panic. They wouldn't do anything rash." She smiled, tiptoeing and giving him a peck on his lips. "But do be careful~!"

  "You too. I bet that idiot is itching to get back at you." Leinor ughed.

  "Let him try~!" She winked at him before they separated, and while Leinor went to find Boursat, Ren walked home just to arrive when a messenger brought the letter from Sentios that they would come and visit that evening.

  "I'll tell the Lady and Lord." Hal nodded as he took the letter, seeing off the messenger.

  "Guests?" Ren came up as Hal gave her the message, with a half smile. "Yeah… I guessed so," she whispered after reading it.

  "The Lady won't be happy." Hal shook his head.

  "Neither will be my Father. Sooo..." She smiled at Hal, "I'll take this to them. But this is good! Uncle Hal, you should keep an extra eye out for them."

  "Do the Young Lady expect trouble?" He asked with a smile.

  "Most certainly."

  "Then they won't leave." Hal nodded before walking away, his back held behind his back.

  "Ahaha~ This night I'll make them regret coming to visit~!" Ren ughed, going up the house, straight to her parents, before finding Niji and Emi to expin her sudden idea to them all.