He couldn't fathom what had happened. Suddenly he was down, and after an onslaught of ranged attacks, he was lured into melee.

He tried everything he could, but the odds weren't in his favor. 'Is that it?' Alan wondered, 'After all this time, this is how I die?' Then again, it was better that it was him.

Lucan, on the other hand, felt like he was falling into a pit. It wasn't that he was a soft person, but this was his Empire, how could something like this happen here? And in the long run, it would sour the relationship between Lodden and Arlen as well, and he had to consider that as the next Emperor.

He had moved closer to the edge when he was suddenly pulled back. Several knights grabbed his arms and tried to drag him away.

"Your Highness, you must get to safety now!"

Neither the Emperor nor the Crown Prince were enough to deal with this. Lucan knew better than anyone that he had to go to do his job.

But when he saw the young Duke being toyed with by a Grade 4 who obviously didn't aim to kill him, he felt like he couldn't sit still. It was too much.

"Lucan," a trembling voice stopped his thoughts as well as his struggling, "go."

She didn't want the Empire to lose its leader. After all, it would create a power vacuum of unimaginable magnitude.

Without much thought, she jumped down, bracing her legs for the impact before grabbing a sword left behind by its dead owner. Lucan could only watch in horror. He knew she was using Mana, so he knew she could take another fall, but why would she do that?

"We have to go now!" Trying to ignore her, they finally managed to get the petrified prince out of the area.

Of course, with the few Holy Knights they had, they were still able to help the two people. However, as they were about to follow the lady, a distorted voice echoed through the night.

"This is as far as you go," it said, "leave the two of them behind and run to the edge of the lake if you think you can make it."

"What?" Where was his voice coming from? It felt like it was coming from all sides.

"He who controls these Visitors is sending them all out of the lake's bed to attack the adjacent villages. Do you not want to help your people?"

Alan, who had barely been able to resist the Grade 4, who had not been able to grasp why it was so easy on him and yet not letting him go before, finally understood. He had thought that there might be a Master, but that ability was too great to even imagine.

"No!" Rowena shouted and looked up at the knights, "Don't be fooled! They can't do anything as long as they control the Grade 4!"

She knew as soon as she had arrived down there. VAULT codenames weren't handed out on a whim. When they didn't know the real name, they gave one to have it in a file, going by visible characteristics or shown abilities.

There was one file of an unknown Numbered who had only appeared once and was caught on camera. They didn't even know her number, yet they had given it a name because, even from behind, it stood out visually.

Lilith first appeared as an enemy power, and she was one of those who brought back information to write about it before they knew its name. The Pied Piper's power was gone, only traces were left, so she knew what that meant.

Most of those remnants were from the Grade 4 that was acting this way despite its nature, so it was clear that it was still controlled. But this ability was not unlimited; it didn't work that way.

Alan was shocked, he hadn't even noticed his sister behind him, and for the second time that day he felt... scared. Then her words hit him.

"How do you know that?" he said in a strained voice.

He wasn't the only one who wondered. Who said that what the young girl was shouting was true when they had no proof? They didn't know the other Visitors weren't moving because of the Demon suppressing them.

Rowena stuck out her arm as her brother was pushed back, blocking with his arm in a desperate move that spilled blood. There was a time when she could have easily stopped that. Even in her current body, she could at least stop it from moving, allowing her brother to stab its Core.

'If only I could...' Tears began to roll down her cheeks, as the sword fell from her hand unused. 'But there's nothing that I can do, my presence here serves no purpose. I'm useless like this.'

She wasn't crying, it was just her body breaking under the weight of her frustration and the feeling of dread. But there was also pain. She couldn't just run away.

"My lady!" A scream made her flinch, and when she looked up again, a terrified Norina was kneeling on the ledge. "Someone has to go and help!" She looked ready to jump down herself as there was no one.

More tears welled up as the young woman saw this. "Don't come any closer! Go away, Norina!" She hadn't come here to make things worse.

Right, why did she come here at all? A sniffle could be heard, so loud in the increasingly quiet area. Dead silence, one might say.

"Don't you know what you have to do?" asked the now trembling contractor of Leviathan in a cunning voice, with a tinge of perpetual anger in it.

'What do you know?' She was mad and confused.

Alan looked over his shoulder as his strength ran out. It was a war of attrition, but one side wasn't even trying yet.

The Lodden Knights had to heed their warnings and leave, taking the rest of the civilians to safety, while two Holy Knights from Arlen came to replace them in the once beautiful palace garden.

"We'll save our lord, don't worry about us," Sir Sean said through clenched teeth.

It wasn't their fault, for everyone was aware of the state the Lodden Empire was in. It was clear who they were aiming for, so he was already happy they didn't blame them.

And even with a promising Crown Prince, they lacked the power to fight the Visitors. Such a fight was not won with mere numbers and physical force.

He knew, yet he couldn't help the feeling of betrayal that rose inside him. Feelings that Rowena shared, but directed at herself.

Why did it have to come to this? 'Pan. Is there really no one else?' she said in her mind, 'No one you could follow instead?

'No.'

'In this case,' she thought, 'you already know, don't you?'

'...is that truly what you wish for? Leviathan will run out of time.'

'But his time is also running out. Without Lilith, that Grade 4 will kill him.'

How many minutes had passed since the Visitors were summoned? Five minutes? Ten? The first ones were simple, but after that, it must have been a Gamble.

"After all of your nagging, now you don't want to?" she said softly, devoid of emotion.

'No,' he repeated, 'I am honored, Lady Rowena.' He had never called her that before, and it sent chills down her spine.

A moment earlier, Yaakov and Sean had come down to her level, ready to do whatever they had to do.

The lady was now a few feet behind them, out of sight, but a new ladder had been lowered, and no one was interfering with it. She would be safe.

"They are toying with us," Yaakov remarked.

They were so focused that they barely heard their young lady utter a few words behind them. With dozens of Visitors not moving, their young master was the only one in immediate danger, but it could change for the worse at any second.

And that second seemed to come when the man in front of them suddenly chuckled with malice, causing the two knights and their master to instinctively look over their shoulders. As their hearts sank, they realized they could no longer move.

 

Norina looked down as her mistress stood motionless, as if hypnotized. She didn't even react when the knights came down and passed her. With only her back in sight, she could see that her lady was shaking, but not much more.

Shortsightedly and worried, the maid decided that going down was the best approach - she had to shake her awake. Though as she touched the ground, her eyes widened in fear.

Behind her mistress, a Visitor appeared, at least two meters tall by her estimation, a figure that looked strangely like a pale and haggard man.

There were so many things that would have made him stand out from the crowd, like a pair of wings that looked like those of a drake, or claws at the end of his long fingers, the piece of torn black cloth that sat on the crown of his long silver hair, covering him down to his earlobes, but the thing that caught her eye was a hole. There was a hole the size of a head in the center of his chest, the edges ragged and black, as if dried and withered.

It felt like she was seeing a ghost. Surely, it was no ordinary Visitor, but a Numbered; disconnected, unable to interact with the world, and therefore without presence. The feeling of seeing a ghost was true, for it was indeed a ghost-like being.

Norina's hair stood on end, but she didn't scream because her mind was blank, and then she heard a voice that was very familiar to her.

Rowena could tell he was there, although she couldn't feel it, because he didn't need her to appear in this place. "Long time no see, Pan."

'Indeed.' If she were facing him, she would have seen his lips move, but his words resounded inside her head as his voice could not reach this world of the living. 'I will ask again: Are you sure?'

She laughed at his hesitation. 'You really have to make this harder for me, huh?' Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move, and turned.

At that moment, he pulled down the cloth he had torn from his already tattered robes to cover his eyes. Underneath, a pair of burning eyes without pupils were revealed, with a number tattooed across his right forehead and temple. "13," it read.

Turning, she looked directly into his eyes, drew in a quick breath, hunched her stiff shoulders and pulled her torso back, freezing for a moment.

In response, he leaned in, creeping closer until his face was up against hers. 'You are afraid.'

His words were blunt, without sentiment, a mere statement, and yet he managed to cut himself deeply with them. That's why he disliked showing himself to her.

Then she blinked briefly, breathed again and began to smile, as if she had seen an old friend. 'I'm not afraid of you, don't be ridiculous. You're my only friend.' Well, at least he was, for the longest time.

She saw Norina looking shocked and about to scream, so she raised her finger to her lips and motioned for silence. The knights hadn't noticed it.

And no one else had reacted. 'Is this what they were aiming for? No way. Did they possibly see Pan at Eisenwacht?'

Suddenly she couldn't react anymore, as if a heavy blanket had been thrown over her head. She knew this feeling too well, even though she hadn't felt it in years.

At that moment, a magical circle had opened, burning squiggly lines into the ground that would later disappear without a trace, starting at her feet. But this was no normal materialization, no, this was all a Numbered could show. The moment it had to bare itself and everything it had to its human contractor.

The atmosphere was so suffocating that she could hardly look up, let alone move a muscle. With a small flick of Pan's hand, red-hot chains shot out of the earth and wrapped around her forearms and calves, one after the other, forcing her to her knees and locking her in place. It sizzled and she felt her skin melt, though it left no scratch.

"I will ask you one last time: Are you sure?"

Shaking, she could barely move her head, yet she put on a forced smile. This time, everybody heard his voice, as it reverberated through the night.

"I told you I was," she said, her heart pounding with the fear conjured up by the images her mind was producing out of nowhere, "I'm not afraid."

Her voice was cracking, not just from the effort of speaking. She saw herself in a room, all alone in the dark, with only one light. Even at the tender age of seven, she knew that she would never leave that room, unless she said yes to this contract.

She had wanted to see her parents without even knowing who they were. She had been cold and hungry, as her own cries had echoed off the walls.

He could have left her and vanished, yet he didn't leave her side even for a second. In a place where she was all alone, the monster she was afraid of had become her only saving grace; her only friend.

There was a part of her that would never stop trembling in front of those eyes as a reminiscence of a pain long gone, but that was it.

No, she was not afraid of him. Not anymore. That was the truth she told herself and believed.

She had done it before, she could do it again. "I can do it," she choked out, "I, Rowena Dynari van Varnhagen, wish to make a covenant with the one they call Harbinger of Destruction, Pandora."

"Very well." He seemed so sad as she looked straight into his eyes.

His arm was raised, hand straight, razor-sharp claws pointed at her. It happened in a flash, with the force shaking her more than the pain, while coughing up a mouthful of blood.

He had pierced through her chest easily and came out with her heart still beating in his hand. "This is your leverage," he said, as he held it to his lips, "and with this, our pact is sealed."

It turned black and disintegrated like a lie. The sheer power of his Mana had suppressed her body to the point where even her death was halted.

Then he took a shining stone, as big as a fist, from a leather band around his neck, dangling just in front of the hole in his torso. A Mana Stone so clear it was translucent white.

For a moment, as her head hung, she had the ridiculous thought that she could now see her brother through her own torso, but before that, Pan had placed the stone where her heart had been.

Heat cycled through her body, beginning to close her wound, crawling into every fiber of her body to slowly, agonizingly disassemble her bones and muscles and rebuild them from the ground up.

She took the moment to get to her feet as the pressure in the area eased. With burning eyes and red-hot veins covering her face, she turned around unsteadily, each step tormenting and exhausting.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to sleep. She just wanted everything to stop. But it wasn't time for that now. As she turned, her hand lifted, manifesting chains that spat embers, they grabbed hold of the Grade 4 who had started throwing his arms and went crazy.

"Now!" she yelled at her brother, who had fallen to the ground in shock, after the Grade 4 had suddenly changed its behavior.

He responded, though disoriented, and stabbed the core he had been trying to reach for about five minutes. It felt like an eternity.

It almost felt embarrassing, as the once mighty Grade 4, who had just been freed from his control, was pacified with barely any resistance.

'Great... just a bit more.' Her new heart was beating painfully, trying to settle itself.

A single chain reached for the water user, who sighed and laughed as it missed the target. "Not today, I'm getting tired." That was all she heard, as she could no longer force her consciousness from fading away.