In the daytime, around the port district of East Tivian, at a certain street intersection, what was once a bustling yet orderly road had now descended into chaos. A runaway carriage barreled onto the sidewalk without slowing down, crashing into the roadside. The vehicle overturned, the horses neighed frantically, and a streetlamp was nearly toppled by the swaying carriage. A storefront was destroyed, several nearby pedestrians were injured, and crowds of onlookers quickly gathered around the scene. In the distance, police officers blew sharp whistles as they rushed over to restore order. While everyone’s attention was focused on the accident, John’s gaze was elsewhere. Standing by the road, he looked in shock at the carriage before him. Although the coachman enthusiastically invited him aboard, John, still reeling from the earlier dangers, hesitated to accept. That was until he saw the seemingly meaningless scratches on the carriage door distort once again into letters he recognized. “Get in…” Seeing the mysterious writing that only he could perceive, John swallowed hard. After a brief inner struggle, he chose to open the door and climb into the hired carriage. Though he still had no idea where the cryptic messages came from, they had saved his life every time. In this danger-filled world—where something seemed intent on killing him—all he could do now was trust the writing. It was his only lifeline. Once inside, John promptly shut the door and sat down. The coachman sitting up front soon asked. “Where to, sir?” “North District, the Poplar Road intersection.” “Alright, please hold on.” After confirming the destination, the coachman immediately cracked the reins, sending the carriage swiftly forward. As the horses picked up speed, a faintly sinister smile curled the driver’s lips—unnoticed by the passenger inside. Even seated, John could not relax. He anxiously glanced through the window at the passing scenery, wary of any sudden danger. Only after nothing happened did he finally allow himself a silent breath of relief. Once a little more at ease, John began to ponder how to make sense of the situation. If this carriage displayed those same lifesaving messages, then perhaps the owner of the carriage was connected to them—maybe even the one who wrote them. This thought stirred a desire in John to try speaking with the driver. He wanted to probe—see if the man knew anything about the crisis he was trapped in or the broader situation. Just as John was about to speak and turned his head forward, he saw something familiar. On the wooden panel opposite him, the old scratches unexpectedly began to shift and rearrange on their own—just like on the carriage door earlier—reforming into new sentences. “Don’t talk to the coachman. He is not on your side. There’s a pen hidden under your seat. Use it to draw this symbol somewhere concealed on your hand. Then wait patiently in here for the opportunity.” “Not on my side…” The new text sent a chill through John. If the coachman wasn’t an ally, why had the message told him to get in? Wasn’t this leading him into danger? For a moment, John was once again deeply confused and anxious. But this wasn’t the time to seek answers. He had already followed the text’s instructions by getting into the carriage—there was no turning back. All he could do was continue obeying. He reached beneath the seat as the message had directed and, sure enough, found a small pen. He then looked back to the newly revealed symbol beneath the text—a reversed pentagram, with a goblet and an eye-like figure at the center. After memorizing the strange symbol, John quietly drew it onto the inner side of his left forearm, beneath his sleeve. Then he put the pen away, exhaled deeply, and began the long wait, using steady breaths to calm his nerves. The wait was torturous. As the carriage rolled onward, John stared out the window, watching the streets blur by, hoping for the “turning point” the writing had promised. But waiting in complete uncertainty, unable to foresee what would happen next, left him deeply on edge. All he could do was silently pray that everything would be alright. Follow current ɴᴏᴠᴇʟs on novel·fire·net Time ticked by. The carriage steadily made its way toward the outskirts of East Tivian. After passing countless streets and alleys, the view outside the window suddenly opened up. The tall buildings vanished, replaced by a wide river glistening with flowing water. As it turned out, the carriage had reached the banks of the Moonstream River, heading across a bridge toward the other side—the city center. “Strange… Do I need to cross the Moonstream River to reach Poplar Road?” John frowned as he looked at the boats sailing along the broad river. His confusion hadn’t yet cleared when— Suddenly, a shrill whinny from the horse sent a jolt through him. A powerful force slammed him into the seat. Without warning, the carriage had accelerated wildly—not toward the far end of the bridge, but diagonally toward the railing! With a deafening crash, the runaway carriage veered off its path, slamming straight into the wooden railing at the side of the bridge. The frenzied horses, seemingly driven mad, smashed through the barrier with brute force. The coachman’s mouth curled into a wicked grin as the carriage, massive and heavy, flew off the bridge—soaring into the air above the river. Then, it plunged into the churning river below. “What the—?!” Inside the carriage, John’s eyes widened in horror. The sudden drop caused his stomach to lurch. He let out an involuntary shout. A massive splash engulfed him, and the world around him flipped and rolled as the impact slammed him hard against the interior wall of the carriage. Pain surged through his whole body. John gritted his teeth through the pain wracking his body, forcing himself upright in the overturned carriage as he struggled to open the door. But no matter how he tried, the door seemed as if it had been welded shut—completely immovable. At that moment, river water began gushing in through the seams of the carriage door. Carriages of this era were typically wooden and not so easy to sink, even after falling into a river. However, something seemed different about this one—something had clearly been tampered with. As soon as it hit the water, it began taking on water rapidly. After the two crazed horses flailed a couple of times and sank, the carriage too began to descend at a visible pace. Just as onlookers were starting to gather at the broken railing on the bridge above, more than half of the carriage had already submerged. Water poured in through every crevice of the carriage. In no time, it had reached John’s waist. He struggled frantically, trying every possible method to open the door—but it was all in vain. In his desperation, John suddenly spotted a figure outside the window. It was the very same coachman who had brought him aboard. Now, the man stood calmly outside the glass, silently watching John panic inside the flooding carriage. John shouted and banged on the window, pleading for help. But the coachman remained completely unmoved. He watched silently as the water level rose and slowly engulfed John’s body, watched as John struggled, as the panic gave way to breathlessness—and finally, as consciousness left him. John’s face turned blue, his limbs limp, drifting like a corpse in the carriage—a prison cell now nearly fully submerged. Once the coachman confirmed that John was no longer moving, he gave a silent nod. Then, with practiced ease, he dove beneath the water, slipping away from the sightlines of the bystanders above the bridge. He swam quietly toward the riverbank, leaving John and the carriage to continue sinking toward the riverbed. Eventually, the carriage hit the bottom, stirring up a cloud of murky silt—just another piece of river trash resting on the riverbed. In the darkness of this hopeless prison, John’s body floated motionless like a corpse. But just as it seemed he might never breathe again—his fingers twitched. A moment later, his tightly shut eyes slowly opened. The panic and terror that had once marked his expression were completely gone—replaced with calm and clarity. He took a deep breath, inhaling river water into his lungs, then exhaled it—like breathing the current itself. Turning to the door that had trapped him, he reached out and slammed his palm against it. With a force far beyond what he’d had before, he shattered the lock and forced the door open. Without hesitation, John swam out of the carriage. Staying beneath the surface, he swam along the riverbed, carefully avoiding the gazes of the crowd above. He moved in the exact opposite direction from where the coachman had fled. While John made his underwater escape, the scene above was drawing a large crowd. On the bridge and along the riverbank, panicked onlookers pointed and whispered about the terrifying scene they had just witnessed. Even patrons at a nearby teahouse pressed against the windows to get a glimpse of the commotion. But in one corner of that same teahouse, a young girl in a brown vest and light-yellow skirt, wearing white stockings and Mary Janes, quietly sipped her afternoon tea—completely undisturbed by the events outside. “With this… you should finally be safe now, Professor… at least for the time being.” Dorothy spoke softly after taking another sip of her black tea. At that moment, she was simultaneously controlling John underwater, guiding him toward a safe landing point, while admiring the street view outside. In the time it took to enjoy an afternoon tea, she had once again, without anyone noticing, thwarted another plot by the Eight-Spired Nest. Of course, as far as they knew, their plan had succeeded. After deducing from the sparse clues at the Royal Crown Archives that the Eight-Spired Nest might already know about John’s existence—and may be planning to act—Dorothy began her countermeasures. She arrived in the port district a day ahead of John and deployed her micro corpse marionettes throughout the area, beginning a high-intensity sweep for any trace of the Eight-Spired Nest. First, she obtained records from the school regarding the ship John was taking and his expected time of arrival. Using this as a base, she investigated all port staff on duty that day and those responsible for the relevant docking areas. Eventually, she found a trail—an agent doing reconnaissance—which led her to the covert team organizing the attack. Once she found them, everything else fell into place. Since the Eight-Spired Nest didn’t want to create a big scene that might alert the Church or the Serenity Bureau that their power had returned to Tivian, they intended to kill John in an “accident”—just like they had done with Misha before. That way, the death would appear mundane, with no ties to the mystical world, allowing them to avoid scrutiny. After all, they could deceive the Serenity Bureau for now, but not the Church. If the Church caught wind, their operations would face significant obstacles. Because of the Nest’s principle of stealth, Dorothy decided to play along without exposing herself. This time, she employed unorthodox methods to save John. Simply put, Dorothy had her corpse marionettes write phrases in Prittish across various locations in the port. The script was configured so that only John could see it. This allowed her to warn him away from each of the Nest’s staged accidents: Plan A (falling hook), Plan B (slow-acting poison), Plan C (carriage accident)—all of which were thus foiled. Finally, the Nest resorted to Plan D: river "accident"—which was exactly what Dorothy wanted them to do. From the Nest’s perspective, the plan succeeded. John boarded their prepared carriage, and it was driven straight into the river. Meanwhile, Dorothy had preemptively written another message inside the carriage, instructing John to draw a Marionette Mark on himself. After John lost consciousness from drowning, Dorothy activated the mark to control his body, channeling the effects of a Water-Breathing sigil and a Devouring Sigil through spiritual threads. This enabled John to breathe underwater while gaining a Chalice constitution, which not only made him harder to kill but also gave him the strength to break open the carriage door and escape through aquatic evasion. Since the Eight-Spired Nest operatives lacked Water-Breathing ability, they couldn’t remain deep underwater to confirm John’s condition. Once they saw him lose consciousness, they assumed he was dead and withdrew. Naturally, they would report him as deceased. “Devouring... Feast... Water-Breathing… These Chalice sigils really are each more useful than the last… And then there’s that lifesaving Heart-Devouring Cane-Sword, and the Corpse Marionette Ring I started with… not to mention the Deep Blue Heart. Honestly, I wouldn’t have made it this far without the Afterbirth Cult… Thanks, truly…” Dorothy mused inwardly as she mentally reviewed the events. Of all her enemies, those from the Afterbirth faction had ironically helped her the most—whether they meant to or not. “Now that the Eight-Spired Nest has wrapped up this operation, they’ll likely report back. Unfortunately for them, their hideouts in Tivian proper are minimal... their real bases are all outside the city. Likely to avoid detection by Layered Vision. They’re being much more cautious this time around…” Dorothy recalled how she once tried to trace their strongholds while following one of their underlings, only to discover that the Eight-Spired Nest had positioned all critical operations outside the city. This likely meant the current leader in Tivian was a Crimson high-ranking member. To avoid detection by Layered Vision, they had established the base far from urban zones. Dorothy didn’t dare leave the city with such a powerful Crimson present. Within the city, Dorothy could easily suppress the Eight-Spired Nest thanks to her corpse marionettes’ powerful detection abilities. With the upper hand in intelligence, she was nearly unstoppable. But once outside the city, the Crimson-rank leader could detect and even capture her marionettes to trace them back to her—so she didn’t risk it. That said, she wasn’t in a hurry. The overall situation in Tivian still favored her. Now that John Acheson was in her hands, this moment could be her opportunity—to uncover the information the Eight-Spired Nest most desperately wanted to hide.