Northern Shore of the Conquest Sea, Telva. Under the cover of night, the city of Telva was steeped in stillness. In a small seaside villa on the outskirts, the faint light of a candle flickered within a room—illuminating a lone figure absorbed in reading. Seated by the window on a sofa, a handsome young man quietly read a book by the dim lamplight, the sound of waves drifting in through the window. His expression betrayed a faint trace of fatigue. As the ticking of the wall clock echoed through the room, time passed slowly. When the night deepened, the young man yawned. He took out a new pocket watch, checked the time, then closed the book and tucked it into his travel bag resting on a nearby cabinet. Afterward, he stood up, took a few steps into the washroom to freshen up, and returned to the bedroom. Undressing down to his underclothes, he extinguished the gas lamp and slipped under the covers of the soft bed. To the rhythm of the sea outside, he soon drifted into slumber. Even as he slept, the wall clock ticked quietly on. The moon climbed high into the sky, and Telva’s night grew even darker. About an hour after the young man had fallen asleep, a strange disturbance began to ripple through the silence of the room. From the once-smooth wall, an unnatural bulge emerged. As it grew, a figure silently slipped through. Without a sound, a slender man in black clothing and a face mask emerged from the wall. After scanning the darkened room, his gaze fixed on the opposite wall. That wall too began to ripple strangely. Moments later, a second figure—taller and broader—slipped through just as silently, standing firmly on the floor. By unnatural means, the two masked intruders had entered this private residence. Exchanging a glance, they began moving slowly and soundlessly toward the bed. Reaching the bedside, one of them stared at the sleeping youth for a long moment before pulling a small bottle from his pocket. He gently held it beneath the man’s nose and twisted the cap. A white vapor hissed out, quickly inhaled by the sleeping youth. After confirming the vapor had been fully inhaled, the man capped the bottle again and waited silently for a few minutes. Then he snapped his fingers by the youth’s ear. When the youth didn’t stir and continued sleeping deeply, both men breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “It’s done. He’s entered deep sleep,” the smaller man said, tucking the bottle away. “That was easier than expected. This is the guy we were told to be extra cautious of? Doesn’t seem like much. Just like all the others we’ve taken care of. Didn’t need both of us after all,” said the taller man with a scoff. “We’re just being cautious. Anyone who can afford to buy three mystical texts in one go is probably no ordinary Beyonder. Looks like the boss was overthinking it,” the smaller man replied, glancing around the room once more. “Let’s move. Be quick—strip everything off him, then separate the goods from the person. Nothing must be left on him.” With that, they began working swiftly. The taller one went to search the travel bag, while the smaller began rifling through the overcoat on the hanger. Afterward, he moved on to the sleeping youth, pulling back the covers and beginning to search his underclothes. “Found the mystical texts. Other than that, just a pistol and a bit of Devouring Sigil. Doesn’t look like he has anything special. Kind of a broke guy, honestly. You?” asked the man rummaging through the luggage, his lamp casting a soft orange glow. “Nothing special on my side either… but I’ll scan him head to toe before we confirm,” the smaller man muttered. As he spoke, he began stripping the youth carefully, removing each item with precision. But when he removed the last layer and saw the man’s chest, his brows furrowed. “What the hell is this…” What appeared was a male torso covered in deep, crisscrossing scars—many clearly old and some even in life-threatening spots. Seeing this, the smaller intruder immediately felt something was wrong. “This isn’t right… something’s off about his body. It looks like he—” He never finished the sentence. Suddenly, the youth who should have been in deep sleep opened his eyes wide. In that moment—taking advantage of the intruder’s turned head—he shot up from the bed and grabbed the smaller man in a crushing grip, locking him in a hold with terrifying strength. At the same time, a jolt of intense pain and numbing shock coursed through the man’s body. His entire frame began to tremble uncontrollably, eyes wide in agony. Yet even as the pain surged, he didn’t immediately lose consciousness. His struggling hadn’t completely stopped—and the man named Brandon had no choice but to grit his teeth and hold on with all his might. “Mmgh mmgh mmgh mmgh...” Faced with the sudden turn of events, the smaller man began to struggle with all his might, trying to break free from the unexpected hold. But the youth’s strength was overwhelming, and his efforts were futile. Meanwhile, the burlier man, who had been searching through the luggage, froze in shock for a moment before quickly dropping what he was doing and drawing a small knife, intending to rush over to help. Just then, the wardrobe in the room suddenly swung open, and out sprang several tall corpse marionettes dressed in a variety of outfits. The leader among them held a pistol. Upon seeing the burly man move to aid his comrade, the corpse marionette immediately raised the gun and fired two shots without hesitation. The shots hit their mark, striking the man square in the chest and sending him tumbling backward. The corpse marionettes surged forward to subdue him. But to their surprise, the burly man still managed to move. Before the corpse marionettes could reach him, he staggered to his feet and dodged their first assault. As the first wave missed its mark, the marionettes launched a second attack, rushing toward him en masse, trying to trap him in a corner. Realizing this, the man pressed against the wall—and seamlessly slipped into it. In an instant, he vanished, leaving the marionettes grabbing at empty air. Though he had disappeared, he didn’t stay gone for long. Moments later, he reemerged—this time from the floor near Brandon and the still-struggling smaller man. Rising silently, he plunged his knife toward Brandon in a decisive ambush, aiming to kill and free his comrade. The blade sliced through Brandon’s arm, severing it cleanly. The youth immediately lost his hold on the smaller man. But just as the dismembered arm began to fall, something strange happened—the limb reattached itself mid-air, knitting seamlessly back into place without spilling a single drop of blood. Brandon remained locked in place, gripping the smaller man tightly, as if the amputation had never happened. The burly man froze in disbelief. But he didn’t have time to dwell on it. He stabbed forward again, this time aiming for Brandon’s neck. The blade plunged in—but instead of collapsing, Brandon remained upright. Worse yet, a strange jolt of pain traveled from Brandon’s body back through the knife, making the attacker’s hand twitch involuntarily. That was the opening the wardrobe marionettes needed. They surged forward and tackled the man, piling on him with sheer force. This time, he couldn’t escape. Pinned to the ground, he struggled violently, but without being able to touch the walls or floor, his phasing ability was useless. He was completely subdued. With both intruders now captured, the rest was simple. The marionettes clamped their hands over the men’s mouths and noses, cutting off their air. Despite the intruders’ desperate muffled struggles, their limbs eventually went limp. Once they were completely motionless, the marionettes released their grip, ending the brief but intense skirmish. Far away in a hotel suite, Dorothy let out a long sigh as she watched through Brandon’s eyes. “Whew... finally dealt with. A lot more complications than expected... I didn’t think they’d send two Wall Walkers.” She rubbed her temples, the brief relief on her face giving way to a furrowed brow. Though the trap had succeeded, the outcome left her dissatisfied. It wasn’t the result she had hoped for. “Judging by their conversation, they planned to take both Brandon and his stuff… But I didn’t expect they’d undress him completely before doing so.” Dorothy had originally planned to let them take Brandon’s body back to their base. But when they began to undress him and saw the fatal scars across his body, she realized they’d likely figure out Brandon was a corpse marionette. So she made the call to strike preemptively. Yet even that didn’t go as smoothly as hoped. “These two Wall Walkers... they have noticeably higher resistance to electricity than most Beyonders. When I used Flowing Current Form on the skinny one, it didn’t knock him out immediately.” “Back on the Shimmering Pearl, that same current was enough to take out a Hydromancer. But against these guys, it barely fazed them. Is it the Stone aspect of their path—hardening their bodies and insulating them?” Because the shock didn’t instantly incapacitate the small man, Brandon—who was buffed with Devouring Sigil—was forced to keep restraining him instead of moving to intercept the second attacker. This stretched the fight out longer than planned. “But the most critical issue—my marionette landed two clean shots on the burly one as soon as it exited the wardrobe, and that guy just brushed them off and phased through a wall. It’s like the bullets did nothing. Aren’t Wall Walkers supposed to be Shadow primary, Stone auxiliary? Does an Apprentice-rank hardened skin really tank bullets?” Still skeptical, Dorothy had one of the marionettes peel back the burly intruder’s clothes to inspect the bullet wounds. She found a web of fractures around the impact sites, with faint traces of blood—an injury she recognized. She’d seen this kind of trauma before—on the Bonesmiths under Deer Skull in Igwynt—but they were Black Earth-rank hardened skin Beyonders. Dorothy had fired at the Wall Walker thinking Apprentice-rank hardening wouldn’t withstand bullets. She was wrong. He not only survived, he escaped—if he hadn’t returned to rescue his partner, she wouldn’t have had a second chance to take him down. In short, the abnormal toughness and electric resistance of these two Wall Walkers had thrown a wrench in her plan and forced her to burn through extra spirituality. When Brandon lost his arm during the scuffle, Dorothy had used Damage Transfer to shift the injury onto another, unused marionette. This allowed Brandon to maintain his grip on the smaller man—but it cost her several points of Chalice spirituality. “A cost I wouldn’t have had to pay if I’d judged their strength correctly…” “No matter how you look at it, it’s now absolutely certain that the clock shop sold me an item with a marking sigil embedded in it on purpose—to screw me over. They marked the goods to track the buyer’s location, then came to drug the target, loot them, or even abduct them? ...Is this really something the White Craftsmen’s Guild would do? It’s one thing to scam people for money—but kidnapping? What’s the point of that?” So thought Dorothy grimly. She then shifted her attention to the Literary Sea Logbook sitting on the table beside her. She’d already reported her suspicions about something being wrong with the White Craftsmen’s Guild’s Telva outpost to Beverly via the Logbook earlier in the day. Before she left Tivian, Dorothy had even prepared a contact page specifically for her rather likable neighbor. But this was the first time she had tried to use it—and Beverly had taken way too long to respond. Unlike with Vania and the others, Dorothy couldn’t leave a Marionette Mark on Beverly, so there was no way to notify her in real-time. All she could do was send the message and wait for Beverly to check it. Since she hadn’t received any response the entire afternoon, Dorothy had prepared a contingency trap—just in case something went wrong. The villa Brandon had been staying in was one Dorothy had scouted out in Telva’s coastal suburbs: a seaside house whose owner was away, completely unoccupied. After gaining access, she had Brandon move in and pose as the resident. That night, she waited to see if the marking sigil in the mystical text would lure anyone in. She hadn’t expected it to attract two Wall Walkers. “Wall Walkers with absurd durability, a White Craftsmen outpost that’s acting sketchy, and customers being targeted like crops to be harvested... Looks like I’ve really stumbled into something tied to Stone. To get to the bottom of this, I’ll need to get in touch with Beverly. Hopefully she actually checks the book I gave her regularly…” While her puppets cleaned up the battlefield at the villa, Dorothy opened her Literary Sea Logbook and flipped to Beverly’s contact page. She had already written down all her daytime observations about the suspicious clock shop. Now all she could do was wait for a reply. As she stared at the page, wondering how long Beverly would take, new text suddenly began to materialize on the once-blank sheet—a series of perfectly typed characters, as if struck by an invisible typewriter. It was Beverly’s reply. Dorothy’s eyes lit up. She’d been waiting nearly all day, and finally, finally, there was a response. She perked up immediately and began reading. — “Good evening, dear neighbor. I hope I’m not too late in replying. I only check this thing about once every three days, so... hopefully the information you sent isn’t from three days ago, haha.” “First, I hope you’re enjoying your time in Cassatia. I’ve read about your experience in Telva—my sincerest apologies that you ended up buying something so... irregular from what was supposed to be our guild. If the item really was sold to you by the Craftsmen’s Guild, you’d be entitled to considerable compensation. But from what you’ve described, I don’t think it was actually us you were dealing with.” “Rather, I suspect you were dealing with a different bunch entirely—some dirty, vile, bottom-feeding scum…” “They’re called the Dark Gold Society. Judging by what you wrote, it’s very likely our poor little Telva branch has already been secretly infiltrated, devoured, and replaced by them. They’re probably using our name right now to recklessly exploit the local mystical community—just as they’ve done in other cities before.” “You might not be familiar with this ‘Dark Gold Society,’ so just remember this one thing: in the eyes of our supposedly neutral Craftsmen’s Guild, they’re among the very few who are considered mortal enemies. They are the so-called ‘merchants’ who infest the mysticism world.”