"Yes, we are all safe," Leon said as Veronica arrived.

Her golden eyes glimmered for a brief second. She scanned him from head to toe, checking every inch of him with a precision that made his brows twitch.

After confirming he was fine, she nodded.

"Good. You do not seem to be in any harm."

Leon blinked. 'She really did run a CT scan on me.'

Eula stepped forward and bowed politely. "It is good to see you, Lady Veronica."

Veronica slowly turned to them. "The first and second princess, huh. What might you two be doing here?"

She paused for a moment. Her gaze sharpened, and she locked eyes with Eula's calm blue ones.

"You are supposed to be at the castle, are you not? I guess 'Aster' gave you two a free pass today."

"Huh?" Eula's eyes widened. Rinna's did as well.

It was not the way Veronica casually called the king by his first name that shocked them, but how she effortlessly exposed the fact that she already knew about their situation. Only a handful of people inside the royal castle were aware they had been grounded for two days.

Rinna silently wondered how far Veronica's reach extended. Knowing information that even many nobles did not know felt unbelievable.

But before the thought settled, Eula clicked her tongue.

"Oh? I was wondering what powerful force was behind all of this. Turns out it was you."

Her tone carried a light sneer, almost like she wanted to provoke a reaction.

Veronica tilted her head slightly, but her expression did not change at all.

"I did no such thing." She spoke.

Eula watched her closely, searching for any hint of tension, but Veronica's face remained the same.

Leon saw the exchange between them, he changed the subjects.

"Are the knights arriving?"

"Probably," Veronica nodded her head, "everyone saw it, they must be here any moment now. From the level of destruction, I guess even Aster would move at this rate."

Rinna's heart skipped. "Father…?"

Before any of them spoke anything, Veronica made one thing absolutely clear to Eula and Leon, after walking closer to them and whispering.

"This place will be full of high ranking officials soon. So hear me… none of you will speak about the dark mana."

She specially looked at Eula, and Leon. Only they have caught on to the strange mana earlier. And Leon probably had identified what that mana was earlier.

This made Eula step away from her. "You even know that?"

She spoke with disbelief, but Veronica did not react to it.

Eula had no idea that Veronica had already seen everything that happened in Tiara Town. The moment her heels touched the burnt ground, her skill had replayed the last thirty minutes of events inside her head. Every scream, every shift of mana, every footstep, every breath. She knows everything.

Leon let out a quiet breath.

"Alright, understood. I had no intention of mentioning anything either way. They would question how I even identified dark mana."

"Exactly," Veronica said. "The fewer questions they ask, the better. Leave things to me this time. Alright?"

She stepped back from them and turned to the assassin standing a few steps away. The woman's robe was still dripping blood from her shoulder.

"You," Veronica called. "Can you shadow jump one more time?"

The assassin stiffened. Her eyes trembled before she looked down at her own missing arm.

"N-no. I cannot. I used everything I had. I cannot even form the stance."

Veronica's gaze fell on the bloody stump where the arm used to be. She let out a small breath, raised her hand, and activated one of her skills.

[Temporal Rewrite]

A soft ripple spread through the air. Before anyone could understand what was happening, dense energy gathered around the assassin's shoulder. Blood rewound back into place, the bones shaped themselves, tissues reconnected, and in the span of a second, a complete arm formed again.

The assassin gasped loudly. "Ah…!"

Leon froze, Layla covered her mouth. Rinna's eyes shook like she had just seen a miracle, and even Eula's expression cracked for a brief second.

It was not healing, everyone could see that. This was something far beyond normal magic… It looked like time itself had been turned back for a single part of the body.

Veronica lowered her hand casually. "I restored it to how it was one hour ago. But do not celebrate. It is only temporary. After one hour, it will return to its original state."

The assassin lifted her restored hand and clenched it a few times. Her face looked relieved for a moment, then she lowered her gaze.

"How can I be of use to you, Lady Veronica?"

Veronica smiled faintly, pleased by her quick recovery.

"Go to Eclipse. Bring Professor Theo from the Alchemy Department. I need him here."

"Professor Theo?" the assassin repeated before bowing. "Understood. I will return shortly."

Her figure melted into the shadows and vanished.

Leon and Eula exchanged a single look. They already knew what Veronica was trying to confirm.

"Alchemy," Leon thought. "So it really was Vallahail's doing."

The corrupted mana core had bothered him from the beginning. Too many details did not add up. The boy's white core, the unnatural bruises, the perfect placement on the stage, and the exact timing of the crowd gathering. There were too many controlled variables for this to be random.

'She must have seen it all,' Leon thought quietly.

Veronica's skill was terrifying. If she used Time Trace on the entire street, then she had already replayed every event from the past half hour thousands of times inside her head. She must have caught details Leon never could.

Leon tried to list all the possible reasons behind such an extreme event.

'House Vallahail is at the top of the alchemy world,' he thought. 'They could have done something to force the core to evolve. But why corrupt it with dark mana?'

He rubbed his forehead.

'Sebastian Vallahail was cleared by the king. He has no motive to cause chaos right now. Unless something pressured him.'

Leon replayed the recent incidents one by one. The missing cases. The sudden political silence from Vallahail. The kingdom's strange decision to support him. The Authority declaring open war. The reassignment of Raizen. Too many puzzle pieces are there.

'They need a reason,' Leon thought. 'A perfect reason. A scapegoat that everyone already hates.'

Someone who was already being hunted. Someone whose very existence made the kingdom uneasy.

And someone the Authority had been desperately trying to pin down.

Leon's lips pulled into a slow grin as the final piece clicked into place.

"The Twilight Order," he muttered under his breath.

.

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[A/N: I don't believe we crossed 100 PS in just 6 hours, anyways, here's the promised 2 chapters.]

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