Murder and Plunder?

Alester in her red fox form stood atop the white horse, clamped the baboon's staff in her teeth, and shook her head as she fiddled with it.

Because it was far too large for a fox, it would clang down onto the white horse's back after only a short while.

"Do you like it that much?"

The white horse spoke helplessly, his voice steady and courteous. "Because it's your spoils of war?"

"I keep feeling like it's pretty strong..."

Alester bit down sideways on the baboon's staff, like a dog carrying a bone, and whimpered indistinctly, "But it seems a little hard to use..."

The white horse was helpless. All he could do was continue carrying the fox on his back as he gathered the legion.

The fox kept stepping on his back and refused to get down even when he told her to. Who exactly was the king of this legion, anyway...

Meanwhile, Alester was focused on tinkering with something.

Ever since she had killed the baboon, she had begun studying this staff.

Clown Laro had turned the ritual into an open-hand game from the very beginning... When most people's identities had been exposed, who benefited the most? Naturally, it was the Promoters of the Path of Transcendence.

Whether rituals or curses, both were "methods of overcoming the strong with the weak" that could only be fully effective when one was prepared.

Once the old mage's true name was exposed—even if only one fragment of it was revealed—it was enough to serve as an effective anchor for a curse.

Alester had Night Demon cast a curse on him, then followed the curse's traces all the way there and easily found the old mage, who was trying to remove the curse from himself.

In theory... killing the other party was