The moment he touched it, a deep-red magic array sprang upright vertically.
The Red Crystal, twice as large as Iver, was not even half as tall as the array's radius.
Under the array's reflection, the silver-white sealing runes were instantly dispelled.
But no blood spilled from the Red Crystal. Instead, it was covered in cracks and directly disintegrated.
At the instant the Red Crystal container collapsed, the magic array howled through the sleeping Yulia and appeared behind her.
A large blank circle lay at the center of the dark-red array. Suddenly, a complicated deep-red butterfly pattern emerged within it, as though the array had brought something out while passing through Yulia's body.
A pitch-black circular mark was branded onto the central circle, covering the butterfly.
Iver instinctively scooped Yulia up with one hand, while his other hand remained extended forward, maintaining the array perpendicular to the ground.
The next moment, the array began collapsing from its outermost ring.
It contracted ring by ring, until only a deep-red circle about as tall as a person remained in the center. The butterfly pattern inside it continued to shift faintly, as though breathing.
Then the circle suddenly contracted to its limit—and Iver awoke from the illusion.
The dark-red chains withdrew into Iver's body.
The butterfly circle that had previously existed only in the illusion now floated between the two of them, its diameter only about the width of a palm and parallel to the ground.
Two brand-new Tarot Cards were slowly printed out of thin air, one above and one below. They floated on either side of the circle, with red lightning connecting them in the middle, as if some magnetic force were drawing them gradually closer.
The lower card, the Sun, should have depicted a naked child sitting atop a white horse,