Rain poured down over the wilderness.
The muddy ground gleamed a ghastly white beneath the lightning. Ian and Kam had only just gained their footing outside the city when a bone-piercing chill struck from behind.
"Found you!"
Through the curtain of rain, a scarlet figure emerged from a rift.
The Ghost Bride.
Dragging five pitch-black coffins behind her, she left frost blooming over the ground with every step, as though death itself were closing in on them. Her red veil whipped wildly in the gale, her blood-filled mouth slightly open, crimson eyes fixed on Ian like a hunter watching fleeing prey.
"She... she caught up?!" Kam's voice trembled as he nearly collapsed to the ground. "Even Apparition couldn't shake her?!"
Ian's expression darkened. He had thought the distance outside the city would be enough to lose her, but her existence seemed to transcend the limits of space—she was not "pursuing" them, but "inevitably arriving."
"She isn't relying on speed, nor is she tracking us," Ian murmured. "She has been 'defined' as someone who must find me. As long as I remain on this land, she will appear."
The Ghost Bride raised a hand. Blood threads lashed through the rain curtain like whips, shooting straight for Ian's throat.
In response.
Ian remained calm.
He was a wizard with trump cards.
And he had more than one.
Ian knew that if he used one of his trump cards, he could certainly escape this predicament. But seeing that the Ghost Bride had caught up, he still wanted to study the method behind her creation through conventional means.
That was precisely why.
The Ghost Bride's shriek tore through the night sky, her rotting wedding gown churning beneath the moonlight like a living thing. Ian could feel the surrounding structure of space and time warping—the