Heart's proxy looked blank for a moment.
In the brief few seconds after waking, she remembered what she needed to do.
She had detected Cup's scheme. She had learned a shocking secret. She knew.
That enormous ritual circuit was not meant to isolate Lotus City—or rather, that was not its only purpose!
The circuit's greatest purpose was to gather flesh and blood, to accumulate energy for Him!
He was still the same as before. They had been deceived back then!
After lying dormant for so long, He must have learned much and planned much.
She had to stop it. She had to tell them.
Yet just as she thought this, her thoughts seemed to break off. Then came static-like mosaics, and afterward, her resolute expression seemed to undergo some subtle change.
In the pitch-black room, her expression gradually deepened. A blood-colored shadow seemed to veil her once-clear eyes.
She thought, No, I was mistaken. I didn't see anything at all.
She had merely gone in for a look. She found nothing and came back out.
Heart's proxy sat up from the bed. In that brief span of time, her somewhat sinister expression had already returned to a perfectly natural one.
Within her, where no one could see, her innate circuit was glowing with a faint red light.
She pushed open the secret room's door, thinking that she should apologize to her friend. She had personally gone to Lotus City, yet found nothing.
Still, at least she had not died inside as the other party had predicted. That was already quite a good result, wasn't it?
Elsewhere, within a large city.
For several days in a row, the City Administration Bureau had been dispatching personnel to purge Cup's followers. They did not even spare ordinary people who had not yet fallen