Liuzi, who was acting as bait, sent us a warning.
She had been attacked by a group of Shadow Soldiers, but she hadn't seen the Avatar of the Great Will, so she told us not to make any rash moves.
And so, we continued hiding beneath the medical department.
"Why did it attack A-Liu?"
Achernar asked quietly, and I answered:
"It wasn't an attack. It was a probe. It wanted to know whether Liuzi was really the Proxy, and withdrew once it found out she wasn't."
The newly reborn SpiCa opened her eyes just then.
"Something isn't right."
"Hmm? What else is wrong?"
"Let me ask you this: where did the darkness that formed these Shadow Soldiers come from?"
SpiCa pointed at the black-and-white ribbons stretching away in every direction, then continued:
"I gathered up all the darkness in Zodiacal to accelerate the maturation of my own Witch Persona. There shouldn't be this much darkness left beneath the dome... doesn't that strike you as strange?"
"Could the hole opened by Enheria's Proxy still be unsealed?"
Mom offered that guess, but Aldebaran shook her head.
"No way. It was closed ages ago~ How could the concentration of darkness have dropped if it hadn't been? Maybe that avatar has some special ability..."
"Special ability?"
Aldebaran pointed at me. "If Miluno can convert darkness, why can't it use magic to produce new darkness? Light and darkness can be converted into each other. You can't be the only one allowed to do that!"
"...That does make things a little tricky."
"No, that's not our only problem."
Alpha, who had been silent, suddenly looked up and asked with a serious expression:
"Don't you think the temperature is dropping?"
"Huh?!"
At some point, the temperature had dropped enough to become uncomfortable.
I thought for a moment,