Soul solidification

"I have to say, your belated suggestion has made my already foul mood even worse, Jennifer."

Tracy vented her temper thoroughly, her exquisite face brimming with displeasure toward the old woman in black robes.

The surrounding fire elemental particles grew intensely active in response to her fluctuating emotions, crackling and popping.

Yet the old woman merely watched her with a gaze full of respect and indulgent affection.

It was the look one gave a young dragon throwing a tantrum.

Jennifer said gently, "It seems our Lady Tracy encountered something else in there. Was that the real reason for your displeasure?"

"Yes. A lowly, weak, and vulgar insect."

Tracy folded her arms and spoke coldly.

"Only the remote, barbaric soil of the southern continent could breed something so filthy and ugly."

"Vulgar?"

Jennifer, the old woman in black robes, precisely caught a word the girl rarely used.

It was taboo in the aristocratic lexicon. A sacrilege.

Her old face, wrinkled like withered bark, instantly turned cold.

The kindly old woman vanished in an instant, replaced by a terrifying wizard who had emerged from mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

The air around them collapsed and warped in an instant.

The gravitational field changed. Loose stones rose from the ground against gravity, then disintegrated into powder.

"It sounds as though you suffered an unforgivable insult. Would you like me to do anything?"

Her tone promised to erase not only the offender and his entire family, but even the history of his existence.

Only then did Tracy realize she had said too much. A few barely perceptible traces of pink appeared on her porcelain cheeks.

It was the shame of having her pride and self-respect wounded.

But it quickly faded.

She was the Ash Witch. She owed no one an explanation for