Colmar stood where the three young wizards had vanished, head lowered as she stared at the utterly ordinary bluestone slab beneath her feet. Her brow furrowed, and she said nothing.
Other than her, there was not another soul on the street.
Although today was the Magic Ban Festival, as the Great Sage of the Northern District, she possessed nearly unlimited authority throughout the entire district. Clearing out the whole street had been effortless. Several adjacent streets had also been emptied. More than a dozen hunting teams under Genie's Hut patrolled beyond the boundary she had drawn, driving away every passerby who tried to approach.
Strangely, yet just as she had expected, neither the Trident Sword nor First University paid any attention to this scene.
The surroundings were utterly silent.
Yet in Colmar's vision, the bluestone slab beneath her feet was blooming with an indescribable color. Like a volcano on the verge of eruption, magic power as hot as molten lava churned violently beneath the slab around bright singularities, restless and eager to burst forth the next second and swallow everything around it.
Fei Rui lay sprawled across her shoulder, its whole body curled beneath the witch's silver-white hair. It gestured with its tiny paws and chattered noisily in her ear.
"Put some strength into it!"
It shouted, stomping its little paws furiously, looking as if it wished it could act in the witch's place. "Even if it's just a sandbox, it's still a Small World! That little bit of magic power you just used was nothing more than scratching an itch... Forget breaking the dimensional barrier—you haven't even scratched its skin!"
"Do Small Worlds have skin?"
Colmar made the joke, but her expression grew increasingly grave. Her eyes remained fixed on the bluestone slab, shining like two brilliant stars, and