"Does Elder know what is the cause of this change?" Alice asked, her expression unusually serious, her voice laced with both urgency and restraint.
The Whisperer turned his gaze towards her, his ancient eyes calm yet unreadable. "Indeed," he said, his tone quiet but firm, "I know the cause."
The moment those words left his lips, a visible shift came over both Nichole and Alice. Their expressions, once shadowed by confusion, brightened with relief and anticipation.
Without wasting a second, they leaned forward, voices overlapping in their haste.
"Elder, just tell us who it is! We promise—we'll do everything we can to eliminate him!"
Watching the two saints speak with such eagerness, like overexcited children chasing answers they were never meant to hold, the old man's lips curled into a faint smile.
For a moment, his mind drifted to the days long past, when these two stood before him as wide-eyed students, clumsy and curious, brimming with questions and dreams.
