"If you weren't the one who saved us," Anastasia snapped, her voice trembling with rage and fear, "then who did?"
Her body continued to shake, fists clenched as she glared at the man beside her. The trauma of watching her homeland vanish into fire still clawed at her mind, but right now, she needed an answer.
Mr. Ace said nothing.
He stood still, his gaze fixed on the glowing circle that had saved them both. His silence wasn't denial—it was confusion. He didn't know the answer either.
Then, a voice echoed through the smoke.
"We... saved you."
Anastasia and Mr. Ace turned sharply. A figure approached through the burning dust, walking without haste.
But he wasn't walking on the ground.
The terrain had been scorched and blown away, leaving a shallow crater where earth once stood. Yet this man's feet never touched it. With each step forward, a golden divine circle appeared beneath his foot, holding him in the air for a split second before vanishing as he moved forward.
Anastasia's breath caught in her throat. Mr. Ace narrowed his eyes, his body tensing.
As the smoke cleared around him, more figures came into view—ten of them, dressed exactly the same. Robes as white as snow flowed behind them, but unlike the first man, the cloth covering their faces shimmered with divine yellow light.
And behind them, three more emerged—each carrying a towering flag. On the fabric was a symbol neither of them could mistake:
Two hands holding a lotus.
Mr. Ace's eyes widened, a tremor in his breath. Anastasia stepped back, her knees almost buckling.
"The Church of Mother Goddess Arlshuwiya...?" she whispered.
She could barely speak. The words clawed out of her throat like a question that shouldn't exist.
"What are they... doing here?"
Mr. Ace didn't answer.
The symbol. The robes. The divine presence.
It all pointed to one terrifying truth.
They were saved by the Church.
But why?
---
"Why did you save us?" Mr. Ace asked flatly, his voice calm but edged with suspicion. His eyes remained locked on the man hovering in front of him.
The white-robed figure didn't respond. He simply raised a hand and pointed—not at Mr. Ace, but at the black fedora resting on his head.
Mr. Ace blinked, confused. Slowly, he reached up, took off the hat, and turned it over.
His eyes widened.
There—stitched neatly into the inner band—was the symbol of the Church of Mother Goddess Arlshuwiya: two hands gently cradling a lotus.
What...?
His thoughts raced. That symbol wasn't his. He wasn't part of the Church. Then it struck him.
The hat.
It belonged to the man he'd saved by splitting the massive concrete slab—the first time he met Anastasia. That man had been praying, whispering words to the Mother Goddess. A devoted follower.
And this hat… carried the mark of his faith.
Mr. Ace looked over at Anastasia. He stepped closer, eyes narrowing as he studied the sun hat she wore—crafted by him through Playtime, shaped from the fedora as its base.
His jaw tightened.
The same symbol. Faint, but there. Copied with every detail.
When he'd made her that hat, he hadn't just duplicated the structure—he'd unknowingly transferred the Church's insignia along with it.
That was why they had been spared.
Not by choice.
Not by belief.
But by mistake.
Mr. Ace's eyes drifted back to the robed figures. Their feet hovered inches above the ground, divine circles forming and fading beneath every step.
"They thought we were followers," he muttered.
Anastasia, still trembling, looked at him. "What?"
He met her gaze, voice cold. "They saved us... because they thought we were theirs."
The white-robed man's eyes moved sharply, focusing on the strange black masks both Mr. Ace and Anastasia wore—each bearing the number forty-seven. His gaze lingered on their dark robes, silent in the heavy smoke.
Assassins. There was no mistaking it.
"Are you both assassins?" the man finally asked, his voice calm but firm.
Mr. Ace didn't answer immediately. He narrowed his eyes beneath the mask, his tone composed but edged. "Why don't you introduce yourself first?"
A brief silence followed. The wind whispered through scorched rubble.
Then the white-robed man gave a shallow nod. "Apologies for not introducing myself earlier," he said. "I'm Sergei, a bishop of the Church of Mother Goddess Arlshuwiya."
He turned slightly, motioning behind him with a graceful hand. "These ten behind me… are The Pillars."
Mr. Ace tilted his head. "What does that mean?"
Sergei didn't hesitate. "The Pillars are divine mages of the Church—soldiers in both name and power. They serve as protectors of the faith, guardians of our people, and enforcers of divine will."
Mr. Ace's eyes flicked to the ten robed figures, each one glowing faintly with the golden hue of the divine circles underfoot. Their faces remained hidden, unmoving, silent. Power radiated from them—not loud, not overwhelming—but ancient, disciplined, and precise.
He said nothing in return, but his hand subtly shifted closer to the wand in his robe.
Mr. Ace reached up, fitting the black fedora snugly on his head once more. The symbol hidden beneath its brim still burned quietly in his thoughts. But now, he let that slip to the back of his mind.
With one hand adjusting the hat, the other lifted his wand high into the air.
"Now," he said, voice steady and theatrical, "allow me to introduce ourselves."
Sergei said nothing—no gesture, no word—simply watching, his divine circle still pulsing beneath his feet.
Mr. Ace took a half-step forward and extended his arm dramatically.
"I'm The Mad Magician, Mr. Ace," he said, the name crackling with pride. Then he pointed toward Anastasia without looking at her. "And this beautiful lady here... is The Patriot, Ms. Blaze."
Anastasia's eyes darted toward him in surprise at the title—beautiful lady?—but she remained silent. Her body still trembled slightly from the shock of everything, but her eyes now locked on him with a mix of confusion and admiration.
This is the best name I could come up with for her.
Then—thunk—he tapped the wand against his forehead. A soft whoomph echoed as his body began to rise. Slowly, steadily, he lifted off the ground, emerging from the glowing protection of the divine circle.
Anastasia—now Ms. Blaze—gazed up at him. So did the Pillars. All eyes followed his ascent.
Hovering above them, arms now spread wide like wings, Mr. Ace fixed his sharp gaze on Sergei.
His tone cooled into something sharper, something final.
"We are Forty-Seven," he said.
Silence held the air for a beat.
Then—
"We are assassins... who kill assassins."
The wind shifted. Fire crackled somewhere in the broken distance. Sergei's lips didn't move, but his voice came through.
"Assassins who kill assassins?" The words echoed with steady composure—but the confusion in his tone betrayed the weight of the statement.
He didn't understand it.
Yet.
Mr. Ace hovered in the air like some celestial being—but behind the calm theatrics was something far simpler.
He hadn't expected it to work, honestly.
The moment he'd tapped his wand against his forehead and activated The Playtime, he constructed an invisible platform beneath his feet. A floor of stopped time—something no one else could see. Then, using the same ability, he had tethered that platform to an upward motion, a slow, rising path that would carry him through the air.
Now, as Playtime ended, that invisible floor moved upward as instructed, lifting him gently into the sky.
From below, it looked like flight. Like magic. Like power defying the rules of nature.
Sergei, still floating on his divine circle, narrowed his eyes. He saw no energy—no runes, no spiritual formations—beneath Mr. Ace's feet.
"How are you flying?" he asked, uncertain for the first time.
Mr. Ace answered, his robe fluttering slightly in the high wind. "I'm a Mad Magician," he said. "This is one of my tricks."
Then, without warning, he pressed his index finger lightly against his thumb—subtle, almost imperceptible to anyone watching from below.
A snap? A flick? It didn't matter.
The effect was instantaneous.
The skies—once dark and clouded with the aftermath of the missile—cleared with a slow ripple, like a curtain pulled back. The fires that raged across the ruins vanished. The rubble turned to dust, then to air, scattering as if it had never existed. The ground beneath them no longer looked like a warzone.
Above them, in stark clarity, shone the full blue moon, casting its cold light down over the land.
Sergei's eyes widened slightly. Anastasia stared upward in disbelief, lips parting.
Mr. Ace's voice drifted down, composed but final.
"My magic," he said, "is irreversible."
V-201 Blackfire was ready to fire again.
From miles away, men with advanced spyglasses locked back onto the impact site—only to find, to their shock, the targets still alive.
Commander Armin narrowed his eyes through the lens. Mr. Ace was not only standing—but floating, high above the destruction. And below him, standing like sentinels of judgment, were figures robed in divine colors.
"The Church..." Armin muttered, voice tight. "The Church of that Mother Goddess Arlshuwiya?"
He could clearly see their symbol—two hands holding a lotus—waving in the smoke-cleared air. And it looked like they were not just present.
They were protecting the assassin.
Armin's jaw tightened. His grip on the spyglass stiffened.
"That church... it's helping him? Are they... in contact with assassins?"
His thoughts spiraled.
No... impossible. In every historical record, in every legend—the Church's Pillars were divine warriors, paragons of purity. Said to be stronger even than Atmans...
He paused, a bead of sweat forming.
Except the Phantoms.
The implications sent a chill down his spine.
And yet, there they stood—those very Pillars—shielding a black-robed assassin from a missile strike.