The air shimmered faintly as Team 9 and Team 7 stepped deeper into Tildaroot Village.
Once a haven of light and blossoms, it now looked drained petals gray, the ponds dull, the air heavy with faint motes of Lunaris Dust that glowed sickly under the moonlight.
But through the haze, figures moved slow, graceful, deliberate.
Two silhouettes knelt in the center of the plaza, masks of silver and teal covering their faces, hands pressed to glowing seals drawn into the soil.
Waves of soft blue-green Shinrei pulsed outward, dancing through the air in rhythmic surges.
The dust particles in the area shimmered, then slowly began to disintegrate.
It was the Shinrei Reversal Ritual, a purification technique so complex it required the synchronization of two affinities: Wave and Bloom.
At the heart of it lay a single focus Eclora Mist, an antidote compound so rare that only Khael and a few field commanders had ever used it before.
