Sunblind Serpent: The Zodiac Without A House

”Hey, just stay still. Don’t move! We’re trying to find a way to close the damaged line!” a man from the opposite street shouted at her.

”So it was that damaged water line that caused the flood there,” Silas said, squatting on the ground. His eyes shone for a bit as he looked at the open drainage. ”It’s really fucked up,” he remarked as he looked at the sky. ”This city is beyond saving...”

”It can still be saved, though,” Rhovan finally remarked from the side. ”Someone from a sufficiently high Cycle could repair damage on a scale far beyond this.”

Marek frowned. ’That powerful?’

The woman nodded to one of the men, even as the water kept spreading across the intersection, filling the crevices between the uneven sections of the pavement. Her attention soon shifted toward a drainage opening on the opposite side of the road.

She raised her hand toward it without moving again.

On her first attempt, almost nothing happened. Water still curled around her boots nonstop. When she realized it had failed, she lowered her hand. She trembled.

However, she persisted and stared at the drain again. She tried a second time. This time, one stream gradually turned away from the lower part of the street and crossed the uneven pavement toward the opening.

’Oh...’ Marek continued observing when another stream began following the first. ’There’s another one.’

The woman looked just as surprised by what she had done as Marek was. Remaining in one place, she tried to control the water directly, deciding where she wanted the streams to go. When one stream slipped away from that direction, she corrected her hand and pulled it back toward the same drain.

Beneath Marek’s right shoulder, the warmth returned. ’Why is it reacting now? Is it telling me to move water now?’

He dismissed the thought almost immediately. No matter what, water was still water. It was neither an injury nor a poison. It wasn’t an infection or any other type of harmful Condition—merely because an Aquarius bearer could control it. That limitation was already made clear when Rhovan tried to test him.

’Was the test just a coincidence? Or did Rhovan predict this?’ Marek had another thought, but he dismissed it again. He believed that although Rhovan was very powerful as Cycle V, it must not be something he could do at the moment. ’That must be it. Coincidence.’

Meanwhile, Rhovan had another thought about what was happening. ’Amazing... the Ophiarch might have accepted that test of mine... because of this... This must not be mere coincidence! He might have already known about it! His Mark must have told him about it!’

Then, Marek’s thoughts were interrupted the moment he turned to Rhovan. That guy was looking at him with shining eyes like he had found some precious gem.

’He’s acting up again,’ Dario thought.

Nadia had a different train of thought. ’Nah, the guy’s completely smitten with Marek. If Marek were to have a girlfriend one day, I wonder how this guy would react.’

Marek’s face fell, but he ignored Rhovan. His attention returned to the woman. The warmth beneath his shoulder had not appeared when she was merely standing in the water. It had reacted only after she deliberately changed where the streams were going.

’So it’s not reacting to the water...’

Then, a familiar system-like panel appeared in front of him.

”This hasn’t appeared for a long while now...” Marek muttered under his breath.

Meanwhile, Rhovan’s eyes became even brighter, and he asked enthusiastically. ”What hasn’t appeared for a long while now? Oh! It must be—”

Marek let Rhovan’s voice drown in his surrounding noise. ’I really need to be careful with what I say in the future. With this guy around, even a light cough might become proof of my ’greatness’.’

[DEGREE II CONTROL CONFIRMED]

[RELEASE MAY BE DIRECTED TO A CHOSEN VALID POINT]

Marek read the system panel twice. It confirmed something he had already done without naming it clearly. That meant during release, he could choose a valid destination and refuse an invalid one. What that woman did had simply made that part of his control easier to recognize, and the interface had even acknowledged that for him.

”Let’s continue westward,” Marek said, almost sounding like he was ordering them.

Kellan did not hear it. He had fallen asleep by the roadside while they were watching the woman.

Rhovan walked over and slapped his cheek. ”Wake up. Tch.”

”Fuck! Who’s waking me up again!” He stood up and rubbed his cheek. ”It’s you again?”

”Unfortunately for you.”

Kellan just gritted his teeth and balled his fist. He muttered under his breath, ”When will that man die?”

Marek ignored them. They just walked west until another closure forced them into a southwest diversion. The detour passed through a converted cultural center. It had now become another temporary stabilization point, and the group stopped by for water and updated civilian notices. The others remained outside, while the same three, Marek, Rhovan, and Nadia entered the cultural center.

They would have kept moving if Marek had not noticed several Ophiuchus bearers being assisted in a room.

One woman was sitting beside a volunteer with a sterile pad prepared on the table. It was similar to the setup Marek had used when he first practiced releasing a contained Condition into a sterile pad.

The woman’s Astral Mark was smaller than his, and it was located just above the left side of her chest. Despite her chest being half-exposed, he did not turn away. The woman, seeing two men watching her, felt some kind of warmth in her cheeks.

”Perverts!”

Marek and Rhovan looked bewildered.

’Huh?’ Marek thought. ’Is she stupid?’

”I’d be shy too if I saw two handsome men looking at my chest,” Nadia, from the side, remarked.

Rhovan looked even more confused. ”Huh? Her chest? I was just looking at her Astral Mark.”

The woman covered herself, ignoring the volunteer in front of her. ”That’s what a pervert would say!”

Rhovan’s brows knitted. ”What an unreasonable conclusion. If I wanted to admire something beautiful, I could just simply look at myself, not at some small bun.”

Marek closed his eyes. ’Brother... the last one... you should not have said that.’

”Open it, ma’am. We wouldn’t be able to inspect it clearly. Moreover, they’ve already seen it. There’s no need to be shy. It’s already inside their heads for sure.”

The woman snarled at the volunteer. ”Show yours to them then!”

The volunteer froze, but she just smiled and shook her head.

However, the woman was rational enough to think about herself. If she wouldn’t allow the volunteer to inspect her Mark, it might reach a point where she would be like the others. Body still functioning, but their consciousness remained within the black hollow circle in the middle of their mark.

So, she removed the cover on that part again.

Right there then, a red scale glowed faintly.

According to the volunteer, the woman had taken a superficial chemical burn from the volunteer earlier that light period.

’Same as what I did... but with another volunteer.’