Department Store.
The lobby was almost unrecognizable.
The floor was cracked open.
Steel rebar was exposed.
Large chunks of concrete were scattered across the surroundings.
Shattered glass covered the floor.
The alarms continued to echo.
Red warning lights kept flashing.
A grayish-white mist filled the air.
The pollution had not disappeared.
Instead, it was still slowly spreading.
The explosion was over.
The real trouble had only just begun.
In the center of the lobby, Lucian stood where he was.
Azure-colored patterns slowly flowed beneath his feet.
The surrounding structure maintained a strange balance.
The cracked pillars did not continue collapsing.
The deformed load-bearing structures remained in place.
The cracks in the floor stopped just before they could spread any further.
It was as if the entire building had been forcibly paused.
But Lucian knew very well.
This was only temporary.
Azure could maintain order.
But it could not maintain it indefinitely.
If the pollution continued to increase, it would eventually reach its limit.
On the other side.
Irina was half-crouched in the middle of the ruins.
Both hands were pressed against the ground.
Sweat continuously formed on her forehead.
Phase Transition Dominion remained active.
She was processing the pollution.
The grayish-white contamination continued to surge.
It resembled fog.
It resembled liquid.
And it also resembled a flood made up of countless tiny particles.
Under the guidance of her ability, it gradually began to gather.
Footsteps came from the distance.
The Northveil Directorate's pollution-processing department had finally arrived.
Dozens of workers rushed into the lobby.
Every one of them wore heavy protective suits.
Each carried the same type of metal case on their back.
They did not approach the center of the contamination.
Instead, they stopped at the perimeter.
Then they quickly opened their cases.
Inside were rows of metal canisters.
Each one was only about the size of a can.
Their surfaces were silver-gray, marked with the Northveil Directorate's designated insignia.
The workers began placing them down rapidly.
One.
Two.
Ten.
Twenty.
Soon, dozens of containment canisters surrounded the outer edge of the lobby.
After setting them down, the workers immediately retreated.
Not a single person moved closer.
Lucian watched the scene.
His brow furrowed slightly.
"They don't participate?"
Irina did not look up.
She continued processing the pollution.
"They can't."
Lucian looked toward the workers.
They had no weapons.
No special equipment.
They did not even show any intention of approaching the contamination.
They looked nothing like a processing team.
They looked more like transport workers.
"They're just delivering the containers?"
Irina nodded.
"The containment canisters are only containers."
"I am the one who processes the pollution."
The lobby fell quiet again.
Only the alarms continued to sound.
Lucian looked at the small silver-gray canisters.
Only at this moment did he truly understand the structure of the Northveil Directorate.
Those canisters had no real value.
The truly valuable thing was the girl standing in front of him.
Without Irina, these things were nothing more than ordinary metal containers.
They could not process the pollution at all.
Lucian's gaze changed slightly at the thought.
But he said nothing.
Irina had already begun moving.
She extended her right hand.
The grayish-white pollution slowly began to move.
It was as if it were being pulled by an invisible force.
The pollution continued to compress.
Its volume became smaller.
Its concentration became higher.
Eventually, it transformed into a thin stream.
The stream entered one of the containment canisters.
Click.
The canister automatically closed.
It locked itself shut.
The first canister was complete.
Then the second.
The third.
The fourth.
The pollution continued to be compressed.
Continued to be contained.
The workers immediately moved forward.
They collected the completed canisters and placed them inside special transportation cases.
Then they replaced them with new, empty canisters.
The entire process was extraordinarily smooth.
Clearly, they had trained for this countless times.
Time slowly passed.
The pollution concentration began to fall.
The visibility inside the lobby gradually improved.
The security personnel around the perimeter also received the updated data.
The pollution index was slowly declining.
At the Administrative Center.
Inside the monitoring hall.
The technicians finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"Pollution concentration down twelve percent."
"Down eighteen percent."
"Still decreasing."
The tense atmosphere in the conference room finally began to ease.
Some people leaned back in their chairs.
They let out long breaths.
However.
Several minutes later.
Irina suddenly frowned.
Something was wrong.
She immediately looked at the monitoring device.
Then checked it again.
There was nothing wrong with the data.
The pollution was indeed decreasing.
But the rate of decline was abnormal.
Based on the number of canisters already filled, the pollution should have decreased much more by now.
But reality was different.
It was as if somewhere...
Something was still continuously producing pollution.
Irina slowly raised her head.
She looked toward the center of the lobby.
That was where the explosion had originally occurred.
She remained silent for several seconds.
Then suddenly stood up.
She walked toward the crater.
Lucian noticed the abnormality.
He immediately followed.
"What did you find?"
"I'm not sure yet."
Irina answered.
The two of them crossed the ruins.
The closer they got to the center, the higher the pollution concentration became.
Finally, they reached the edge of the explosion crater.
Irina crouched down.
She began clearing away the rubble.
One piece.
Two pieces.
Three pieces.
Time passed slowly.
The surrounding workers did not interfere.
They all knew.
She was the only person who could find the problem.
Finally.
Irina stopped moving.
Lucian followed her gaze.
Between the gaps in the steel rebar...
A gray crystal lay there.
It was only the size of a fingernail.
Its surface was irregular.
At first glance, it looked completely insignificant.
Yet all the surrounding pollution was coming from it.
Grayish-white energy continuously seeped from the surface of the crystal.
Extremely slowly.
But it never stopped.
Irina's pupils contracted slightly.
"How is this possible...?"
Lucian asked,
"What is that?"
Irina did not answer immediately.
Instead, she reached out.
Her ability came into contact with the crystal.
The next second.
A massive amount of information surged into her mind.
Compression.
Accumulation.
Stabilization.
Release.
The pollution had been artificially concentrated.
Preserved for a long period of time.
And eventually formed into a crystalline state.
Irina's expression gradually became grim.
Because she had seen this structure before.
Not in reality.
But in an archive.
Many years ago.
During that pollution incident.
The man who had been consumed by pollution for decades.
In the records left behind at the end...
There had been a mention of something similar.
Pollution Crystallization.
Something that should have completely disappeared in theory.
Something that should have vanished when the incident all those years ago ended.
Yet now...
It had appeared here.
In the Northveil Directorate.
At the site of a terrorist attack.
Lucian noticed the change in her expression.
He spoke again.
"You know what this is?"
Irina was silent for a moment.
Then slowly nodded.
"I've seen it before."
"Dangerous?"
"Extremely dangerous."
Lucian lowered his gaze toward the crystal.
"Did the terrorist organization make it?"
Irina immediately shook her head.
"They couldn't."
"They don't have that capability."
The lobby suddenly fell silent.
The air seemed to freeze.
If it wasn't the terrorist organization...
Then that meant there was someone else.
Someone truly behind everything.
At that moment, the communicator rang.
It was a call from the Administrative Center.
Irina answered.
The voice of First Director Oksana Volkov came through.
"Status report."
Irina looked at the gray crystal in her hand.
She remained silent for several seconds.
Then slowly spoke.
"The source of the pollution has been confirmed."
"Continue."
"We found Pollution Crystallization."
The other end of the communication channel instantly fell silent.
Everyone in the conference room looked up at the same time.
Some even thought they had heard incorrectly.
Several seconds later.
Oksana spoke again.
Her voice had clearly become lower.
"Confirm?"
"Confirmed."
"Source?"
"Unknown."
The conference room fell silent once again.
Because everyone understood what this meant.
Those archives that had been sealed away for so many years...
Perhaps the incident had never truly ended.
Irina held the crystal.
She spoke softly.
"I recommend opening an investigation into the old archives."
This time.
No one objected.
Because everyone knew.
The Northveil Directorate's real problem was probably no longer the terrorists.
It was something far more dangerous.
In the center of the ruins.
Lucian silently watched the gray crystal.
His black eyes narrowed slightly.
What had originally been nothing more than an ordinary sightseeing trip to Northveil...
Now seemed to be getting interesting.