"Lady Renie, he... he just now read some of that, uh, forbidden knowledge, and then... then as he kept reading he turned into this."

Emhardt also flew to Renie’s side. Looking at the ball of flesh in front of him that seemed to be made of some unknown substance, he hurriedly explained,

"I tried to talk him out of it, totally useless, he insisted on doing this, I couldn’t stop him..."

Renie, in a black dress, looked exactly the same as when they’d parted. A rich, faint fragrance lingered around her; that elder‑sister‑like face of hers was now extremely serious.

"I understand."

"You... you’ve got to save him..."

Renie didn’t respond, just swept her gaze up and down over the Fisher Ball in front of her.

She tried several times to reach out, as if running through solutions in her head, but each time she very quickly rejected them.

"His body has been polluted by Chaos, but his soul is still intact. A Mythical Rank being should be an existence whose Body and Soul are one, but his situation is very特殊..."

"Gululu..."

Renie stroked the eyeball‑covered, spherical surface of Fisher and continued,

"But right now, both his soul and his body have suffered severe Pollution from different types of Chaos, which actually forced them to part ways for the time being, and that’s why he became like this..."

Renie’s expression grew even more severe. She looked at Emhardt at her side and said,

"He should have known you can only read one Completion Manual... He has three Completion Manuals on him. One of them is very special, with only a little Chaos in it, but the other two are different.

"Earlier in the Northern Realm he fought Erwin, then Erwin even voluntarily gifted him her Completion Manual. He definitely knew this, but..."

Emhardt opened his mouth. Of course he knew why Fisher wanted to read these Chaos‑filled, dangerous bits of knowledge.

Because Rafael and Moli’s Dragon Court is facing the threat of two Eighteenth Rank powerhouses plus Paimon. He wants to help them escape the terror of the Demons, so he took this desperate gamble...

But is that something Emhardt can say?

And in front of Renie, no less!

The impression of running into Alagina with her back in the Pirate Harbor was just too vivid; that terrifying combat strength of hers made Emhardt seriously suspect that even Rafael and Moli together wouldn’t be enough for her to beat with one hand.

Then there’d inevitably be another round of chickens flying and dogs jumping, blood flowing like rivers. After spending so long with this guy Fisher, Emhardt had also, by osmosis, learned what should be said and what absolutely shouldn’t.

They can’t seriously go ask that loathsome Old Ancestor Paimon for help, right?

Pah, pah, pah, has he been infected by that idiot Fisher too? He’s actually starting to bring up that bastard who deserves a thousand cuts.

Renie didn’t know about Emhardt’s inner turmoil, but outwardly, he was obviously stammering now,

"Uh, well... I... kind of know?"

But Renie had no time to catch the flaws in Emhardt’s words; she just stared at Fisher, thinking of a way to solve this problem.

"I can’t directly help him. He’s covered head to toe in the aura of Chaos. If I help him it’ll just be adding fuel to the fire and make his Pollution even worse."

"Maybe if you talk to him a bit he’ll get better. Just now, up in the air, when I said your name he stopped."

Renie shot Emhardt a glance and replied,

"I was the one who noticed him, then slapped him down with my power."

"...Oh."

Emhardt nodded somewhat disappointedly and stopped talking, just staring at the ball‑shaped Fisher in front of him, having no idea what state he was in right now.

"Gululu..."

The countless eyes all over Fisher’s body were surging and shifting. Although outwardly he looked like a ball, Emhardt sharply noticed that something seemed to be constantly changing inside. Those "gululu" sounds were exactly the result of this change.

"Lady Renie, look, is there something moving inside his body?"

Renie directly placed her hand on Fisher’s outer skin, and only after feeling it for a long moment did she say in some surprise,

"He seems to be undergoing reassembly, but he’s never managing to complete it, so he’s stuck in this state."

"Wh‑what... does that mean?"

"It means his consciousness is currently blurred; he can’t control his own body and soul, so of course he can’t pull himself out of this Chaos."

Emhardt looked worriedly at Fisher, then hesitated and said,

"How about... I call out to him?"

But Renie shook her head and explained,

"Right now he doesn’t even have structures like ears; he can’t hear sounds from the outside. And his soul and body are temporarily separated, so using his body you can’t touch his soul either. Ordinary methods can’t wake him up.

"Now, we either wait for his own consciousness to slowly recover, or... I can only try my way."

Even though that was how she phrased it, it was obvious Renie had chosen the latter, because as soon as she finished speaking she had already stretched both hands out again, pressing them onto Fisher.

Her expression was extremely solemn. Looking at Fisher in front of her, she said to Emhardt at the same time,

"Close your eyes."

"Oh, oh, okay, Lady Renie." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Emhardt very obediently did as he was told, closing his eyes and waiting for Renie to make her move.

Renie slowly closed her own eyes, and as this happened, the huge bright moon high in the sky also became especially radiant—but it was no longer a clear, cold, silvery moonlight. Instead, it turned into bands of ghostly violet, constantly rotating.