[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/BBwjC6T.png[/img][/center]
Another late-autumn day was coming to an end, bathing the streets of Mizukino in rays of madder red sunlight filtered through the shadows cast by the nearby mountains. A cold wind blew by, embracing all it touched in its gentle caress, and the people slowly returned to their homes.

By all accounts, it should be the beginning of a night like any other. Nevertheless, some threatened the peace the Mizukino usually enjoyed...

"Quick, collect the energy you can while we have time!" A creature that looked like a [url=https://i.imgur.com/MtMYkoa.png]living jack-in-the-box[/url] shouted to its minions, who looked like small puppets made entirely out of shadows, in a shrill voice as they run around a small office building. All of the workers still left inside were unconscious, perhaps because of the faint translucent aura that enveloped it, a barrier to cut it away from the outside world, visible only for those who had any measure of magical power.

As they were commanded, the shadows went around the building, looming over the collapsed workers, draining some kind of energy visible as strands of colored light from them. The process seemed to be going slowly, but who could tell what would happen if they were left to their own devices?

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/PIDqZ3tl.jpg[/img][/center]
[i]"I can, of course. That's precisely why the Pageless can't be allowed to do as they wish!"[/i] The Noble Scheherazade said as he observed from the other side of the road. He had already called the protectors of Mizukino City, the ones he entrusted with the Grimoires that he recovered so far. 

[i]"Please, come quickly everyone. I have a strange feeling this isn't like the other times..."[/i] Hopefully, they wouldn't take much longer to arrive, every second counted when it came to the Pageless.