Inside the cozy confines of Eni’s home, the atmosphere had shifted from domestic warmth to the sterile chill of a field laboratory. The Plague Doctor worked with feverish speed, his movements honed to a state of automation, stripped of any superfluous gesture. Again and again, he drew blood from Eni, filling slender glass capillaries which he then slotted into a bizarre brass device bristling with lenses and crystals. The apparatus hummed softly, analyzing the magical fluctuations and the spectral composition of her plasma.

  "Demonstrate it once more. Now. Make an incision on your forearm," the Doctor commanded, his eye glued to the ocular lens.

  Eni, already accustomed to his bedside manner, made a sharp flick with her dagger across her skin. The wound, deep and crimson, had barely opened before the tissues began to knit. A few seconds later, only a faint pink line remained where the cut had been, and even that vanished before her eyes.

  "Hmph... no luck," the Doctor sighed heavily, his posture collapsing as if the air had suddenly been let out of him. His shoulders slumped, and the manic zeal in his voice was replaced by bitter disappointment.

  Eni, bewildered and rubbing her perfectly intact arm, asked, "What do you mean... 'no luck'?"

  "It’s your Ability, Eni. Personal... but not quite yours," the Doctor stepped away from the device and began to slowly wipe the lenses with a piece of chamois leather. "And here I thought... Ahem. You see, ordinary human Heroes cannot possess such biological regeneration. Their DNA is too rigid, too grounded. More often than not, their strength lies in a broken limit of physical capability or a rare knack for channeling scraps of local magic. I had hoped this was a unique mutation of your own organism—something that could be isolated, studied, and synthesized into a serum. A biological code that could be copied. But... no."

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  Eni frowned, a vague sense of unease coiling in her gut. "But can’t you just copy it anyway? Extract it, transplant it? Or... I don’t know, give someone else a transfusion of my blood?"

  "No, you cannot. It is futile," the Doctor turned to her, the glass lenses of his mask glinting in the lamplight. "An Ability is granted by an Observer. It cannot be extracted through surgery because it does not belong to your cells. It is imposed upon them from the outside."

  "An Observer?" Eni felt a cold shiver run down her spine.

  "The Voice, the Guide, the Observer, the God, the Overseer, the Witness... it matters not what you call it," the Doctor spoke in a low, conspiratorial whisper. "The one inside your head. Or the one who was there. This power is a gift and a curse intertwined. If you stop doing what it asks, if your will proves stronger than its programming—it departs, and the power is lost."

  The Doctor walked to the table where Eni’s combat knife lay and began to slowly inspect the blade, checking its balance. "Usually, it breaks the host. It turns the psyche inside out, transforming them into a marionette. It forces them to commit acts that run contrary to human nature... For example, killing Archons."

  He spun toward Eni abruptly. The tip of the knife in his hand pointed toward the floor, but the tension in the room became palpable. Eni took a step back, her heart racing as suspicion pricked her brain like an icy needle. "Wait... How do you... how do you know about that?"

  The Doctor let out a short, dry chuckle, sounding like the creak of a rusted door. "Davvero?! Did you truly think we were blind? Captain Joe practically knocked on your door with an assignment the moment you seized this island. We know almost everything! Especially about the most... promising and unstable specimens."

  "I... well... that makes sense," Eni swallowed hard, trying to still the trembling in her hands. "But if you know everything... if you know the Voice might set me against you... why don't you kill me right now? As a precaution?"

  The Doctor set the knife down and moved toward the exit, his black robes rustling against the floor like snake scales. "That is not our policy, Eni. In this world, the strongest, smartest, and most cunning survive. If you cannot contend with your own Voice, if your personality is erased by its will—then you simply have no place in this world. The Coalition has no use for frail instruments. We observe. We wait."

  With those words, he stepped out, pulling the door shut behind him. Eni remained standing in the middle of the kitchen in absolute silence. What terrified her most wasn't the Doctor’s revelation, but the fact that the Voice inside her head—that same sarcastic, grumbling, and occasionally frightening Voice—was now silent. It should have exploded with indignation, showered the Doctor with curses, or mocked his theory. But in Eni’s mind, there was only a total, ringing void, which felt more dangerous than any scream.