Book excerpt: To kill Akari, Menou scours the outer reaches of the West in search of a legendary blade that turns all it touches into salt. There, she stumbles across Sahara, a monk, who has history with the young Executioner and begs her to take her life for reasons unknown. Meanwhile, one of the Four Major Human Errors begins to unfold in the undeveloped regions of the East and slowly inches toward them, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake...