Cold. Hungry. Tired.

Three words that encapsulated everything about this cursed Otherrealm. Not just the landscape. Not just the wind that howled like it missed having something to devour. Not even just the eldritch thing that had started hunting us.

No. It was more than that. The realm itself felt like a sleeping beast, dreaming only of famine and frostbite.

And the new presence?

The one watching me now?

Cold. Hungry. Tired.

But worse than the realm.

Because it wasn't just suffering.

It was thinking.

And still I ran.

I didn't know if the thing that chased us had stopped. Didn't care. Maybe it was waiting. Maybe it got bored. Or maybe it knew that fear, left to simmer long enough, would cook the heart from the inside.

I had to get out.

My legs burned. My lungs were glass shards with every breath. The salt from the air crusted the edges of my eyes, and my aura had begun to flicker—unstable, stretched too thin over too much ground.

Ahead. A shimmer.

Could that be the exit?

I didn't care if it was real. I pushed forward.

And then—clarity.

One word in my mind: Door.

I reached inward. Into the boundless rooms. The countless corridors. The dimensional core I'd grown so familiar with during my time in Danatallion's Halls.

A Door. A choice. A link.

My hand extended, fingers forming the seal in the air. Reality creaked open like rusted iron hinges in reverse. And there, in the shimmering frame of nothingness—a doorway emerged.

I didn't wait.

I ran.

The first door took me into one of the Halls—an empty chamber echoing with nothing but my panting breath. The walls were blank script and voidglass.

I sprinted through.

Through the next.

And the next.

Each doorway one step closer to home.

Then, the estate.

My estate.

I stumbled into the main hall, collapsing against the wall as the last door sealed behind me, leaving behind the acrid wind and blood-soaked sands of the Otherrealm.

I panted.

No words.

No pride.

Just breath.

Lumivis emerged beside me, his starlight form dimmer than usual, flickering as though stressed.

"Lumivis," I finally gasped, pulling myself upright. "Why didn't you remind me I could do that?"

He gave me a slow, very slow, turn of the head.

"Sire, because—bluntly—do you have any idea how rare a naturally forming link between Otherrealms is? You walking through one, let alone three in sequence? Your dimensional mana being your primary trait is likely the only reason that cube even functions without melting through your soul."

I blinked. "...Fair point."

Then I noticed who was in front of me.

Gin.

And frankly? I would have rather seen another Hollow.

He was leaning on the obsidian railing of the inner foyer, face unreadable. That was the worst kind of expression for Gin. When he smirked, you knew he was planning something stupid. When he scowled, you knew something stupid already happened. But this look?

Dead calm.

"Show me the cube," he said.

No 'welcome back.' No 'are you dying?' No 'hey, what was chasing you?' Just that.

I wordlessly fished it out of my sleeve. The tar-like residue around it had hardened into something resembling onyx, carved into faint sigils I couldn't yet decipher. It pulsed like a held breath, slow and steady.

Gin took it from my hand without hesitation. His fingers glowed faintly as he read the core inscription aloud.

The Ruined World (Darkness, Death, Calamity, Hunger, Dimension)

Effect: Creates an area of blighted ground. Blight spreads slowly up to a limit. You drain life within the blight.

He whistled. "You found this inside a Hollow?"

I nodded.

"You took [Paper and Pencells], yes?" he asked.

Still panting, I nodded again.

"Then you're taking this one too," Gin said, not even giving me time to object. "That gives you your first three anchors for the second shell: [Paper and Pencells], [The Ruined World], and your [Stage of the Starborne]. Wonderful set, really. Diverse polarity. Good spread between abstract, environmental, and narrative classes."

I blinked at him. "Can we maybe—I don't know—slow down a second?"

"No. Because what you just brought back is real. And not theoretical-real. Actionable real. Which means I now have work to do. So do you." He spun the cube once, then handed it back. "This Skillcube is exactly what your labyrinth was missing."

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"Wait," I said, staring at the Ruined World in my hand. "Why would I ever willingly use something that creates a toxic landscape around me? That sounds like the opposite of team synergy."

Gin's grin returned. The bad one. The one that meant he was about to say something that would probably become a prophecy of my eventual downfall.

"Oh, my sweet juicy rabbit," he began, voice lilting and sarcastically fond, "you're thinking too small again."

"Explain."

"Your labyrinth is alive, isn't it? It grows. It adapts. It doesn't just trap—it evolves. Now imagine this Skillcube fused into that concept. A cursed zone that you can weave into the floorplan of your battlespace. You don't need to bring the blight with you—you trap people in it. Control the terrain. Drain the enemy while you move cleanly through the space."

He raised a finger.

"And when paired with your [Dance of the Paper Crane], it will join your six satellites and become traps, pressure points, or even sacrifices to grow the blight radius."

Another finger.

"And when combined with the Stage of the Starborne, your labyrinth becomes a dimensional anchor. A battlefield of light and hunger. A shadowplay theater where you're the puppetmaster."

I didn't like how much sense he was making.

"You're also forgetting," Gin added, "you want to become a Griffin Rider."

I blinked. "What does that have to do with toxic terrain?!"

"Everything," he said smugly. "You and your griffin will fight as one. Air superiority. Dive strikes. But what's even better? You'll be able to command territory—from above. Imagine raining death and paper from the skies while your enemies slowly wither inside the expanding blight. They can't escape. They can't outpace it. And you get stronger every second they breathe it in."

I didn't have a counterargument.

"I'll admit," he continued, "I expected you to find something useful. But not this. This changes the nature of your shell's trajectory. We'll need to find three satellites that can resist the dimensional pressure. No cheap glyphs anymore. You'll need ones tied to blood, body, or bone."

"I hate when you talk like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're trying to build me into a god."

"Don't flatter yourself," Gin replied. "I'm just trying to keep you alive long enough for you to repay me."

Gin's smile never touched his eyes. The bells sewn into his motley coat trembled, chiming all the wrong notes.

"First things first," he said, voice dropping into something dangerously patient. "Condense the ambient miasma in your core. You're sloshing around like a wine‑skin that's never been corked. Second—never, ever use your [Hallway of the Millennium] that way again. One unlocked anchor, one exit. Anything more and you risk getting stranded in the Underway—and the Underway never gives back what it borrows."

I opened my mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "I… blinked. It was just instinct. The realm was collapsing—"

"And instinct is what buries Walkers," he cut in. "You really don't grasp what you did, do you?"

He stepped closer; the scent of old parchment and copper filled the air. "Those 'doors' are shear‑points in space. Rip too many at once and they shear you. Lucky for you, your dimensional aspect cushioned the recoil—but only because you had a single anchor engaged. Try a stunt like that with two anchors—say, after you form your second shell—and you'll slice yourself into a thousand non‑contiguous probabilities."

I swallowed. Hard. "Noted."

"Good." His bells rang in a lilting minor chord. "Now, about that core. You've been hovering at 1‑1—first shell, first condensation—since you survived Danatallion's trial. It's embarrassing."

"Most Walkers stay at 1‑3 for years," I protested.

"And most Walkers die at 1‑3," he replied. "You are not most Walkers. With that Hollow cube and your labyrinth pair, your core is already going to be swelling. Stop delaying and compress it. Push to 1‑9, then shatter into 2‑1 before the week is out."

I felt my pulse pound in my throat. "Is… that safe?"

Gin's grin widened, savage and delighted. "No." He tapped my sternum with one slender finger. "You'll be condensing raw mana, miasma, and the echoes of two realm signatures. Your bloodline just mutated—Red Sun, was it? Your channels will feel like molten glass. You might cough up crystals. You might hallucinate time running backward. But if you succeed, you'll have a stable second shell—and the capacity to ride a griffin without your heart exploding."

"And if I fail?"

"Then Barbatos buries what's left of you under the orchard and I collect my management fee."

I stared at him. He stared back, utterly serious beneath the childish bells.

Finally, I exhaled. "All right. Walk me through the protocol."

"Gladly." He produced a stylus of shimmering entropy‑iron and drew a circle of sigils on the floorboards—dimensional locks, hunger runes, and tiny star‑glyphs that flared when they recognized my aura. "Sit in the center. Breathe from the diaphragm. Pull every stray thread of miasma you can feel. Crush it inward. Heart. Lungs. Core. If something snaps, don't scream—focus."

I stepped into the circle. The symbols ignited with pale rose‑red light—the hue of a dying sun. My pulse echoed in my ears like distant drums.

"Ready?" Gin asked.

"No," I admitted.

"Excellent," he said, bells chiming once more. "Begin."

I stepped into my inner world.

A familiar warmth greeted me—the paper sun, suspended in silence, crackling gently with the whisper of unfolding parchment. Its glow filtered through the void, casting long amber shadows across the strange constellation of my soul. Orbiting that sun were drifting asteroids, torn fragments of forgotten pages—chapters of myself I'd yet to understand or reassemble.

Below, a single planet orbited with slow and reverent grace. Its surface, wild and vibrant, was dominated by the crystal forest: frozen starlight grown into spires and trees, humming with quiet resonance. Between those crystalline branches flowed rivers of light, their waters shimmering in hues stolen from a nebula—indigos, violets, and pale greens dancing like ghosts beneath the surface.

And around all of this loomed the miasma—cold, heavy, and formless. A devouring dark that sought no shape, only consumption.

I reached for it.

With my soul's tether, I grasped the miasma at the edges of my inner world. It resisted—not violently, but insistently, as if it belonged to the abyss and would rather rot in the void than be molded. I pulled harder. A trickle first, then a wave.

It spilled through me.

It passed through the orbiting asteroids, blackening the floating parchment. It stained the paper sun, dimming its gentle light. I winced, but did not stop. I channeled it—through the sun, into the planet.

I breathed, steady and slow.

The pressure built as I drew the miasma into my core. My whole soul screamed in resistance. I could feel the edges of my spiritual skeleton crackle under the strain, but I didn't stop. My force—the will to walk forward—was my tether. With it, I anchored the sun of paper, compressing its swirling light into something denser, more focused.

I held it. I endured it.

The planet groaned beneath my feet as I walked its surface, entering the crystal forest. Each step shattered silence into glittering tones, chimes of silver and sorrow echoing through the trees. My fingertips brushed the bark of a star-grown tree, and it pulsed in answer.

Through the glades of glass, I pushed the miasma deeper, willing it to take root. Where it passed, new saplings rose—twisted things at first, dark and sharp, but soon absorbing the light of the forest, reshaping, becoming vibrant. The black thorns became silver-leaved trees. The rot became roots.

Deeper.

The planet began to change—no longer a single lonely orb. At the edges of its orbit, the first whispers of something new emerged: a proto‑planet, still forming, swirling with volatile energy. A second satellite of my soul. Unnamed. Untamed.

But born.

I collapsed to one knee within the forest. Sweat—or something like it—poured from me, even here in my mind's domain. But I smiled. Not out of joy—out of relief.

This was how the second shell would begin.

Not with a triumphant ascension. But with strain. With will. With bleeding silence and searing light.

I could feel the spiral forming. The layered core of my power. One more push.

I summoned all the tethered threads—the saplings, the paper sun, the orbiting books, the drowned nebula-rivers—and compressed. Light roared in my ears. Something cracked—either in my mind or in the realm of soulspace—and then: collapse.

In the center of it all, a new star ignited—not made of fire, but of idea and identity. The miasma did not recede.

No—it bowed. It accepted its place. Not as tyrant, but as soil.

I exhaled.

Then, with a flicker of thought, I stepped back from the brink, returning to my body.

My breath hitched as my eyes fluttered open. Blood dripped from my nose and ears, and my fingertips trembled with residual mana. The world smelled faintly of ozone and starlight.

Gin stood across from me, arms folded, bells on his coat perfectly still for once.

"…Well?" I asked, breathless.

His smile returned, sharp and unrelenting. "Congratulations. You're no longer a fraud."

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