We started sparring.

Not training. Not running drills. Sparring.

Everyone dropped their body standards down to the baseline: Soul Realm 2‑1, the lowest tier of our current power stage. It was an equalizer—not because it made things fair, but because it stripped away the excuses. No overclocked reflexes. No aura‑reinforced sinew. No towering strength beyond what the body could naturally do in that realm state.

It forced us to rely on instinct.

Cordelia was the first to speak as we circled up in the courtyard. "We'll agree to a few ground rules," she said. "No effects from our second shells. No skillcubes past our second realm. And definitely no third‑shell projections, even if yours are still syncing."

I nodded. My stomach was still coiled tight from [The Ruined World] settling into place. The echoes of dimensional weight still twisted in my spine, but I could manage.

"For now," Cordelia continued, "we want you to go at us. One at a time. No teams. No breaks."

V stepped forward to clarify. "We've all fought each other before. Extensively." His voice was low and even, that ever‑present calm wrapped in certainty. "Ten's the strongest physically, yeah. Her bodyweight mechanics are absurd. But she only has a fifty-two percent win rate across all matchups."

"Which I'm improving," Ten cut in, casually rolling her shoulders. Her ankle chains clinked softly as she bounced in place. "Cordelia's the lowest," she added without apology.

Cordelia didn't flinch. "Not surprising. My role's not designed for solo wins. It's designed to make you win. Which it does."

Fractal stood next to me, quiet but alert. Her gaze flitted from face to face, memorizing rhythms even before the first strike. She thrived in motion, and yet right now, she was utterly still.

"We just want to see how you fight, Alexander," Cordelia said, folding her arms. "No instructions. No formations. Not yet. Round robin style. Take us on, one at a time. We want to understand what you do when you're backed into a corner."

"And no lethal techniques," V added. "We're bruising egos, not breaking bones."

He gestured subtly toward the corner, where Lumivis stood with folded arms. The spirit's starlight body shimmered in the dusk like a memory half‑forgotten.

"No offense," V said.

"None taken," Lumivis replied with a gracious bow. "I wouldn't interfere even if asked."

I stepped into the center of the sparring ring drawn with chalk and bloodroot ash. It was uneven, packed soil layered over cobblestone, and it hummed faintly with the spiritual energy Lumivis had threaded through it to prevent accidents. The boundary shimmered.

My pulse drummed louder than it should have.

They were right—I hadn't fought them, not like this. We'd moved together. Survived together. Trusted each other in chaos. But true sparring wasn't about survival. It was about exposure.

I cracked my neck.

"All right," I said. "Who's first?"

Fractal stepped forward, almost shyly.

"I'll go," she said.

"I will referee," Lumivis intoned, gliding to the center of the room like a living constellation. His limbs shimmered faintly with contained light, and his voice carried a calm finality. "Standard spar. Surrender, injury, or imminent lethality. I will intervene before death, though I shouldn't have to between an anchor and their spirit beast."

Fractal's shoulders shifted as if to say, we'll see.

"No techniques from your second shell," V reminded, leaning against the far wall with arms folded. "Or your third Skillcube. Just base forms. Round-robin format. Show him what we all already know."

"Begin on three," Lumivis said, lifting one hand.

I readied my stance, rolling out my shoulders, letting threads of paper spiral loosely from my sleeves. I kept the folds gentle, unfinished—primed for shaping. Three sheets hovered near my back, fluttering like wings waiting to form. Fractal's aura tickled the edges of my perception. Fast. Slippery. Unstable.

"One…"

Her feet shifted on the ground like the start of a song. Not one I knew.

"Two…"

A shiver ran down my spine.

"Three."

She moved.

No, movement wasn't the right word. She fractured through the air. My eyes caught a shadow where her body had been, but by then she was gone. My aura blinked—yes, there—a phantom pulse on my left, moving faster than I could shape a full defensive bind.

I snapped a paper strip midair, twisting it into a dragonfly. It buzzed forward, trying to mark her position.

Too slow.

She was already on the other side of the room.

And then—

Crystal.

Hundreds of tiny, glittering bismuth blades floated in around me, as though conjured in a breath. They weren't attacking. They were forming shapes. Mathematical, clean. Spiraling arrays folding into spirals folding into lattices folding into—

My horn.

Quaint, I thought, almost smiling. She'd taken the time to mold it like one of my more dramatic origami designs—pointed, arched, ceremonial. An unnecessary flourish meant just to get under my skin. She knew me too well.

But she was still moving. Her body didn't stay stable long enough to track. One second, she was humanoid—skin dark, silver hair tied in a quick tail. The next, a songbird, then a long-legged hound, then some insectoid shape with glistening forelimbs.

Each form came with a new vector of attack, a new silhouette to account for. It wasn't just a change of shape—it was a change of posture, momentum, range. I couldn't predict her because she never gave me time to calculate.

I lashed a thin arc of paper forward, a whip forming mid-air. It cracked through a false image, and behind it—

She wasn't there.

My dragonflies swarmed the wrong target.

Too slow. Too linear.

I pivoted, snapped both wrists down, and ten small folds fanned out from my sleeves—paper mantises, tight-formed and sleek. They flared out like a net. I followed their movement, bow forming mid-motion from a long sheet curled into shape midair. I notched an arrow of triple-folded cardstock, fused to explode on contact with aura pressure.

I fired.

It met a blur of silver and vanished into mist.

She reformed behind me—hunched in a wolfish crouch, her hands liquefying into claws. I spun and raised my bow in time to block the slash, but the force knocked me back three steps.

Her claws retracted. She became smoke, then person, then a songbird again.

The silver liquid dripping from her now pooled at her feet, glimmering with something almost alive. It clung to her like sap, whispering in the back of my mind.

Wrong. Other. Elsewhere.

Whatever that substance was, it didn't belong here—and the air knew it.

I kept moving, rotating left. Another arrow. Miss. Mantis strike—intercepted. Two more sheets burst out from my sleeves and formed into stingers, looping above for an aerial strike.

Fractal blinked out of position entirely.

My aura pulsed. Behind you.

I spun and launched a pre-folded paper locust—sharp-edged, volatile—but she ducked beneath it, still shifting as she moved.

How do I fight something that never stops becoming?

I wasn't slow. But she was faster. Not just in movement. In thought. In transformation. She could be anything at will, and there was no lag between her body and her intent. It was seamless.

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Another strike grazed my shoulder. A warning shot. Not meant to wound—but it could have.

I backflipped, reorienting. "You're holding back."

Fractal reappeared five meters away, panting lightly, dripping with that strange, silvery ichor. Her eyes were wide, feral but clear.

"I'm matching your pacing."

"Then outpace me," I said, teeth clenched.

She smiled, and the next moment—

I was on the ground.

I wasn't sure what happened. Just that my back slammed against packed earth, my breath caught, and one of my mantises crumpled mid-flight. The others dispersed, my bow split in half.

Fractal stood over me in an armored quadruped form I'd never seen her use before—six limbs, plated like obsidian. She shifted again as she stood upright, dripping with the last vestiges of speed. Then raised her hand.

"Yield," she said, voice soft.

Lumivis appeared between us in an instant, one hand raised, confirming her intent.

I laid there, chest rising and falling, aura frayed and scattered.

Fractal crouched beside me, returning to her human form. Her breath came out shaky. Not exhausted—buzzing. She was vibrating like a storm in the shape of a girl.

"I wasn't trying to hurt you," she said.

"I know," I said. "You were showing me."

She nodded. "You're tactical. Measured. But you can't always control the field. Some of us… are the field."

I laughed softly, even as pain tugged at the edges of my ribs. "I'll remember that."

She helped me to my feet.

Behind us, Ten stretched, cracking her knuckles. "So that's the opening act, huh?"

Cordelia brushed her braid back and whispered, "That wasn't her final speed."

V, as always, remained silent.

Lumivis looked me over once, then nodded approvingly. "You kept your calm. You read her aura. You shaped intelligently, if not fast enough. You'll adjust."

"Who's next?" I asked, standing a little taller.

Cordelia's smile was small but focused.

"I am."

***

Cordelia did not take the stance of a predator about to pounce—not like Fractal, not like Barbra, and not like any other beast I'd fought before. She didn't coil or tense or flash her power to intimidate. No, Cordelia moved like someone stepping into a greenhouse, approaching a bed of flowers she already knew were dying. Her stance was calm. Melancholic. Measured in the way gardeners are before pruning something they've grown attached to.

A wind stirred the air, though no window was open. It was the sensation that followed her—like breath held too long. Her eyes, soft and distant, didn't meet mine.

Then she whispered, "Did I ever tell you how much I loathe that image?"

Her voice echoed too cleanly through the air.

"You mean the swarm? The one that looked like a thousand human shapes melting into flies, all gnawing through the skull of whoever tried to read me?" I replied, keeping my tone flat, neutral, holding down the memory as best I could. "Yeah. It wasn't exactly a highlight for me either. Try living through that thing for a few days. I watched it eat a city, Cordelia. Burned the rest myself just to make it stop."

She didn't reply. Not with words. Her expression folded in on itself, sorrow like a second shadow. She adjusted her gloves with delicate fingers—more habit than necessity—and took one step forward.

"Same rules as before," Fractal called out from the sidelines, her voice laced with concern but steady. "Spar ends on surrender, injury, or threat of lethality. I'll intervene if I have to."

Then she leaned in closer to me, whispering with a quiet grin, "You sure you can do this? I did just trounce you."

I exhaled through my nose. "I'm fine, Fractal. I need this."

She tilted her head, unconvinced.

"No—I need to know how you all fight. How you think. I need to see you at your best because..." My voice cracked a little, and I had to bite it down. "Because I'm tired of everything happening to me."

Fractal's expression softened.

"Ever since I awakened," I continued, "I've been reacting. Getting pulled along. Forced through every door someone else opened. I was dragged into Danatallion's Halls. Dragged through Otherrealms. Trapped in that coma." I paused, jaw tight. "That coma cost me a year. One whole year of my life, gone. Just... gone."

Ten's head slowly lifted from her relaxed perch across the sparring chamber. V turned his masked face toward me, expression unreadable. Cordelia didn't move, but I could feel her attention sharpen.

I turned to Fractal, lowering my voice. "How many years do I have left, Fractal?"

I didn't mean to say it aloud.

The room stilled.

V stepped forward, crossing the room in a few quick strides. "What do you mean 'how many years'?" His tone was low, firm. "Boss, what's going on?"

Cordelia's brows furrowed slightly. Fractal turned to me, hesitant, as if unsure she should be the one to answer.

Even Ten dropped the grin and sat forward. "Alex. That's not a throwaway question."

I rubbed a hand across my face. I hadn't wanted it to come out—not yet. Not like this. But the words were already loose in the air, heavy and echoing.

"I…" I hesitated, then turned to Lumivis, who stood silent in his corner of the chamber, his light dimmed to a pale silver.

"Can I tell them?" I asked, voice brittle. "Since I've already said too much."

Lumivis didn't answer immediately. When he finally did, it wasn't with the serenity he usually held—but something sadder. More resigned.

"It was recommended by Morres that you refrain. Not because it wasn't true—but because they might not have been ready to hear the answer."

His smile was gentle, but it landed like a knife. Because it meant he already knew how this would go.

I exhaled, deep and long, forcing the words out before I could retreat.

"Okay," I said. "You all know how each Dominus gets to set the laws of their own realm, right? That's one of the first things they teach us—how every Dominus shapes the nature of their universe. And that when we cross into another Dominus's domain, we call it an Otherrealm."

Basic facts. Fundamentals. Everyone nodded. Tension growing.

"What you don't know," I continued, "is that those laws can be tailored. Not just to the physics of the world—but to specific souls. More accurately… to the Artes of souls that awaken within them."

I saw V's stance shift, only slightly. Ten tilted her head like she was trying to catch a whiff of a bad smell before it hit.

"Dominus Demeterra is a Dominus of Law," I said. "She believes in order. Absolute, incorruptible order. She allows chaos, but only because it justifies her control. Law without chaos is meaningless. She understands that."

I ran a hand through my hair. Still felt like I was choking on the next words.

"But there's something deeper," I said. "Demeterra's realm doesn't just give you your Arte when you awaken here. It alters it. Twists it to align with her framework. Whatever your Arte is supposed to be, it gets filtered through her laws. It's why Fractal's bismuthian body is so refined. Why Cordelia's flowers follow perfect psychic taxonomies. Why my paper listens when no one else would."

"And?" V asked. His tone wasn't sharp. Not yet. Just waiting.

"And Bibliokinesis—my evolved Arte—is something Demeterra hates."

That got their attention.

Ten sat up straight. Cordelia subtly winced.

"From what I've found," I continued, "bibliokinetics eventually develop the ability to enter books of law. And from there… they begin to rewrite them. Not just ideas. Not just storybooks. Legal structures. Real, universal constructs."

A chill passed over the room like frost through stone.

"In the Dominus of Law's own realm," I said. "That makes me a threat."

I looked up, and for the first time, I didn't blink away the fear in my voice.

"I have until my ninety-ninth birthday to either ascend into a Dominus myself, or leave Demeterra's realm entirely. If I don't… I will be erased."

V's mask didn't move. But I could feel him trying to process it. The gears grinding silently behind that still posture.

Ten just stared at me, then at Fractal. Then at Cordelia. Then back again. Her eyes were wide, rapidly bouncing between each of us like she was trying to find the punchline to a joke she knew had gone too far.

Finally, she snapped.

"Okay, no. No. Fractal is literally his spirit beast, of course she'd know something." She marched up to Cordelia, standing chest to thigh with the much taller woman, jabbing a finger at her. "But you?! Since when were you in on this?"

Cordelia took a step back, hands lifted in passive surrender, but already guilty. "Ah! I—I didn't mean to know! His mental defenses were basically nonexistent back then. I told him his thoughts were loud!"

Ten latched onto her sleeves, shaking them. "That doesn't mean you get to keep this a secret! You should've said something—anything!"

Cordelia's mouth opened, then closed. "I thought it wasn't mine to tell."

"She's right," I said, gently cutting in. "None of this was ever hers to carry. It's mine."

Ten's hands dropped from Cordelia's sleeves. She turned back to me, fists clenched.

"So, what, you were just going to keep fighting, keep leading us, while counting down to your expiration date like it was someone else's problem?"

"I was going to try and stop the expiration date," I said. "And I still am. But I couldn't lead you all properly if you didn't trust me. So now you know."

Fractal moved quietly beside me, one hand grazing mine—not a gesture of comfort, but presence. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

V finally stepped forward, mask tilting slightly.

"I assume the clause is ironclad."

"As far as I can tell, yes," I said. "It's built into the spiritual framework of my Arte. I'm being filtered. And that pressure—it's going to keep building. Eventually, it'll break me, unless I evolve fast enough to escape it."

"Then we help you evolve," V said simply.

Ten crossed her arms, huffing, still clearly rattled. "Damn right we do. But I swear, Alex, next time you're holding something that huge in, I'm beating the truth out of you first."

I cracked a weak smile. "Deal."

Cordelia stepped forward, gaze quiet, contrite. "You understand now why I said your thoughts were too loud."

"I do," I said. "And I'm sorry you had to hold that alone."

She smiled softly. "It wasn't all alone."

Lumivis raised his voice then, more firm. "Enough. The revelation stands. But so too does the match."

He looked between Cordelia and me.

"Will you still spar, Sire?"

I took a breath, then nodded.

"I will."

Cordelia looked at me, not with pity—but with something more dangerous.

Respect.

"Then prepare yourself," she said.

And the air in the room changed again.

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