That night, I was pulled into Danatallion's Halls.

It felt... wrong.

The familiar labyrinth of bookshelves, towering tomes, and endless corridors was gone. In its place, an abyss stretched infinitely, swallowing all light and warmth. Cold. Empty. The silence pressed against me, thick and suffocating, like the weight of unseen eyes staring from the void.

Fractal wasn't here. I felt it in my bones—an absence so sharp it was nearly physical. I wasn't alone, though. Something stirred in the darkness. An unseen presence washed over me, ancient and vast, a force both patient and insurmountable.

Then, from the heart of the abyss, light bloomed.

It twisted and churned, writhing like a living thing. The brilliance cast a thousand shifting shadows, each bending and breaking upon itself as the light grew stronger. From within that light, a shape emerged, assembling itself piece by piece as though reality were unsure how to define it.

A man—or something close enough to one.

His form was jagged, disjointed, a puppet suspended by countless ropes that wove around his limbs, his torso, his throat. The noose at his neck hung loose yet ominous, an eternal reminder of something unfinished. And yet, despite his bound form, he bowed.

His voice was not sound, not entirely. It was something deeper—etched into the marrow of my bones, whispered into the fabric of my being.

"No matter what, patience and hesitation will always guide you, Sire. I am thou, and thou art I. You wait, you hesitate, you listen, you feel hopeless.

But you are not the puppet on the strings. You are not the one being pulled. You are simply biding your time.

You stand between hopelessness and the ever-hoping. You stand between caution and the ever-drifting.

I am Lumivis, the Star of the Hangman's Willow. I will be your guiding light, even in the deepest abyss."

The darkness recoiled, retreating from the light's dominance, unveiling him in full.

Alien was the first word that came to mind.

The ropes binding him were not mere fibers but strands of shifting, iridescent gas, weaving and unraveling with each of his movements. His eyes were pure white, yet within them, countless miniature suns burned, celestial bodies in eternal orbit.

His—his? Yes, his—hair was a shimmering cascade of deep blue, flowing in an unseen current, catching the light like a nebula trapped in motion. But his skin was the most bizarre.

Not darkness, not an absence of light, but an emptiness that defied form. A canvas of the cosmos itself, a vast stretch of space where galaxies and stars blinked in and out of existence upon his very being. His presence was both mesmerizing and unsettling, like staring into something that shouldn't be.

And then—

"Sire."

His voice turned flat, unimpressed. "Please stop berating my appearance. I can barely be sustained by the pittance of power you currently possess."

I blinked.

"I am an ancient spirit bound to your shell at the request of another, not by my own will. If my presence offends you, I can leave." He tilted his head, eyes narrowing. "Or, you can listen and benefit greatly from me."

Wow. Petty much?

"No. I don't want you to leave." I exhaled, steadying myself. "From what I understand, I gave up my Machina for you to inhabit. Is that correct?"

Lumivis tilted his head slightly, the shifting lights within his eyes swirling like collapsing stars. "Partially true." His voice carried an airy detachment, as if amused by my lack of understanding. "You surrendered that artificial doll spirit in exchange for something greater—a true spirit. But understand, Sire, until I take form within an object, I am not a Machina as you know it. I am simply a spirit, unshackled and untethered."

He sighed, exaggerated, dramatic. "One that, I must confess, is currently... unimpressed."

My brow twitched. "Unimpressed?"

"Yes. You should have far more control over me than you do. The very reason I am even able to go against you at all is because of this weakness."

I crossed my arms. "No. The reason you can go against me, as you put it, is because I'm used to giving direct orders to a doll—one that simply obeyed. Not you." I met his luminous gaze.

"Nor do I even know how I summoned you in the first place. So why don't you start there?"

He paused, his expression unreadable for a moment before inclining his head. "Very well. Allow me to educate you, Sire, in terms you might actually grasp."

Stolen story; please report.

His form shifted slightly, the nebulous ropes that bound him pulsing as he spoke. "Your world once created artificial spirits to inhabit machines. When they did, they called them Deus Ex Machina—the Gods of the Machine. Through this belief, these spirits became true entities, given form and power by the very reverence humans placed upon them."

He studied me carefully. "Are you following so far?"

I nodded.

"Good. True spirits are then divided into five distinct ranks. You have: Fledgling. The weakest. Barely sentient. Novite. Developing. Learning. Seeking hosts. Jayn. Recognized. Capable of sustained existence. Royal. Powerful. Independent. Rulers among spirits. And finally—Boundris."

His voice dropped, the weight of the word settling around me like the gravity of a dying star.

"Once a true spirit becomes a Boundris, its growth slows. So slow, in fact, that it can be measured in the lifetimes of celestial bodies. Stars are born and die before a Boundris even notices the passage of time. They do not grow naturally anymore."

I frowned. "Then how do they become stronger?"

Lumivis' expression darkened with something almost reverent. "They splice themselves."

A chill crawled up my spine.

"They fragment—shattering into hundreds of Novites, each carrying a fraction of the original's power. When those Novites forge pacts and accumulate enough strength, they eventually return to their source. And when they do, the Boundris reforms—greater than before."

I inhaled sharply. "So that means... you're a Star Spirit of the Hangman's Willow, ranked as a Novite?" I narrowed my eyes. "Meaning the Hangman's Willow itself was the original Boundris?"

A slow, pleased nod. "Good. You pieced that together."

He clasped his hands behind his back, the celestial glow of his skin casting shifting patterns against the void. "Ancient spirits, like myself, cannot gain power passively. Time does nothing for us. We do not evolve. We must form pacts with those who wield spirit-based abilities—absorbing a fraction of their miasma in exchange for our strength."

He leaned forward slightly, his luminous gaze locking onto mine. "And as I said, your miasma is currently... a pittance to my needs. However—"

Then he smiled.

It was blinding.

A radiance burst from his mouth, a jagged grin of cosmic destruction—teeth formed of white dwarfs and neutron stars, each compacted with the weight of a collapsed sun. It wasn't just a smile. It was gravity given form, raw and all-consuming.

"This place is rich." His voice thrummed with hunger. "And I plan for us to hunt."

***

We discovered that Lumivis's range was limited to the reach of my aura—roughly four yards. Even at that short distance, I could feel the strain. But there was something else I noticed, something more unsettling. My perception, my very awareness, was confined strictly within my aura's boundaries. Outside of it, the world may as well have ceased to exist.

"That's... great," I muttered, trying to suppress the unease. "Does the library throw people where they'll be challenged the most?"

Lumivis shook his head, the celestial wisps of his form shifting like the remnants of dying stars. "No. That would imply the library is sentient." He gestured with one hand, fingers tracing unseen patterns in the air. "The challenge does not adjust to your abilities. It merely increases in difficulty with each passing day. You are simply meant to survive—or not."

His eyes, twin stars burning in an infinite void, studied me with quiet intensity. "From what I gather, you bear the mark of an illegal contract."

I stiffened.

"You are not the first of the Hangman's Willow's charges to possess one," he continued, voice measured. "But the fact that you've lasted this long without assistance is remarkable."

I exhaled sharply and shook my head. If Lumivis was to take on the role of my Machina, there could be no secrets between us—at least, not from my side.

"That's not entirely true."

I told him everything. How for a year, Fractal had guarded my unconscious body. How I had only survived this long because of her.

Lumivis merely nodded, offering no judgment, no reaction—just quiet acknowledgment.

Then, within the dim confines of my aura, I recognized something familiar. Wood. Oak. Shelves stretching far beyond the reach of my perception. The scent of ink and parchment, the hush of boundless knowledge pressing against the silence.

A library.

Not just any library—the library.

But there was something else. A presence. No, presences.

I could feel them, threading through the space between shelves, slipping in and out of the books as though they were doorways rather than objects. Spirits, moving unseen, yet undeniable.

I hesitated. "Lumivis, what is—"

"Patience, Sire." His voice was a whisper, yet it filled the space between us. "Patience is the virtue we both share, but your vice—" He turned to me, eyes alight with quiet amusement. "—your vice is your greed. Your gluttony to know. Your excess in ignoring the obvious."

I scowled, but he continued, undeterred.

"Just as I am a spirit that has bound itself to you, spirits can bind themselves to all manner of things. These—" he gestured towards the shifting presences, "—are his spirits. The ones who grant stories, histories, and myths life."

A shiver ran down my spine.

I had entered once again, into a place where knowledge was not merely recorded—it was alive.

Alive. And completely outside of my Arte's control.

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