In reality, over the past six months, the Sablon Republic, acting at the head of the Oceanic Coalition, had launched repeated probes against Aeon Corporation. These were not clumsy diplomatic feelers or public accusations, but quiet, calculated incursions meant to test the limits of a power that had appeared too suddenly and grown too fast to be ignored.

They went further than mere observation. Covert teams were dispatched to infiltrate Aeon's regional offices and manufacturing plants across the globe, each operation escalating in scale and risk. When conventional agents failed, the Coalition deployed its trump cards: Mutants, assets whose very existence was buried beneath layers of classification and denial.

Every attempt ended the same way. Aeon's facilities behaved like living organisms, cold and patient, swallowing entire teams without leaving behind a trace. No alarms, no distress signals, no survivors.

The final operation had been the boldest yet. A strike team of thirty operatives, led by a Level 12 Grand Bishop-tier Wind-Elemental Mutant, infiltrated a major factory complex believed to be central to Aeon's supply chain. The reasoning was simple and ruthless. Even if everything collapsed, a Level 12 wind-controller could escape almost any trap known to man.

They waited three days.

No check-ins. No emergency beacons. No corpses. Nothing at all.

What followed was not even a mystery, because there was nothing to investigate. Absolute radio silence. Earlier missions had attempted to use advanced wireless recording and transmission equipment, but the results had been identical every time. The instant an operative crossed the perimeter of any Aeon facility, all technology failed as if reality itself had flipped a switch.

The Coalition had anticipated this, to a degree. Ethereal's technology had already shaken them to the core. In one of the Coalition's most advanced laboratories, researchers had dismantled a standard Aeon VR Headset, hoping to uncover its secrets. They found nothing they could understand. No recognizable circuitry, no logic they could trace, no principles that matched known science. Attempts to reassemble it rendered the device completely inert, an expensive shell of plastic and glass. Whatever made it work could not be copied, replicated, or stolen.

Unable to seize the technology, the Coalition shifted to plan B: capture the minds that created it. A worldwide search was launched, sweeping through databases, corporations, universities, and black markets alike. It yielded nothing. No engineers. No researchers. No technicians. Only public-facing administrative staff whose knowledge stopped at surface-level operations. It was as if Aeon's true technical team did not exist on Earth at all.

The loss of a Level 12 Grand Bishop Mutant was devastating, but instead of deterring them, it hardened their resolve. Secret councils convened behind closed doors, strategies grew more extreme, and contingency plans edged closer to outright desperation.

These were games played far above Ethan's current station, pieces moving across boards he could not see.

At this moment, he was trapped in a far more personal battlefield.

His Mindscape, long since twisted into the Heart-Devil Realm, lay submerged in an unnatural stillness. Endless flames stretched in all directions, frozen in a silence that felt heavier than any roar. Two figures lay within that inferno, one on its back, staring into nothingness, the other facedown, motionless.

Time lost all meaning.

Then, at the same instant, the index finger on each figure's left hand twitched.

Both pairs of eyes flew open.

Ethan's true self, lying on his back, rose in a way that defied any sense of physics, lifting straight upward as if the world itself had forgotten gravity. Across from him, the specter of his past life pushed itself up more slowly, surrounded by a dense haze of resentment, hatred, and every unprocessed emotion he had ever buried. Grey-black vapors clung to it, writhing as if alive.

"You should die. DIE!" the specter roared, its voice echoing with raw madness.

Ethan looked weaker by comparison, his form dimmer, his presence less oppressive, yet the expression on his face was one of pure disdain. "You're the one who shouldn't exist," he said calmly. "Not even like this. You're the one who needs to disappear. I won't deny it. The foundation of what I am now was built partly by you. But you're not him, and you're not me. You're just a Heart-Devil, a mass of unresolved guilt and obsession. You are my negativity given shape, nothing more. Don't try to weaponize memories of my suffering to accuse me."

He took a slow breath, his gaze never leaving the specter. "In this life, I haven't let my thoughts spiral the way they used to. I know I have a dark side. I'm not pretending otherwise. You tried to surface before, didn't you? Every time my emotions slipped, every time my temper flared, that was you nudging things along. When Yaya was here, whenever that anger rose, something cool and clear would settle over me and pull me back. Now that she's gone, you finally thought it was safe to show your face."

There was no fear in his eyes, only clarity. His words were not shouted or forced. They were the product of cold analysis, each sentence striking with surgical precision.

"You… you…" the specter stammered, its fury faltering as confusion crept in.

"Me?" Ethan's lips curved slightly. "What about me? You want to know why this place isn't affecting me the way it used to?"

He glanced around the blazing hellscape, a realm steeped in pure malice. Before this moment of awakening, its influence had been undeniable, a grinding, endless agitation that gnawed at his mind. But now he could feel it clearly. Thin threads of coolness seeped into him from his neck, his wrists, his ankles, anchoring his consciousness.

That faint chill, paired with his own stubborn will, kept him grounded.

And with that realization came another. This was a trial. Another tribulation. The specter before him was a tumor he had to excise. Destroying it would mean a true rebirth, a final severing from the man he used to be. If he failed, that pressure, that buried reservoir of pain, would remain forever, waiting for a chance to rot him from within.

"Hmph. So you've figured it out," the specter sneered, regaining some of its composure. "So what? Look at you. You're weak. How long do you think you can last? The final victory will be mine. I'll take back what belongs to me. I'll burn this world. I'll erase all injustice from the earth. I'll slaughter every guilty soul!"

Ethan stiffened.

From the beginning, the specter had been filled with hatred, but this was different. This was unhinged. And the words it spoke struck far too close to home.

They were his thoughts. The exact thoughts that had once festered in his mind during his past life, when he lay broken in that shack, staring at a cracked ceiling, drowning in the belief that the universe itself was unjust.

That warped ideology had been born in absolute despair.

So why had it not followed him into this new life?

The answer surfaced instantly. Because the first thing he had seen after awakening was Lyla. Perhaps Morzan had chosen that moment deliberately. Lyla's presence, her warmth, the revelation that she was Moonbeam, all of it had washed over the poison before it could sink its roots into him.

If he had been reborn at a different time, without that anchor…

The thought sent a cold shiver through his soul-form. In that scenario, he would not have been Morzan's chosen savior. He would have been a destroyer.

With the power he now wielded, if this Heart-Devil took control, Earth would not need to wait for annihilation from some distant Enemy. This thing might very well turn Shatterstar's main cannon inward and bore straight through the planet's core.

That realization hardened the resolve already burning in Ethan's eyes. He could not lose. He did not fight because he wanted to save the world. He fought for the people beside him, the brothers he had grown with, the woman he loved. Earth mattered because it was their home. Without them, he would not care about being a hero at all. Living well, one day at a time, was all he had ever truly wanted. World affairs and grand causes meant nothing to him.

But his world had expanded.

He had to stand for them now.

"Come on," Ethan said quietly, narrowing his eyes at the writhing specter. "Show me how you plan to break me."

Only then did he fully understand what he had already sensed upon waking. The grey-black vapors surrounding the specter were constantly reaching toward him, probing, searching for cracks. This thing had no true offensive power. Its only weapon was corruption, gnawing away at his mind, eroding his resolve. Only if his mental defenses collapsed could it strike.

Regret surfaced briefly. That reckless, all-out attack earlier had been a mistake, driven by the lingering influence of this realm.

"Kekeke… very well," the specter hissed, its intent no longer concealed. "We'll wait. With your Soul Power nearly exhausted, let's see how long you can endure."

Ethan's heart sank.

So I did fall for it.

That desperate final stand had been exactly what it wanted.

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