I was escorted out of the hospital by Fractal, her humanoid form now a little more solid, a little more regal. She had her Walker’s robe on, and the look suited her; it framed her graceful frame perfectly, each movement fluid, almost ethereal. I couldn’t help but notice how the robe clung to her, and for a moment, I was distracted by how it complemented the subtle shimmer of her chromatic feathers. Her appearance was still dazzling—like a tapestry woven from sunset and dawn—but there was an undeniable strength in her now.

  My own body felt different. I was lighter, faster, as if the very marrow of my bones had been reforged. The pain in my leg was a distant memory, the tightness in my ankle replaced by an energy I hadn’t felt in days. My legs felt... better. Amazing, even.

  “As they should,” Fractal said, her voice harmonious and lively as she glanced at me, her eyes full of that knowing light. “Part of what they did to counteract the mercurial toxicity was to magically weave a brand new right leg. Due to something-something another, they said they had to do the same for the other one, to keep the balance. I didn’t pay attention to the technicalities.” She shrugged, and a playful glint appeared in her eyes. “Just as soon as I was cleared for duty, I ran over.”

  I blinked, processing the words. My leg had been remade? It didn’t make sense, but at the same time, it did. The constant ache I’d been fighting was gone, replaced by a smooth, almost unnatural sense of strength. I glanced at Fractal, who looked entirely unaffected, already at ease in her humanoid form.

  “How did you get a human form?” I asked, still grappling with the changes. “I thought that required…”

  “It requires me to have completed my first three shells. Yes.” She finished for me, her voice almost flippant, but it didn’t make the answer any less weighty.

  Three shells. Twenty-seven skillcubes. And I had missed them all. It was overwhelming to think about. She had reached such a milestone, and I hadn’t even been there to witness it, or even to guide her. It was a jarring reminder of how much I had lost touch with, how quickly the deadline was encroaching.

  “Wait… How did you progress so quickly?” I asked, my voice tinged with concern.

  Her eyes glimmered with mischief as she answered, “I had to protect you when you slept.” She seemed to take great amusement in this, her smile radiant but tinged with something darker. “You were dragged off to Danatallion’s Halls every night while you were recovering. Craven’s are delicious. So are Mastegors! They’re like... giant bullmen, but instead of a minotaur, reverse it? They’re man-topped, bull-bottomed, and no opposable thumbs. Think of them as steaks.”

  I frowned as she described them in a disturbingly casual tone. My thoughts were already racing, the gears of my mind working through the implications. A year of my life had been spent in that damn place, my body recovering from the poison, and Fractal—my companion—hadn’t just been standing by. She’d been in her own trials, progressing while I languished. But more than that, it struck me how much she had been protecting me during my unconscious state. I had missed everything. And now, time was slipping away faster than ever.

  I turned to her, the question pressing in on me. “How am I supporting the bond we have then? I thought if you progressed past me, it would sever?”

  Before she could answer, Morres spoke from the corner of my vision, his voice breaking the silence with an almost imperceptible shift of tone. He looked over at Fractal, then back at me. “Only if she desired it to be severed. She didn’t.” His voice softened, a hint of something almost protective underlying his words. “I also recommended against it. Pandora’s Box values Spirit Beast pairings above all else.”

  I glanced back at Fractal, confusion still lingering in my mind, but there was something else there too. Something... reassuring in the way she looked at me. She hadn’t wanted to sever the bond. We hadn’t wanted to. A part of me knew this was more than just duty—it was our connection, our shared journey. Despite the unspoken rules of our power, of our progress, we were still bound by something deeper. A sense of trust. A sense of purpose.

  “So, this bond…” I began slowly, feeling the weight of it all, “it’s not just about skillcubes and power?”

  Fractal gave a quiet, almost wistful nod, her feathers fluttering lightly against my shoulder. “No, Alexander. It’s not just about that. It’s about us—what we’ve been through together, and what we will continue to face.” She paused, her gaze softening. “And as long as we both choose to, we’ll walk this path together.”

  “I…I didn’t do anything for you, Fractal. Honestly, I didn’t. You were just there. A circumstance. You watched, you learned, but I didn’t grow with you. Hell, you even protected me for almost a year.” I spoke with a heavy heart, the weight of my own helplessness pressing down on me. Fractal had been there, keeping vigil while I lay unconscious, and it seemed as if I had done nothing but drift, unaware.

  She tilted her head slightly, her feathers rustling as she perched beside me, a quiet smile on her face. “And? It was great training.” Her voice was bright, unburdened. She seemed to take the idea in stride, her wings shimmering like an abstract painting. “I’m a Dusk-blade! Oh, Dominus Morres will go over all the potential archetypes with you later! That way we can get your third shell finalized too!”

  I blinked, a little taken aback. “Wait, I’m getting there today?!” My voice was laced with disbelief. The idea of achieving my third shell so soon felt too unreal.

  “Nope.” She said casually, unphased by my surprise. “But you’ll be getting there this week. Just gotta absorb all the skills for the first shell’s completion. Then you have to empower your inner self’s world with miasma and have the skillcubes for the second shell. For the third? You need your Truth. Mine was easy~! [Life is a Game.]”

  I sat there, processing the whirlwind of information. Her ease with it all only amplified the feeling that I was way behind, stumbling to catch up. My Truth…[Everything has a Price.]

  “Wait,” I asked, furrowing my brow. “You got your Truth that easily?”

  Fractal giggled, an almost ethereal sound that filled the room. “Well, it’s not about how easy or hard it is, Alexander. It’s about what resonates with you.” She fluttered her wings in a fluid motion, the hues of her feathers shifting like a living rainbow. “The Truth is always there. For me, it was obvious. Life is a game. I play it. I win. I lose. But I enjoy it either way.”

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  Morres met my gaze, his golden eyes unblinking. He exhaled a slow breath, as if the weight of what he was about to say carried some gravity.

  “In that regard, Alexander,” he began, his voice smooth and calm, “you are ahead of her. Fractal had to reach the peak of completing her second shell to even start figuring out her Truth. You? You barely needed a push. You only needed to realize it, and you did. In the ditch you were in. Right there, when everything seemed the darkest.”

  I felt a lump form in my throat as the pieces started to fit together. My Truth. The clarity of it all, but only in the moments where I had felt the most vulnerable.

  Morres continued, his tone almost casual, but there was something deeply calculated beneath the surface. “I also lied to you, Alexander. The reason I went to you first, why I pushed you into that corner? The only way you were going to survive was if I forced you into discovering your Truth then and there. You weren’t going to make it otherwise.”

  The weight of his words landed like a heavy stone in my chest. I’d thought it was mere circumstance, that my breakdown had led to some kind of awakening. But no. It was by design. I had been cornered, not just by fate, but by him.

  Morres paused, as though savoring the moment, then added with a touch of amusement, “Just because you were close doesn’t mean I wasn’t dilating time for you. You were drifting, Alexander. On the edge, hanging by a thread. You needed that extra nudge, that moment of clarity in your crisis. You needed to understand your Truth. You needed to know that nothing would change unless you did.”

  I couldn’t fully process what he was saying. I had been guided, even manipulated, into the discovery of my Truth, and now it felt like everything that had happened in the last few days—weeks even—was part of a much bigger plan, one that I had been blind to.

  "But why?" I asked the question tumbling out before I could stop it. "Why me? Why now?"

  He looked at me with an unreadable expression, his golden eyes gleaming with a mix of mystery and finality. "Because you were always meant to. And because you were running out of time."

  ***

  Morres led me to a larger home—spacious, but not as ostentatious as my uncle’s estate. At the same time, it wasn’t as humble as the house I had grown up in with my mother. It sat in that strange in-between, neither extravagant nor simple, but somewhere in the middle.

  We settled at a wooden table, its surface smooth and well-used. The chairs weren’t uncomfortable, but they weren’t designed for long hours of sitting either. Functional, like the rest of the house.

  Morres leaned back, resting his arms against the table. “Alright, let’s go through your planned build. The more details, the better.”

  I exhaled, running a hand through my hair as I gathered my thoughts. “Well… I was training as an archer,” I began, “but I’ve come to realize that a bow alone isn’t nearly good enough. Not against what I’ve been facing.” The memory of the Abbess loomed in my mind, that crushing difference in power. “So then, I thought of a Witchhunter—something that blends ranged combat with adaptability.”

  Morres nodded, listening intently.

  “But then I remembered…” My gaze drifted to my side, to where my Machina’s card form rested. “I had this the entire time. My Machina. And I could have used it in the fight against the Abbess, but…” I let the silence fill in the answer. The sheer gap in strength had made it irrelevant. I had been fighting for survival, and even with all my resources, I had barely managed to come out alive.

  “Don’t get used to it,” Morres warned, his voice matter-of-fact. “Your Machina is useful in this realm, sure, but once you take the next step, its effectiveness drops dramatically. Unless you make it your Decree.”

  That word. Decree. I had seen it before, read it in passing, but I had never fully grasped its meaning.

  “Decree…” I repeated, frowning. “I remember reading about that, but I never really understood what it meant.”

  Morres gave a half-smile, one that carried the weight of knowledge he wasn’t willing to share. “Can’t tell you much about that, Alexander. Not yet. You’ll have to figure it out when the time comes.”

  I narrowed my eyes but didn’t press further. If Morres wasn’t telling me now, it was because I either wasn’t ready, or because understanding it prematurely would ruin something critical.

  He tapped his fingers on the table. “So, let’s see what we’re working with. Archery, magic, and puppetry.” His grin widened, eyes glinting with something between amusement and exasperation. “Oh boy, a trispect build.”

  The way he said it made it sound like both a challenge and a problem.

  I frowned. “That bad?”

  Morres chuckled. “Not bad. Ambitious. Trispects aren’t common because they split focus across three disciplines, which can make them weaker than a more specialized build. But…” His grin sharpened. “If done right, a trispect can be overwhelming. The problem is getting it right—most people crash and burn before they reach that point.”

  I folded my arms. “So it’s a gamble.”

  “Everything worth doing is.” He leaned forward, the humor fading slightly from his tone. “You’re taking on three disciplines. Archery for range. Magic for versatility. Puppetry—well, let’s call it Machina manipulation—for battlefield control. If you can merge them into a cohesive whole, you’ll be deadly. But if you spread yourself too thin? You’ll be a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, and that won’t cut it in the long run.”

  “So… am I to assume you’ll be sorting through the available skillcubes for me, picking the ones that best fit my build?” I leaned forward slightly, watching Morres for confirmation. “A… Ranah-Tahiri, I believe my examiner called it?”

  Morres groaned, tilting his head back as if the weight of the name itself was physically exhausting. “Ugh. So her influence extends here too… Give me a break.” He let out a deep sigh, rubbing his temple before looking back at me with a flat, unimpressed stare.

  I raised an eyebrow at his reaction. “I take it you two have some history?”

  “Something like that.” He shook his head. “It’s a bit of a rivalry within the faction between myself and Ranah. Not worth worrying about.” His tone made it clear he had no interest in elaborating. “For now, tell me what you already have.”

  I listed them off without hesitation. “[Sugared Maw], [Gluttony of the Golden Hydra], [The Millennium Halls], and [Atlas’s Manifest].”

  Morres stared at me. Blankly. Long enough that I began to wonder if I had said something insane.

  “You…” His eyes narrowed slightly, and he exhaled through his nose. “You have a Sin Stone?”

  The weight behind his words wasn’t lost on me. I swallowed. “Uh… yeah?”

  “Never mind.” He waved a dismissive hand before I could ask more. “We’ll deal with that later.” He tapped the table with his fingers, moving back to the topic at hand. “Alright. So, you’ve got your crystal filled. That means you still need another nature and four more dimensional abilities.”

  I nodded, keeping up as best I could.

  “We’ll get you two dimensional archer abilities—so you don’t abandon that training completely. We’ll make a Machina ability your nature—since you already rely on it. And two dimensional magic abilities to round it out.”

  At his words, Fractal chirped in approval, her mask-like haze shifting in delight. I wasn’t sure whether that was a good or bad sign, but I had a feeling I was in for something interesting.