Thirty minutes passed. The crowded cityscape slowly faded, replaced by natural nuances. Smooth asphalt turned into a potholed nightmare of rural roads. No more tall buildings or 24-hour marts, just endless, pitch-black rice fields illuminated by the Supra’s vibrating headlight as it fought the rocks.

  Wait. Giou knew this road. The bumps, the cracks—he’d been here before. A faint memory finally assembled a map in his head when they passed a specific landmark: an old jackfruit tree leaning over the road.

  However it wasn't the tree itself—Java had millions of them. It was the residents living on the Ophema layer.

  Strange-looking djinns. They looked like distorted Portuguese Man o' Wars jellyfish (Physalia physalis); translucent blue bodies floating in the air. Their tentacles ended in creepy little six-fingered hands that gripped the tree bark tight. From a distance, it looked like a ghostly kite festival. It was a rare endemic spiritual species—only found at these exact coordinates.

  Giou directly knew their destination. "This is... the road to Ki Rojo's place, isn't it?" He asked, confirming. "Are we going there?"

  "Yup."

  "Why? Is there a talisman inspection? or does Master have business-"

  "Giou," Arua cut in suddenly, his tone dropping to match the night's chill. "I need to ask you something."

  Giou paused for a moment. "What is it, Master?"

  Arua didn't answer immediately. Silence hung for a few seconds, filled only by the rattle of the Supra's exhaust and timing chain.

  "Honest answer... Would you rather die young as a human, or live long as a demon...?"

  The question hit Giou harder than the potholes. It wasn't rhetorical—it was the core of his existence. His fear of death, his obsession with humanity—it all boiled down to this. But for Giou, the answer was clear.

  "That... of course I will choose human! It’s the only thing I have ever wanted... No matter if I die faster..." For him, a human's short lifespan was a small price he was willing to pay for a real identity.

  "Haha..." Arua's laugh sounded faint, almost swallowed by the wind. "Never changes, huh..."

  Giou tilted his head. He didn't get it. Why his Master ask that now?

  The bike slowed. They turned into a vast dirt yard. Shortly after, the bike stopped right in front of Ki Rojojati’s terrace—a local shaman.

  The place was far from luxurious. It looked like a rickety shack refusing to collapse. Its walls were a mix of woven bamboo and termite-infested weathered wooden planks, topped with mossy, black asbestos. Dirty and damp, as if the place had been abandoned for decades—or maybe just camouflaged to blend with the surrounding wilderness.

  No knock. No greeting. Arua lifted his right leg and kicked the wooden door in.

  CRASH! Sound of old hinges screeching against the impact broke the silence of the rural night. The door flew open, barely hanging onto the frame.

  Giou, standing behind his master, was not surprised at all. This was indeed Arua's standard operating procedure when visiting Ki Rojojati's place—the person he had trusted all this time regarding supernatural matters (like Giou’s anti-aura cloak, it was made by him).

  And the shaman? Even worse. As the door swung wide open, the "scenery" inside immediately assaulted their eyes. A fat, middle-aged man jumped in his rickety chair. He was performing... some sort of private ritual. His right hand was busy "playing" with a relatively small size vital area, while the other held a phone emitting soft girl moans. Caught in the act.

  Giou sighed. Again, this sight was nothing new. Back when he was locked in the chicken coop out back, he’d caught the old pervert playing similar game more times than he cared to count.

  The shaman’s shock reflex triggered. "Eh, my dick ran away, you fuckin—ARUA!" His voice exploded. "KNOCK, YOU FUKCING BASTARD! DON'T JUST BARGE IN LIKE A COP! AAARRRGGGHHH! I WAS ABOUT TO NUT, YOU ASSHOLE!" His face turned the exact shade of the 19th-century Flag of Muscat and Oman. Pure, solid red. A cocktail of rage, shame, and the remnants of unfinished libido.

  "Repent, old man," Arua deadpanned. Pot calling the kettle black. They stepped inside while the shaman frantically adjusted his sarong.

  Giou scanned the room. Inside here was the definition of organized chaos. Wall-to-wall contradictions. On one side: keris daggers, ancient runes, and talismans. On the other side: bikini anime girl posters and hentai action figures, sitting proudly next to dusty grimoires.

  But nothing beat Ki Rojojati himself. The 53-year-old calmed down and stood up. Short, fat, messy white beard and middle bald hair. His face was even worse than Arua's when waking up. He dressed in a thin tank top and a stained sarong.

  And behind the shabby appearance, the guy was a walking occult museum full of random bullshit. Mini keris earrings. Ancient Javanese script carved into a wooden necklace. A detailed Luo Pan compass tattooed down his right arm. A 3D-printed twisty fidget bracelet that clicked with every move. Even his cheap flip-flops were modded with resin patches of Asafoetida—some pungent Iranian spice.

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  To a normies, he looked like a crackhead or a modern artist working at some money laundering facility. In fact, he was a Supernaturalist. All that tacky objects weren't ordinary accessories; it was Nisaga—programmable supernatural technology.

  "Ugh..." Ki Rojo groaned in frustration. "I said midnight, you little shit..." He turned and stomped toward the kitchen. Arua and Giou trailed behind.

  "I have other business at that time," Arua answered casually while his hand blurred, snatching a gas lighter off the fridge. While the shaman was busy operating his laptop on the dining table, Arua lit up one of his stolen cigs.

  Aside from being a greedy pervert, Ki Rojojati was a Supernaturalist with the roles of Exorcist, Artificer (Nisaga designer), and Shaman (Supernaturalist bound by contract with spiritual entities). He’d spent 30 of his 53 years cracking Irregularities—anomalies that violated supernatural laws. That obsession was exactly why he and Arua clicked.

  "You fixed the bug, right?" Arua asked, blowing smoke at the soot-stained ceiling. His left hand unconsciously pocketed the lighter. Giou, watching from the corner, braced himself. The inevitable argument over the lighter ownership was coming, sooner or later.

  Ki Rojo poured warm water into a glass, trying to cool his head. The second the topic shifted to work, his pervert face dropped, replaced by a sharp gaze.

  "Yeah. Turned out it was just a misconfig on Diaphragm-4. The rest is safe," Ki Rojo said with flat, professional voice.

  "Phase Shift?" asked Arua.

  "32 degrees."

  Arua frowned. "Should be 31.6."

  "32," Ki Rojo snapped. "Subject's heart rate dipped. I had to offset it."

  "Tch. Told you the TS-1500 couldn't handle that fluctuation."

  "Whatever," Ki Rojo sipped his water. "It's cheap. Our budget's tight, deal with it."

  Giou stood in silence, completely lost. As usual, these two weirdos were always cooking up something he didn't understand. Not his place to ask.

  Ki Rojo spun the laptop around, revealing a mess of overlapping windows. Giou peeked. The screen was crowded with rows of code, rapidly blinking numbers, and fluctuating wave graphs.

  But what stopped Giou’s breath was the live feed in the corner. Inside a closed chamber, there was a teenage boy, pale as a corpse, lay naked on a white medical bed. A ventilator tube down his throat, pumping his lungs mechanically. A Central Venous Catheter in his neck pumped thick purple liquid straight to his heart. Urine bag hanging off the side.

  On his head, there was a crude helmet, locked tight with dozens of electrode needles dug into his scalp. Plus a mantra tattoos on his forehead, he looked like a combination of a coma patient, a lab rat, and a ritual sacrifice.

  Next to the live feed, a 3D simulation ran. An avatar walked through a hyper-realistic virtual world, interacting with objects.

  Game or animation? Giou didn't know. But the world felt familiar. Dense atmosphere, purple dry ground, giant slimy mushrooms, crystal shards. It was a perfect replica of his home, Gehenna.

  What were they actually planning? Horror crept in as Giou noticed a synchronized pattern. Every time the wave graph spiked, the avatar moved.

  "Ego Dissolution runs smoothly," Arua muttered, eyes scanning the data stream. "Memory blur at 48%. Okay, we enter the episodic memory sector." Smoke poured from his lips as he spoke.

  Giou's curiosity peaked to the limit. "Ummm... What is happening here?" he asked hesitantly.

  "Just a little ritual," Ki Rojo said, eyes twinkling.

  "Result of one and half years experiment," Arua smirked.

  "And years of my research!" added Ki Rojo, voice cracking with hype.

  "We're doing it now, right!?"

  "Of course, damn it! Right now...!"

  Evil grins filled both of their faces. They locked eyes, then burst into maniacal laughter. "HAHAHAHAHAAA!!!"

  Their voiced echoed in the kitchen walls, like a movie villains who just figured out a genius plan to kill the main character. Giou just stared at them with a flat face. What are these two humans doing, he thought. If there was a survey of the most absurd creatures in the world, Giou would surely write their names.

  Suddenly, the laughter stopped. Arua and Ki Rojo cracked their necks in sync, as if they were prepping for a heavy work.

  "So, for the next few days we will be busy," said Ki Rojo, returning to serious mode.

  "Get ready. Just a small mistake, we lose millions," Arua added.

  Giou tilted his head. "Ready for what?"

  Instead of answering, Arua dropped his body onto the bamboo bench next to him. His physical body went limp, his eyes closed instantly. Then, his Ophema projection caught the consciousness transfer and starting to separate itself from its reference. Arua's spirit stood up beside his original body, staring at Giou. He had just performed Astral Projection.

  The man stepped closer. Giou backed up. "Uhh... Master? What is this—"

  "Just a cloak check," Arua began pulling the nisaga cloth covering Giou, observing it closely. Nothing suspicious as that was their monthly routine.

  Until he reached the back... Bam. Arua’s left arm locked Giou’s neck in a chokehold. Right hand clamped over his mouth. Airway left open—but not for oxygen. "Mmpphh!?" Giou squirmed roughly.

  Arua activated transmutation Nexus. He ripped apart Nitrogen and Oxygen bonds from the air in front of Giou's face, lowering their existence to expand the quantum state, turning them non-physical, rearranging their atomic structure deterministically, compressing them into noble gas with pure concentration and raising its existence back.

  The result was Xenon. Heavy anesthetic gas. Odorless, colorless, instant hit to the central nervous system. Giou sucked it in, thinking it was air. But no. It was a sleeping poison.

  The effect was instant. NMDA receptors blocked, muscles turned to jelly, vision spun and mind scrambled.

  Electricity...! I have to...

  Giou tried to activate his self-defense mechanism, a high voltage surge through his body to shock Arua off. But it was too late. His consciousness was already too scattered even for a simple Nexus.

  "Sleep..." Arua whispered right in Giou's ear, slow and cold. "I'll guide you to your dream destination..."

  Giou could no longer process those words. The world went black. Last thing he saw was the fat shaman, standing in front of him just watching. And then... the demon collapsed.

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