Outside the walls of Cristae Academy, where the last traces of structured order faded into the wild, Eira and Aurelian moved through the forest with measured caution. The air felt heavier here, as if something unseen pressed gently against the mind rather than the body. Even the wind seemed reluctant to pass through, brushing past leaves in soft, uncertain whispers.
Eira's purplish eyes, usually sharp and unwavering, carried a faint dullness tonight. It was subtle—something most wouldn't notice—but Aurelian did. There was a slight lag in her focus, a quiet strain behind her gaze. The constant mental exertion of her research, the endless analysis of ichor patterns and astral anomalies, had begun to take its toll. She hadn't complained once, but fatigue had a way of revealing itself in the smallest fractures.
Still, she walked forward.
Then the forest shifted.
Not visibly. Not audibly. But something had changed.
Aurelian's instincts flared first, his body reacting before his thoughts caught up. A distortion cut through the air—a sudden rupture in stillness—and in the next instant, the howling revealed itself.
It wasn't like the others they had faced before.
Its body stretched unnaturally long, coiling like a serpent, yet segments of it twitched as if they remembered being limbs. Jagged appendages protruded at irregular intervals, useless for movement but twitching in spasms, as though caught between two evolutionary states. Its head was the most unsettling—split slightly at the jaw, exposing rows of oversized fangs that seemed too large for its skull. Each breath it took dragged a wet, rasping sound through the air.
And then it moved.
There was no warning. No buildup.
It lunged straight at Eira.
A gust of wind tore through the space between them—sharp, violent, instantaneous.
Aurelian.
He appeared in front of her in less than a blink, his movement so fast it displaced the air itself. The true power of the gale ichor's "Flashstep".His fist collided with the creature's face with a thunderous crack, the impact sending a shockwave through the surrounding trees. Bark splintered. Leaves burst free in spirals. The howling's body bent unnaturally from the force before it was launched backward, crashing violently into the forest floor.
For a brief moment, everything stilled again.
Eira inhaled sharply, her body already shifting into motion. Her fingers tightened, lunar ichor gathering instinctively, preparing to strike—
But a firm arm stopped her.
"Aurelian—"
"Stay here," he said, his voice calm but unyielding. "You need to rest."
There was no harshness in his tone, only quiet certainty.
Eira hesitated. Her pride resisted, just for a second—but her body betrayed her. The slight tremor in her stance, the faint dizziness creeping at the edge of her vision… she knew he was right.
Slowly, she nodded.
It wasn't dramatic. Just a small movement, almost imperceptible. But it carried weight—a silent thank you, a quiet acceptance.
Aurelian didn't respond verbally. He didn't need to.
He stepped forward.
The howling had already recovered.
Its body twisted unnaturally as it rose, spine bending in ways that should have been impossible. A low hiss escaped its fractured jaw, thick strands of viscous saliva dripping from its fangs. Then its body coiled tighter… and tighter…
Preparing.
Aurelian exhaled slowly.
And then, finally, he revealed it.
The Gale Chakram.
It formed in his hand like condensed wind given shape—a perfect disc, thin yet impossibly sharp, its edges shimmering with a faint distortion. It didn't look entirely solid. The surface rippled slightly, like currents flowing beneath it. If one stared too long, it almost seemed to blur into the air itself.
It was said that those who reached the second phase of the Gale Ichor would manifest this weapon—a blade that did not simply cut, but moved in harmony with the wind. Each rotation fed into the next, each motion accelerating beyond the last. It didn't just spin.
It evolved.
The howling struck first this time.
Its body snapped forward, faster than before, jaws opening unnaturally wide. From within its throat, a pressurized stream of dark liquid burst forth—venomous, corrosive, and alive with unstable ichor.
Aurelian moved.
The chakram left his hand.
At first, it seemed like a simple throw.
Then the air screamed.
The moment it began spinning, the surrounding wind aligned with it, drawn into its motion like a vortex. The chakram didn't just travel—it pulled the world along its path. The venomous liquid shot toward it, hissing violently as it cut through the air—
And then, impossibly, it never touched.
The wind bent around the chakram, forming a barrier of pure motion. The liquid was repelled, torn apart mid-flight, scattered into harmless droplets that evaporated before reaching their target.
The howling had no time to react.
In a single, clean motion—
It was cut in half.
From head to tail.
There was no resistance. No tearing. Just a perfect division, as if reality itself had been sliced apart. For a fraction of a second, the two halves remained suspended in place, unable to comprehend what had happened.
Then gravity returned.
Blood erupted outward, painting the nearby trees in deep crimson. The sound came after—a wet, heavy collapse as the body hit the ground. The forest seemed to recoil from it, the silence that followed heavier than before.
The chakram curved through the air and returned to Aurelian's hand, its rotation slowing, the wind around it gradually settling.
He stepped forward.
The heart of the howling had fallen free from its body, landing a short distance away. It pulsed weakly, the remnants of corrupted life flickering within it. The myocardium had been cleanly severed, unable to sustain anything further.
But the Astral Card remained.
It lay there, untouched.
Perfect.
Aurelian crouched slightly, his gaze fixed on it. Even from a distance, he could feel it—an unnatural presence, subtle yet invasive. The surface of the card shimmered faintly, as if it couldn't fully exist in a single state.
He reached out.
His fingers brushed against it—
And the world broke.
Eira was behind him.
Dead.
Her body lay motionless, eyes empty, her expression frozen in something that resembled surprise. Blood pooled beneath her, far too much, far too fast. The color was wrong. Everything about it was wrong.
"Aurelian…"
Her voice.
Soft. Distant. Right next to him.
"Wake up…"
His breath caught.
The forest twisted. The colors inverted. Sound collapsed inward—
Aurelian's eyes snapped open.
He was lying against a tree.
The real one.
The air rushed back into his lungs as if he had been drowning. His vision blurred for a moment before stabilizing. The forest returned—intact, unchanged, quiet.
Eira was there.
Alive.
Standing in front of him.
Her expression was tense, her brows slightly drawn together—not fear, but concern. Real concern.
"What… happened?" Aurelian muttered, pushing himself up.
Eira exhaled slowly. "You fainted. Right when you touched the Astral Card."
Aurelian's gaze sharpened instantly. "The card?"
"It's gone." Her voice lowered slightly. "I didn't see clearly… but there was someone. A silhouette. A young girl."
Silence settled between them.
Aurelian's expression shifted—Recognition.
"…I see."
Eira watched him carefully. "You know something."
He nodded slowly. "Clyde mentioned her before. A girl… watching him. Always at a distance."
His gaze darkened slightly.
"I'm certain now. She has the Reverie Divine Ichor."
The name itself felt unstable, like it didn't belong in spoken language.
"At that level of control…" he continued, his voice quieter now, more serious, "she's at least Phase Three. Maybe Four."
Eira's fingers tightened slightly at her side.
The Reverie Ichor.
A divine ichor specializing in the Neurological Illusion Field—an ability that didn't attack the body, but the mind itself. It didn't create simple illusions. It rewrote perception, layered false realities over truth, and made the victim accept them as absolute.
The Reverie Astral Card was unlike any other they had encountered.
It was thin—almost impossibly so—like a shard of glass that had no true thickness. Its edges wavered subtly, as if reality itself struggled to define where it began and ended. Looking at it for too long made the eyes strain, not from brightness, but from inconsistency.
At its center rested a fractured eye.
Not one, but many.
Multiple pupils overlapped within the same space, each misaligned, each staring in a different direction. They did not move in unison. They never aligned. It was as if every version of perception existed at once, layered imperfectly over itself.
And yet, none of them felt real.
The image shifted constantly. Faint afterimages lagged behind the original, like echoes that refused to disappear. The longer one observed it, the more it seemed to split—duplicating, distorting, and reforming in subtle, unsettling ways.
Across its surface, wave-like patterns flowed endlessly.
They resembled neural signals—spirals, pulses, interference lines—moving beneath a dim glow of deep violet and pale cyan. The colors flickered unpredictably, sometimes inverting, sometimes dimming, as if the card itself was reacting to the observer's thoughts.
Nothing about it stayed consistent.
Every second, it changed.
Every moment, it contradicted itself.
It wasn't that the card was unstable—
It was that the mind could not fully process what it truly was.
Even Aurelian… had been caught.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The weight of it settled in.
Finally, Eira exhaled. "We should wait. Analyze this further."
Aurelian nodded. "Agreed."
Charging blindly into something like that would be suicide.
Eira took a step forward—
And stumbled.
It was small, but unmistakable.
Her balance wavered, her body struggling to maintain stability. The fatigue she had been suppressing finally surfaced, breaking through her control.
Aurelian's expression softened slightly. "We should continue tomorrow. At your current state… you might faint."
Eira let out a quiet breath. For once, she didn't argue.
She nodded. "...Thanks. For caring."
There was something unspoken in that moment—something simple, human, and grounding amidst everything else.
Aurelian turned slightly, glancing back toward the direction of the academy.
"Let's regroup," he said. "We'll meet Clyde and Marlowe."
Eira followed beside him, her steps slower now, but steadier.
Behind them, the forest remained silent.
But somewhere within it—
Something was watching.