It had been seven days since they entered the Shadow Realm—or so they'd been told.
Time was hard to measure in a place where the sun never moved, where the sky was a blank canvas and the sand shimmered endlessly in hues of dusk-gold. There was no nightfall, no shifting winds, not even the illusion of change. Just an eternal stillness.
Maids, identical in their appearance and movement, would come at consistent intervals—if you could even call them that. Time itself felt suspended here. With mechanical grace, they placed trays of steaming hot food in front of each passenger, bowed slightly, then vanished into the rear compartments of the train without uttering a single word. No instructions. No explanations.
Most passengers had sunk into lethargy. Some muttered to each other. Others simply sat in silence, staring at nothing. The surreal had dulled into a numbing monotony.
Zephyr spent the first day glued to the window like a child watching snowfall for the first time. For all he'd seen—his arrival in this world, his awakening, his arrest, torture, and execution—this sight still felt foreign. Strangely peaceful. Beautiful, in a lifeless sort of way.
But beauty without substance fades.
By the second day, wonder turned into questions.
What was this place?
Where were they going?
Didn't they say travelling through the second dimension took far shorter time. And why did it feel like we'd never arrive?
By the third day, boredom gave way to restlessness.
Zephyr grew tired of the silence, of the tasteless repetition of food, of the unchanged sky. With nothing left to hold his attention outward, he turned inward. He began to experiment—with his body, his Aether, and eventually… his abilities.
He started small, urging the neutral Aether in his veins to move faster. Unlike higher-ranked individuals who could command Aether with precision, Zeta-ranked could only urge or nudge it. Still, the response was immediate. His strength surged. His reflexes became sharper. The world around him felt like it offered less resistance—air felt thinner, motion smoother. Every step felt lighter. Every gesture stronger.
But even that wasn't enough.
That was when he remembered the birthmark—the one that burned faintly when he awakened. Instinctively, he focused on it, channeling Aether through it. A soft red glow pulsed behind his eyes as information trickled into his mind.
Limbo—Border Jail.
A dimensional technique. It allowed him to create a suspended zone—a border between realities—that could trap or restrict movement within a defined area. He could lock space around objects, stop motion entirely, or create barriers where nothing could pass.
His excitement was instant and overwhelming.
"I'm a broken character." he muttered to himself with a grin.
And so, he went to test it.
Despite the weirdness of it all, the train really did have a bathhouse—elegant marble floors, ornate pillars, and at its center, a large, tranquil pool. He'd overheard murmurs that this was a trait of the Dusk-Full Clan—an ability to fold and stretch space, making the train far larger on the inside than it had any right to be.
This time, he had the bathhouse to himself.
Not bothering to pretend he was there to bathe, Zephyr stepped to the edge of the central pool and activated his Art.
"Limbo—Border Jail."
Red pillars, visible only to him, descended from thin air like beams of judgment. One appeared in the west, then another in the south. A line of invisible force connected them, forming a barrier. East. North. Up. Down. Each direction locked in turn, forming a sealed cube of space.
He felt the air and Aether trapped inside resist the seal—struggling, trembling—but ultimately failing to move. Even sound inside felt muffled. Dead.
His eyes lit up. He could even manipulate the order of the formation. Make the front seal before the back. Or the top and bottom. The control wasn't perfect, but it was something.
But the moment of triumph faded as quickly as it came.
He frowned.
"It's too slow". He muttered out, his expression frowning.
The descent of the pillars, the time it took to fully form the cage—it was sluggish. He remembered Serena—how fast she moved when she activated her Art, how devestating her speed was. And yet she was only of Zeta rank.
"If someone saw it coming, they could probably escape, hell I could probably escape". As soon as the thought finished forming, it was then he realized that he wasn't exactly normal neither.
"That's right I have access to superhuman strength and speed, I don't need to lower my expectations of myself, now I can fight one on one with any opponent of the zeta rank". He started to get excited again.
"And besides every ability had a starting point. According to my memories growth comes through battle and experience, so if I train my Art regularly I can better control and implement it in battle".
This was the beginning of how he would come to the bath house when everyone usually slept to train, and slept when everyone resumed their Lifeless gazing at the endless expanse of the shadow realm.
Until they arrived.