Zego's neural network could no longer withstand the burden of visualization and comprehension that his brain could not process. His soul, which for days had been a vessel for horrifying cosmic memories, had reached its limit of tolerance. His body—a mortal vessel containing the cosmos—cracked, starting from the soul. For a moment, he saw the void behind the Conqueror's vision—an abstract entity that emitted a command. And as quickly as it came, the entity severed the connection. Not out of will, but out of a calculation: this vessel was about to break.
Suddenly, he was pulled back. The sensation of returning to his own body felt like being thrown from a hollow void into a prison of flesh. It was an overwhelming shock. He was thrown out of his vision and returned to his spot in his bedroom. However, his return was not smooth. His body convulsed violently, the veins in his face bulged, and from the cracks in his skin, not blood, but a pale purple light erupted like steam—a manifestation of unstable cosmic energy. From his gaping mouth, the rumble of an interdimensional void echoed. He collapsed to the floor, making a loud thud that caught the attention of Piro, who was walking in the hallway.
Piro's voice tore through the silence: "No—ZEGO!"
Piro's scream echoed throughout the residence. He quickly ran to Zego's room and found his friend lying on the floor, covered in a shimmering purple fluid. Zego's eyes bulged, his pupils dilated to fill the entire iris, and the blood vessels in his white sclera burst, forming a horrific red net. Piro panicked, kneeling down and trying to touch Zego, but his hands trembled. His cries brought Silvi and Sophie, who happened to be nearby. They both rushed in.
The sight before them was shocking. Zego's blood was not red, but a viscous, oily fluid that glowed purple. Sophie quickly grabbed a towel, pressing it to Zego's head, which was leaking the substance. "We have to stop this!" she said in a trembling voice. But Silvi, who stood at the doorway, was frozen. Her eyes were unblinking, staring at the ceiling as if she were seeing something invisible floating there. A cold and terrifying calmness emanated from her. She hadn't thrown up or fainted. She had seen too much blood, but this... this was something else.
"This isn't bleeding," Silvi said in a flat voice, her eyes still fixed on the ceiling. "This is an energy leak."
The guards outside also rushed in to check the commotion, but they too were shocked by Zego's condition. Piro quickly snapped out of his panic. He ordered the guards to take Zego to the nearest hospital. The corridor of the residence turned into a hall of despair, with Piro, Sophie, and Silvi following behind.
At the hospital, the nurses and doctors immediately came to see Zego's condition. They were also confused. A mechanical thermometer melted when brought close to Zego's skin. A mechanical, steam-powered heart rate monitor made strange clanking noises, its needle shaking uncontrollably. The first nurse who entered screamed. A young doctor, seeing Zego's convulsions and the light escaping his pores, shouted: "This isn't bleeding—this is a dimensional leak! The patient is showing active entropy contamination! Get him into quarantine immediately!"
They immediately took him to an energy isolation room, forbidding anyone from entering. Piro, Sophie, and Silvi could only wait outside. Piro paced in front of the room, gnawed by a piercing sense of guilt. This is my fault... I'm the one who gave him the book. He was worried about his friend. He was also worried about Silvi, who was still frozen in silence, while Sophie tried to hold her hand. However, Silvi pushed Sophie's grasp away like a robot. She remained silent. Piro and Sophie looked at each other, not understanding what had happened. It all seemed too sudden.
Piro, unable to wait without doing anything, decided to return to his residence to look for clues. The call from the book, which he had felt in his veins since entering the room, was now impossible to ignore. When he returned to Zego's room, the smell of blood was gone, but there was a strange odor of ozone mixed with old iron and wet graves that stung his lungs. He could feel a very strange, powerful energy, an unusual energy, hanging in the air in Zego's room. Ice flowers bloomed on the wall where Zego's fluid had splattered. The mirror hanging on the wall was cracked in a complex fractal pattern. Shadows in the corners of the room moved on their own. Piro shivered, realizing something invisible had a real impact.
His eyes finally fell upon a book lying on the bedside table. The book had a different aura, the same aura as the strange energy he felt. Its cover was made of a leather that was not from any animal. Each rune ᛝᛟᛚᚢᛗ pulsed like a living heart, emanating a bone-chilling cold. Piro approached the book cautiously. Sophie, who had followed him quietly, whispered, "ᛝᛟᛚᚢᛗ... that's the ancient god language for 'gateway'." When Piro touched the cover, his finger went numb. The index finger that touched the cover now turned black as if burned by ice.
Piro felt a distant whisper in his mind. The whisper was not in a language, but a sensation. The sensation of death and destruction. Piro stared intently at the book's title. ᛝᛟᛚᚢᛗ - ᚨᛞᚨᛚ ᛏᛟᛗᚱ. He looked at the symbols one by one very carefully. He felt a great mystery behind this book, a mystery that might be responsible for Zego's condition. He decided to take the book.
As Piro picked up the book, the shadows on the walls of the room opened a thousand eyes. He heard the Conqueror's voice whispering from inside the book's cover. The whisper pierced his spine: "THE TIME IN THE EAST WILL NOT FORGIVE THE GAZER." The thousand eyes on the wall blinked in unison. Piro realized: this book was not a clue. This was a trap.