The heat pressed in from every direction, dry and suffocating. Tsuyu, Hajun, and the rest of the Blood Rose retainers stood close together on a plateau of cracked, blackened earth. All around them, an ocean of orange and red fire churned endlessly, swallowing broken rooftops and stone walls. The distant wailing of terrified citizens never stopped, echoing through the burning air.
"What if we try to find Vincent?" Haein asked, her eyes scanning the smoky horizon.
"Where would we even start?" Hajun wiped sweat from his brow, his uniform already clinging to his back. "This place is all fire, and one wrong step into those flames will kill us."
"He's right," another retainer agreed, coughing against the heat. "There seems to be no way we can traverse this place."
"What about shouting?" Tsuyu suggested, cupping her hands around her mouth. "If this whole place came from his head, maybe he can hear us."
"We can always try." Haein answered.
They took turns shouting Vincent's name, calling out together with everything they had. But the roaring fires and the endless shrieks of the crowd drowned them out, swallowing their voices before the sound could travel twenty paces.
"This will never do," Haein said.
She focused her strength into her legs, leaped straight up into the air, and used the height to search the burning landscape. The first jump showed her only waves of fire. She landed, sprang upward a second time, and a third, and a fourth, and on her fifth leap, she finally spotted a shape through the haze. Far in the distance, perched on a jagged stone cliff overlooking the ruins, stood a lone figure looking down into the flames.
"Is that him?" she muttered to herself.
She leaped a couple more times to be sure. The silhouette was dark and thin against the orange sky, standing completely still.
"I think I found him," Haein called out as she touched the ground. "Over on that ridge. It's hard to tell from here, but someone is standing there."
"Where?" Tsuyu asked.
Haein pointed toward the eastern smoke. Tsuyu and Hajun both jumped to see for themselves, catching a glimpse of the same motionless figure before gravity pulled them down.
"That has to be him," Hajun said, breathing hard.
"But how do we even get there? The problem is crossing that gap," Tsuyu said, looking out at the roaring sea of fire between them and the cliff. "There's no bridge. No path."
Haein looked at Hajun. "You're going to throw me."
Hajun blinked, caught completely off guard. "I'm going to what?"
"Haein, no," Tsuyu stepped in immediately. "That's crazy! It's too far. If Hajun doesn't have the strength, or if your footing slips, you'll drop straight into that fire."
Haein offered a calm, steady smile and gave Tsuyu's shoulder an easy pat. "Don't worry. I have a few tricks to keep myself in the air. Trust me."
Tsuyu looked into Haein's eyes, saw no hesitation, and let out a quiet sigh. "All right. Just... don't die on us."
Hajun stepped forward, rolled his shoulders, and focused his anima inward, packing iron-hard strength into his arms until the muscles swelled beneath his sleeves. He bent low, locking his fingers together to form a solid platform with his palms.
Haein set her shoe into his hands, bent her knees, and gave him a nod.
With a roar of effort, Hajun snapped upward, throwing her with everything his body could muster. Haein shot into the sky like an arrow, soaring high above the sea of flames. As her momentum began to dip and gravity pulled her toward the fiery pit below, she channeled her mana into a sharp burst of wind beneath her feet. The updraft caught her, kicking her forward in a second leap through the air, and she landed cleanly on the edge of the stone cliff.
The silhouette stood only a few paces away.
It was Vincent, but far younger than she had ever seen him. He looked like a boy of fifteen or sixteen, his face hollow, his skin pale and smeared with soot, dressed in plain, worn clothes. He did not turn to look at her. His eyes were wide and glazed over, staring blankly down at the burning city as if he were trapped in the moment it all fell apart.
"Vincent!" Haein called out, taking a step closer.
He didn't blink. She waved a hand directly in front of his face, but his gaze never shifted. She reached out to grab his shoulder, but her fingers passed straight through his body, brushing through empty air as if he were nothing more than smoke.
Before she could try again, the sea of fire below churned violently.
A massive serpent made entirely of roaring, liquid flame rose from the burning ruins, its fiery jaws opening wide as it hissed with the sound of cracking timber. The beast locked its blazing eyes onto Haein, drew back, and struck toward the ledge with terrifying speed.
Haein did not flinch. Moving on pure reflex, she drew the dark blade at her waist and held it across her chest.
The serpent breathed a thick wave of white-hot fire straight at her, but the moment the flames touched her steel, the dark blade hummed with a hungry chill. It swallowed the fire whole, pulling the searing heat into its metal without letting a single ember burn her clothes.
Back in the physical world, inside the infirmary room that was dead quiet, Kei stood beside the empty bed where Vincent had been resting only hours earlier. His Deathsight remained active, bathing his vision in cool shades of blue and gray. When he tilted his head up, he finally noticed it: a small, dense sphere of pure prana floating silently against the wooden ceiling, humming with a steady, hidden warmth.
"How did I miss that earlier?" Kei murmured under his breath.
Yejin stepped beside him, looking up at the exact same patch of wood. "Miss what? What's up there?"
"You don't see it?" Kei asked. He let the energy in his eyes fade, looking with ordinary sight, and the ceiling went completely plain. "It's completely invisible to normal eyes. I can only spot it with my ocular ability."
"What does it look like to you?"
"A core," Kei said, his voice quiet. "It's small, but it's packed with a massive amount of burning life energy. It's just floating there, hovering in place."
"I don't know what to say. I've never heard anything like that," Yejin admitted, crossing her arms. "Even if you can see it, how are we supposed to touch it?"
Before Kei could answer, hurried footsteps echoed down the stone corridor. Kiro and Hwiseong rushed into the room, but they weren't alone. Walking in behind them was a tall woman in elegant yellow and black robes, followed closely by a composed man with twin blades at his hip.
"Is there trouble here?" the woman asked.
Yejin straightened in surprise. "Seon-Gak Lai Zhin Te? What are you doing in Goryeong?"
"Ziming and I were just browsing the evening stalls when we heard about High Priest Kizuki's murder," Zhin Te answered, nodding toward her second-in-command, Xiao Ziming. "Then we ran into your two retainers searching the halls in a panic. They said the rest of your squad vanished into thin air."
"Yes, they did," Yejin said, gesturing upward. "Kei found some kind of floating energy core near the ceiling, but I cannot see it."
"Really?" Zhin Te took three long strides into the room, stopped directly under the spot, and closed her eyes. She tilted her chin up, letting her senses reach outward. "I feel it," she murmured. "It's faint, but there's definitely a strange pressure hanging in the air."
She opened her eyes and looked at Kei. "You can actually see the shape of it?"
"I can," Kei replied. "It looks like an orb of condensed prana."
"That's quite a rare gift," Zhin Te said, studying him with genuine interest. "If it's giving off energy that ordinary eyes can't catch, that means the core doesn't belong to this physical plane. It's anchored inside the spirit world."
Kei frowned. "The spirit world?"
"Yes. Dae-Ryeong Choi Eunjoo explained the concept to me back when he commanded the Shadow Falls," Zhin Te said, folding her hands behind her back. "What you're looking at is the anchor of a pocket dimension. Whoever formed that core ended up pulling everyone in the room into their personal domain. That must be why they're lost. They are inside that core."
"A pocket dimension..." Kei looked back up at the ceiling. "I have one of my own, but I've never seen an anchor like that from the outside."
Zhin Te's eyebrows shot up. "You have your own? Wait a minute..." She stared at him for a second, then broke into a wide, bright grin, clapping her hands together. "Ah! You're Kei! The new recruit who chose Lady Yejin's banner! It's good to finally meet you. I always appreciate having someone strong around."
"Zhin Te, please," Yejin cut in gently, bringing her back on track. "How do we get to them if that anchor is sitting in the spirit realm?"
"Right, right, business first," Zhin Te laughed, scratching the back of her head. "There are only two real ways to reach inside. The first is astral projection — separating your soul from your flesh to cross the boundary. But that takes ancient rituals, drains your strength, and leaves your empty body completely unprotected. The second way, and by far the simplest, is for Kei to summon his own pocket dimension right here."
Kei listened closely. "And that will let us in?"
"It will force a bridge," Zhin Te explained. "Once you expand your domain, it will collide directly with the anchor above us. Don't be fooled by how tiny that orb looks from down here. The space compressed inside it is practically bottomless. But you need to be careful. A collision between two separate domains creates a massive ripple in the spirit realm. That kind of noise can attract shinigamis."
Yejin's expression tightened, her posture going stiff. "Shinigamis?"
"Death spirits," Zhin Te said, her tone turning serious for the first time. "They wander the spirit world looking for heavy concentrations of prana to feed on, and a pocket dimension is essentially a feast to them. Usually, the chance of running into one is tiny, perhaps because so few mortals can create a domain in the first place. But crashing two of them together makes a lot of noise. It invites trouble. So, you need to be quick."
"That sounds terrifying," Yejin murmured.
"It can be," Zhin Te said, before her easy smile returned. "Of course, if you know how to tether others, you don't have to go in alone. You can pull people inside with you."
"I know. Grandmaster Yoo demonstrated that back in Saeho. But unfortunately, I cannot do it yet," Kei said.
Zhin Te let out an impressed whistle. "Grandmaster Yoo taught you personally? You really are full of surprises."
Kei didn't answer. He turned his gaze back to the glowing core on the ceiling, let out a slow, steady breath, and raised his hand.
"It's time," he said.