Makun felt something shift inside him.
Not panic, not yet.
A small crack in the way he had been holding himself together.
Because deep down, even under his anger, under his hunger to climb, to dive deep into this world, there was a silent desire he had never named out loud.
To remain.
To be whole, free, complete.
And still be Makun.
That was his goal, discover who he was, who was against him.
The Veiled Lady continued, voice still soft.
"I need you to understand something," she said. "I am not speaking as someone who reached the top."
She looked at him, her gaze flat.
"I am speaking from what I have been told. From what I have observed. From what the path feels like when you start rising."
Makun swallowed.
"So you are not sure," he said.
"I am sure of the direction," she replied. "Not the final shape."
She paused.
"And that uncertainty is part of the problem."
Makun held his breath.
"Most practitioners cannot decide," she said. "They cannot decide between moving higher, or keeping the self intact."
"So when the softening begins," she added, "they resist."
Makun swallowed yet a second time.
"How," he asked, and his voice sounded smaller than he wanted.
"With ego," she said.
The word landed like a weight.
"There is a deviation," she continued. "A mechanism. People who feared dissolution discovered it long ago, and then some of the Great Families refined it."
Makun's eyes narrowed. He leaned forward without meaning to.
"It does not expand the soul to bridge the gap between us and the source." she said. "It compresses it."
She held her fingers close together, as if pinching something invisible.
"One identity becomes an anchor. One obsession. One hardened 'I.'"
Makun felt cold spread through his chest.
"That creates power," she said. "Fast. Dense. Forceful."
"But it is not resonance."
"It is resistance."
Her gaze did not blink.
"And understand this too," she said, and her voice stayed calm. "Not everyone who hardens an anchor becomes a monster."
Makun stared.
"But they become capable of it," she continued. "More capable than they were before."
She paused, as if deciding how graphic to be.
"The anchor has to be fed," she said. "Sometimes it is fed by admiration. Sometimes by fear. Sometimes by being right. Sometimes by being needed."
Her eyes stayed empty.
"They can do good, because it satisfies the self. They can build shelters. Heal strangers. Protect a district. Become a symbol."
A pause.
"...And they can butcher children, rape, create war..." she said, soft and casual, "if it keeps the anchor from cracking."
Makun's stomach turned.
He did not look away, but he felt like he might choke.
"That is why people fear them," she continued. "Not because they are always evil."
She tilted her head slightly.
"Because when the self becomes the law, anything can be justified."
Makun sat very still.
He thought of the pressure in the recall. The way it entered the room and made the world feel smaller. The way it did not uplift.
It crushed.
Was the presence such a being? What Path did she follow?
Now Makun had even more questions, how could he repay her debt? what was she?
"The presence of such a mystic becomes heavy," she said. "Imposing. Dense. People mistake that weight for greatness."
She paused.
"And the world rewards weight."
Makun breathed out slowly.
"So the cost is…" Makun started, then stopped.
His mind couldn't decide which horror was worse.
To dissolve into something vast.
Or to preserve the self by turning it into a prison.
The Veiled Lady's voice stayed quiet.
"If you keep walking," she said, "you will face that choice."
Makun stared at her.
Shock hit first.
Then confusion.
Then something uglier, something that made his stomach twist.
An identity crisis.
Because he realized the path he thought would give him freedom could end with him losing himself, or becoming a monster that still used his own name.
He could feel the old rage trying to rise.
The same rage that had always kept him alive.
But now even rage felt suspicious.
Because what if rage was fuel. What if hunger was fuel. What if obsession was fuel.
Makun's fingers curled against his knee.
His voice came out low.
"Is that what the Great Families are," he asked. "People who chose the anchor."
The Veiled Lady did not answer immediately.
When she finally spoke, her tone did not change.
"Some did," she said.
She paused.
"Some did not."
Makun frowned. Was that the reason behind the fights? Did this affect how they ruled our planet? was one party trying to gain control over the other?
"You just said they optimized for domination and control" he said.
"I said that is what people believe," she replied. "And it is often true."
She leaned back slightly.
"The Great Families are not one mind," she said. "They walk different routes, and they walk them with different orientations."
Her eyes stayed on him.
"That is part of their strife."
Makun knew he had been bang on with his deductions before.
"You mean they fight because of how they ascend," he said.
"Probably, I am not sure" she replied. "Some fear dissolution and choose the anchor. Others treat dissolution as a necessary cost. Some pretend they chose one while living like the other."
She paused, then added.
"And above them, the unnamed layer pushes and pulls them like pieces."
Makun took a breath.
"Then what about the other path," he asked. "If you do not anchor. If you let the boundary soften."
The Veiled Lady's gaze drifted for a moment, like she was listening to something far away.
"I am not fully sure we dissolve," she said at last. "Not in the way people imagine."
Makun waited.
"But I know what it feels like," she continued. "At each tier, the self becomes lighter. The world feels bigger. Your old fears stop gripping as hard."
A pause.
"And that scares people more than pain," she said. "Because pain confirms you exist."
Makun's thought to when she had a breakthrough earlier, was that the reason why dense particle were being replaced with lighter ones? It now made sense
"So what happens," he asked.
"I do not know the end," she said again, flat. "Hmm... but I do know the sensation."
She tapped her own chest lightly.
"It feels like returning," she said. "And it feels like dying."
Makun's eyes widened.
The Veiled Lady kept speaking, voice still empty.
"This is why so many choose the anchor," she said. "Not because it is right. Because it is comfortable."
She paused.
"And because it creates a certain kind of person."
"Criminals," he said, the word coming out before he meant it.
The Veiled Lady nodded.
"The second group you asked about," she said. "The lower elite under the Great Families."
She looked at him.
"Many of them are anchor-fed," she said. "Not all. But enough that the pattern is known."
Makun's skin prickled.
"Secret societies," she continued. "Occult crews. Violent routes. People who want power fast and do not care what it costs others."
Her eyes stayed on him.
"They produce criminals because the anchor rewards the act," she said. "It turns cruelty into proof of self."
Makun went quiet.
And for the first time since awakening, he felt something close to genuine fear.
Not fear of dying.
Fear of becoming, or not becoming.
What is it he had to do?