It was a small girl. One of her eyes was shut, the other a deep, glowing purple. Her hair was a striking white, soft and straight, and her skin was a pale green, yet unlike other Celtors, she had no dark-green splatter or markings on her face at all.
Nakate blinked.
The white owl above him swept its wings and flew overhead. He tried to follow its movement with his head, but ended up losing his balance and slipping. He hit the ground hard, his eyes squeezing shut.
"Ouch…" he muttered.
The floor beneath him felt solid and smooth, almost like polished stone, but slightly damp. A cold breeze drifted past, carrying with it the sound of waves gently crashing somewhere nearby.
He pushed himself up slowly, rubbing his eyes as they watered. When he opened them, the scene around him made his breath hitch.
He was surrounded by an endless sea.
Fog coiled low around the stone he stood on, completely white near him, but fading into a deep black in the distance, exactly like the fog of the Depths—but here, the two colors stayed completely separate.
Nakate stood, staring at the horizon. There was no land. No ships. No light except for the single celestial eye above him, a massive white orb shaped like an unblinking eye, shining straight through the fog.
He turned around quickly.
A deep owl stood behind him.
It was colossal, far bigger than the one he'd seen in the Depths. Three masks layered its face, the outer two cracked and distorted, while the center one was smooth and intact, staring forward with an unreadable expression.
Dark fog swirled at its feet.
And beneath that fog, Nakate saw six people lying on the ground.
All of them were unconscious, their breathing faint, their limbs slack. Three he recognized instantly. The naive guard from the gate, and the two S-rank adventurers. The other three were strangers. But like Nakate, every one of them wore torn, worn-down rags.
Nakate checked himself quickly.
His boots were still there.
His dagger, still in its sheath.
His silver spear, still slung across his back.
Whatever brought him here didn't take anything from him.
But that didn't make the sight in front of him any less terrifying.
The deep owl did not blink.
Did not move.
Did not breathe.
It simply stared at him, as if waiting.
Nakate tightened his grip on the silver spear and slid into a fighting stance."What is this…? Where am I?"
The deep owl stepped forward.
Its massive frame twisted, bones folding inward like breaking branches. Feathers spiraled around it, collapsing into a tight sphere of shifting black. Then the sphere pulsed—once, twice—each pulse sending out small bursts of shadow, like a heart beating without sound.
From that ball of feathers, a shape began to form.
First a skeleton.
Then thin strands of nerves, lacing themselves across the bone.
Muscles wrapped around them next, growing in twisting layers.
Skin stretched over the new frame, pale and smooth.
Clothes appeared on its body as if conjured out of nothing.
Nakate's breath caught.
"C–Cole?" he whispered.
Because the face staring back at him was Cole's.
But the transformation didn't stop.
Half of the body melted into a black sludge mid-step, then reshaped itself—bones knitting, muscles growing, skin forming, until the right half was no longer Cole at all.
It was Lix.
Nakate staggered back, horror tightening in his chest.
The creature walked toward him, calmly, naturally, as if wearing their bodies was just a casual decision. In its hand, a blade of solid shadow lengthened and sharpened—Cole's rapier, recreated perfectly.
"T–That's an illusion," Nakate said, backing up another step. His voice shook. "That's what you Owls do, right…? You make illusions…"
But the creature didn't flicker.
Didn't blur.
Didn't crack like a fake image.
It simply kept walking.
Then it spoke.
"Thank you. No, but really—thank you," the creature said, its voice a seamless mixture of Cole's tone and Lix's softness, layered wrong. "I understand how your kind works now. Or at least… I understand more than I did before meeting you."
It tilted its head, the mismatched faces shifting slightly as it spoke.
"My name is Lix. Or Cole, as you may recall. And I am the Owl of this island. I was the one who named it. I am the one who owns it—well, I will own it, as long as that being who calls itself man doesn't come for me."
The creature lifted the shadow-rapier and pointed it straight at Nakate.
"But you?" it said calmly. "I have no use for you."
Nakate felt a cold pressure behind his chest.
"Somehow, you found a way out of your own mind. Maybe it was the Blindseer showing you its true gaze when you escaped. Or maybe it was that blessing… the one your fragments of soul whispered about." Its eyes gleamed. One bright purple, one closed as if dreaming.
"Either way," it continued, "I don't know how you did it. But I do know this—"
It stepped forward once, the ground dimming under its foot.
"My domain," it said softly, "is no longer your mind."
"Everything I saw was a lie?" Nakate asked. His voice wasn't frightened—just distant, lost in thought.
It tilted her head, the purple eye narrowing slightly. "Well, you did have a heart attack at one point. You died, sank into the Depths, and then I found you again. I followed, created an abandoned outpost, found a lost Pathfinder, made my little split personalities, helped you escape so you'd return here… and now we're here."
It gestured lazily at the fog and sea around them.
"You're awake, when you're supposed to be asleep like everyone else who came with you."
"Came with me…?" Nakate stepped back and looked at the six bodies lying on the stone.
"Oh, those?" The Owl shrugged. "You all washed up here together when I found the island. All sleeping. All dressed like that."
Nakate let out a small, exhausted smile. "I guess… at least I know Blindseer was real. Right?"
For a moment, The Owl was still.
Then a loud, piercing screech tore from its throat.
Before Nakate could react, its form blurred into the surrounding shadows. The rapier struck toward him like a bolt of lightning. Nakate barely managed to get his spear up in time—the steel rang sharply as he redirected the point away from his chest.
The impact forced him a step back.
His heart thudded once, hard.
And the purple eye staring at him seemed brighter now, almost hungry.
The Owl lunged again. Each strike came faster than the last, its movements sharpening with every step, every breath.
"You're like a mouse that's been trapped for ages," it said, its voice trailing behind each slash. "Only now trying to escape… just because the predator finally came for food."
Nakate barely kept up. His spear flicked between deflecting and dodging, the blade scraping against the rapier again and again. A few slashes slipped through—thin lines of pain cut across his arms and side, burning as the air touched them.
"Why?" Nakate shouted, stepping back, parrying another thrust. "Why did you do all this?"
The Owl didn't stop. Her steps glided across the stone with unnatural smoothness, like she was dancing through her own attack pattern.
"To understand you more," she said. "You see… I was once just like you."
Nakate blinked, thrown off for an instant—while The Owls movements didn't slow.
"I remember being a little girl," she continued as her body twisted, it then turned into to the girl that Nakate had seen earlier. Her voice calm despite the vicious pace of her strikes. "Running around my hometown. Playing with the little Megalodaunt I found washed up on the shore."
Her rapier slid past Nakate's cheek, cutting a thin line as she spoke.
"Then that thing that calls itself Man came to visit."
The word "man" dripped with hatred.
"He offered to take me somewhere safer." Her smile twitched, hollow. "I made my oath with the hivemind. And then the experiments began."
She stepped past him, the rapier dragging a thin ribbon of shadow in the air as she turned.
"Those days were easier," she said, almost wistfully. "Back when I didn't have to eat what I once was just to keep existing. Back when I was just a simple girl with the Oath of a Visionshaper."
Her purple eye fixed on him again.
"Now… I study you. Your kind. Maybe if I understand you deeply enough, I'll understand what I could've been—if the entire Luminant hadn't drowned."
She lunged.
The rapier shot toward Nakate's throat. He dropped straight down, back hitting the cold stone, and the blade sliced the air where his neck had been a heartbeat earlier. His breath caught as he rolled aside, dirt and feathers scattering under him.
He barely avoided the follow-up thrust. His palms scraped the stone when he pushed himself back, coughing. His ribs burned with each inhale.
Then he heard something.
A distant rumble. Soft at first, then clearer the more he forced himself to breathe.
Water moving.
Wood tapping against it.
A boat.
Nakate blinked, still on the ground, trying to steady himself. The sound grew closer—the shift of oars, the thunk of a hull brushing against stone.
The Owl stopped completely.
Her head snapped toward the shore, mask tilted as if she heard far more than Nakate ever could. She stepped back from him in a single smooth glide, feathers curling inward like a cloak being pulled close.
Nakate stayed down, breathing hard. He pressed a hand to his chest, trying to calm the pounding inside him. The air tasted of salt and cold fog.
Footsteps landed on the stone shore.
Slow. Heavy. Not rushed at all.
Nakate turned his head just in time to see The Owl's shadow stretch across the stone like ink being spilled. The silhouettes of the six sleeping figures were pulled toward her as if gravity had flipped sideways. Their bodies slid across the ground without sound, swallowed into the moving shadow beneath her feet.
Before Nakate could shout, The Owl leapt backward, straight into the fog-covered sea, dragging all six with her. The water swallowed her without a splash, like she had simply stepped through a curtain.
Only the rippling fog remained.
A man's voice followed—deep, older, and calm enough to make the whole island exhale around him.
His tone wasn't loud. It didn't have to be.
Every word felt like it pushed the fog aside.
"Yo, Captain! I think I found a lost Pathfinder!"
Nakate heard the shout from right next to him. A second later, someone landed on the stone with a heavy thud, almost jarring compared to the calm, measured steps of the first man.
His footsteps were quick, careless, boots scraping against the stone. The man crouched slightly as he approached Nakate, his breath loud, as if he'd sprinted across the ship just to see him.
"Pathfinder, yer sayin'?" The older man's voice cut through the fog—rigid, rough around the edges, but carrying something almost fatherly beneath it. A tone that felt… lived-in.
Nakate felt the man's presence above him. The mans silhouette broad and steady.
Then the captain spoke again, voice lowering.
"So, kid,"
"Ye needin' some help there, eh?"