Despair was a quiet, smothering thing. It wasn't the screaming agony of the duel, but the hollow silence after. Jade sat on the floor of his sterile room, the memory of his shattering not a sharp pain, but a deep, bone-deep chill. He had been measured against a true monster and found wanting. The truth was absolute. He was weak.
His consciousness blurred, the gray walls of his cell dissolving into a featureless, infinite white. The Mindscape.
And there he was. Alter Jade. A vision of perfection carved from Jade's own features, yet rendered in ice and contempt. His eyes, the same crimson, held no chaos—only cold, analytical judgment.
"You called me with your despair," Alter Jade's voice echoed, devoid of warmth. "You finally see it, don't you? The grand delusion you called 'resolve' was merely a child's stubbornness. It broke because it was always fragile. You built your house on sand and are surprised the tide washed it away."
Jade looked at his mirror image, and for the first time, he didn't flinch. The truth, once fully accepted, lost its power to wound. It simply was.
"You're right," Jade said, his voice quiet but unnervingly steady. "I lost. I was weak. My hope, my resolve... it was a shield, and it shattered." He lifted his head, and the chaotic ember in his eyes had been refined into a single, cold, hard point of light. "But I'm not here to mourn the pieces. I'm done with hope. I'm done with sand. You speak of emptiness? Fine. I will become the emptiness. I accept the loss. Now... I want the power to ensure it is the last one I ever endure."
A slow, terrifying smile spread across Alter Jade's face. It was the smile of a predator seeing its prey finally understand the rules of the hunt.
"At last," Alter Jade whispered. "The first, true step. You wish to never feel this humiliation again? Then we make a pact. I will become the whetstone for your soul. The spirit of your vengeance. In return, you grant me a foothold in your reality. Our souls become bound."
A system prompt, stark and golden, materialized between them:
[SOUL RESONANCE DETECTED]
[CONDITIONS MET: DESPAIR > ACCEPTANCE > RESOLVE]
[SOUL-BOUND CONTRACT PROPOSED: 'The Inner Sanctum']
[EFFECT: User may access the Mindscape at will. The bounded entity is granted permanent residence within the user's soul.]
[WARNING: A soul-bound contract is irreversible. Proceed?]
Jade didn't hesitate. YES.
The pact sealed not with a bang, but with a profound and chilling silence. Alter Jade didn't vanish. He became a permanent, silent weight in the core of Jade's being—a cold flame now inextricably linked to his soul.
Jade's eyes snapped open in the physical world. He was back in his room. Nothing had changed. And yet, everything had.
The despair was gone. The frantic energy, the chaotic fire—all of it had been scoured away, replaced by a glacial calm. He could feel it, the new presence nestled within him. Silent. Waiting. He didn't need to speak to it. He simply sat there, acclimating to the void he had willingly created inside himself. This was the new foundation. Not of hope, but of ice.
Outside, Lyra paced. She had seen the light in his eyes die in the arena. She had to say something, anything. She raised a trembling hand to knock.
"Contemplating a snack, little morsel?"
The voice was velvet wrapped around frost. Lyra spun. The woman standing there was majesty personified. Tall, poised, her form draped in elegant darkness, her skin pale as moonlight. Her hair was a cascade of night, and her eyes—crimson, like Jade's, but ancient and glowing with a predatory light—held Lyra frozen. Lady Seraphina.
"I... I was checking on a friend," Lyra stammered, instinctively stepping in front of Jade's door.
Seraphina's smile was a razor's edge. "A 'friend'? How quaint. The boy inside is an investment. And I do not like my investments being disturbed." Her aura washed over Lyra—a wave of cold, ancient power that felt like the grave itself.
Lyra's fear twisted into defiance. "He's not an investment! He's a person. And he needs to be left alone."
"What he needs is beyond your comprehension, child," Seraphina replied, her voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "He needs to be forged, or broken. There is no in-between. Now, step aside."
Their sharp, rising voices were a needle through the tranquil ice in Jade's mind.
Annoyance, cold and precise, flickered within him. He stood up, strode to the door, and yanked it open.
"What is all the noise?" he asked, his voice a low, flat monotone.
He stood there, half-naked in the doorway. He had forgotten he'd removed his sweat-soaked shirt after his earlier exertions. His chest, carved with the lean muscle of a fighter, rose and fell steadily. His long, curly white hair—white as spun silk—cascaded over his shoulders and down his back, a stark contrast to his skin. And his eyes... his crimson eyes now glowed with a new, chilling intensity, devoid of their former warmth, replaced by an untouchable calm.
Lyra and Seraphina fell into a dead silence. All argument, all posturing, vanished from their faces, replaced by pure, unadulterated shock. Their eyes widened, tracing the lines of his torso, the flow of his impossible hair, the fierce, cold light of his gaze. Two pairs of cheeks, one human and one vampiric, flushed a deep, identical scarlet.
Jade looked from one stunned, blushing face to the other. His new, icy gaze was unreadable. A long silence then stretched.
"Is there a problem?" he asked.