The presence of it was just mere presence—it was thought. It pressed against my skull, crawling beneath my skin, a vibration that gnawed at the edges of reality itself.
The shard.
It wasn't merely a fragment of the other world—it was the other world.
The moment it came into contact with mana, it began to sing—bright, terrible, and alive. The pain it caused wasn't
The ripples that had spread far beyond this room, beyond this world.
They brushed the edge of the void, and something out there had heard them.
The Outer Ones. The most dangerous beings to encounter. Other than him.
But that wasn't possible. Not yet.
There wasn't enough mana in this world to let them through completely. You can't encounter something that doesn't exist.
Every time I'd encountered one of them, I survived not through strength or luck, but through limitation.
They could not fully manifest—not when the world itself starved them of power.
This… was only a partial manifestation.
Suddenly,
The air warped. The corners of the room no longer met.
The walls bled into each other, shapes distorting as if painted on melting glass.
The shard was sending ripples through space, and space—starving for balance , for equilibrium—had begun to collapse inward, drawn by the god's hunger.
—
If I was right, there was one way to survive this.
Let it feed.
The god was devouring its own essence to maintain form. Every second it stayed, it was burning itself away. It wasn't feeding on mana, it was feeding on being.
I could already feel the weight of its decay, the colliding frequencies of its dying existence.
Whispers echoed, phrases I couldn't recognize—languages older than thought.
Even the air was trembling. The mana it used wasn't natural. It was made from life. From me, from Beatrice, from the god itself.
—
I looked down at her again.
Her face was pale, peaceful. Almost nostalgic.
The effect of living too long is that you forget how to fear for someone else's life.
I cared for Beatrice—I always did, I always will—but I'd lost her countless times before.
And each time, I got her back.
Even if she dies here I'll have her back eventually.
But this wasn't her time. Not yet.
There was no reason for her to die here.
—
I forced my body to move, ignoring the pressure cracking my bones.
There was no mana left in the air—I could feel the void where it should've been. The god had drained it all.
I lifted Beatrice and staggered toward the door.
The distortion was centered in this room. If I could just get her out…
Clrrkk.
Sparks burst from my hand.
Blue-white motes scattered across the air like burning dust.
The shard in my palm was reacting,
violently,
to my will to leave.
The pressure intensified. The walls vibrated with a shrill hum, and I realized too late—
the god wasn't just feeding on the shard.
It was feeding on me.
And now, the door in front of me began to twist.
It wasn't a door anymore. It was an eye. An eye staring at me and Beatrice.