The Seraph's cargo hold was a battlefield in a different sense now.
The tension in the air, previously as thick as smoke from the black flame around Gunjo, started to shift as he spoke, his voice just a touch too cold and distant for the lighthearted atmosphere that had begun to settle over the crew. His words hung in the air, like a cloud about to rain down on everything.
"I'm still hungry, and you've run out of food."
The words were simple, but they struck everyone like a hammer. There was an instant shift—a sharp intake of breath from Naru, the smallest creak of Kaela's cleaning rag, the sudden stiffening of Caldrin's posture, and the quick flash of Ryo's grin turning into a predator's sneer.
His hand flexed. His fingers twitched, itching for a fight, his eyes locked onto Gunjo, the flames of competition igniting inside him once more. There was nothing he loved more than a challenge, and Gunjo, even in his detached state, was presenting the perfect one.
"You want food? Come and take it, then." Ryo's grin widened. He leaned forward, his scythe tapping against the floor with an eager rhythm, as though ready to launch himself into battle at a moment's notice.
Before he could take a step, though, Kaela's hand shot out, stopping him mid-movement. "Ryo, you're an idiot." Her voice was steady, cold, the usual warmth replaced with a sharp edge of practicality. "A fight here would send us all drifting into space faster than you can swing that damn scythe. We both know it."
Ryo scowled but held back, teeth grinding together as he exhaled sharply. He wasn't about to lose his temper in front of the Olagg.
Then, Caldrin, looking more out of place than ever with his nervous demeanor, stepped forward, his eyes darting between Gunjo and Ryo, his hands fumbling with the sleeve of his tunic. His words came out in a stammer, but there was an unsettling weight in his voice.
"Y-Yeah! Fighting is a bad idea! Remember those crazy rumors we hear all the time?"
He swallowed hard, lowering his voice so only the small group could hear him. "The one about Kezurak."
There was an almost imperceptible pause. The name seemed to hang there, like a curse.
"Kezurak?" Ryo repeated, his voice as sharp as ever. He didn't understand, but there was something in Caldrin's tone that made him think this wasn't just some crazy rambling. "This shit again, Caldrin?"
Caldrin, looking nervously from one face to another, continued. "They say he's not a god. Not a constellation. He's… something else." He almost seemed to shrink into himself, his eyes flicking to the side as if expecting something to appear.
He paused, as if testing whether anyone was willing to understand the weight of his words. When no one interrupted, he plunged ahead, "He doesn't speak. He doesn't attack. He just watches. I don't wanna drift into space knowing that he could be out there waiting."
Kaela narrowed her eyes, her focus razor-sharp. "What does that mean? You're scared of a myth? A myth created by psycho cultists?"
"It means he exists somewhere in the gap between gods and matter!" Caldrin flinched, as if the very thought made his skin crawl. "He just… watches, and if you've seen him, you'll know. It's like a thousand eyes staring at you, but he doesn't do anything. He doesn't need to. They said just being in his presence feels wrong. Like reality itself isn't quite as it should be anymore." "And it gets worse." Caldrin's voice faltered. He wiped his brow, his face twitching. "Cult members worship him. I've seen it. They preach about him in almost every corner of the galaxy. They say he is the one who stands outside of time and knows things no one else can."
His shoulders sagged. "And me—" He shuddered, his hands shaking. "I can feel the possibilities… All of them. The 1000 outcomes of encountering him. Every single potential way it could end."
'The possibilities I think about all the time…I know horror awaits in many possibilities and each encounter, and the worst part is..I never know which one will take place or happen. I hate it..nothing I can do about it. Everyone can call me crazy for being in myths, but with my clairvoyance..i'm haunted, and can't break from its terror. Seeing the only people around me that's ever been a little nice to me die…and I can't pinpoint an outcome for them..screw it all. The myth is real. I know it's not my imagination.'
Caldrin's breathing quickened, and he placed a hand over his face, like he was trying to push the memories away. He shook his head, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I don't want to see it. I really don't want to see it." He took a step back, visibly uncomfortable now, his eyes wide and haunted.
For a moment, the entire group was silent. Gunjo remained as still as ever, his back still turned, his black flame still curling upward in long, spiraling tendrils. His face, despite the hunger, was unreadable.
But then, breaking the tension in the room, Gunjo spoke again. His voice was flat, matter-of-fact, the hunger still evident in his tone. "Give me food. And I'll kill him for you."
'Maybe that will convince them to hand over some grub without me needing to threaten them..'
And just like that, Naru, ever the enthusiastic one, burst through the doors of the ship, laden with boxes and bags of food from the Olagg's ship. She beamed, sweat on her brow but her smile wide. "Here ya go! For you, Gunjo!" she said cheerfully, practically dropping the whole load into his lap.
Kaela sighed, a tired, almost exasperated sound, and started cleaning up the mess Naru had left behind in her enthusiastic rush. "You're such a mess, Naru." She muttered as she wiped up crumbs and debris, her movements mechanical and precise as always.
The Olagg leaders grumbled among themselves, muttering in their guttural dialect about the human who had walked straight into their ship and taken their food. "Human just… took!" one grumbled. "Not even ask!"
Another Olagg let out a growl. "Stole everything—no fight!"
Ryo, still grinning, raised his scythe, pointing it directly at them. "We DID fight. We won your little games fair and square. Rules are rules. Now, we get the loot. All of it."
One by one, Olagg soldiers grumbled, but they began lugging boxes and containers full of food and supplies onto the Seraph. They didn't look happy about it, but they honored the agreement. The sound of crates being thumped down filled the cargo hold, a dissonant symphony of complaints that echoed through the otherwise tense silence.
Kaela, ever the perfectionist, was already ordering the Olagg around, telling them where to put things, her voice cold and efficient. "No, that goes in the third compartment—away from the medical supplies. No, not there! The pantry. And for the last time, stop smearing your toes on my clean floor like they're doormats. Thank you."
Gunjo, on the other hand, was far removed from all of this. Sitting in the corner, his knees drawn up to his chest, the black flame still faintly licking the air around him, he ate without pause. There was a strange detachment in his movements, the way he shoved food into his mouth with mechanical precision. The others seemed so… normal in their interactions with each other. They laughed, they grumbled, they connected. It was so… strange. He had never had that before, not since… not since Atralyth had starved him, broken him, made him weak and desperate.
'Whoever this Hunt is, they hunt and kill anomalies. Why? Don't know. Never heard of them before. But for them not to instantly slaughter the Olagg plunderers without even lunging at them…are they really this merciful?'
Gunjo's gaze hardened. He looked down at the food in his hands, the fire around him flickering brighter for a moment.
But something else stirred in his chest. Jealousy. It was a soft thing, like a seed being planted. He looked at them, the Olagg, laughing, talking, sharing their victories and losses. Even the others—Kaela, Naru, Ryo, Caldrin—they all had each other. They could connect, they could be happy, in ways he had forgotten how to be.
Gunjo's lips twisted into a thin, grim smile. He couldn't feel it. Not like they did. He slightly tried to smile with them, but put it away fast.
It felt unnatural, wrong. Weird.
'The hell am I doing…I'm not like them.'
After the group said their goodbyes and even shook the hands of Vhar'grosk and Senn-Grava, the Olagg leaders, telling them they may see them soon and challenge them again, they departed.
As the ship continued to fly, they were arriving at the sanctuary of the Hunt.
Called Xaltharion; it loomed before them — not as a ship, but as a paradox made manifest.
Even from the distance of orbit, it was difficult to comprehend the scale of the Hunt's floating capital. A cathedral-sized leviathan of living metal, its skin shimmered with black and grey iridescence, veined with cracks of voidlight that pulsed like heartbeats. Spires floated detached above its surface, orbiting like moons, while massive sigils burned crimson across its hull — glyphs of allegiance to Yurei, etched into the skin of the fortress with starlight and godblood.
It wasn't bound by thrusters or gravity. It existed between planes, hung in a stillborn drift, layered half-outside the known universe. Through the cockpit windows, space itself warped subtly around it, like reality bending to accommodate its presence.
Gunjo's eyes narrowed, his breath slow as the ship descended. He said nothing, but his thoughts churned behind dull silver eyes.
'Insane…This place… it's strange. Living metal. Stars whispering to the walls. Like everything is waiting for something to scream.'
He scanned the surface. Towers merged into towers. Ramps folded into bridges. It resembled a city built inside a god's corpse — gothic, brutalist, and cold.
From beside him, Naru leaned close to the window, grinning like a child on her first real adventure.
"Okay! So, see that twisting tower over there? That's one of the entrances to the Hunting Grounds — it's a freaking dimension that rearranges itself every time you go in. Last time I stepped in, I got chased by a hundred screaming glass wolves. Fun, right?"
She laughed, bumping her shoulder into Gunjo's, but his stare didn't budge. She followed his gaze further inward.
"Up there, in the center spire? That's the Eternal Courts — where the top brass argue and plot and do all their super-important 'I'm holier-than-thou' rituals. Super creepy place. All dark and floating platforms. Like walking through a haunted dream."
Gunjo glanced at her now, just a little. She didn't notice. She was too caught up in her whirlwind explanations, too bright against the black glow of Xaltharion.
"And dead-center…" she said with mock drama, raising a hand. "The Ceremonial Throne of Yurei. If we're lucky, we won't ever have to go near it." She shuddered. "It messes with your head. Like… it knows things about you."
Gunjo thought, 'What kind of species is she? Her hair changes colors every once in a while..she's insanely happy and unhinged. Are all of her kind like that? I must be wary of her. She could be an assassin.'
As the Seraph docked, the hangar gates split open with a low rumble, revealing a massive landing bay vaulted high with shifting ceilings that flexed like muscle. Silver sigils spiraled over the archways, pulsing in tune with the Void Nexus deeper below.
As the doors hissed open and the group stepped out, the first thing they saw were bodies. Lines of them. Standing still. Waiting.
Two hundred Hunt members, all clad in various iterations of the Hunt's armor — all different, yet bound by one aesthetic of astral warfare and divine dread.
Some wore black flight leathers studded with meteoric plating, helms shaped like the skulls of extinct beasts. Others stood in plated robes, their faces hidden behind shifting masks that rippled like black oil. One had a cloak made of translucent fabric that shimmered with starlight, while another held a blade that whispered prayers from a long-dead planet.
A woman at the front had armor crafted from crystallized memory-stone, her pauldrons etched with what looked like screaming faces. Another man bore a long black spear that shimmered with comet trails, the tip glowing with contained annihilation.
And all of them were watching Gunjo.
Murmurs drifted like static.
"That's the anomaly, right?"
"Never seen a human marked by the old light."
"He killed a vessel of a constellation. That's what Kaela's report said."
"Bullshit."
"No way a human could've pulled that off. Must've been luck."
"He doesn't even look like much."
"He looks dead inside."
"No human should carry that kind of power. Not without consequence."
"Still… maybe he's the real thing."
"Or maybe he's a walking death sentence."
Gunjo grit his teeth at the comments, thinking, 'Does my name even matter if I'm an anomaly in everyone's eyes…?'
Some glared openly, disgust or distrust etched into every line of their expression. Others, younger recruits maybe, looked at Gunjo in a different way — awe-struck, as if seeing a myth come to life.
"Do you think he heard us?" one whispered.
"He's not even flinching."
"I heard his power eats light. That's what Kaela said in her recording that she sent over to the captains."
Gunjo didn't respond. His face was stone. But deep inside, he watched the crowd with careful calculation.
'They fear me. Or they envy me. Doesn't matter. I'm still hungry though…'
Behind him, Kaela walked with that same unshakeable posture, her cleaning cloth still tucked into her side belt, like she'd been polishing equipment right up until they landed.
She eyed the crowd, unamused. "Idiots," she muttered. "No one here's done a third of what he's done, but they've all got opinions."
Kaela and Gunjo looked at each other, and Kaela said, "Don't worry. You are an anomaly, but you are strong. I only respect you because of that."
"Tch. Don't bother. I'm not looking to satisfy any of you. I don't need to be accepted."
"We share a birthmark. That's it. Pity nor acceptance will come from it. My world taught me that filth means corruption. Everything around me, including anomalies, are filth. That's why I joined the Hunt, to get rid of anomalies that cause chaos. It's corruption. Without it, I'm nothing."
"…." Gunjo said nothing, he just looked at her.
Caldrin kept close to Kaela, his steps small, his eyes darting nervously from face to face. He didn't like being the center of attention. Especially not here. He already felt the pressure of a thousand possible futures colliding like dying stars behind his eyelids. "So many eyes, so many eyes, so many eyes.."
Naru waved. "Hey, hi! Don't worry, he doesn't bite—unless he's hungry!" She laughed, but no one responded. She nudged Gunjo lightly again, whispering, "You okay?"
"No."
The black flame had faded now, replaced by an aura of something colder. Stillness. Observation.
He stared ahead at the massive doors of Xaltharion, knowing that somewhere within those shifting corridors, the Void Nexus pulsed like a heart with no love, and Yurei's throne waited somewhere — like a question that had already decided the answer.
And beneath it all, he could feel something else. Something watching him. Something deep within the fortress.
Not a god. Not a constellation. But close enough.
The moment Gunjo's boots touched the blackstone deck of Xaltharion's hangar, Ryo's voice cut through the tense murmurs like a blade dipped in ego.
"Alright, alright, calm down everybody. No need to gawk. You're welcome," Ryo said, stepping dramatically between the lines of Hunt members with his arms wide, practically glowing with self-importance. "You're all looking at the guy who stopped this little anomaly here before he got too frenzied. If it wasn't for me, you'd all be bloody fucking void crumbs stuck to the walls."
Gunjo didn't blink. Didn't even turn.
Kaela, still polishing a gear component on her vambrace, didn't look up either. "You definitely did not. He collapsed from his own power."
"Nuh uh. Don't lie in front of the people now, darling." Ryo grinned with a flirtatious gesture.
Kaela said, "Do not call my darling, filth."
Naru rolled her eyes so hard her whole head moved. "You tried to attack him but it didn't work, haha! And Gunjo was completely still!"
"Some weird barrier was in front of him!"
Naru, already walking up behind him, slammed a playful but firm fist into the back of his head. "Stop lying on my future husband!"
He staggered forward, flailing. "Ow—you crazy bitch…"
"You talk excessive force," Naru said, grinning ear to ear. "I live for excessive force."
Around them, Hunt members were cracking up.
"Man's got negative self-awareness."
"I'm embarrassed for him."
"Wait—was he the one screaming 'Please I'm too handsome to die during his first anomaly hunting mission a while back?"
Gunjo, unbothered, had started to shift his weight—something in his posture sharpening. A low ripple of pressure coiled around his feet. Subtle, but wrong.
Naru noticed. Her eyes darted sideways. "Uh-oh."
The air shivered. Space bent like breath held too long.
And in an instant—Gunjo was gone.
The hangar went dead silent.
Everyone knew what that meant.
Kaela muttered under her breath. "It's Yurei."
"Oh no," Naru whispered. "Please, please don't try to punch her, future husband."
Ryo's face paled slightly. "Yeahhh, I, uh, I gotta go train or… something." He spun on his heel, already fast-walking toward the corridor. "Real important. Hero work. Could take hours. Don't wait up."
Caldrin asked, "C-Can I train with you?"
"Sure. Do whatever you want. I'm kicking your ass if we soar."
"I'm okay, I don't wanna spar."
Elsewhere, still within Xaltharion—but impossibly apart—Gunjo fell.
Or rather, he was dropped.
A moment ago, he had existed within the hangar's concrete reality. Now, he plummeted through a vast, endless dimension of impossible color — all red and gold, like a sun bleeding into itself. Celestial rings drifted above, each etched with foreign scripture that screamed and wept in silence. The sky was a churning sea of velvet red, torn with lightning that cracked like stained glass. Floating monoliths hovered upside-down, casting shadows that didn't belong to them.
'The hell am I?'
This wasn't a place. It was a thought made physical.
And a being was near him, named Thariel, the Inverted Core, stood above him, hovering still as a monument to silence. One of his elongated arms retracted as he released Gunjo from a tight grip around the wrist.
"He's heavier than he looks," came Thariel's voice—not heard, but felt, like a pressure against the bones of one's soul.
Gunjo twisted mid-air and landed in a crouch. His feet cracked the gold-and-red floor, which pulsed like it was alive, then healed over the fracture with liquid light.
He stood and looked up, eyes narrowing sharply.
And there she was.
Yurei.
She floated high above like an unspoken command.
Her long, bright red hair rippled outward in threads that curled like flame, weightless in the ether. Her pale skin glowed moonlit, unmarred but cold as ancient marble. Her eyes were vivid red-orange, with "X"-shaped pupils, crossing in a pattern that seemed to shift subtly every time you looked.
Her dress was black velvet, layered and tattered at the ends like burned silk, trailing behind her with its own spectral wind. The front was corseted with red threads that looked like dripping veinlines of starlight, leading up to a collar made of spiraled obsidian feathers that curled like serpents. A halo of jagged red and gold hung over her head, constantly smoking, embers drifting from it like falling prayers.
She stared at Gunjo with no warmth. No rage. Just a silence deeper than space.
And around her, stood the entourage:
—
Thariel, still drifting nearby, robes fluttering like funeral banners submerged in oil.
His black hole head spun slow — not literally, but conceptually — as if time itself was orbiting around the singularity.
"He knows not what he's asking himself," he said, without moving.
"But he's already denied twenty-nine other futures. Curious."
Vessari, to the left of Yurei, stood like a shard of broken divinity, made of mirrored glass.
She flickered in and out of clear form — bones replaced by fractures of light, a thousand faces melting and reforming every second. Her chest pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat trying to remember how.
"His presence bruises the air," they said, tilting their translucent head.
"The Comet trails grief like scent. He is… inconsistent. Unpreserved."
Ozen, to the right, his form hidden beneath heavy black veils that folded like moth wings.
His stitched mouth never opened, but from their chest came a low, harmonic thrum— a sound like voices stuck in the belly of a planet. From behind them, brief wing-shaped shadows spread, folded, and vanished.
Gunjo stepped forward, scanning them all with dark, unreadable eyes.
"…Who the fuck are you all?" he muttered.
Yurei spoke. Cold. Crisp. Final.
"My circle. My wardens. My dam."
She gestured, and the air coalesced into glyphs, each one spelling her inner hierarchy aloud:
"Thariel, the Inverted Core. Anchor of Gravity and Silence. The one who halts chaos from threading time itself. He devours futures that should not exist."
Thariel hovered silently, stardust drifting slowly around his head like a forgotten eclipse.
"Vessari, the Pulse of Pale Glass. She strips grief from memory. They hold the edge of my thoughts when the cosmos tries to drown them. Without her, I lose myself in the echoes."
Vessari bowed slightly. Their mirrored chest glinted with images Gunjo had never seen, but somehow remembered.
"Ozen, the Maw Between Songs. He sings barriers between my soul and the call of the astral. He is the sound that contains my scream."
Ozen didn't move. But their hum deepened into a minor chord. Gunjo felt it in his spine.
Gunjo's jaw clenched. "Then what are you? Why do you need to be… contained in here?"
A long pause.
It was Thariel who answered, his voice like falling galaxies.
"Because if she walks in full form beyond this place… she will follow the pull."
"And that pull is chaos."
Vessari stepped forward, delicate fingers folding like origami.
"The Divine 30 fracture the stars, create anomalies, incite entropy across the Branch. They are not lords of balance. They are bait. They want her to break. To burn."
"This is the only place she is not called to them. Not seduced by that which should not exist."
Ozen's hum went low and mournful, like a dirge played across the bones of a sun.
And Yurei's eyes never left Gunjo.
"They want me wild. So they can slay me."
"You are part of their lure."
Gunjo narrowed his eyes at the three strange beings surrounding him—Thariel, Vessari, and Ozen—and the goddess who seemed to hold dominion over them all. He tilted his head ever so slightly and growled, "What the hell are you talking about?"
Yurei's feet never touched the ground. She drifted above the astral floor like a divine whisper, her jagged red-and-gold halo smoking like the embers of creation itself. Her black dress shimmered between layers of velvet void and glimmering galaxies, a celestial weave that bled starlight from its hem. Slits along the sleeves bore red symbols that twisted midair before fading. As she circled him, her voice was cold, crystalline, and without mercy.
"You think the constellations only want you for your power, anomaly? No. They wanted you because of what's inside you." Her glowing eyes bored into him. "The Black Comet is a remnant from a god who never made it into the Crest. A god of war, now dead, erased from memory. But not from consequence."
Thariel's robes whispered across the floor like the aftermath of a collapsing galaxy. His head—a dense, silent black hole—tilted toward Yurei.
"He does not yet grasp the orbit he's fallen into."
Vessari's form flickered, face rippling with unreadable expressions as she added, "He is still mourning the illusion of choice. It's… sweet."
Yurei didn't stop moving. "When the last soul burns into starfire, the Crest shall ignite, and the Divine will sever the old." She raised her hand, and around them, the golden-red dimension pulsed—echoes of old cosmic scripture burning into the fabric of the air. "That's a fragment of the Eloriel Tablets. You don't need to understand it. You need to survive it."
Gunjo clenched his jaw. His instincts twitched, a cold pit behind his sternum forming—but he didn't move.
'The one who gave me the Black Comet..he said that one time..'
Yurei continued, now slower, more deliberate. "Before stars. Before breath. There was the Unuyn — the Primal Unbeing. No light. No dark. No matter. Only potential. Then came the Velispark — a scream of light into the silence. It fractured the Unuyn, tore it open into spirals, and from that fracture bloomed the Astral Branch."
Around them, the air came alive with slow-moving roots of white-hot light. A model of the Astral Branch unfolded above them—tendrils of universes reaching into infinite black.
"It was not a tree in soil. It was a tree of reality. Each branch a dimension. Each bud, a world. But consciousness came. And consciousness is chaos."
Thariel murmured, "And chaos needs rulers."
"Thirty rulers," Yurei said. "The Divine 30. Born of the Velispark's shedding light. They became constellations, each inscribed into the Astral Branch. Their alignment forms the Crest of Ozytherion — a divine seal, one that, when completed, ends the current reality."
"It's not complete…?" Gunjo said, voice low, skeptical.
Yurei's smile didn't reach her eyes. "No. Because the final sigil—the Yurean Glyph—is me."
"You weren't born like them," Vessari said. Her voice was gentle, like mourning a child who was never born. "You tore through."
Thariel stepped forward. "The last scream of the Unuyn… wrapped in flesh."
Ozen said nothing. He never did. But the hum rising from his chest deepened, a low, harmonic sorrow, like a choir beneath the sea.
Yurei drifted closer, staring straight into Gunjo's soul. "I am the only missing piece. I must die for the Crest to activate. A real death. One so final it bleeds into the fabric of the Astral Branch. But I will not offer myself."
Gunjo's arms tensed. "And the Divine 30 want that death."
"They do," she said. "They use war. Collapse. Cataclysm. Create even anomalies that cause havoc, that I must send the Hunt to take down themselves before it lured me in. The divine constellations create pockets of chaos to draw me in. I am attracted to entropy. It is my nature. But here—within this dimension—I can exist without being torn toward my destruction. This place suppresses the noise temporarily."
Thariel nodded. "We digest the chaos. We fold entropy into null-space. Here, she is not hunted."
Gunjo spat off to the side. "So what does this have to do with me?"
"Everything," Yurei said. "You are the only known carrier of the Black Comet—a remnant of the war god who rejected the Crest. They intend to use you to bait me. Your very presence sings with war. You are powerful."
Vessari turned to him, her glass-like hands forming strange sigils. "Your soul hums with failed timelines. Dead realities echo in your marrow. You're a wound, not a warrior. But wounds are loud."
Gunjo's eye twitched, but he didn't speak. He was listening. Deeply. As he always did.
Yurei's voice turned razor-sharp. "The Seven Dominant Divine—Aetherion Lords—have risen above the rest. They no longer seek balance. Only ascendance. They have begun aligning the Crest. They want a universe of divine permanence."
"No mortals," Thariel said, his voice pulling gravity into his words. "No entropy. No stories. Just eternal law."
"No growth," Vessari whispered.
"No chaos," said Yurei. "Only silence."
She glided behind Gunjo again. "But I resist. Because I understand what they never will. That destruction births meaning. That decay is the price of life. That every scream, every betrayal, every loss… is part of the pattern."
Gunjo turned to face her. His eyes were flat with fury. "So what? You want me to help you kill the gods?"
"I do," she said. "Before they kill me. Before they end everything. I cannot hunt them. I am too easily drawn into traps. But you…"
Thariel tilted his void-head toward Gunjo. "He walks outside the pattern. He is loud… but not bright. A shadow without prophecy."
Vessari's gaze refracted into thousands of little shards. "He could move through them like a disease."
Gunjo took a breath, stepped back. "And if I say no?"
"The Dawn will come," Yurei said, voice soft now. "A new universe, sculpted for gods alone. No time. No death. No change. Only stillness. You won't die in it, Gunjo. You'll vanish. Forgotten. They will use me to finish the ritual to create the Dawn."
Gunjo was silent for a long moment. Then, a low scoff scraped out of his throat.
"This is insane."
Yurei smiled. Just barely.
"That's what makes it real."
Thariel's void shimmered faintly. "You feel the pull. You always have."
Gunjo's hand flexed involuntarily. Something beneath his skin twitched—like a memory that hadn't happened yet.
Vessari stepped forward. "The Black Comet is a lie wrapped in fire. But lies are fuel."
And for a moment, as the red and gold dimension shimmered around them, as echoes of gods murmured beneath the surface of creation—Gunjo stood at the center of a storm he never chose.
But it had chosen him.
Gunjo let out a rough scoff and shook his head with slow defiance. "Yeah… no. I'm not helping you."
Instantly, the entire dimension seemed to tighten. Yurei's mouth parted in a gasp so sharp it crackled like thunder. Her entourage flinched—not in fear, but instinct—Thariel's void rippled like fractured glass, Vessari's expression froze into something cold and unreadable, and Ozen's chest-hum deepened into a quake. In a flash of godspeed, Yurei slammed herself between Gunjo and her entourage. Her fingers flared red-gold, and in an instant, a dome of silence fell around them—a barrier of stilllight that warped every external sound into null.
Inside, the world became still.
Yurei spun on her heel, her expression completely changed—gone was the cryptic, divine stoicism. She leaned toward him with a big dramatic wave of her hands and shouted like a spoiled brat. "They will kick your ass, fool!"
Gunjo blinked. His expression didn't change for a moment. Then his eyebrow twitched. "What the hell—what happened to the 'I-am-chaos-refined' thing?"
'Her entire demeanor just changed… !'
She flipped her cosmic hair like a drama queen. "Ugh, please. You think I act like that all the time? That's just my public persona. I gotta be all… dark and mysterious for the Hunt and my circle or they treat me like a glitch in a skirt. Gotten be taken seriously, ya know?"
"You are a glitch in a skirt," he said flatly.
She gasped with mock offense, finger in his face. "You say that again, I will literally toss you into a black hole. Don't test me, human."
Gunjo squinted. "You were just lecturing me about the divine fracture of existence. You're like 500 years old."
"Actually I'm not 500 years old, fool." She spun on her heel. "It's exhausting being all goddess-mode all the time. Do you know how boring those three are? Ozen hasn't said a single word in so many years. Thariel keeps trying to gaslight entropy. And Vessari? Drama queen. Makes me look normal."
"You're the goddess of chaos and you want to act like a creep." Gunjo said, rubbing his face like this was giving him psychic damage. "Gods are messed up."
"Look who's talking," she said, elbowing him. "You've got the god power, the moral issues, the trust problems—"
Gunjo cut in sharply. His voice had shifted—calm but heavy. "I'm not helping you hunt the gods down."
Yurei blinked, expression softening slightly. Gunjo stepped back, his shoulders tensing.
"I'm not killing myself before I figure out what the hell I am. Before I talk to it—the one who put this in me." He pressed his palm to his chest, over where the comet's curse burned. "The Black Comet didn't just give me power. It's eating me."
His gaze lowered. "My parents… they used to call me special. Said I'd do great things. That I'd feel good doing them. But I don't. I feel like a monster. Like some ticking bomb that's already gone off and I'm the only one left picking up the pieces."
He exhaled through clenched teeth.
"They did everything they could to keep me away from trouble. From learning Soul Resonance. But I did anyway. And now I feel like I can't stop myself from falling apart. And I look at people who can just… talk. Trust. Love. And I can't do any of it. I don't even think I like myself."
Yurei watched him quietly. No jokes. Just quiet.
Then she stepped forward and said gently, "You're the only one here close to me in power."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" he muttered.
"I'm saying I can help you. I can help you find a way to raise that dead constellation. We'll dig through the lost voids. The buried domains. Whatever it takes."
Gunjo eyed her. Up and down. Narrowed.
"…You're lying."
She gasped again, overly dramatic this time. "How dare you accuse the Goddess of Chaos of such a thing—"
"You change moods faster than a dying star," Gunjo snapped.
She lunged at him and he sidestepped, and suddenly they were wrestling—not with divine fury, but pure, chaotic, anime-like energy. She grabbed him in a headlock, grinning like a maniac.
"Say you'll help me!"
"No!"
"Say it!"
"You bipolar witch!"
"CHAOTICALLY GIFTED!"
They tumbled across the dome, knocking over flickering fragments of stars as they rolled—Yurei laughing, Gunjo yelling, both of them hurling insults between minor bursts of real power, a ridiculous match of cosmic energy and bickering.
But then—snap.
The silence dome shattered like shattering glass—clean, final.
Yurei straightened in an instant, her chaotic cheer wiped away like it was never there. Her hair rose, halo flaring behind her head. Her eyes dimmed back to ancient red. She turned back toward her entourage, standing still and poised.
"Fine," she said with solemn grace. "I will let them handle you."
The trio rose into the air as one, silent and terrifying.
Thariel floated first, his black-hole head splitting slightly like a blooming eclipse. "He rejects the call. Then let him feel the gravity."
Vessari's form flickered, her many eyes closing and reopening with a sigh. "A child made of fire and ash, and still so afraid of his own burn."
Ozen lifted his hand. Thin rings of glass-like resonance circled his wrist. He said nothing—but the note in the air turned acidic.
"We move?" Thariel asked them.
Vessari nodded. "We move."
Gunjo grit his teeth. A black-and-white aura burst around him like a storm ripping free. Twin currents of divine polarity surged up his spine, forming a spiraling halo of chaos and order above his head.
"I'm not your toy," he growled. "I'm not your bait. I'm not your fucking pawn."
He clenched his fists as the aura cracked the air.
"I won't be used again."
And in the next breath—he moved.
The entire dimension bent around his velocity as he launched toward the three of them in a single, explosive charge, black and white light scarring the golden world behind him—
But the Entourage didn't even blink.
They watched.
Still.
Waiting.
Yurei thought, 'Please just help me…I don't wanna die..not to them…'