The crystalline sands of the "Mind Catch" realm did not shimmer with the light of a gentle sun; they vibrated with the malevolent frequency of a world that was beginning to rot. Jai stood frozen, his breath hitching in his throat as the multicolored stars above—hues of violet, crimson, pink, and ivory—pulsed like the rhythmic beating of a dying god's heart.
"Is this real? Or is this the final, cruel trick of a mind that has already shattered?" Jai's voice was a ghost of a sound, swallowed by the infinite silence of the desert.
As if in answer to his doubt, the fabric of the reality around him began to moan. It was a sound like a continent snapping in half. In a blink of an eye, the white sand beneath his feet split open, a jagged, infinite chasm tearing through the center of the world. From the depths of this abyssal fissure, a hand emerged.
It was a limb of terrifying proportions, coated in thick, viscous red blood and bubbling orange lava that refused to cool. The heat radiating from it was not merely physical; it was a spiritual furnace that scorched Jai's very essence. Then, another hand followed. Then ten. Then a hundred. Thousands of hands, some skeletal and bleached by the sun of the underworld, others made of shifting magma, began to crawl out of the broken ground. These were the manifestations of every soul lost in the Great War, a karmic debt that had come to collect the life of the only survivor.
"Run... I have to run!" Jai's survival instincts, forged in the fires of the Chenwongo training, took over.
He scrambled across the shifting sands, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. In the distance, a massive, incongruous building rose from the desert—a jagged black stone tower that looked like a fortress from a forgotten age of giants. Jai sprinted toward it, his lungs burning with phantom fire. He could hear the sound of the lava-hands scratching against the ground behind him, a rhythmic, wet, and scraping sound that promised only eternal agony.
He threw himself through the archway of the tower, his boots clattering against cold, obsidian stone. He didn't stop to look back. He climbed the spiral staircase, flight after flight, pushing his spirit-core to the limit. Fifty floors, a hundred floors—he climbed until his muscles felt like they were liquefying. Finally, he reached the apex, a wide balcony overlooking the fractured world.
He looked down, and his blood turned to ice.
The thousands of hands had bodies now. They were the ghouls of the soldiers Jai had seen perish—Dwarves, Humans, and monstrosities alike. Their faces were distorted masks of agony, their eyes glowing with the green fire of the abyss. They looked like demons that had escaped the deepest pits of the nine hells.
Then, the earth shook with a final, violent tremor. A hand larger than a castle gate gripped the edge of the fissure. A figure emerged, towering over the ghouls like a dark god.
Gronak Stone Head.
But it was not the Gronak Jai had fought in the physical world. This version was thirty feet tall, his skin made of jagged obsidian and his eyes replaced by pits of churning orange lava. He looked up, his gaze locking onto the high balcony of the black tower with predatory precision.
"There..." Gronak's voice was a tectonic rumble that shook the very foundations of Jai's soul. "The little human who thinks he can hide from the weight of the dead. Soldiers! Bring him to me! I wish to taste the gold in his veins and the fear in his marrow!"
The demon-troops began to swarm the tower, climbing the sheer stone walls like a plague of spiders. Jai backed away from the window, his breath coming in shallow gasps. He was a prince without a sword, a sovereign without a crown, trapped in a skyscraper of his own making.
While Jai fought the ghosts of his own guilt, the world of Aetheleon continued to turn with a heavy, indifferent resonance. Within the royal infirmary of the Dwarf Kingdom, one month and twenty days had drifted past since Jai had fallen into his deep sleep.
The room was bathed in the soft, clinical glow of soul-lamps. Alaric Chenwongo sat at the edge of Jai's bed, his posture as rigid as a mountain peak. To any observer, he was the picture of a stoic general, but to those who could see through his mask, he was a man walking through a desert of grief. He looked at Jai as a father looks at a dying son, his hands clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white.
The door creaked open, and the rest of Jai's team—James, Rhea, and the younger disciples—entered. Their faces were gaunt, their spirits dimmed by the long winter of hope. James, usually the loudest and most boisterous, was the first to crumble. He fell to his knees by the bed, his tears splashing onto the white silk sheets.
"General Alaric... why?" James sobbed. "We won. We saved the children. We rebuilt the walls. Why won't he come back to see what he achieved?"
Alaric stood up slowly, his heavy hand landing on James's shoulder like an anchor. "Grief is a shadow, James. If you run from it, it only grows longer. Jai is fighting a war where our blades cannot reach. All we can do is keep the flame lit so he can find his way home."
Alaric's gaze drifted to the corner of the room where Zayn, the young Prince of the Dwarves, stood. The boy was staring at his mother, Queen Morlin, who lay in a similar state of coma in the adjacent bed. Zayn didn't cry with sound; he simply stood there, his small shoulders shaking in the dim light.
Alaric walked over to the boy and knelt, bringing himself down to Zayn's level.
"Hey, buddy," Alaric said, his voice dropping into a calm, resonant tone that seemed to steady the air itself. "I know that look. My nephew told me you lost your biological mother the moment you were born. And now, you watch your second mother fight a battle you can't understand. I know the pain of losing a mother's warmth. A father can teach you how to fight, how to stand, and how to lead... but the position of a mother is a sacred void that no king can ever truly fill."
Alaric looked at the sleeping Queen. "But remember this, Zayn: your mother is a brave warrior. She is a mother figure to every soul in this mountain. She sacrificed her own spirit to protect her children and her kingdom. You carry her bravery in your blood. Do not let her sacrifice be met with only tears; let it be met with the strength she gave you."
Zayn burst into fresh sobs, throwing his arms around Alaric's neck. The "Golden Lion" of the Chenwongo simply held the boy, his own eyes fixed on the ceiling, hiding the shadows of his own history.
The Chief Physician entered the room, his face pale and lined with the exhaustion of a man who had not slept for weeks. He gestured for Alaric to follow him into the hallway, away from the weeping children.
"Alaric," the Chief began, his voice a dry whisper. "I have been wondering... Jai's parents. Why have they not been summoned? It has been almost two months. Surely they have every right to see the state of their son."
Alaric's face hardened instantly, the warmth he had shown Zayn vanishing. "No, Chief. They do not know. And they must not know."
The Chief was taken aback, his brow furrowing. "But why? They are his blood! If anything happened to him, the fallout would—"
"If they know," Alaric interrupted, his voice like grinding iron, "they will not come here to mourn him. They will come here to harvest him. Jai's father and mother do not seek adventure; they sit in their jade palace, using ancient artifacts to gorge themselves on power. If they see Jai in this state, they will treat him as a failed experiment or an opportunity to refine their own 'Vortex' arts. Only Aunt Beatrice and I know the truth. She warned me: the palace is a den of vipers more dangerous for Jai than the Mind Catch itself."
The Chief nodded slowly, a chill running down his spine. He sighed, looking back at the boy through the glass door. "Sir, why is he not waking? It has been so long."
"Chief, explain it to me in terms of the soul," Alaric commanded.
"Think of a dream, Alaric," the Chief said. "When you sleep, you might have a dream that feels like it lasts for hours. You get married, you eat a meal, you travel a road. But in reality, only eight hours have passed. Jai is trapped in a realm where the 'scenes' are infinite. One minute in our world might feel like ten hours in his mind. Until he completes the scenes and understands that it is an imaginary construct, he cannot find the exit."
"Where is the gate?" Alaric asked.
"We don't know," the Chief replied solemnly. "It is his world. He is the only one who knows where the reality begins and the dream ends. In this entire war, only two people are in this state: Jai and Queen Morlin. They are both fighting for their souls in the dark."
Back in the Mind Catch, Jai was trapped on the rooftop. The demon-soldiers had smashed through the doors. Jai looked at the drop—hundreds of feet down to the lava-soaked sand.
"I won't let them take me," Jai whispered.
He jumped. The wind roared past his ears as he plummeted toward the crystalline sand. But before he could hit the ground, a massive, muscular form intercepted him. Jai felt a pair of powerful arms catch him, and he found himself seated upon the back of a beast that defied all logic. It was a Black Horse, but it was twice the size of any war-steed, its coat shimmering with the texture of a midnight sky. Its eyes were glowing purple embers.
"Alaric?" Jai gasped, looking at the rider.
The figure was an exact replica of his uncle, riding 'Dark', the mythical beast gifted to Alaric by Aunt Beatrice—a creature far stronger than King Borin's Griffin.
"Hold on, Jai!" the dream-Alaric roared. "The shadows cannot claim a Chenwongo!"
Dark galloped across the white sand, its hooves leaving trails of black smoke. The demon-troops of Gronak chased them, their lava-limbs stretching across the horizon.
"Jai," Alaric said, his voice calm despite the carnage. "This world is a cage of your making. I am going to throw you far from here, beyond the horizon where the stars meet the sand. Hide there. Find the truth of who you are."
Without waiting for an answer, the dream-Alaric grabbed Jai and hurled him with the strength of a titan. Jai soared through the multicolored sky, watching as Alaric and Dark were swallowed by the swarm of lava-ghouls.
As he fell, the world didn't hit him. Instead, he was pulled into a Black Abyss. There was no ground, no sky, only a thick, suffocating black smoke that smelled of ancient ozone.
"You have made a mess of your mind, little seed."
The voice was cold and regal. From the smoke emerged a woman of terrifying beauty, her eyes glowing with the primordial power of the universe.
Emperor Dominatrix.
"Ma'am!" Jai shouted, relief washing over him. "You're here! Help me get out!"
Dominatrix didn't smile. She raised a single finger, and 0.00000000000001% of her Vortex Aura expanded. The pressure was so immense that Jai was instantly pinned to the white marble floor that had appeared beneath him. He couldn't even lift his chin.
"Silence!" she snapped. "I gave you my bloodline as a blessing, not a toy for you to break! You fought a battle you could not win, and now my power is being wasted keeping your soul from drifting into the void! Do you have any idea how many 'chosen' people have died trying to awaken even a fraction of what you possess?"
Jai could only nod weakly. Her gaze softened slightly. "This world—the bird, the city of stone, the lava—it is all the trash of your subconscious. You are haunted by your own guilt. But you are a Chenwongo. We do not hide from our shadows; we consume them."
She waved her hand, and a Golden Portal—the Gateway to Reality—opened in the black smoke.
"Go," she commanded. "The world of the living has moved on without you. Wake up, and show them why the Heavens fear your name."
Jai didn't hesitate. He stepped into the light, leaving the abyss behind.