Piers hit the ground and rolled, absorbing the impact.
Not graceful. But functional.
He stood, brushing dirt off his pants, and looked up at the window he'd just jumped from. Dark. Silent. About three and a half feet up.
Styx was still asleep inside. His parents were still... occupied.
Nobody had noticed.
Good.
The ghost materialized beside him, flickering anxiously. "Master, are you—"
"Stop calling me that." Piers was already walking toward the tree line. "I'm three. It's weird."
"My apologies, young Master, howe—"
"That's still 'Master.'"
"Ah. Yes. Forgive me, I—"
Piers stopped walking.
In front of him, maybe twenty feet away, the barrier shimmered in the darkness—his father's protective dome, stretching over the house and yard in a perfect hemisphere of woven magic.
A ward to keep monsters out.
And toddlers in.
The ghost flickered, panic rippling through his glow. He gestured at the barrier, floating closer with obvious worry.
"Young Master, what course of action do you propose?" His voice was gentle, almost pleading. "I can traverse it with ease, being incorporeal, but you... regrettably, you cannot."
Can't I?
Piers stared at the barrier.
He'd watched his father maintain this thing for three years. Every morning, every evening—reinforcing it, adjusting the mana flow, checking the anchor points.
He knew how it worked.
The way the spell-threads layered over each other. The defensive redundancies. The way certain nodes reinforced others to prevent outside breaches.
But from the inside?
Different story.
Something stirred in the back of his mind—fragmented memories from his second life. Magical theory. Mana manipulation techniques he'd learned during those seven years of experimentation.
If I just...
He reached out with his mana, feeling for the barrier's edge.
There.
A junction point. Where three different spell-threads intersected and wove together.
If he applied pressure there—gentle, not forcing—the threads might loosen just enough.
[NULL SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[MANA MANIPULATION DETECTED]
[ANALYZING TECHNIQUE...]
[BARRIER DECONSTRUCTION: IN PROGRESS]
[WARNING: THIS MAY ALERT BARRIER CREATOR]
Piers paused.
Father might notice.
He thought about it for exactly two seconds.
By the time he does, I'll already be gone.
He pushed his mana into the junction point—not attacking it, just... asking. Suggesting the spell-threads relax. Let him through. Just this once.
The barrier resisted.
Then, slowly—like ice melting under warm water—it began to give.
A section of the dome, maybe three feet wide, simply faded, leaving a clean gap in the otherwise perfect hemisphere.
The ghost stared.
"Young M—" He stopped. Started again. "How did you—that's—that should be impossible. Your father's barrier is—it's masterwork level warding, and you just—you're three—"
Piers walked through the gap.
"Coming?"
The ghost floated after him, still sputtering in disbelief.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the barrier sealed itself behind him, mana-threads rewinding and reconnecting like they'd never been disturbed.
Clever. His father's work was solid.
Just... not solid enough to keep a reincarnated mage inside.
Piers took three steps toward the tree line.
And stopped.
Something's out there.
He could feel it.
Not with his eyes or ears—deeper than that. A presence lurking in the darkness between the trees. Old. Powerful. Sealed, maybe, but not gone.
Just... waiting.
The air itself felt heavier here. Colder. Like the forest was holding its breath.
His heart started beating faster.
[NULL SYSTEM - CRITICAL ALERT]
[MALEVOLENT ENTITY DETECTED]
[DISTANCE: UNKNOWN]
[POWER LEVEL: EXTREME]
[STATUS: SEALED/DORMANT]
[WARNING: DO NOT APPROACH UNSEALED AREA]
[EMOTIONAL RESPONSE DETECTED: FEAR]
Piers' breath caught.
Fear.
That's what this is.
The cold crawling up his spine. The way his muscles had tensed without permission. The sudden, visceral awareness of how small and fragile his three-year-old body was compared to whatever was sleeping out there in the dark.
Fear.
Real fear.
But underneath it...
Something else.
His pulse hammered in his ears. His hands trembled. But not just from terror.
From anticipation.
This feeling—this sharp, electric awareness flooding through him—it was...
Incredible.
[NULL SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[ANALYZING EMOTIONAL STATE...]
[FEAR: PRESENT (ADAPTIVE)]
[EXCITEMENT: HIGH]
[THRILL RESPONSE: MAXIMUM]
[VOID CORRUPTION: 43% → 42% → 41% → 40%]
[MASSIVE REDUCTION DETECTED]
[CAUSE: INTENSE EMOTIONAL STIMULUS]
[HYPOTHESIS CONFIRMED: DANGER + FEAR + EXCITEMENT = POWERFUL REVERSAL]
[CURRENT CORRUPTION: 40%]
Forty percent.
He'd just dropped three percent in seconds.
Because of fear? Excitement? The rush of standing on the edge of something genuinely dangerous?
He looked down at his hands.
They were shaking.
Not from the corruption drop.
From the thrill of it.
"This is..." His voice came out quiet. Almost wondering. "This is what it feels like."
Being alive.
Actually, genuinely alive.
The ghost drifted closer, its glow flickering with obvious concern. "Young sir? Are you quite alright? You appear... unwell. Should we perhaps return to—"
"No."
Piers looked up.
And for the first time in three years, he smiled.
Not the careful, empty expression he'd learned to mimic for his parents. This was real—small, sharp, and slightly unhinged.
"I feel amazing."
The ghost stared at him, clearly unsettled.
"Young sir, you are trembling. And grinning. While standing before a forest known to devour the unwary. Forgive me, but this does not seem—"
"Let's go." Piers was already walking.
The ghost made a sound like a distressed wheeze and floated after him, muttering what sounded like prayers for patience.
Behind them, the barrier pulsed softly—a distant wall of safety they'd just abandoned.
Ahead, the forest waited.
Piers' hands were still shaking.
His smile didn't fade.