They stepped through the gate and back into the forest.
The air hit Piers immediately—thick, heavy, wrong.
It was still deep midnight. The sky above the canopy was too dark, like something was pressing down on it. The atmosphere felt oppressive, suffocating.
Piers frowned. Something was off.
Behind him, the armored knight stumbled.
Metal scraped against stone as knight caught himself against a tree.
"Young Master…. I feel... strange."
From the bottle clutched in his gauntlet, a weak voice called out.
"Father? I... I can't breathe..."
Piers spun around.
Knight's form was flickering. Not like before when he was a ghost—this was different. The armor itself seemed to be fading, the metal losing cohesion like smoke dispersing.
And the bottle's glow was dimming, Melia's presence inside growing fainter.
"What's happening?"
The old man's voice was barely a whisper.
"The miasma... it's too thick out here. We're... we're dying."
Piers looked around sharply.
The forest was saturated with it—dense purple fog rolling through the trees, clinging to everything. It hadn't been this bad when he'd entered. Or maybe he just hadn't noticed.
He glanced down at himself.
The miasma pressed against him from all sides, thick enough to see, to feel—
But it wasn't touching him.
A thin layer of something shimmered around his body. Translucent. Almost invisible.
His mana.
It was forming a barrier automatically, keeping the toxic fog at bay.
[NULL SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD DETECTED: DENSE MIASMA]
[AUTOMATIC MANA BARRIER: ACTIVE]
[HOST PROTECTED]
[WARNING: COMPANIONS VULNERABLE]
[BOUND ENTITIES NOW POSSESS PHYSICAL FORMS]
[CLASSIFICATION: UNDEAD YOKAI]
[MIASMA CORRUPTION: LETHAL TO CURRENT STATE]
Piers stared at the notification.
Undead yokai.
When he'd bound the ghost to armor and given Melia a vessel, he hadn't just preserved them—he'd transformed them. Given them physical existence.
Which meant they were vulnerable to physical threats.
Like miasma.
"Young Master..." The knight's form flickered again, growing more transparent. "W-We cannot... survive like this. Unless..."
He trailed off, his voice fading.
"Unless what?" Piers stepped closer.
"Names." The word came out desperate. "You must... give us names. True names. It will anchor us. Stabilize our existence. Without them... we will dissolve."
Piers looked at the dying knight, at the dimming bottle.
He'd just saved them. Reunited father and daughter.
He wasn't about to let them die now.
"Fine," he said flatly. "Names. Easy enough."
He pointed at the bottle first.
The girl inside was barely visible now, her form wavering like a candle in wind.
"You. You're..." He paused. What was a good name for a soul trapped in a milk bottle?
His mind went to the most obvious thing.
"Gyuunyuu."
Milk.
Simple. Practical. Fit the theme.
He turned to the armored knight.
"You... "Name. Let me think..."
A headless knight. Armor with no head. Empty collar.
"Mutou."
Headless. The name of someone who'd lost something but kept going anyway.
The effect was immediate.
The bottle's glass shifted first — softening, flexing, no longer brittle. more like enchanted crystal or durable plastic. Inside, her features sharpened slowly. Eyes. Cheeks. Tiny hands pressing against the inner surface, taking shape.
Then the bottle lifted.
Gently at first. Then faster — spinning through the air, trailing light, laughter spilling out of it like water from a tipped cup.
"Gyuunyuu! That's me! I'm Gyuunyuu! I can fly! Wheee!"
Piers blinked. "Huh. Didn't expect that."
Then the armor went.
White light erupted from every joint — quiet and total, like a held breath releasing all at once. The rust burned away in sheets. The dents smoothed. The cracks sealed themselves, metal flowing back into place like it remembered what it was supposed to be.
What remained was silver. Clean. Solid. Real.
A sword materialized at his hip, settling into its scabbard like it had always been there.
And from the empty collar —
Blue flame.
A roaring pillar of mana-fire erupted where the head should be, crackling and twisting like a living thing. It didn't burn. Didn't consume. It just was—a manifestation of existence given form.
The knight—Mutou—stood tall, his presence suddenly solid. Grounded. Here.
He flexed his gauntleted fingers, staring at them in wonder.
"I... I am whole." His voice was no longer tinny or distorted. It resonated from within the armor, deep and strong. "Young Master, you have given me more than form. You have given me purpose."
Gyuunyuu floated down to hover beside him, the bottle glowing warmly.
"Father! You look amazing!"
"As do you, my daughter."
Piers stood back, watching the transformation with a mix of surprise and clinical interest.
Naming them had done... that.
He'd expected maybe some stabilization. A minor boost.
Not a full evolution.
[NULL SYSTEM - CRITICAL NOTIFICATION]
[NAMING RITUAL COMPLETE]
[ENTITIES STABILIZED]
[MUTOU: UNDEAD KNIGHT (BOUND)]
[GYUUNYUU: SPIRIT VESSEL (BOUND)]
[LOYALTY: MAXIMUM]
[NEW SKILLS UNLOCKED]
[UNIQUE SKILL: APPRAISAL]
[SKILL: MODAL MAKER]
[SKILL: CHARISMA]
[UNIQUE SKILL: SOUL PUPPET]