Silence had shape.
Lauri realized that as he drifted through the void—if void was even the right word. It wasn't dark, nor empty, nor cold. It simply was. A space that existed between breaths, between heartbeats, between worlds. A place so still it felt like the universe had paused mid‑sentence.
Color surrounded him—threads of aurora light swirling in spirals that defied gravity, distance, and direction. Some hues pulsed like living veins; others shimmered translucent like reflections on thin spring ice. Every strand felt both impossibly close and infinitely distant.
He tried to inhale.
He had no lungs here.
Yet something like breath moved through him anyway.
A pulse. A rhythm. A beat that was not his own.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A heartbeat behind the silence.
A living world waiting on the other side.
His mind floated in fragments—memories slipping in and out of focus like snowflakes touching warm skin. The sauna's wooden walls. The scent of birch. Mei's message glowing on his phone. The jade‑green light spiraling from the stones.
And that voice whispering through everything:
When two fates resonate, the heavens must listen.
Mei's voice.
Or something wearing her warmth.
He reached for the thought, but it scattered like startled birds.
A rune drifted past him—one of the symbols that had hovered above the sauna stones. It was formed of faint blue light, its edges soft, its center pulsing gently. Instinctively, Lauri extended his hand.
His fingers passed through it.
But something passed into him in return.
A cool sensation spread through his chest. Not numbing, but clarifying—like stepping out of a sauna into crisp winter air, lungs filling with something purer than oxygen.
Suddenly, information—not words, but understanding—unfolded inside him.
A name.
A purpose.
A path.
Northern Tempering System — Initiation Sequence: Unresolved.
Cross‑Realm Status: In Transit.
Candidate Soul Stability: Pending Evaluation.
Half of it made no sense.
The other half made too much sense.
"What do you want from me?" he asked, or thought he asked. His voice drifted not as sound, but as intention.
The aurora threads responded—brightening, twisting, converging like rivers flowing toward a single point. They formed a swirling vortex around him, slow at first, then faster, humming with deep, ancient resonance.
A tug pulled at him.
Soft.
But definite.
As though the world beyond this space had hooked a finger into his soul and was gently, patiently drawing him closer.
He resisted.
Not out of fear.
But because something in him whispered:
If you go forward now, you will not return the same.
And yet…
Wasn't that the point?
Back home, everything had been quiet. Too quiet. His life had been tidy, predictable, safe. He drank coffee the same way, walked the same lakeside path, worked the same hours. Even his desires were muted things—stubborn, private, practical.
Then Mei had arrived in his winter.
Bright. Curious. Warm like a cup of jasmine tea on a cold morning. She talked about cultivation realms and karmic threads as if they were recipes or weather reports—ordinary to her, extraordinary to him.
He didn't love her.
Not yet.
But he felt the shape of something inside him that could become love—if he dared to reach for it.
The aurora light pulled harder.
The void trembled.
Lauri felt the moment before it happened—a shift, a rippling swell in the silence like a wave cresting before it breaks.
Reality began to open.
Ahead of him, a thin glowing line formed—straight and delicate. A seam in the fabric of the in‑between. The line widened into a crack, light seeping through in blinding strands.
Wind roared through the breach—warm and fragrant, scented with pine resin, damp stone, and something electric he couldn't place.
Life.
A world.
Calling to him.
The rune beside him brightened again.
Candidate Recognition: Confirmed.
Realm Alignment: Unstable.
Initiation Threshold: Approaching.
The crack widened into a doorway of blazing white.
He drifted toward it.
The vortex of aurora light tightened around him, guiding him like a current guiding a leaf. His body—or whatever form he now had—passed the threshold's edge.
Heat washed over him.
Light swallowed him.
The world sharpened—
Then collapsed.
He was falling again, but now he felt it—weight returning in a rush, gravity latching onto him like a long‑lost friend. Air pressed against his skin. Wind howled in his ears. The sky above him wasn't the northern sky he knew—it was vibrant turquoise streaked with golden clouds that drifted like floating mountains.
A mountain peak rushed toward him from below.
The ground was coming.
Fast.
Panic stabbed through him—
Then something yanked violently at his chest, stopping him mid‑fall. His entire body jolted as though caught by an invisible harness. His limbs flailed uselessly in the air.
He dangled.
Suspended a dozen meters above a sheer cliff face.
"WHAT—?!"
His voice echoed across the valley.
The aurora thread that had guided him had transformed into a thin, translucent band of energy wrapped around his torso, glowing faintly with the same jade‑green hue he had seen on the sauna stones.
The band pulsed.
Twice.
Then snapped.
Gravity reclaimed him.
He plummeted the final meters—hit something soft, rolled down a slope, crashed into a patch of springy grass and dust.
Pain bloomed across his back, a wild electric shock that replaced nothingness with brutal existence.
He groaned and stared up at the sky.
It was wrong.
Beautiful, but wrong.
No pale northern sun.
No familiar clouds.
Instead, three suns—one golden, one pale blue, one a faint lavender—hung at different angles across the atmosphere. Strange winged creatures circled high above, their silhouettes long and serpentine.
He lifted his hand.
It trembled.
He was breathing hard.
Alive.
Real.
A tiny crackling sound made him flinch. He pushed up on his elbows.
Beside him, lying half‑buried in grass, was his phone.
Or what was left of it.
Shattered. Blackened. Still faintly glowing, as if the rune energy inside hadn't fully dissipated.
He reached for it—
But the remnants dissolved into shimmering particles the moment his fingers brushed them, scattering like dust caught in sunlight.
He swallowed hard.
His mind raced.
This can't be real.
Yet the air smelled real.
The earth underneath him felt real.
A warm breeze brushed against his cheek, carrying scents of flowers he'd never encountered—sharp, sweet, slightly spicy—like a blend of pine sap and osmanthus blossoms.
His thoughts were interrupted by a distant sound.
A howl.
Like a wolf.
But deeper.
He sat up straighter.
The howl came again.
Closer.
And followed by another—shriller, more guttural, like a beast whose throat held two voices at once.
Lauri was not an expert on spirit beasts.
He was not an expert on anything here.
But every instinct he possessed whispered the same thing:
Move.
He scrambled to his feet, muscles protesting. The slope he'd landed on led downward into a narrow valley flanked by steep cliffs. Tall grass swayed like waves, hiding the ground beneath.
A shadow passed overhead.
He froze and looked up.
A creature with a wingspan wider than a fishing boat soared above him, scales glinting in hues of blue and silver. Its serpentine body coiled through the air as if swimming through clouds.
His breath hitched.
In Finland, encountering wildlife meant foxes, reindeer, maybe a bear.
This was not Finland.
Another howl—this one much closer—echoed through the valley.
He turned.
The grass rippled.
Something large was moving through it, approaching with deliberate steps.
He backed away slowly.
He had no weapon.
No knowledge.
No cultivation.
Just silence and sisu.
And neither felt like enough.
The grass parted.
A creature emerged—a massive wolf‑like beast with two tails and eyes that glowed a cold, icy blue. Frost gathered where its paws touched the earth. Its fur shimmered with silver patterns that shifted like living runes.
The beast locked eyes with him.
Its lips pulled back, revealing fangs long enough to puncture bone.
Lauri whispered the only Finnish word that felt appropriate:
"…Voi vittu."
The beast crouched.
Ready to pounce.
He stumbled backward, nearly tripping over a rock. His heart hammered against his ribs. Instinct screamed at him to run—but run where? The cliff walls hemmed him in on both sides.
The beast lunged.
A blur of silver and frost hurtled toward him.
He raised his arms in a useless gesture—
But before the beast reached him, the air shimmered.
A translucent barrier—circular, faintly glowing—flashed between them like a sudden lens of frozen light.
The beast slammed into it.
A shockwave rippled across the valley.
Lauri staggered from the impact.
The beast recoiled, snarling, its breath forming crystalline mist.
The barrier pulsed.
A rune appeared on its surface.
One he recognized from the sauna.
Northern Tempering System — Candidate Protection Protocol: Temporary.
Temporary.
The barrier flickered.
The beast snarled and circled.
Lauri's pulse thundered.
He could feel the choice forming in the air around him. The same choice that had hovered in the void.
The barrier dimmed another degree.
The beast crouched again.
He swallowed.
"…All right," he whispered. "If this is real… if this is happening…"
He clenched his fists.
"I'm not dying in the first chapter of my own story."
The barrier shattered.
The beast leapt—
And the world erupted into blinding light.
A presence surged behind Lauri, warm and sharp and powerful, like a blade drawn from a forge. A voice—calm, steady, carrying the rasp of a seasoned warrior—echoed through the valley.
"Step aside, outsider."
A figure moved past him—
And the chapter ended on the brink of collision.