I didn't return to the alleys or courtyards that night.
Instead, I found refuge in a half-collapsed chapel on the edge of the city. Its stone walls were cracked, its altar broken, but the air inside was calm undisturbed by wandering spirits. Places like this existed everywhere in the city: quiet zones where fear energy settled into a low, dormant hum.
Perfect for thinking.
I sat on the cold floor, back against a pillar, and closed my eyes. Slowly, carefully, I traced the flow of fear within me. Yesterday, I had burned through it recklessly pull, shape, release, repeat. It worked, but only barely.
That intelligent spirit had almost killed me.
"The circuit is incomplete," I murmured.
Fear entered my body easily. That wasn't the problem. The flaw lay in storage and return. I could draw fear and expend it, but whatever wasn't used simply dissipated. Wasted. Worse, when my reserves ran dry, I was vulnerable empty, fragile.
A terrible design.
In my past life, any game system like that would be considered broken.
I opened my eyes and looked at Lumo, who hovered quietly near the altar. "You feel it too, don't you?"
Lumo pulsed softly.
Spirits didn't just generate fear. They circulated it feeding on it, releasing it, and drawing it back again. That's why they didn't collapse when pressured. They had loops.
Circuits.
I inhaled slowly, pulling in the faint fear residue from the chapel walls. Instead of shaping it outward, I guided it inward, compressing it layer by layer into a stable loop.
Pain flared across my chest.
I gritted my teeth and held the flow steady.
The fear didn't resist. It settled.
A pulse ran through my body not explosive, but smooth. Controlled.
My breathing steadied.
"That's it," I whispered. "A closed circuit."
I tested it cautiously, releasing a fraction of the stored fear and drawing it back again. The energy returned, weaker but intact.
Efficient.
For the first time, I wasn't just consuming fear.
I was managing it.
But the realization brought another, darker understanding.
If I could do this… then intelligent spirits could too.
And if they refined their circuits faster than I did.
I exhaled sharply and stood.
"I need pressure," I said. "But controlled pressure."
Lumo tilted slightly, curious.
"We hunt," I continued, "but only small threats. No intelligent spirits. Not yet."
The chapel lights flickered as fear energy shifted subtly around us. Somewhere beyond the walls, something stirred, drawn by the change.
I straightened my posture, feeling the newly stabilized circuit humming within me.
The flaw had been found.
But fixing it had opened the door to something far more dangerous.