The corridor stretched like it would never end, a river of stone with no mouth. The arcane lamps above dimmed to embers, until Palotti’s figure ahead blurred into dusk.

Only the click-clack of hard soles on blue stone kept time, a metronome echoing down a hollow throat.

In that frost of silence, the girl spoke out of nowhere.

“They—the Truth Seekers Assembly—are they right?”

Stini whispered at my side, her cheek nuzzling my arm like a cat seeking warmth.

“Well... I don’t know. Whatever longing or ideal they held, they chose it. They chose to die here. That resolve already steps past right and wrong. Of course, you can still impose a right and wrong on them.”

“Impose?”

She pinched her small brows, a bowstring drawn tight.

“Call it a sin that they drove Arcane Engineers to die for a thought that changes nothing, a symbol with no weight. Or call it right that they chose to die for their ideal and held their faith. Funny, isn’t it? Change a word, and the whole calculus shifts. Absolute justice is dead now. So anyone’s ‘righteousness’ or ‘principle’ holds the same weight. What matters is whether you judge them right, or wrong.”

She lowered her head and bit her nail, then looked up, troubled.

“Mm... I don’t know.”

“That’s also a stance, Stini. You don’t need to choose every time. If neither sits well, choose neither. Don’t support, don’t oppose, just give the due respect. You don’t want to turn into another me, do you?”

“I don’t.” The answer snapped clean, a spark from flint. It was the reflex wired for resisting the Demon King; she didn’t notice it, then hurried to amend herself. “Ah—no, I mean, um, that way has some bad edges.”

“To me, the Truth Seekers Assembly doesn’t matter either way. I care only about Raven. But you’re different. You want an answer that carries through to the end. Sorry. I don’t have one. Palotti up there will only give you the Assembly’s tilt. So you need your own answer.”

“Is that so...”

Stini stopped dead, and her voice fell away.

The world changed.

It wasn’t the air’s mix, nor its pressure. It was something more primal—rules, concepts, the levers Divine Beings hold. They shifted without the sovereign’s leave.

There was no wind, yet the hem of my three-fold enchanted coat fluttered, seaweed in a dead tide.

She gathered her yellow-to-green gradient hair with one hand. In the other, a crystal staff hung in segments, each section floating and spinning like planets. The gloved hand she raised to the air became the center of the world’s warp.

“I hate you.”

She opened her eyes and cut straight to the bone.

“For whatever reason, for whatever cause, you killed my dearest friend. You killed my lover.”

“I hate you.”

She said it again.

The warp deepened, a whirlpool you died by stepping into. Not a cut or tear kind of death.

A death more twisted, more wrong.

Like a body liquefying into viscous green jelly, slumping into itself.

Like bones twisting wild, spearing into their own organs.

Like blood reversing course, blowing the heart apart from within.

Palotti spread his arms and barred our path, a tree in a hard wind.

“Cassio, they’re not enemies.”

“But they’re not friends either!”

“That’s enough of a bond. They’ll protect Raven.”

“How can you be sure they won’t betray her?”

“That’s why you must test them.”

“...Fine.”

Cassio bit her lip hard. Her pretty face knotted, beauty crumpled by grief.

“I’m Cassio. Cassio Melansa. Gatekeeper of this place. If you want to pass, you’ll have to defeat me first.”

She spoke to us with open impatience, like she’d heard both sides recite the same lines already.

“So come on—kill me, the way you killed Fei and Brown!”

Cassio Melansa. A temper like flint, not a scholar’s calm. Yet like Raven, an heir to the last era’s Sorcerer Emperor, an alchemist digging for the first source. She published little; alchemy and arcanism rarely cross, even their terms clash. But her talent was undeniable. In many fields she pushed beyond the frames, even past the lattice that divides systems, and raised mortal arcane technology another rung.

“I don’t need you to remember it! Murderer!”

“Out of respect. Out of honor. We try to understand each other. That’s also part of the rite.”

“Hmph.”

She snorted, dagger-cold.

“Step up, oh great hero. I don’t have the mercy of the last two. I’ll allow you not a flicker of hesitation. If you falter—”

“I’ll kill you!”

Palotti gave me an apologetic smile. I nodded that I understood.

I told Cassio, “True enough. I came only for Raven. Your joys and sorrows have nothing to do with me.”

“Don’t hesitate—”

“I won’t. Rest easy.”

I stepped forward. The nearer I drew to Cassio, the stranger the world felt, a funhouse where the mirrors bent truth to knives.

The first step landed like cotton. The second was a blade, stabbing through sole and foot.

The air swung from steel-hard to hollow-thin, a lung that kept changing its mind.

None of it was illusion. It was real. The world had shifted.

At my shoulder, blood jetted from a vein like a cut artery. At my side, flesh shriveled to husk.

Filaments of killing intent leaked from the warped light, spider silk biting skin. The shadow of death laid a hand on my shoulder.

She could have killed me, then said I lacked the right, that I wasn’t fit to be Raven’s companion.

But I wasn’t afraid. I believed Cassio wouldn’t kill me.

At her core, she was still a fine researcher. Maybe she wouldn’t respect me. But she’d respect her pride as a researcher.

Alchemists like her—who chase truth while forgetting fear of death—do not betray the truth they chase. To lie would be to betray years of stubborn faith.

To me, their spirit outshines their results, a flame brighter than any metal they refine.

She said it was a trial. So it would be a trial.

“I trust you.”

My voice sounded absurd inside the bent world, as if it came from under warped glass.

My face, my body, my limbs and bones bled, burned, and warped.

I held on. I dragged the blade. I thrust.

I couldn’t locate myself. I couldn’t sense my own state. I raised the blade toward where she might be and thrust.

Even time went rubber-soft. Forever passed, and the Holy Sword still didn’t bite flesh. Then a white-gloved hand pressed over my face.

The twist seeped from skin into skull and brain. For a breath, it felt kinder if my head just burst.

But as I said, I didn’t hesitate.

I drove the Holy Sword forward, until either I died, or the blade drank Cassio’s heartblood.

When the warp drained from my brain, the hand gripping my face went slack and fell. I knew we both got what we wanted.

“Cassio, anything you want to say?”

I leaned on the blade so the blood wouldn’t flood out at once.

She still had a breath of strength. She took off a necklace, removed the core within, and handed it to me.

“...Nothing else. You can... let me down now...”

I started to pull the Holy Sword free, then remembered something, and caught the hilt again.

Pain creased her brow.

“...What now? I acknowledge your resolve, but I still hate you... that hasn’t changed...”

“Just now—you said your lover. Who is it?”

“...Hmph... that’s not for you to know...”

Her mouth curved in a mocking line. She suddenly leapt back, one hand clamped over the hole Galewind had punched through her. She swayed to the wall, leaned, and slid down to sit.

Her chin tilted high, a smirk still on her mouth.

She never moved again.

Palotti stepped up and fondly ruffled Cassio’s yellow-green hair. Then he made a blessing sign with his hand.

This time I saw it clear. It was a prayer sign from the Church of Death. Maybe people misunderstand this—Demon Kings read the scriptures of all the gods, hoping to find a paradox or a seam, though it’s mostly a fool’s errand.

I knew that sign well. It’s the most recognizable gesture in the Church of Death.

Used at funerals, when a Divine Healer blesses the departed with the final words.

It means:

“O God, grant peace. Grant rest.”

Palotti saw that I recognized the sign, but he didn’t explain. He just smiled and led us on.

“Do you like Cassio?”

I didn’t press him on it. I just asked a question that didn’t line up.

“Yeah. I like her. Very much. She just doesn’t like me.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

He smiled at me—a wide, easy smile, from someone who’d stopped expecting anything of the road ahead.