The institute’s narrow door whooshed open, revealing a corridor that ran like a pale river into mist, seemingly endless.

Iron bars split the walls like steel ribs; behind them, special glass pods lined up like cold tombs.

Made of high‑purity quartz fused with odd alloys, the pods gleamed like ice—tough and clear—blocking inner force and sealing any leaking sorcery like frost in glass.

Hedi peered through the pane, its faint blue glow like moonlight on water, at the caged monsters.

Lizard‑shapes crawled like desert things, their skin wrinkled in cruel folds, parched as cracked earth.

Others were Lovecraftian grotesques, bristling bone spines; their pupils coiled like mosquito‑coil spirals, hypnotic and wrong.

Some kept a human outline, ash‑gray like dead bark, pressing to the glass like zoo monkeys seeking warmth.

Each glass prison carried a life‑support web and watchful sensors, a steel garden that kept them alive while caging every escape.

“How does this place strike you?” Evelyn’s voice slid in like a thin blade.

“From your tone, you’re showing me a private collection, right?” Hedi kept walking, steps crisp as frost. “They look sickly, like wilting weeds.”

“That’s what happens once they’re cut off from the Dark Realm, like fish flung onto sand.”

“A feedback from the Dark Realm itself? Like a tide pulling back?”

“Partly.” Evelyn stopped before a pod and yanked a chain. A hail of sharp spikes shot from all sides, spearing the creature like a thorn storm. It shrieked again and again. “Use your magic!”

A brown‑yellow jet sprayed from its eyes, splattering the glass like muddy rain.

Evelyn tipped her chin, pleased like a cat after the pounce. “Well? What do you think?”

“Pull the spikes back first, like pulling thorns from a paw.”

“Feeling sorry for monsters?”

“Too noisy. Not fit for talk.” Annoyance pricked first; then Hedi chose her words. “They’ve surely killed plenty of Investigators. But I’m just standing in a lab watching you inflict pain, so of course I feel a gut aversion, like sour bile, to needless cruelty.”

“Even if you pity monsters, I won’t climb some moral high ground to judge you. No need to weigh every word like stones.”

Hedi hummed, a thin wind through teeth; you’d just mocked me for being from out of town.

“Back to the point. When it cast that magic, did you feel anything?” Evelyn kept pressing, like a finger on a bruise.

“That counts as magic? Then me spitting would be magic too.”

“It is magic, a spark however small.”

Silence weighed a beat. “Fine. The ambient flow of mana didn’t change,” Hedi said, cool as still water.

“So the spell was triggered by its own inner mana? A closed coil?”

“Not only that. Leaving the Dark Realm weakens them, but their magic can still interact by some path, like an echo over water.”

Evelyn’s eyes flashed with approval, like sunlight on a blade. “You mean the Dark Realm still stays in touch with it?”

“The Dark Realm Erosion in my head is proof enough, like frost biting a window from within.”

“Where does your reasoning come from? What conduit do you see?”

“Conduction.” Hedi bent to brush snow off her shoe edge, flakes like salt. “The Dark Realm is built from an overload of mana, and mana flows. So it can touch individuals in the real world by transmission.”

“Impressive, sharp as a clean cut.”

“Thanks for the praise, like a sip of warm tea.”

“The institute ran a swarm of experiments, measuring how a monster’s magic weakens after leaving the Dark Realm—numbers, durations, ranges, all mapped like star charts.”

“And with limited notes and field sight, your general inference matches those results like two tracks on the same snow.”

“So you were testing me? Like tapping a bridge with a stick.”

“Don’t mind it, let it pass like wind.”

“Heh.”

“We’re blind folks feeling an elephant.” Evelyn’s mouth tilted with a teasing curve, catlike. “We should’ve teamed up earlier; magic’s still my weak side.”

“Coming from someone who can use Dark Magic, that sounds thin as paper.”

“A human’s magic circuit runs opposite to a witch’s. Learning Dark Magic is like trying to eat with your toes—”

“Don’t be gross.”

“What I mean is, with long, grinding work, anyone can do it.” Evelyn looked at Hedi, gaze steady as a lantern. “How much do you know about Dark Magic?”

“Emotion.”

“And?”

“Emotion is emotion. How does that tie into the magic we’re discussing?”

“Dark Realm Magic may be a derivative of Dark Magic, a branch off the same root.”

“Impossible. Dark Magic binds tightly to the caster’s emotion, like vein to heart.”

“My prodding just now stirred its anger.” Evelyn tilted Hedi’s gaze to the creature’s eyes, embers in a pit. “It wants to kill me.”

“Propagation can reach across space’s layers; even outside the original mana field, inner mana can resonate or induce, stirring latent power in the surroundings.”

“Curses and blessings prove it, old wind and shelter magic written in bone.”

“But you said the air’s mana didn’t shift, still as pond water.”

“The spikes’ pain pushed it to reconnect to the Dark Realm, an energy tether thrown across fog.”

“Why?”

“It wants to kill you. What else? Rage finds its river.”

“So very Professor of the general track, chalk and slate.”

Heat surged first; then Hedi’s hands balled into fists inside her pockets, tight as stones. “Am I wrong? There’s some link between Dark Realm Magic and Dark Magic?”

“The trigger for Dark Magic is emotion. Does that arrow land for you?”

“Do I look like an idiot who’s never studied Dark Magic?”

“Studying and using are two different beasts.” Evelyn wore a strategist’s look, calm as a chessboard.

She’s begging for a punch, like a drum asking for sticks.

When I was learning Dark Magic, you were probably still on milk, small as a cub.

No. Don’t think like that; cool the flame.

If Stratford’s older than me, that’d be awkward, like slipping on ice in front of a crowd.

But that face with that tone burns me, like chili oil in the eyes.

She’s sure I can’t use Dark Magic, carving that verdict like a stamp.

Because of emotion?

Users of Dark Magic end up with mood disorders in varying degrees, storms trapped in glass.

If you think that way, I rarely use Dark Magic; assuming I can’t wield it would be understandable, like judging a sword by its rust.

“Fine.” Hedi pressed down the surging heat, like a lid on boiling soup. “Let me hear your take.”

“What you’re saying got confirmed in recent institute tests. The Dark Realm and the monsters do have a connection, a thread in the dark.”

“Shame you don’t use Dark Magic; you missed that their link is emotion, beating like a hidden drum.”

“If that’s true, full Dark Realm Magic can’t be used in the present world, not at full tide.”

“Dark Realm Erosion gnaws the brain and trades sanity for power, granting humans a fierce strength at the price of frenzy.” Evelyn paused, as if weighing whether to go on, her words hovering like moths. “The monsters we’ve contained have no reason; we only force obedience with sticks—”

“You’re not about to bring up Selina’s sister, are you?”

“Olivia Viola is a fine piece of experimental material—she still holds her human core, and emotion ties the Dark Realm to the self, a bridge we can test. She could prove whether Dark Realm Magic really can’t reach full strength in this world.”

“You really want to drag her out, like a fish from deep water.”

“Not now.”

“Selina would be heartbroken, a glass rose cracked.”

“There’s another, someone eroded yet still rational, a candle standing in wind.”

“I’m warning you!” Hedi’s face went storm‑dark. “I aim to end the Dark Realm Erosion, not become the institute’s specimen!”

“Control your emotions, Melvina. I didn’t say I’d cut you into slides.”

“You do think it. You’re steering me. You want me to know— I have research value!”

“Yes. You have research value.”

“No wonder you invited me here. From the start, you never meant to help me end the Dark Realm Erosion!”

Suddenly, Hedi felt something off. A magic both familiar and strange slipped quietly into her body, like a germ that fooled the guards, unhurriedly occupying every inch of skin, every nerve.

“You’re trying to control my body?!” Her words snapped like drawn wire.

Evelyn’s brow twitched, a small ripple; she froze for a few seconds. “I just... wanted to calm you.”

Hedi laughed, dry and cutting. Her inner mana surged like a tide, crashing against the mana in the air.

The lab lights flickered like fireflies. Wall ornaments shivered without wind, and even the floor began a tiny tremor.

“Don’t judge me by how miserable I looked in the Dark Realm.” Hedi flicked a lock from her brow, a small flare. “In the present world, I’ve never lost a magic duel.”