Star Haven came into view sometime later, its outer towers rising from the snowy landscape beneath the darkening horizon. Its walls were heavy, its watchtowers were numerous, and the roads surrounding it were marked by patrol routes and fortified posts. It made sense. Star Haven was the last major city before the Shadow Realm, close enough to the barrier that anyone living there had to accept what existed only a short journey away.

They did not take the road toward it.

Malachi redirected the group toward a series of snow-covered hills stretching around the city’s northern outskirts, choosing a route that kept them below the ridgelines whenever possible. Crimson Lotus followed without complaint, though Satoshi glanced toward the distant walls more than once as they passed.

“We could resupply there,” he said eventually.

“We do not need to,” Malachi replied.

Satoshi looked toward him. “That wasn’t really what I meant.”

“I know.”

Shunjiro glanced between them before looking back toward Star Haven. The answer was obvious enough. Malachi had no interest in walking openly through a border city where guards, adventurers, merchants, and travelers might recognize him. Most people might never have seen his face, but an enormous dark-skinned man with dreadlocks, purple eyes, and a sword nearly as large as some people was not exactly easy to forget once someone started asking questions.

Satoshi seemed to reach the same conclusion and let the subject drop.

They continued through the hills instead, moving along slopes where the snow reached their ankles and occasionally deeper. Star Haven remained visible for nearly another hour, appearing and disappearing between the white ridges until eventually even its tallest towers vanished behind them.

What replaced it was the barrier.

Up close, the Shadow Realm boundary was far more unsettling than it had appeared from a distance.

Nothing about the terrain told them where the living world ended and the Shadow Realm began except the enormous wall of darkness stretching endlessly in both directions. It rose so high that Shunjiro could not see its top, its surface neither solid nor transparent. Darkness shifted within it like layers of black mist pressed together, occasionally revealing vague distortions deeper inside before swallowing them again.

Someone unfamiliar with the Shadow Realm might have expected a designated entrance.

There wasn’t one.

Anywhere along the barrier could become an entrance simply by walking through it.

Malachi stopped before they reached the barrier and turned toward the others. The darkness stretched behind him endlessly in both directions, shifting slowly like layers of black mist compressed together.

“Before we cross, tell me what you know about the territory on the other side.”

Satoshi adjusted the strap running across his shoulder. “The Goblin Dominion?”

Malachi nodded.

“This will be our fifth crossing through this part of the Shadow Realm. We’ve gone through four times before.”

Malachi raised an eyebrow slightly. “Four?”

“Four.”

“And what have you encountered?”

“Mostly goblins. Nothing above B-rank that we actually had to fight.”

Malachi studied him for a moment. “Four crossings through the Goblin Dominion without being forced into anything above B-rank.”

Satoshi caught the emphasis immediately. “We weren’t wandering through it blind.”

That seemed to interest Malachi.

Satoshi stepped closer to the barrier and pointed toward a section of darkness farther to the east. “The obvious route toward the Shadow Inn is shorter, but I stopped using most of it after our first trip. Too many old settlements and territorial markers. The goblins patrol through there more often, especially once you get deeper into the Dominion.”

“You mapped another route.”

“Several.” Satoshi gave a small shrug. “Routes change in the Shadow Realm. Something safe six months ago can be suicide now.”

Malachi’s expression shifted slightly at that.

Satoshi continued, “We stay near the established crossing paths where we can, but there are sections where I move us around the major goblin territories. We watch tracks, bodies, markings on ruins, anything that tells us something large has moved through recently. If we find signs that a route has changed, we turn around instead of seeing what caused it.”

Shunjiro looked toward Satoshi with renewed interest. He had known Crimson Lotus had crossed the Shadow Realm several times, but he had assumed they simply knew one established path through it. The way Satoshi described it sounded less like following a road and more like constantly reading the territory around them.

Malachi seemed to recognize the difference too.

“And the stronger creatures?”

“We avoid them.”

Satoshi said it simply.

“We’ve seen signs of them. Large footprints. Destroyed settlements. Goblin bodies that definitely weren’t killed by adventurers. Once we heard something moving a few hundred meters off the route and changed direction before we ever saw it.” His expression became more serious. “I know what lives in there. The reason we’ve only fought B-ranks is because fighting everything you find in the Shadow Realm is a good way to stop being an adventurer.”

A faint smile appeared on Malachi’s face.

“Good.”

Satoshi raised an eyebrow. “Were you expecting something else?”

“I was determining whether your previous four crossings were skill or luck.”

“And?”

“Mostly skill, there is always luck in the Shadow Realm.”

Satoshi considered that before nodding. “Fair.”

Malachi looked toward the barrier again. “Then you already understand the most important rule. Surviving this place does not mean defeating everything inside it. Usually it means making sure the dangerous things never know you were there.”

“That’s been the idea.”

“The Goblin King alone is considered an SSS-rank threat,” Malachi said. “And he is not the only thing within the Dominion capable of reaching that level.”

Satoshi nodded. “We stay nowhere near his territory.”

Malachi turned back toward the barrier.

“Your routes are useful, and once we enter, I want you watching for every change you recognize.”

Satoshi’s expression sharpened. “Something happened.”

“Yes.”

That answer immediately quieted the group.

“The Shadow Realm has become increasingly unpredictable over the last several months,” Malachi continued. “Creatures are moving outside territories they have occupied for years. Some have crossed enormous distances for reasons I still do not understand. Corrupted people are appearing more frequently as well, and several of them are considerably stronger than what travelers usually encounter.”

Satoshi looked toward the barrier. “That would make my old routes unreliable.”

“Not useless. Unreliable.”

Satoshi nodded slowly, already thinking.

“What have you heard about movement inside the Dominion?”

“Enough that I would not trust any route without checking it as we move.”

Satoshi accepted that without argument. “Then we adjust as we go.”

“We do.”

Satoshi looked toward him again. “What about Shadow Inn? That’s normally where we stop.”

“We will avoid it.”

His answer caught Crimson Lotus’s attention.

Satoshi’s brow furrowed. “Problem with the inn?”

“Possibly. I have heard too many reports of powerful Corrupted lingering near Shadow Inns.”

That made Satoshi noticeably more serious.

Malachi continued. “They know adventurers use them. They know established routes eventually funnel tired travelers toward shelter. An inn is one of the few places inside the Shadow Realm where you can reasonably predict that people will appear.”

“Hunting grounds,” Satoshi said.

“Exactly.”

Emi glanced toward him. “Are they attacking the inns?”

“Sometimes. Others wait outside them. A traveler leaving after several hours of rest is easier to follow than someone moving through an unpredictable route.”

Satoshi looked toward the darkness for several seconds before nodding. “Then the Shadow Inn is out.”

“We go directly through.”

Kojiro glanced between them. “The whole three days?”

“We will still take short rests,” Malachi explained. “Food, water, equipment checks, enough time to recover physically when necessary. We simply will not establish a camp or remain anywhere longer than we need to.”

Satoshi was already adjusting the plan in his head. “If we aren’t using the Inn, my usual western route loses some value. There’s another path farther south that reconnects with the main trail later, but the last time we crossed, there were fresh goblin markings around the ruins near it.”

“How fresh?”

“Less than a day.”

Malachi nodded. “Show me the location once we are inside. We will decide when we see what has changed.”

Satoshi gave a short nod.

Malachi looked across the rest of the group. “The same rules you followed before still apply. Do not leave the route alone. Do not chase sounds or lights you cannot identify. If you find signs that something has entered an area recently, tell us before moving farther. The difference this time is that you should assume old territorial boundaries may no longer mean what they did during your previous crossings.”

Satoshi nodded. “And if we see something strange off the path, we leave it alone.”

“Unless it refuses to leave us alone.”

Kojiro looked toward Malachi. “I’m guessing having you here makes that less likely.”

“Yes.”

Malachi’s answer was immediate.

“Most creatures capable of sensing spiritual energy will know I am here long before we see them. The majority will avoid us.”

Satoshi’s eyes narrowed slightly as he immediately understood the other side of that statement.

“And anything that deliberately approaches anyway is something we should take seriously.”

Malachi glanced toward him.

“Exactly.”

Satoshi gave a quiet sigh. “That’s actually worse.”

“It can be.”

“If something looks at an EX-rank and decides the group still looks edible, I’m assuming diplomacy has already failed.”

Malachi’s mouth shifted faintly. “That would be a reasonable assumption.”

The others laughed quietly, but Shunjiro’s attention remained fixed on the barrier.

He had already spent significant time within the Shadow Realm, but standing here made him realize how different that experience had been. Malachi’s territory had been isolated and controlled. Shunjiro had suffered plenty during training, but Malachi had always known what surrounded them and what dangers were nearby.

This time, they were traveling through the Realm itself.

Three days across the Goblin Dominion.

Moving creatures.

Powerful Corrupted.

Routes that could change between crossings.

The possibility that anything willing to approach Malachi might be dangerous enough that even an SS-ranked guild needed to react immediately.

A knot slowly formed in Shunjiro’s stomach.

Malachi noticed.

“Nervous?”

Shunjiro hesitated before admitting, “A little.”

“Good.”

Shunjiro looked at him. “You always say things like that instead of making me feel better.”

“Because fear is useful when you understand it.”

Satoshi glanced over. “He’s right.”

Shunjiro stared at him. “Whose side are you on?”

“The side where we all come out the other end.”

That answer actually helped more than Shunjiro expected.

Malachi turned toward everyone. “Prepare here.”

The group immediately began checking their equipment, though there was nothing uncertain about Crimson Lotus’s movements. This was a routine they had performed before. Satoshi checked his weapons before reviewing the supplies and route materials he kept accessible, while Kojiro tightened the straps of his pack and shifted anything he might need quickly. Emi made certain nothing around her sleeves or hands would interfere with her strings, and Yuuna reorganized food and water so none of them would need to unpack fully during the short rests ahead.

Shunjiro checked the Devil’s Luck Dagger at his side and tightened Aurelius’s fur-lined cloak around himself. The cold would change once they crossed the barrier, but he kept it on for now. He went through his supplies twice, mostly because doing something with his hands helped with the anxiety.

Nearby, Satoshi crouched in the snow and studied the section of barrier ahead before looking toward Malachi.

“My old route starts slightly east once we’re through. If the landmarks haven’t changed, I should be able to find it within fifteen minutes.”

Malachi nodded. “Take the lead initially.”

Satoshi looked mildly surprised.

“You know that route better than I do,” Malachi explained. “I will tell you when something no longer matches what it should.”

Satoshi smiled. “Now that sounds like a plan.”

The moment Shunjiro stepped through the barrier, the world changed.

There was no resistance when he crossed. No pressure against his body, no sudden pull, no sensation of passing through anything physical. One moment his boots were pressing into the snow of the Cosmic Continent, and the next they touched dark, damp earth beneath a sky that seemed to swallow everything above him.

He stopped after only a few steps and looked around.

This was the Shadow Realm.

He knew that already. He had spent enough time here with Malachi that the sight of dead land and lifeless trees should not have felt unfamiliar anymore, but almost immediately he realized something was different.

Where Malachi’s mansion had been, darkness had seemed to consume nearly everything. The land around it was dim enough that distance became difficult to judge, with ruins and dead trees appearing like silhouettes beneath an endless night. Here, there was still darkness, but something faint lived beneath it.

A strange glow.

It wasn’t enough to make the region bright. Not even close. Shunjiro could still see darkness stretching between the hills and gathering beneath the dead branches around them, but a weak greenish cast seemed to hang over parts of the landscape. It was so subtle that he wasn’t certain whether it came from the ground, the distant horizon, or something farther north that he couldn’t see from here.

He looked toward Malachi.

“Was it always like this?”

Malachi stepped through the barrier behind him, followed by Satoshi, Emi, Kojiro, and Yuuna. “Like what?”

“The light.”

Malachi’s eyes moved briefly across the surrounding land before returning to Shunjiro. “This part of the Realm has always looked different from where you stayed with me.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“It answers enough of it.”

Shunjiro gave him a look, but Malachi was already walking.

He sighed and followed.

The smell reached him next.

Ash.

Not the sharp smell of something actively burning, but the dry, stale odor left behind after a fire had been dead for days. Beneath it was something metallic, heavy enough that Shunjiro tasted it faintly whenever he breathed too deeply.

Rust.

The combination made the air feel old.

Wet, burned, and metallic.

He looked down and noticed that the earth beneath his boots was softer than he expected. Dark mud gathered between stones, and shallow depressions in the ground held thin pools of murky water. Dead tree trunks glistened with moisture, their bark blackened by years of rain despite the fact that not a single drop currently fell from the sky.

Satoshi noticed where he was looking.

“Rain.”

Shunjiro glanced toward him.

“This part of the Dominion gets a lot of it,” Satoshi explained as he moved ahead of the group. “Sometimes for days.”

Shunjiro looked at one of the pools beside the path. “Can you drink it?”

“No.”

The answer came from Malachi.

Shunjiro looked back.

“Not unless you’re tired of being alive.”

“That bad?”

“The water here does not behave like water from the living continents,” Malachi said. “Do not drink from pools, streams, rainfall, anything you find inside the Realm.”

Satoshi nodded. “We carry everything we need for a reason.”

Shunjiro adjusted the strap of his pack and decided that was enough information to keep him from ever becoming curious.

Satoshi moved into the lead as they traveled farther from the barrier. There was no hesitation in the way he chose their direction. He watched the slopes, studied the shapes of the hills ahead, and occasionally glanced toward certain dead trees or clusters of stone as though they were markers only he recognized.

Shunjiro noticed it after a while.

“You really do know this route.”

Satoshi looked back over his shoulder. “I told you I’ve crossed it four times.”

“Yeah, but you make it look like there’s an actual road.”

“There is.”

Shunjiro looked down at the uneven dirt beneath them.

Satoshi smiled. “Not that kind.”

He pointed toward a crooked dead tree standing halfway up the next hill. Its trunk split into three branches near the top, all of them reaching east.

“That tree was there the last two times. There’s another one shaped like a hook past the ridge. After that, we should hit a narrow valley. If none of those are where they’re supposed to be, then I start worrying.”

Kojiro walked a few steps behind him. “You always start worrying.”

“That’s why you’re alive.”

“Fair enough.”

They continued between the hills.

The farther they traveled, the more dead trees crowded the hills around them. Some remained standing despite having lost every leaf and strip of bark long ago, their bare limbs stretching crookedly toward the black sky, while others had collapsed across the slopes and rotted into twisted shapes half-buried in the damp earth. Their roots pushed through the soil like exposed bones, blackened by years of rain that never seemed to bring anything back to life.

There were no birds overhead and no insects crawling through the mud. Even the wind seemed reluctant to pass through this place. Most of what Shunjiro heard came from their own footsteps, the occasional scrape of loose stone beneath a boot, and the distant dripping of water collected somewhere among the cliffs. He had almost forgotten how quiet the Shadow Realm could become. It was not the comforting quiet of an empty road or sleeping village. It felt like the silence of somewhere that had forgotten what life sounded like.

The hills gradually grew steeper around them, forcing Satoshi to guide the group along a narrow stretch of rising ground between two dark slopes. He moved without hesitation, occasionally glancing toward dead trees or unusual rock formations that meant nothing to Shunjiro but clearly served as landmarks to him. Eventually the passage opened onto the side of a cliff, and Shunjiro slowed the moment he saw what waited beyond it.

The land fell away sharply beside them. Far below, the Goblin Dominion disappeared beneath a vast layer of mist that rolled between the valleys like a pale sea, swallowing dead forests, lower hills, and whatever else existed beneath it. From where they stood, however, they were above most of the fog, and the view beyond it was strangely clear.

Shunjiro lifted his head toward the sky.

There were no clouds above the mist. No stars, no moon, and nothing moving across the endless darkness. The sky stretched above them as a nearly perfect black expanse, so empty that staring into it for too long gave Shunjiro the uncomfortable impression that there was nothing above the world at all.

Then his eyes found the sun.

Or whatever the Shadow Realm called a sun.

A perfect black circle hung in the empty sky, surrounded by a thin ring that was just as dark as the object at its center. Neither the circle nor the ring gave off any visible light, yet somehow both remained perfectly distinguishable against the darkness behind them. Shunjiro could not explain how his eyes were separating one shade of black from another, but the longer he stared, the more unnatural the sight became.

“That is…” he murmured.

“Ugly?” Kojiro offered from nearby.

Shunjiro barely registered the comment. There was something deeply wrong about seeing a sun that produced no light hanging above a land that was somehow still visible.

Yuuna stopped beside him and followed his gaze upward. “You haven’t seen it before?”

“Not this clearly.”

Where Malachi’s mansion had been located, darkness had consumed far more of the surroundings. Shunjiro remembered occasionally catching glimpses of the black sun during his stay, but never like this, completely exposed above the mist with nothing obscuring it.

Satoshi rested one hand near the sword at his side as he studied the valley instead. “The mist usually sits lower around this section. We picked a good time.”

Malachi’s attention remained on the landscape below rather than the sky. “Or something moved it.”

Satoshi glanced toward him. “That possible?”

Malachi finally looked his way. “In here? Anything is possible.”

That was apparently enough explanation for Satoshi. He nodded and continued along the cliff, and Shunjiro gave the black sun one final glance before following.

The route stayed close to the cliffside for another half hour before curving inward toward the mountain. Dark stone gradually closed around them until they were traveling through a much narrower passage. Moisture ran down the rock in thin streams, staining sections of the walls with rusty streaks that matched the metallic smell lingering throughout the region.

Ahead, the mountain opened naturally.

An enormous arch of black stone stretched over the route, formed where centuries of erosion had carved straight through the ridge. Dead roots hung from cracks high above them, shifting faintly despite there being almost no wind.

Satoshi slowed as they approached. “This is part of the route.”

Malachi looked over the arch before asking, “You’ve used it every crossing?”

“Last three. First time we stayed lower and went around the ridge. Added almost four hours.”

“Any trouble here?”

“None.”

Malachi gave a small nod, and Satoshi moved through first.

The others followed behind him, Shunjiro near the middle of the group. They had almost reached the center of the arch when Satoshi suddenly raised one hand.

Everyone stopped.

Shunjiro immediately followed his gaze toward the opening ahead and saw movement between the dead trees.

Eight figures wandered across the muddy ground beyond the arch.

Goblins.

They were smaller than Shunjiro had expected creatures of the Goblin Dominion to be, though their hunched frames were still broad through the shoulders and packed with wiry muscle. Their arms hung unusually low, almost reaching their knees, and scraps of hide covered portions of their bodies. Several carried chipped weapons that looked stolen or scavenged from dead travelers, while the others held sharpened bone and crude pieces of stone.

None of them seemed to be doing anything with much purpose. One scraped its claws against the trunk of a dead tree while another crouched near a patch of mud and dragged its fingers through the wet soil before smelling them. A third wandered several steps away from the others, stopped suddenly, then turned around as though it had forgotten why it moved in the first place.

Satoshi watched them for several seconds. “Low rank.”

“B at most,” Malachi replied.

Shunjiro studied the creatures again. Eight B-ranks would once have been enough to make his stomach tighten immediately, but the number itself did not bother him anymore. What concerned him was finding them directly along a route Satoshi had crossed multiple times without trouble.

“We can wait them out,” Satoshi said quietly.

Malachi did not object, so the group remained beneath the shadow of the arch while the goblins wandered through the dead forest beyond. None had looked directly toward them, and for the first minute it seemed possible that they would simply move away.

Then one began drifting closer.

Another followed shortly afterward.

Satoshi’s eyes narrowed as a third changed direction. “They weren’t moving this way before.”

“They noticed something,” Emi whispered.

Shunjiro instinctively looked toward Malachi. The overwhelming presence he normally associated with the man had been reduced considerably, but Shunjiro could still sense him. Unlike Shunjiro’s absolute concealment, Malachi could only suppress himself so far. Even when restrained, something remained.

Malachi watched the approaching goblins without moving. “I’m concealing what I can, but I cannot completely erase my presence.”

“They could be picking up on you,” Satoshi said.

“Possibly. They could also simply be wandering toward us.”

Either way, the distinction stopped mattering when a fourth goblin turned in their direction. Waiting was no longer solving the problem.

Satoshi looked back toward the route behind them before returning his attention to the creatures. “If we backtrack, we lose the path and add hours.”

“Yes.”

“And if they get close enough to confirm we’re here, they’ll probably attack.”

“Yes.”

Satoshi glanced toward Malachi. “You could clear them.”

“I could, but I won’t.” Malachi kept his voice low as he watched the goblins close the distance. “Even suppressing myself, using enough power to kill all eight quickly would announce our position to anything capable of sensing energy over a considerable distance.”

Satoshi understood immediately. “Then we keep it quiet.”

“Exactly.”

The nearest goblin suddenly stopped.

Its head twitched to one side before slowly turning toward the arch. Dull eyes settled on the darkness beneath the stone, and a low growl crawled from its throat. The others began reacting to it almost immediately, their wandering movements becoming more focused as one after another looked in the group’s direction.

Satoshi rested a hand near his sword but made no move to draw it. Instead, he glanced over his shoulder.

“Emi. Kojiro.”

Emi straightened and quietly raised her hands while Kojiro stepped forward beside her, rolling one shoulder as he watched the goblins begin to spread out.

Satoshi looked toward the eight creatures now advancing through the dead trees.

“Clear the path. Quietly.”

The first goblin burst through the dead trees with its crude blade raised above its head, feet splashing through the damp earth as it charged directly toward the arch. The others followed with little coordination, some running on two legs while others dropped low enough that their knuckles occasionally struck the ground. Whatever instinct had drawn them toward the group had become simple aggression now.

Emi remained where she was.

Kojiro took two steps ahead of her.

Shunjiro expected Emi to move first. Instead, she calmly lifted both hands in front of herself, spreading her fingers slightly as though feeling for something in the air. There was no burst of light or sudden flare of spiritual energy. For a moment, Shunjiro couldn’t see anything at all.

Then the lead goblin jerked sideways.

Its right arm stopped moving with the rest of its body.

The creature screeched and twisted toward it, only for the limb to separate cleanly near the elbow and drop into the mud along with its weapon. Before the goblin seemed capable of understanding what had happened, a second invisible line crossed its throat.

Its head slid from its shoulders.

The body took another two stumbling steps before collapsing.

Shunjiro’s eyes widened slightly.

He had barely seen Emi move.

Three more goblins continued charging without reacting to the death of the first. Their intelligence seemed low enough that fear never entered the equation, and the sudden appearance of prey mattered more than whatever had just killed one of their own.

Emi’s fingers shifted again.

This time Shunjiro caught it.

Not the strings themselves.

The effect they had on everything around them.

Tiny droplets of moisture suspended between the trees split apart as several invisible lines passed through them. Dead leaves caught on branches were severed in half. One strand scraped across the side of a tree and left a cut so narrow that the upper portion of bark remained in place for a heartbeat before sliding down.

There were far more strings than Shunjiro had expected.

The second goblin entered their reach and its leg suddenly snapped backward beneath it. It crashed face-first into the mud with a furious shriek, both ankles wrapped in threads too thin for Shunjiro to see. The creature clawed at the earth and tried dragging itself forward, only for the strings to tighten.

Both legs were severed below the knee.

A third goblin swung a rusted cleaver toward Kojiro.

He didn’t draw a weapon.

His left forearm changed instead.

The transformation happened almost instantly. Skin darkened into a polished steel surface while the shape of his arm narrowed and extended beyond where his hand had been, forming a long curved blade from his elbow to the tip. The goblin’s cleaver struck it with a metallic crack.

Kojiro barely moved.

The goblin hesitated.

Kojiro smiled.

His right hand remained human until he stepped inside the creature’s reach. Then all five fingers sharpened at once, each becoming a narrow steel blade several inches long.

He drove them into the goblin’s chest.

The creature convulsed as the finger-blades sank between its ribs. Kojiro twisted his wrist, pulled free, then turned just as another goblin came at him from the side.

His arm changed before the strike arrived.

The curved blade shortened and widened across his forearm, creating a thick metal edge that caught the goblin’s weapon near his wrist. The crude stone club cracked against him, and Kojiro immediately changed the shape again. The metal flowed farther toward his elbow, narrowing into a pointed edge that extended backward.

He drove his elbow into the goblin’s jaw.

The blade punched through the side of the goblin’s face and emerged near the opposite temple. Kojiro yanked himself free, and the steel receded almost immediately until his arm looked normal again. Shunjiro stared at him for a moment. He had understood the basic idea when Satoshi explained Kojiro’s ability, but seeing it in motion was different. Kojiro wasn’t simply someone who replaced his hands with swords. He transformed only what he needed, exactly when he needed it, and changed the shape again the instant the situation demanded something else.

Another goblin lunged toward Emi while her attention appeared fixed on the creatures farther ahead. Kojiro saw it coming and started to pivot, but Emi never even turned. Her left hand simply closed, and the goblin stopped so violently that its feet lifted from the ground. Thin cuts appeared around both wrists, its waist, one thigh, and its neck as invisible strings caught every part of its body at once. Emi pulled her hand downward, tightening all of them simultaneously, and the creature hit the ground in several pieces before it ever reached her.

Kojiro glanced toward her. “Didn’t need me?”

Emi’s cheeks colored faintly despite everything happening around them. “I-I saw it.”

“You didn’t even look.”

“I didn’t need to.”

There was something almost absurd about how quietly she said it, especially considering what she had just done.

Two more goblins came through the trees together, and Emi moved her hands apart as one suddenly jerked to a stop. Invisible threads had wrapped across its torso and both arms, holding it in place before it could reach them. The creature strained against the restraints, muscles bulging beneath its gray-green skin, but the strings didn’t immediately give way the way Shunjiro might have expected. They held firm.

The goblin pulled harder, forcing its entire body against them. Emi barely changed expression. Instead, the threads sank deeper, thin lines of blood appearing across the creature’s arms and chest as it continued struggling.

Shunjiro could see what made her ability so dangerous now. The goblin was strong enough to resist being restrained, but every attempt to overpower the strings only forced them farther into its flesh. Fighting against Emi’s control was hurting it more than simply standing still.

She turned one wrist.

The threads crossed.

The goblin’s upper body separated diagonally from its lower half and collapsed into the mud.

At almost the same moment, another goblin reached Kojiro. This one was larger than the others, though still clearly within the same general level, and carried a heavy piece of sharpened bone in both hands. It brought the weapon down hard enough to crack the ground, but Kojiro stepped aside before the blow landed and planted one foot beside it.

Steel spread from his knee downward.

His shin hardened first, then the outer edge of his lower leg sharpened into a long blade. Kojiro twisted through the movement and kicked, the bladed edge passing cleanly through the goblin’s side with almost no resistance.

He completed the rotation and landed smoothly. The creature remained standing for another second, dull eyes staring ahead as though it had not yet realized what had happened. Then a thin line appeared across its abdomen and its upper half slid away from its legs before collapsing into the mud.

The last goblin finally reached Emi.

Shunjiro expected her to cut it down immediately, but she took one small step backward instead as the creature swung a chipped sword toward her head. The weapon stopped several inches from her face.

The goblin snarled and pushed harder, yet the sword refused to move.

Only then did Shunjiro notice the faint distortion surrounding the blade. Several strings had wrapped around the weapon from different directions, holding it perfectly in place. Emi’s expression remained calm as she curled two fingers.

The chipped sword shattered into several pieces.

The goblin stared at what remained in its hand.

Kojiro started toward it, but Emi raised one finger slightly. “I have it.”

Emi shifted her wrist, and a faint golden glow appeared between her fingers. Only one string became visible, a thin golden line stretching through the darkness for less than a second before vanishing again.

The goblin remained standing.

Then a clean cut opened across its chest.

Its body split through the torso and collapsed onto the wet ground.

Silence returned almost immediately.

Shunjiro looked across the bodies scattered outside the arch before his attention settled on Emi. Her breathing had barely changed. There was no exhaustion in her shoulders, no trembling in her arms, and none of the strain he would have expected from someone controlling that many attacks at once. She simply lowered her hands, and whatever invisible strings still surrounded the battlefield disappeared with the motion.

Kojiro’s metal leg returned to flesh as he stepped around one of the corpses. A thin streak of black blood clung to his boot, and he grimaced before scraping it against the mud.

“Disgusting.”

Satoshi walked forward and briefly looked over the eight bodies. The entire exchange had lasted less than a minute.

“Any injuries?”

“No,” Kojiro said.

Emi shook her head.

Satoshi’s attention moved through the surrounding trees before returning to her. “How much energy?”

“Not much.”

He looked at her more carefully, and Emi hesitated before adding, “Maybe a few percent.”

Kojiro laughed quietly. “Show-off.”

Her ears immediately twitched. “I wasn’t showing off.”

“You cut one into four pieces.”

“It was running at me.”

“That doesn’t make it less impressive.”

Emi looked away, clearly wishing he would stop talking about it, and Shunjiro smiled faintly. For all the difference in her strength, that part of her apparently hadn’t changed.

Malachi walked past them and crouched beside one of the bodies. He paid little attention to the wounds themselves, studying the surrounding mud instead before looking toward the dead forest beyond.

Satoshi noticed immediately. “Problem?”

“Possibly.”

Malachi stood and looked toward the direction the goblins had come from. “The fight was quiet enough, but there is blood everywhere now, and eight goblins just disappeared from wherever they were wandering.”

Satoshi followed his gaze. “If something is tracking them…”

“It may eventually come looking.”

Satoshi exhaled slowly and glanced toward the path they had originally intended to follow. He did not look frustrated. If anything, Shunjiro could almost see him recalculating the journey in real time.

“We don’t stay here.”

Malachi nodded.

Satoshi studied the terrain ahead for another moment before pointing away from their original route. “We’ll cut southeast through the lower hills and reconnect farther down.”

Kojiro looked toward the direction he indicated. “That wasn’t the plan.”

“No,” Satoshi said. “Plans change.”

He started moving, and Emi followed him.

Shunjiro remained behind for only a moment longer, looking back at the eight bodies scattered through the mud. B-rank creatures had once represented serious danger to people their age. Now Emi and Kojiro had dismantled an entire group of them without either needing anything close to their full strength.

He looked toward Crimson Lotus as they disappeared between the dead trees and hurried after them.

He was beginning to understand exactly why they had reached SS-rank.

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The change in route carried them farther away from the cliffs.

For the next several hours, Satoshi guided the group southeast through the Goblin Dominion, gradually leaving the steep ridges and narrow passages behind. The ground rose and fell beneath them in smaller hills now, their slopes gentle compared to the dark cliffs they had crossed earlier. Dead trees still dotted the landscape, but they were spread much farther apart, leaving enormous stretches of open ground between them. There was nowhere to hide out here, and very little to break up the silhouettes of anything moving across the hills.

Shunjiro found himself watching Satoshi more than the landscape.

They had no torches. No lanterns. No crystal providing light. Yet Satoshi moved with the same confidence he had shown earlier, occasionally changing direction by what seemed like only a few degrees before continuing forward. The weak illumination that existed throughout this part of the Dominion allowed Shunjiro to distinguish the shapes of the hills and dead trees, but little more. Anything beyond a certain distance became another dark silhouette against an even darker world.

“How do you know where you’re going?” Shunjiro eventually asked.

Satoshi looked back over his shoulder. “Practice.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“It wasn’t supposed to.”

Shunjiro gave him a look.

Satoshi smiled before turning forward again. “You learn what to look for. Shapes of hills. Trees that haven’t fallen since the last time you came through. Rock formations. Which direction the ground slopes. You stop trying to see everything and start looking for the few things that matter.”

Shunjiro looked around again. To him, one distant hill looked almost identical to the next.

“You could use a light.”

“We could.” Satoshi stepped around a shallow depression in the earth. “Would make traveling easier too.”

“So why don’t we?”

“Because then everything else can see us easier.”

That was enough to make Shunjiro reconsider the idea.

Satoshi pointed toward the darkness ahead. “You can see silhouettes out here. That’s usually enough if you know the route. A torch might help you see another fifty feet, but anything watching from a mile away suddenly knows exactly where you are.”

Kojiro glanced around at the empty hills. “And you’d be surprised how many things in here prefer waiting until you can’t see them.”

“Helpful,” Shunjiro muttered.

“You’re welcome.”

Satoshi continued walking as Shunjiro’s attention shifted toward the strange darkness surrounding them. It was difficult to decide whether traveling without light made the Realm more unsettling or somehow less. He couldn’t see enough to know what might be hidden between the hills, but perhaps that was preferable to seeing something far away and realizing it had been following them.

After another stretch of silence, Satoshi spoke again.

“Normally, I’d recommend carrying a charm too.”

Shunjiro looked toward him. “A charm?”

“For Corruption.”

That immediately got his attention.

Yuuna reached beneath the front of her clothing and pulled out a small cord from around her neck. Hanging from it was a simple charm, small enough that Shunjiro hadn’t noticed it before. There was nothing particularly impressive about its appearance, but Satoshi gestured toward it.

“That’s ours.”

“You only have one?”

“One properly made one.” Satoshi nodded toward Yuuna. “She’s carrying it this trip.”

Yuuna let the charm fall back against her chest.

Shunjiro looked between them. “What does it actually do?”

“Helps stabilize your mind,” Satoshi said. “There are different kinds. Necklaces, bracelets, beads, things sewn into clothing. The form doesn’t really matter. It’s whatever was infused into it.”

“So it stops Corruption?”

“No.”

Satoshi’s answer came quickly enough to remove any comfort Shunjiro might have taken from the idea.

“It helps. That’s all. Spend enough time here, get exposed to enough negative energy, or get unlucky enough with what you encounter and a charm isn’t going to magically save you.”

Shunjiro thought about his own time in the Realm. “I haven’t felt anything.”

“You might not.”

Satoshi glanced toward him.

“Or you might in an hour. Tomorrow. Three days from now. Everyone’s different.”

Malachi remained several steps behind them, listening without interrupting.

Satoshi continued. “The dangerous part is that it doesn’t always start with something obvious. Your brain starts playing with you first. You think you saw someone standing where no one was. You start remembering things differently. Sometimes you hear voices.”

Shunjiro’s attention sharpened. “Voices?”

“That one you tell us about immediately.”

The casual edge disappeared from Satoshi’s voice.

Shunjiro looked ahead again, suddenly much more aware of the empty darkness surrounding them. “Why?”

“Because there are at least two possibilities, and neither is something you ignore. The first is Corruption. Nobody actually knows what the voice behind Corruption is, assuming there even is a voice. Most people think the negative energy starts affecting your mind until your own thoughts turn against you. Fear gets louder. Anger gets louder. Regret gets louder. Eventually your brain might give those thoughts a voice.”

“And the second?”

“A Whisperer.”

Shunjiro waited for him to continue.

Satoshi slowed slightly so he could walk closer to him. “They’re creatures that hide instead of attacking directly. You usually won’t see one first. You’ll hear it.”

“What does it say?”

“Whatever gets you to follow.”

Shunjiro frowned.

“It could call your name. Cry for help. Tell you someone’s hurt. Sometimes it’ll use a voice you recognize.”

That made Shunjiro look toward him.

Satoshi nodded. “That’s the dangerous part. You might hear your mother calling you from somewhere off the path while everyone beside you hears nothing. Or Kojiro might hear someone completely different at the exact same time.”

Kojiro glanced toward them. “Happened to an adventurer we met once. Swore his dead brother was talking to him.”

“What happened?”

“He followed it.”

Shunjiro waited but Kojiro did not elaborate.

Satoshi continued instead. “There isn’t a reliable way to tell whether you’re hearing a Whisperer or your own mind beginning to slip. That’s why the rule is simple. If you hear a voice that isn’t coming from someone you can actually see, you say something.”

“And don’t follow it.”

“Especially don’t follow it.”

Shunjiro glanced toward Malachi. “You’ve dealt with them?”

“Yes.”

“How do you find one?”

“Usually by refusing to give it what it wants.”

Malachi’s gaze moved across the distant hills. “A Whisperer prefers isolated prey. If you do not separate from the group, eventually it either loses interest or takes enough risks trying to lure you that someone locates it.”

“Are there a lot of them here?”

“Not in the Goblin Dominion.”

That was the first comforting thing Shunjiro had heard during the conversation.

Then Malachi explained why.

“The Goblin King discourages competition.”

Satoshi smiled faintly. “That’s one way of putting it.”

Malachi ignored him. “Whisperers are intelligent enough to understand territory. So are many of the stronger creatures within the Realm. The Goblin King is not something they willingly provoke.”

Shunjiro looked across the hills again.

“So being inside his territory makes us safer from other things.”

“In some ways.”

“And gives us a chance of meeting him instead.”

“Yes.”

Shunjiro sighed. “There it is.”

Satoshi laughed quietly and continued onward.

The conversation faded after that, but Shunjiro found himself listening more carefully to the Realm. Every scrape of stone beneath their boots caught his attention. Every distant drip of water seemed slightly more distinct than before. Once, he thought he heard something moving somewhere to his left, only to realize it was Kojiro stepping through a patch of loose earth behind him.

No voices came, and Shunjiro was thankful for that.

The open hills continued for another hour before something unusual appeared in the distance. At first, Shunjiro mistook it for another cluster of stone, but as they drew closer, the shape became too deliberate to be natural. A low circular wall emerged from the darkness, with the remains of an old wooden frame leaning above it.

Satoshi slowed first.

Shunjiro stared at the structure. “Is that a well?”

They approached carefully until there was no mistaking it. An ancient stone well stood alone between two shallow hills, its circular wall cracked by age and stained dark by countless years of rain. Most of the wooden support above it had rotted away, leaving only a crooked frame leaning to one side and a length of ruined rope hanging uselessly from it. There was no bucket attached anymore.

What unsettled Shunjiro more was everything that wasn’t there.

No houses surrounded it. No visible road led toward it. There were no nearby ruins, fences, or anything else suggesting that people had once gathered here. It was simply a well standing alone in the middle of the Shadow Realm.

Satoshi walked to the edge and looked down, and Shunjiro joined him. There was no reflection waiting beneath them. No water at all. The shaft descended into darkness farther than Shunjiro could clearly see, with several stones missing from its inner walls and the familiar smell of ash and rust rising faintly from below.

Shunjiro frowned. “Why would there be a well here?”

Satoshi rested both hands against the old stone and stared into the shaft for another moment. “That’s not the first one I’ve seen.”

Shunjiro turned toward him. “There are more?”

“Wells. Roads that don’t seem to lead anywhere. Foundations. Pieces of walls.” Satoshi looked out across the empty hills. “Sometimes entire structures if you go deep enough.”

Shunjiro glanced around again, trying to imagine anything living here long enough to need roads or homes, much less a well.

Satoshi continued before he could ask. “There are a lot of things inside the Shadow Realm that make you want to believe people used to live here.”

There was something about the way he said it that made Shunjiro wait for the rest, but Satoshi offered nothing more.

“That’s it?”

Satoshi gave a small shrug. “That’s all I know.”

Shunjiro’s attention shifted toward Malachi.

He had stayed several steps away from the well.

That alone stood out. For most of their journey, Malachi had answered questions about the Shadow Realm without much hesitation. Creatures, routes, weather, Corruption, if he knew something useful, he usually said it. Now he simply watched the old stones in silence.

His expression revealed almost nothing, but his eyes remained on the well longer than Shunjiro expected before finally moving toward the darkness ahead.

Shunjiro noticed.

He also knew Malachi well enough not to press him.

Maybe people really had lived here once. Maybe the roads, foundations, and ruined structures scattered throughout the Shadow Realm were remnants of some civilization that existed before the Realm became the dead place it was now. Or maybe the Shadow Realm simply had a habit of leaving behind things familiar enough to make people believe there had to be an explanation.

Shunjiro looked into the empty shaft one last time.

There was nothing there.

No water. No movement. No voice calling from somewhere below.

Just an ancient well standing in a world where there seemed to be no reason anyone would have ever needed to dig one.

Satoshi stepped away first. “We should keep moving.”

The others followed him across the hills, and after another moment, Shunjiro did the same. He glanced back once before the terrain hid the well from view, leaving the old stones alone again in the darkness.