Belle was stress-scrubbing the table’s phantom stain, her cws death-gripping that ce handkerchief like it owed her gold. Anxiety-cleaning was her neurotic nesting instinct—if you breathed near her trinket shelf, she’d buff your fingerprints off your soul. But when I oozed out of the shadow realm’s left nostril, her inner honey badger screamed. She recoiled like a barn cat unched from a trebuchet manned by walnut-hoarding gremlins.

  Courtesies? For peasants and corpses. Priorities. I immediately spat out my belongings, and Alice (who came out a little wetter than she might’ve preferred), then shifted back into my half-dragon form. There was something I’d been putting off—a method I’d never dared to try until now. If the dreamscape was the goal, it seemed like it was finally time to take the shortcut Lotte had mentioned. Sleep was a luxury I didn’t have.

  The process was deceptively simple: I formed the hiltless sword symbol, a circle surrounded by what looked like waves—or maybe serpents? Art interpretation wasn’t my forte. Once the symbol was complete, I channeled mana into it, which it obligingly transformed into spirituality. Maniputing spirituality wasn’t all that different from mana—different fvor, same concept. I gathered it in my throat and began the so-called “prayer.”

  Although, let’s be honest, it felt more like a chant—one that called upon something bigger, older, and definitely spookier than me.

  “The Eternal Arbiter of Sin and Virtue.”“Gaia’s First Daughter.”

  As the words left me, a heavy weight settled in my throat, growing denser with each phrase, as though the very sylbles demanded tribute.

  “The Keeper of the Scales.”“The Warden of Chains.”“Mother of Silence, I beseech thee.”

  And then—bam. The pressure hit me like a colpsing ceiling. My head swam as invisible hands—cold, writhing, and made of pure whispers—descended. They gripped me, tugging me upward with a force that made my senses implode.

  Whispers. Growls. Screams. Silent and deafening all at once. They cwed at my sanity, gnawing on the edges of my mind until—just like that—it stopped. The hands let go, and I… arrived.

  Crystal-clear water surrounded me. I stood atop a serene ke, its surface mirror-ft, reflecting an endless ceiling of thick, ghostly fog. Beneath me, the water’s depths churned with ink-bck shadows, writhing and restless. My scales dripped with water that smelled of forgotten celrs and wept chrysanthemums, leaving me wondering if I’d just crawled out of the ke itself. But the whispers, the intangible cacophony that had dragged me here, made it impossible to be sure.

  Directly ahead, a massive whirlpool spun on the ke’s surface—or rather, above it. It hung there, vertical and impossible, like a swirling portal to who-knows-where. Frowning, I looked around. Nothing else. No dreamscape, no signposts, just this weird in-between.

  Lotte said this method would lead to the dreamscape, didn’t she? So where in all the realms was I? The thought hit me like a gut-punch: what if this was only the halfway point? The vortex loomed, the only pusible way forward. My gut—or maybe just desperation—told me I had no other options. After an internal debate that sted all of three seconds, I resigned myself.

  "Why not?" I muttered, stepping forward.

  The surface of the ke rippled beneath my feet as I approached, leaving faint circles in my wake. Was it just my imagination, or did the darkness below shift whenever a ripple spread? Whatever it was, it didn’t feel dangerous—just deeply unsettling.

  When I stepped into the vortex, the world tilted. It felt like time slowed as the spinning currents around me stilled, leaving behind a calm cylinder of water. Everything solidified, freezing in pce like the ke’s surface had been just moments before.

  There was light at the end of the cylinder. Ah, a destination—finally. I was about to sprint toward it when a faint whimpering noise echoed through the water-encased tunnel.

  I frowned, gncing around, and caught something in the reflection of the still water beside me. It was small, rippling faintly, but undeniably there. Curiosity is a powerful thing—it won before I even realized it. I moved closer, squinting to make sense of the image.

  As I leaned in, the reflection suddenly expanded, spilling across the surface like ink over gss. Now I could see her clearly—a little girl. Drakkari, maybe? She looked battered, bruised, and terrified. Darkness pressed in around her, the kind you only find when someone’s desperately hiding.

  In her tiny hands, she clutched a pendant. My stomach twisted—because the pendant’s design looked eerily simir to the hiltless sword symbol Lotte taught me for converting mana into spirituality.

  She was shaking, her lips moving in a constant mutter that didn’t quite carry over. Whatever she was saying, it wasn’t meant for me. She clutched the pendant tighter, tears streaming down her face and spshing onto the metal. Her whole body trembled with fear.

  Danger. That’s all my instincts screamed. She was in danger. I strained to make sense of her surroundings—a desperate attempt to pce her somewhere, anywhere. The space around her was dark and cramped, but I could just barely make out rectangur outlines. A chest? A closet? Definitely enclosed.

  She murmured something again, her voice a soft tremor, and my gaze flicked between her and the light at the end of the tunnel. This wasn’t my problem. Was it? Yet, without thinking, my hand moved on its own, reaching toward her reflection.

  The moment my cws grazed the water’s surface, it rippled. A thin strand of liquid shot out, stopping just short of my hand. It hovered there—a question, a prompt. It felt unnervingly like the system waiting for confirmation.

  I didn’t think. I just… affirmed.

  The reflection came alive in an instant. Tendrils of water ced with bck ichor shed out, coiling around me before I could so much as flinch. They wrapped tight, suffocating, until my vision went bck.

  For a moment, there was nothing.

  Then my eyes snapped open, and all I saw was darkness.

  What the hell?

  I was in a cramped space, enclosed on all sides. My hands—small, frail—clutched something cold and metallic. A sinking realization hit me as I recognized its shape. The pendant.

  Arms bred in my head. WHAT. THE. FUCK?!

  I was the girl. The crying, bruised, scared drakkari girl I’d just seen. My chest heaved as I tried to steady myself. Okay, first things first. I reached inside, instinctively searching for my monster core.

  It wasn’t there. Well, not entirely. Instead, I felt a bck marble—a strange core, unfamiliar and foreign. But it didn’t end there. Around it, I sensed something else: a thread. Thin, delicate, yet somehow leading directly to… my real monster core.

  The connection was solid. I knew, instinctively, that I could snap the thread at any moment and return to my body.

  This was weird. Really fucking weird.

  Before I could process any of it, a smell hit me like a punch to the gut—rotting flesh. It was rancid, overwhelming, and made me gag on reflex. I froze as the realization crept in.

  I wasn’t just in a cramped space. I was lying down. On something… squishy.

  My hand trembled as it reached behind me.

  It touched something cold, soft, and unmistakably dead.

  A body.

  Was I inside a coffin?!

  There were voices too, low, rough, and tinged with frustration. Or was it fear? Hard to tell over the pounding of my borrowed heart.

  “Where the fuck is that girl?” one man growled.

  “If she gets out and someone catches wind of what we’re doing, we’re screwed,” hissed the other.

  “Rex,” the first one replied. “She’s not getting past the traps at the sewer entrance. She’s gotta be in here.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you said an hour ago,” the second one shot back.

  Sewers. Traps. They were hunting her—or, well, me now. And judging by their tone, if they found us, it wouldn’t end with a friendly chat.

  I forced myself to take slow, shallow breaths, choking down the gag cwing up my throat. The air was thick with the stench of rot—foul, festering, feral. My small hands trembled as I pressed down on the bloated, squishy thing beneath me. Yep. Definitely a corpse. Fantastic.

  Even Air Sense was borderline useless in this coffin-sized shithole. No space, no airflow, no way to get a good read on my surroundings. Useless. The air was 90% corpse juice. Great. Just peachy.

  If I had my real body, I could’ve helped myself to a little snack—nothing like a bit of spoiled meat to keep the anxiety hunger pangs at bay—but this borrowed flesh probably wouldn’t handle the meal well. Hm. Another thing for the ever-growing fucked-up shit to experiment with list. My fingers found the hand of the corpse I was propped against, and without a shred of hesitation, I gripped it. Didn’t even need to squeeze. The flesh crumbled like wet sand, bones snapping into mush with all the resistance of overcooked noodles.

  Good. My strength was intact. Everything else seemed fine too—save for durability, which never transted well between forms. That stat was always the problem child.

  I flexed my fingers, took a second to think, then started weaving a matrix, pulling mana straight from my own core. Bingo. It worked.

  So—strength was a go, mana was a go, and the only things missing were the abilities tied to my actual organs. Annoying, but manageable. I could work with this.

  The voices oozed nearer. Either these clowns were mana-illiterate, or their brains were decorative. Either way, they’d volunteered as tribute for my murder-greeting-card service.

  Scuffling boots. Stone grinding. They were pying coffin roulette, and dy luck’s teeth were sharp.

  Options: Option one—leap out like a jack-in-the-box from the nine hells and redecorate the walls with their spleen confetti. Option two—py possum, let them drag me out, and fillet them slow.

  Well, that depended on what this little Drakkari girl wanted. And, y’know, figuring out what the actual fuck was happening. Because I was possessing someone right now—across the very space. Lotte had some expining to do when I got back.

  But for now? Even Belle’s ritual could wait. My mind was working.

  I’d heard whispers about kids vanishing in the lower district. Normally, a few missing brats wouldn’t make waves—not in a pce that big. But when it hit hundreds? That got people talking. And if the rumors were right, the ones getting snatched up were beastkin kids.

  What if this body belonged to one of those missing children? The question of why I was in her body could wait. First, I needed to get her somewhere safe. And figure out where I was. Even a single clue would do. The rest? I could handle it from my real body—if it was anywhere nearby.

  They mentioned sewers, but Varkaigrad’s sewer system was a byrinthine shit-maze. A single point in there was like trying to pluck a gnat out of a swamp.

  Didn’t get much time to stew on it, though—because above me, the stone cover shifted.

  Ah. Showtime.

  I had the element of surprise. And I knew these bastards weren’t here to give this girl a warm welcome. The second the cover was lifted, that suspicion became fact.

  Oh.

  It’s you.

  Pointy ears. Elf.

  THESE FUCKING POINTY-EARED, SAP-SUCKING TREE-HUMPERS.

  Elves. The universe’s answer to the question “What if ivy learned to sneer?”

  The bastard’s face split into a grin the moment he saw me sprawled over the corpse.

  “Oh, you filthy little bitch. You’re so fucking done! You ran when you saw us gut your little friend—don’t worry, you’re next!”

  I let him monologue. Always do. Arrogance makes for such a pretty blindfold.

  His hand dove for my hair.

  Mistake.

  A single thought from me, and his neurons flickered in my vision. His hand twitched, faltered—missing its mark. His jaw dropped in confusion, just enough to fall right into my reach.

  Ahhh, it’s been too long.

  My small hands shed out just as his fingers sank into the rotting mess beneath me—

  —and cmped onto his fucking jaw.

  With nothing but raw strength, I gripped tight. He tried to jerk back, but too te—the matrix on my right hand fred to life.

  Darkness Tendril.

  A shadowy coil shed out, seized his throat, and pulled as I ripped his lower jaw clean off.

  Crunch.

  The sound was… cathartic. Like snapping a crab leg at a feast. His scream? A symphony. A dying teakettle dueting with a gutted hog.

  The jaw came off cleaner than a butcher’s cut. Meat and gristle dangled. He staggered, gargling on his own surprise.

  Sloppy. But entertaining.

  I hoisted his head—two-handed grip, like a toddler clutching a melon—and introduced it to the coffin’s edge.

  SLAM.

  Iron sang.

  SLAM.

  Bone mulch.

  SLAM.

  Silence.

  A notification blinked. I mentally punted it into the sun.

  Elf Number Two froze. Piss trickled down his leg. His courage had apparently relocated to his bdder.

  He ran.

  Predictable. Pathetically predictable.

  Thunder Verdict runes ignited in my core. My cwless hand flexed.

  His neurons lit up like festival nterns. One twitch—

  —his femur torqued.

  The scream was better than the first. Higher pitch. More… florid.

  He crawled. I followed.

  “Shh,” I cooed, stepping on his shattered leg. “We’re just getting to the hands-on portion.”

  His whimpers were a lulby.

  Mangowo