The celebration of the Day of Winter lasted until dawn. Only when a pale, still weak light began to rise over the snow-covered rooftops did the music start to fade, the fireworks thin out, and the crowds gradually drift home. Lasthold seemed to exhale—tired, content, steeped in wine and laughter.

  Just then, the door of the family restaurant flew open with a crash, and Kasias—Kael’s father—nearly stumbled inside. Swaying, red-faced, wearing a wide drunken grin, he grabbed the doorframe and cheerfully declared, “Catch me, wife! Catch me, or I’ll fall right here—and then you’ll never get me into bed!”

  Mira, who was no less tired but noticeably more sober, only sighed heavily and took her husband by the arm. There was neither irritation nor anger in her eyes—only the familiar, warm fatigue of someone who knew her husband far too well.

  “Come on, come on…” she muttered, trying to steady him. “Just don’t make a racket, please.”

  Kris entered next, rolling her eyes so hard it seemed they might get stuck at the back of her head. She pressed her lips together, trying to preserve the remnants of dignity, and said quietly but firmly:

  “Lower your voice. Kael might already be home, asleep.”

  Kasias burst into laughter, leaning on Mira more heavily than necessary.

  “Worried about your big brother? How cute…”

  “Dad!” Kris hissed, flushing instantly. “As if!”

  She turned sharply and ran up the stairs, eager to hide her own embarrassment and irritation.

  Mira closed the restaurant door behind them, bracing it with her shoulder so it wouldn’t slam—Kasias, barely able to stand, was already loud enough. She tightened her grip on his arm and tried once more to guide him toward the stairs.

  But before they could reach them, quick footsteps sounded again from above. Kris appeared on the second floor, frowning, no longer as confident as she had been a minute earlier.

  “Mom,” she called softly, “he’s still not here. Kael isn’t home. And that’s… not like him at all.”

  Mira stopped. A calm, even slightly proud smile appeared on her face.

  “Your brother has grown up a lot lately,” she said with a light laugh. “Maybe he stayed out with friends… or with a girl.”

  Kris narrowed her eyes, instantly remembering Roselle—the girl who had been hovering around Kael the previous evening. There was logic in her mother’s words.

  She shrugged, as if brushing away unwanted thoughts.

  “Alright. I’m going to wash up and go to sleep.”

  With that, she turned and hurried back to her room. From the corridor came a stern, almost desperately weary voice:

  “Dad, keep it down!”

  Kasias laughed so loudly that his daughter’s words were instantly drowned out. To keep them from collapsing onto the floor, Mira tightened her grip on her husband and continued guiding him toward the bedroom, muttering softly in an amused, gentle tone.

  Everything in this house felt warm, familiar, ordinary, predictable.

  And no one—not Mira, not Kris, not even the drunken Kasias—had the slightest idea how far their assumptions were from reality.

  ? ? ?

  While Kael’s family was peacefully preparing for sleep, utterly unconcerned, deep within Lasthold—where even the sounds of the festival could not reach—Magister Duran sat on the stone floor.

  The air trembled, as if the entire room were breathing in unison with the magister. His eyes were closed, his breathing steady, and dense, tightly coiled streams of mana revolved around him. They did not merely flow toward him—they seemed to move to a rhythm uniquely their own.

  He was not celebrating the Day of Winter.

  In recent weeks, he had increasingly secluded himself in his home—even his colleagues had begun to wonder where he had gone. Only one person knew the reason: Kael. It was because Kael, under the guise of a mysterious ally, had handed Duran a Canon of Magic that suited his soul far better than the previous one.

  Now the old man silently repeated a mantra from the Canon. Each inner word resonated deep within his soul, and the streams of mana grew ever denser.

  “Just a little more… just a bit more…”

  Unlike a Silver Mage, whose unique marks covered only the mana channels, Magister Duran’s marks covered all of his bones and even his flesh. He was a Golden Mage at the peak of his power. Only one step remained—the final one, the most difficult, and the most dangerous.

  To force the soul and body to merge through these marks.

  Only then would he reach the Jade Mage stage—or the Spirit Mage stage, as it was known beyond Lasthold.

  Duran drew a deep breath. The clusters of mana around him spun faster and denser, and for a moment it seemed as though the stone floor beneath him might crack under the strain.

  At that moment, the marks within Duran’s body flared in rhythm with his heartbeat. Each flash echoed not only through muscle and bone, but within the soul itself. It felt as though heart, soul, and mana core were beginning to fuse, melding into a single rhythm of existence.

  Duran’s consciousness sank fully into the mantra. He focused on evoking the proper emotions and, just as importantly, on the correct circulation of mana.

  Yet even in such deep concentration, he unconsciously muttered in a barely audible whisper:

  “Come on… come on… just a little more…”

  His fingers cramped, his breath tearing free as if the air in his lungs had grown heavy. With every attempt to draw closer to the next step, the world around his consciousness shifted, warped, and dissolved into a vortex of color and sound. One step more—and he would go mad; the sensation was so vivid it felt as though the boundary of madness stood right before him, reaching out a hand.

  He had been standing on this edge for several days now—almost at the goal, almost touching the transition, almost ready to cross the threshold. But every time the attempt reached the decisive moment, something inside failed: either the body refused to withstand the soul’s pressure, or the soul recoiled, unwilling to bind itself to flesh.

  The final step—crucial, inevitable, monstrously difficult—still refused to yield.

  Duran clenched his teeth. The veins on his neck bulged, the mana around him spun faster, gathering strength so rapidly it seemed ready to tear space itself apart.

  “More…” he whispered, sounding not like an old man, but like someone ready to tear the world apart for a single step forward.

  “Just a little more…”

  But the transition still did not come.

  And in the instant when the tension reached its peak, when he almost believed that today he would finally complete what he had pursued his entire life—pain pierced body and mind alike, and with an explosive surge, all the mana scattered, crashing against the warded walls.

  The attempt failed.

  Once again.

  But Magister Duran did not even open his eyes. He merely exhaled heavily—not in despair, but in fierce, unyielding determination.

  “Once more…” he muttered, and began gathering mana once more.

  ? ? ?

  At that same moment, elsewhere underground—more precisely, in a dungeon—far less pleasant events were unfolding.

  Kael sat in his cell on a low stone bench, fighting not to give in to despair. His face was pale, his lips tinged blue, his eyes dulled by exhaustion.

  His right hand rested on a small stone pedestal, its surface inscribed with a magical circle. At his wrist was a precise, neat cut. From it, thin, trembling drops of blood were drawn out. They rose, as if pulled by an invisible thread, gathering in the air into a slowly rotating crimson sphere the size of a fist.

  But the torment did not end there.

  A few minutes earlier, the situation had grown even more absurd. Elder Zeiran had come again in person. He had even bothered to bring a small table, carefully setting it beside Kael and placing a stack of scrolls upon it—old, fragile, written in ancient languages few in the city could translate.

  Kael did not touch a single one.

  He stared at the scrolls with a hollow, indifferent expression. Zeiran noticed—and did not even grow angry. His face remained calm, his voice utterly mundane, as though he were speaking to a boy who had forgotten his homework.

  “I don’t like explaining obvious things,” he said, turning to Kael. “If you refuse to work… or if I suspect you of sabotaging the process… I’ll kill someone close to you. I’ll start with your father and finish with your sister.”

  He said it calmly. Evenly. With that monstrous emotional emptiness found only in those for whom human life is merely a tool.

  The moment Kael heard those words, hatred flared in his heart once more. But he forced himself to freeze. To restrain it completely. He knew—any emotion, even the faintest hint of indignation or rebellion, would only worsen his position.

  He raised his gaze to Zeiran. Not a single muscle moved in his face, but inside him everything was boiling.

  “I need to draw information out of him. I need to be sure I’m not acting rashly.”

  He forced his breathing to steady, calming his mind as he recalled his plan. He had spent the entire night thinking, sorting through countless formulas, ancient texts, fragments of rituals, folios, theologians’ notes, and madmen’s treatises. Thousands of sources, read and etched into his memory so deeply that he could reproduce them word for word.

  But among all of it, there was not a single escape he could use with his current strength and the resources available to him—those hidden within his spatial ring.

  More precisely, there was not a single escape that could be considered even conditionally safe.

  Kael had nonetheless managed to devise a single plan. But it was insanely risky—so much so that at any stage it could lead to a painful death.

  To justify that risk, Kael needed to be certain of one thing. Just one thing.

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  That Zeiran truly intended to carry out a ritual of communion with the Gods.

  If so, the end was inevitable. Kael knew this better than anyone. He knew how such rituals ended, because he himself… had already been through it.

  Seven hundred years of slavery. Seven centuries of torment, during which he had been a toy to an entity for whom human consciousness was merely an amusing form of matter. He had no intention of living through anything like that again.

  But if he had rushed to conclusions… then he could still act differently.

  “I need to know exactly what he’s planning… before I make my move. If his actions aren’t connected to the Gods, I can wait for my allies to come to my aid.”

  He lifted his head. In his amber eyes appeared a strange, cold-blooded calm and resolve.

  Seeing the way Kael looked at him, Zeiran tilted his head slightly, as if appraising the young man’s expression. Then, completely impassive, he asked:

  “Are you angry with me?”

  The question was asked so calmly, so matter-of-factly, that Kael nearly laughed. But instead, he merely snorted—short and sharp—and snapped irritably:

  “Are you mocking me?”

  To his surprise, Zeiran’s face took on the expression of a patient mentor explaining something simple to a rather dim student.

  “The course of the world is such that each generation must pave the way for the next,” he said in an almost didactic tone. “We must ensure that our lives were not lived in vain.”

  He spoke in the tone favored by arrogant philosophers, convinced their words were the ultimate truth. Then he looked at Kael with a slight squint, as if assessing his value—his place within his own calculations.

  “But sometimes a person’s death is far more valuable than their life,” he added thoughtfully, as if sharing profound wisdom rather than passing a sentence.

  At those lofty, icy words, Kael gave a defiant smirk and shook his head.

  “So, as I understand it, you are destined to live—and I am destined to die?”

  Zeiran gently shook his head, as though correcting yet another childlike mistake.

  “Do not twist my words, Kael. And do not belittle yourself. It is entirely possible that your death is more valuable than my life. And since all of us will die sooner or later…” he paused briefly, “in a broader sense, you are more valuable than I am.”

  The old man paused for a moment, then added:

  “I am too old,” Zeiran said calmly. “I have very little time left.”

  He looked at Kael as though the matter had already been decided.

  “I need power now. I cannot wait.”

  Kael barely kept himself under control. Every word the old man spoke sounded as though he were addressing not a person, but a tool—a resource, an object without will or the right to speak. Inside, everything boiled. He knew this manner all too well—this was how the God of Knowledge and Madness used to speak. This was how those spoke who believed their authority outweighed another’s life—and that their goals always justified the means.

  “Damn windbag… my Master was exactly the same…” Kael hissed inwardly, though not a single muscle moved in his face.

  He decided to shift the conversation from philosophy to logic—where the old man’s empty reasoning lost its power.

  “Yesterday you said that if I’m unlucky, I’ll become your servant,” he began evenly. “But if I’m lucky… as I understand it, I’ll die. An amusing logic. To me, it seems exactly the opposite.”

  A patronizing smirk spread across Zeiran’s face.

  “You place a pitiful existence above the greater good of future generations of Lasthold?” he threw back coldly. “Then you are a coward.”

  Kael exhaled slowly through his nose. He knew this tactic far too well—accuse the victim of cowardice when they resist violence. That was how wills were broken. How people were turned into willing slaves.

  He lifted his eyes to the old man.

  “Since I’m a coward already destined to die…” he said quietly, as if accepting the other’s logic, “perhaps you could at least tell me how, exactly, I’ll die? It might give me some peace. Make it easier to accept my fate.”

  He let the pause linger, then added with undisguised sarcasm:

  “After all… perhaps before I die, I’ll even have time to thank you.”

  Zeiran did not dignify Kael’s sarcasm with a response. His gaze slid over Kael’s face—taking in how he had grown even paler, how his hands barely clung to the pedestal—but the old man’s expression remained level, impassive, like that of a craftsman performing routine labor.

  He stood up, stepped closer, and without a word touched the stone pedestal with two fingers.

  In that same instant, the blood stopped rising from Kael’s vein.

  The flow cut off so abruptly that the skin around the wound twitched painfully. Kael flinched, but made no sound.

  Zeiran slowly took out a large glass vial, and, as if by his will alone, all the gathered blood surged into the vessel. The moment Zeiran set the stopper in place and gave it a slight twist, thin, faded runes ran across the glass. They flared and went out—sealing the blood as though cutting it off from the outside world.

  The old man nodded in satisfaction, slipping the vial into a spatial ring, and said calmly:

  “You will not necessarily die. Let’s put it this way…” he smiled oddly, “everything depends on the will of the God of Shadow. If he has no need of you, you will labor for the benefit of my family.”

  He turned and headed for the cell’s exit, as if the conversation were already over.

  Lowering the partition—easily, almost lazily—he activated the weight enchantment, and the steel slab immediately regained its former, unbearable weight. Then he looked at Kael once more through the narrow gap between the bars.

  “I’ll remind you one last time: start translating the texts I brought. Eat everything you’re given. Including the pills. Your blood must recover by tomorrow.”

  The old man nodded—more to himself than to Kael—and walked away, leaving behind only cold and the scent of sealed blood.

  When, somewhere down the corridor, the dull thud of a closing door echoed and the dungeon sank back into heavy silence, Kael’s expression changed.

  The confusion vanished from his face; fear was swept away as if by an icy gust of wind. A shadow of predatory calm settled over his pale skin. And his eyes… his eyes became those of a cornered beast with nowhere left to run.

  A beast that no longer felt fear—only the readiness to leap.

  He slowly raised his head.

  “So… he’s found the ritual of communion with the God of Shadow…” he said darkly, almost in a whisper.

  His thoughts began to align into clear lines. Heavy, searing memories wove themselves into his thoughts on their own.

  “I know too little about him… But among the Pantheon, he was known for his detachment and solitude.”

  He drew a slow breath, feeling the damp air of the dungeon fill his lungs.

  “If Zeiran truly carries out a ritual with the God of Shadow… I’ll most likely just be killed.”

  Kael’s back straightened, the tension left his shoulders. All trembling and all remaining confusion vanished, and he focused entirely on calculations.

  “Considering the amount of blood Zeiran took today… and how much is required to initiate the ritual…” he murmured barely audibly. “I have about six days.”

  The thought was merciless—but honest. Exactly what he needed.

  “My blood will recover by tomorrow morning. After the meal, no one will likely enter here…”

  His fingers involuntarily brushed the back of his head, as if confirming the ring was still there.

  “Ironic,” he noted quietly to himself, half-closing his eyes. “Not long ago, I believed this method could only be used by madmen.”

  He slowly lifted his head, a cold smile sliding over his lips.

  “But when choosing between guaranteed death… and near-certain death—it’s better to choose the latter.”

  The decision he had feared to name all night finally took shape. Kael felt something growing inside him—not panic, not despair, but a strange, icy calm. The kind that comes when a person realizes there is no way back.

  But Kael’s plan required one more crucial element—one that shattered all his previous plans.

  He clasped his hands, resting his elbows on his knees, leaned slightly forward, and whispered irritably:

  “Damn family… because of you, I’ll have to abandon the Sky Devourer.”

  His lips twitched into a crooked smirk, heavy with bitterness and anger.

  “Even if I survive, for the next ten years I’ll be stuck dragging around a third-rate spirit…”

  He let out a short, hoarse breath—half laughter, half rage.

  “…one day, I’ll strangle every last one of you myself.”

  As he said this, he closed his eyes—and an image rose before his mind’s eye.

  That very spirit he had once dismissed as a cruel joke of fate.

  The spirit resembled a massive ant.

  Its elongated, three-segmented body was covered in a black, stone-matte carapace. Along its surface ran faint, almost natural notches—spines that made it seem like a creature born not for battle, but for relentless labor.

  It had heavy mandibles with blunt serrations—more like a digger’s tools than weapons. Six slender yet astonishingly stable legs—each braced against the surface as if capable of bearing a weight many times greater than its own.

  And only one thing about its appearance defied conventional logic: a small stinger at the end of its abdomen, resembling neither a weapon nor a means of attack. Rather—like an additional point of anchoring and balance.

  Kael opened his eyes and grimaced.

  “Seriously… is this really going to be my first spirit?” he cursed through clenched teeth.

  He forced himself to dive deeper into his memory—into that same bottomless, perfectly structured reservoir of knowledge he carried inside him. He sifted through images, descriptions, pages of books, treatises, classifications of spirits—recalling every detail about spirits from the Realm of Space.

  But no amount of mental effort could change reality.

  “Damn it…” he muttered inwardly, clenching his fingers. “Aside from this one, I can’t find a single spirit from the Realm of Space I could summon with a primitive ritual. Only its abilities will give me a chance to escape.”

  His memory seemed to respond unconsciously to his emotions, and Kael’s thoughts drifted back to what he knew about that ant.

  Although almost no one in Lasthold had heard of such a spirit, it was fairly common in other civilizations and worlds. But it was used only by the weakest mages—which was precisely why its name rarely appeared in books.

  The spirit’s primary ability lay in the manipulation of weight. Not strength. Not speed. Not destruction. But weight itself. It could make an object lighter… or, conversely, heavier.

  A simple, but practical ability.

  Builders and miners used it: lightening massive beams to raise them into place; increasing the weight of foundations to compact the soil; adjusting the mass of structures as the work demanded. For craft mages, this spirit was useful—but in combat, far more effective options existed.

  That was precisely why almost no one ever studied this spirit. Information about it was scarce.

  Kael shifted his gaze to the partition—a heavy steel slab sealing off his cell. A weight-increasing spell had been laid upon it, making it impossible to lift through sheer physical strength alone—even for a Silver Mage.

  Kael gave a crooked smirk.

  “Whatever,” he muttered, trying to defuse his thoughts. “If my father’s a miner, then let my first spirit be a tribute to his work. A spirit of the working class.”

  He even shook his head, as if laughing at himself—but the relief never came. The smirk faded almost at once, leaving only a dry, sullen look.

  “But I still have to live long enough for that…” he murmured more quietly.

  As if in response to those words, a soft metallic creak echoed down the corridor. Distant doors opened, and the sound of footsteps began to approach—steady, unhurried, precisely measured. After several long seconds, a figure in black stopped before his cell.

  The partition lifted just enough for a tray to be slid inside.

  A tray… piled high with food. Roasted meat, side dishes, fruit, flatbread, tea in a metal mug, and several small boxes of blood-recovery pills.

  Such food was far too luxurious for a place like this.

  Kael snorted.

  “Not sparing feed for the sheep before slaughter?” he drawled, his tone dripping with mockery.

  The man in black did not even blink. His voice was as even and impassive as Zeiran’s:

  “Eat everything. If you lack sufficient blood tomorrow, your family will suffer.”

  Kael looked up; the corner of his mouth twitched in a contemptuous smirk.

  “No need to remind me,” he replied dryly. “I understood that the first time.”

  The man said nothing. He simply lowered the partition again, activating the same weight enchantment, and walked away without haste.

  Within seconds, silence settled once more.

  As soon as the footsteps faded and the corridor was swallowed again by heavy, viscous quiet, Kael closed his eyes, pulling his thoughts into a single knot.

  “Time is short. I need to move.”

  He opened his eyes—and not a trace of hesitation remained in them. He dragged the tray closer and practically fell upon the food. He ate quickly and indiscriminately, paying no attention to taste or quantity. He had mocked the guard, but reality was different: he needed strength. A great deal of it. Now. Because he was about to take a risk greater than any he had taken before.

  He swallowed each bite as if his life depended on it.

  Which, in part, it already did.

  With each passing day, his condition would worsen—daily blood loss, mana depletion, physical strain… all of it would gradually turn his body into a fragile shell. If he intended to break through to the Steel Mage stage, he had to do it now. While his body could still endure it.

  Cold fire burned in his amber eyes, and in his mind he was already laying everything out step by step.

  “First—I create a sound-suppression barrier,” he listed mentally, never stopping his eating. “Then—the Sacrificial Heart Rite. I have to finish before morning.”

  He took the last swallow of tea, nearly scraping the plate clean. Then he swallowed the pills, feeling a tight wave of warmth spread through his body, and said with absolute certainty:

  “I have no right to make a mistake. Begin.”