Elyas and Noah left the Seer's house and North backstreet. It was dark out. Although spring had arrived, it hadn't yet brought its comfortable warmth.

  “...What am I supposed to do Noah?”

  Elyas asked with a dazed expression.

  “I gotta admit, It was worse than I thought.” Noah couldn't help but shiver in the cold. He glanced at Elyas, who was walking forward like a zombie.

  “Hey, it's still manageable. If you don't want the tumour to visit again, you just have to stay inside—”

  “I know.” Elyas interrupted, “It's easier said than done. Even if I only sleep in the void, I can only function for eight to nine hours…”

  Noah nodded. Elyas's melancholy seemingly infected him as well. “Yeah but still, I don't understand how you even managed to survive all this time.”

  Elyas kept his even pace, ignoring Noah in favor of his thoughts. ‘You ask like I know! I've been in the void for four hundred years, Shouldn't I be free for the rest of my life? What kind of joke is this?!’

  For once, ever since Elyas re-entered the world, he felt like he was equal to others again. He didn't feel stupid anymore. He had blended in, and got accustomed to daily life. He was even trying to get a job. He felt human again.

  So it was especially frustrating to be dealt a bad hand now.

  ‘The wait, it makes me invincible… yeah I can't technically die because there's literally nothing in the void that can kill me!’

  They reached home. Through complaining and sheer bitterness, Elyas traveled half the city without noticing. Standing in front of the house that had sheltered him at his worst, he made a decision.

  Elyas glanced at Noah who was standing on in the foyer near the opened door. Moonlight lighted his back, it was all Elyas could see right now. He didn't turn, only stood in the doorway, seemingly waiting for something. It was like he knew what was about to happen.

  “...I think it's time.” Elyas finally broke the silence.

  Noah sighed, “Yeah I figured…" He turned around, a genuine smile covering his face. "It was nice while it lasted. It was fun living with you.”

  Strangely, the smile felt alien to Elyas. Regardless, he stared at his friend for some time. Not knowing what to say, Elyas simply waved his hands.

  “Good night.” With that, he opened a window and walked inside.

  …

  Noah stared at the empty space his friend occupied mere moments ago. He then turned and closed the door.

  “Sis, it's been a bit since we talked.” Noah spoke softly. His shoes tapping against the wooden floor as he walked towards the stairs.

  “Its been a while. Torturous long months, but I'm back. I've missed you so much sissy.”

  He stopped behind the stairs. Staring at a thick wooden door surrounded by heavy stone bricks.

  “Stories, ohh I've got so many to tell. Let me think…” He said with genuine enthusiasm as he opened the door and walked downstairs.

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  After the spiral staircase ended. He was met with cold, uncaring stone forming a dimly lit hallway. Noah's eyes suddenly shone with a silver glow. The darkness bended under its pressure, making way for the happy man.

  He suddenly raised a finger.

  “Oh! I got one. I had a mission which was given directly by that old fox. It was to find a Rogue Dreamer who's been sent to spy on—” He stopped, then quickened his pace.

  Tap Tap Tap

  His fastening footsteps echoed off the stone walls and empty cells. “Why am I even talking about that? Forget it! Just wait till you hear who I found!”

  Noah stopped in front of an iron door. He fiddled with its key until he heard a click. Pushing the door open, shadows receded under his gaze. The shadows parted, seeing her made his smile widen.

  Noah saw his sister.

  Looking at the twitching, vaguely humanoid corpse leaning against the cold stone, he muttered enthusiastically, “Oh sissy, we're going to have a brother again!”

  …

  “It's funny…I never wanted to come here again. Ever. But as it seems, I have to spend half of my life in this empty hell.”

  Elyas glanced around, he had forgotten how… full of nothing the void was. He could already imagine losing himself. His sense of time, his voice… his new life. All of it again.

  He let out a sigh. “Well, let's get comfortable then.”

  He tried to sleep. But it didn't come to him. Exhaustion was something he experienced rarely now. Julius's training seemed to have worked wonders.

  Noah was the one who suggested the idea. Both Elyas and Julius refused at first, but Noah raised a good point: “People don't hire weak Dreamers. If you want the bill paid, you better not forget that.”

  After that, the giant seemed to gain motivation and put a lot of time into their afternoon private classes. To Elyas's disappointment, the regiment only consisted of physical exercise.

  ‘No wonder he's only the trainer of the D.E.B despite being a True Legacy, that damned brute only knows how to grow his body!’

  Elyas thought as he finished his first set of squats.

  It's quite hard to do when he has to balance himself on nothing. But there are benefits in training in the void. A few days ago, he discovered that he could manipulate the gravity of the void, albeit in an extremely small radius, it's still a useful ability.

  He was currently using it to keep himself from floating away.

  Elyas stopped his exercise. A strange expression on his face. ‘Why am I even exercising? I do that every other day. Now that I'm here… let's run some tests.’

  Elyas had grown so used to his new routine of waking up, going to school, eating a snack from a bakery and training with Julius, that he subconsciously acted out his daily warmup.

  It was for not though, Julius wasn't here, and Elyas couldn't fight himself. Besides, he didn't have anything for weight training in the void. But thankfully, he didn't need such things for what he wanted to do now.

  The first thing he wanted to test, or rather, experiment with was the windows. Mainly he wanted to recreate what he had done in Telly Burger a week ago.

  So he did just that. Elyas opened a window, shattered it but held onto the piercing pain in his head. Afterwards, he grabbed onto a single floating fragment and felt as if another needle was stabbed into his brain.

  Elyas looked down. Letting go of the bigger needle, he watched all the broken shards disappear. Only one remained in his hand.

  “Julius called it a spell… am I technically a wizard now? Or is this something general to all Dreamers?” More than the answer to that question, Elyas was fascinated by a single prospect.

  What he could do with the broken shards.

  ‘The pain is almost unnoticeable… so it's related to its size. But what can I do with the equivalent of a piece of broken glass?’ He stared at the thing in his hand. Fiddling with it as he thought.

  Thinking about how he created the windows in the first place, an idea formed.

  He acted immediately. Creating another window and repeating the process. This time, he anchored several pieces. The pain and pressure on his head was still small, but his chest felt almost empty and cold. “I'm running out of Will.” he continued regardless.

  Remembering the image of the shards forming a seamless door, Elyas found himself inspired. He wanted to see if he could make the fragments turn into something other than a portal.

  He wanted to make an arrow.

  Releasing the shards, he controlled them by pulling the anchors in his mind. Like puppets, they acted as he wanted them to. Elyas melted two, and combined and elongated a few. Using the rest to create a sharp edge, he felt pain rapidly rise and his heart grow colder.

  ‘Just a bit more.’ Elyas felt sleepy. As if life itself was being drained from his body.

  He grabbed onto the elongated shard, now taking the form of a glassy, transparent stick. He placed the sharp head on it. As he did, his thoughts slowed down significantly, his grasp on the anchors loosening in the process.

  ‘Come on…’

  One of the melted shards began floating away as it turned into a blur. Elyas bit his tongue to keep focus. He grabbed the last shard, using its melted form to mend the stick and head together.

  Before he could do that however, his heart finally went empty. A shiver ran down his entire body, as if lighting had struck it. Elyas spasmed before he lost his grasp on the anchors.

  The world became blurry and his vision darkened. He could see the half finished spear turn into a fading away from the hands of its creator, and vanish.

  He was still awake, but unable to move. His body did not belong to him anymore. It wanted rest, and he had to oblige.

  ‘God damn it, I was so close!’

  ‘...These days I've been too occupied with other matters. Maybe it's best if I stay here and train my powers.’

  ‘Maybe it's better if I...’ Elyas looked ahead blankly. His face contorted in a grimace of anger. A deep seated rage, directed only at himself.

  At his audacity to even think about leaving again. At his own powerlessness. At his own hubris which led him to lose everything he cared about in the first place. At his own cowardice.

  ‘I will never leave again. I won't let my home be taken from me a second time. I had no power back then. So I just ran like a coward…’

  ‘But now, I have power. A world just for me. I break it as much as many times as I have to. So I can fashion it into a sword, a set of armor…a throne. I will protect him. I will protect everything I have, everyone I have...’

  ‘I won't lose anything again.’