The words from the notifications swayed before him, enrapturing him with their implications. There was a muted sort of acceptance as he pondered, letting their weight settle in his mind.

Mind World suggested the existence of an imagined realm rooted in his psyche, based upon his own existence, which then implied that the ravaged world of blood and light was, well…

‘…myself?’

The skill description provided much detail on the intricacies of Zhan Shen’s meditation, but despite his former curiosity, Miles was unable to indulge in the revelations on that which the old butler had refused to explain.

The last time he had practiced this meditation proper, had been in the Lykaon mansion gymnasium, before the incident with the Aethercrafts.

Back then, all had been well with the manifested world. But that was obviously no longer the case, the encounter with the two fae being the almost definite culprit.

Miles let out a heavy breath, centering his focus.

Even the momentary act of meditation seemed wrong now. A practice that had once offered rarely found solace, now seemed unwelcoming. An old friend, now an unfamiliar stranger.

Miles shook off the thoughts and persisted, calming his mind well before returning to reality.

Zhan Shen was staring, seemingly expecting an answer, and although Miles had missed what had been said, he could guess.

So, he threw out a reassuring grin, “Nothing to worry about old Zhan, just something new,” and slowly, but in detail, explained the skill description he had received.

Zhan Shen’s immediate reaction was an angry glare, his frustration apparent, “The hell is wrong with this system of yours? Doesn’t it know basic etiquette? To not interfere with the teachings of another? Those answers were not meant to be handed over in gift wrappings, unclear as they might be! The practitioner must learn themselves!”

While the old butler fumed, Miles raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

An irritated glance, “I have answered that numerous times, Master Miles. It taints your path, the path that will define who you become! Spoon feeding is not the way of the Liuzhong!”

As was expected, it was another answer that was not an actual answer.

So, Miles dismissed Zhan Shen’s outburst, firmly believing that there was no point to being upset over spilled wine, and interjected, distracting the old butler with the drastic change to his divided mind world.

And once he was done, “You’re confident it’s not, a river or... a stream?” the old Butler asked with a frown.

Miles nodded, ‘That was definitely not a stream.’

“Then, that is far, far from the norm. In fact, I’ve never even encountered a practitioner with a mind world that changed so drastically, after its inception. Besides, even if we assume the red expanse implies the Vampire, what of the other?”

Zhan Shen’s gaze suddenly fixed upon him, a flicker of realization, “Wait, wait, master Miles, I remember you mentioning something about ‘forms’, about the possibility of returning back from being a Vampire? And I also recall something about encountering… two creatures. A Werewolf as well?”

Miles scratched the back of his head.

As old Zhan seemed to suggest, the ocean of blood could very well refer to his vampiric nature or as the system termed it, the Kindred. The other ocean, the one of ghostly white, with what Miles believed were rippling lights, presumably implied the Werewolf… the Wurkao, maybe?

He wasn’t particularly confident about the latter.

There were forms, which he couldn’t change. There was a quest for the Wurkan, which remained ‘Unavailable. Conditions not met.’ And until those aspects were covered, the supposed Wurkan aspect remained fickle and up in the air.

Miles had inadvertently ignored the unconfirmed, for until it was well and truly proven, what he was, was only Kindred. Well, half of one, if the implications of the mind world were to be believed.

Which was exactly why he hadn’t explicitly mentioned that he had been bitten by a Werewolf as well. He hadn’t actually meant to hide it, but he somehow had.

Dreading the old butler's reaction, Miles found the grime on the clinic floor to be of great interest as he explained, “Well, I don’t have anything in the system about Werewolves, other than an eventual quest, which I may have forgotten to mention? But, yes, I was bitten by both creatures… simultaneously.”

Zhan Shen’s reaction was exactly what he had feared.

***

It had taken a few minutes to pacify old Zhan, but thankfully, he did understand that Miles had not intended to conceal the Werewolf facets of the system. Thus, the old butler had merely grumbled for a while, before waving his hand, “Fine, get to meditating already."

And despite his initial reaction the state of his mind world, Miles had readily obliged, eager to move on.

His eyes closed, and he started to breathe.

The action still came with a sense of disparity, but now anticipative of the subtle changes of himself, the transition was far quicker than before.

Miles achieved perfection, and the world changed once more.

The sundered world, with seas of crimson and ethereal white, separated by a wavering schism, appeared once more.

For a moment, his concentration wavered, a natural shift in thought.

Instantly, the world responded, the skies ruptured by scarlet and white lightning, the seas manifesting ripples bordering on waves.

Yet Miles was prepared, steadying his focus.

He had achieved perfection under far worse conditions, so a distracting world (now that he knew what to expect) was well within the bounds of what he could manage, despite the unsettling wrongness he continued to feel.

And somehow, despite the drastic metamorphosis of his mind world, Miles achieved a delicate balance. His breathing relaxed, and he could finally allow himself to survey the now peaceful, yet unfamiliar world.

The terrifying majesty in the uncompromising dichotomy of the expansive seas.

The west was exactly as he had feared, a sea of rippling blood, the occasional wave eliciting unseemly screams. They screamed at him, tugging and pulling upon his manifestation within the world, urging him to relinquish all he had, and fall into its peaceful embrace.

A crack of bloodshot lightning woke him, finding him leaning dangerous to the left, and Miles hurried to re-establish his focus.

The east was a brilliant sea of ephemeral white, ghostly strands floating within. It too spoke to him, but its voice was weaker for it wasn't a pull or anything of actual force, but merely a gentle, whispered suggestion towards… the right path?

But beyond even them, the strangest of all was the enigmatic rift rippling through the manifested world. The very same that he sat upon and was mirrored by the sky above him. It's seemingly impossible, but undeniable existence within the thin separation between the two seas was simply confusing.

It asked nothing of him, and merely existed, a solid unwavering ballista that defied the hypothesis of the Kindred, Wurkan mind world division.

What was it, truly?

The waves rolled, and Miles let out a deep exhale, allowing himself to be freed of the curious, yet distracting mysteries of the world.

Thinking no further on those intricacies, he allowed himself to just exist, experiencing this strange new world in all its glory, to perhaps even enjoy the mystical view.

It was cathartic in the most unusual of ways, lifting a portion of a burden he had not known he had carried. The first step to accepting this manifested world as his own, to shed the feeling of incongruity.

The skies thundered, the seas rippled, on occasion, but he remained in control.

An unknown time of existing later, when he felt considerably more at ease, a familiar voice resounded echoing through his world., “Good, focus on par with a Sakti, you are on the precipice of surpassing Bala.”

Miles was not particularly surprised, for he was familiar with old Zhan’s occasional instructions of this form. The unknowable terms used didn't deter him either, well familiar with the occasional usage.

“Now, allow me the first question. Are you aware of how you interact with the mind world? For instance, how do you sit?”

The seas rolled with rising waves, as Miles pondered.

‘Interact? How I sit? ...Is it not how just about anyone would?’

The skies crackled with dual lightning, booming thunder echoing through the world.

‘Wait... There is no floor here. Only…’

Even with the illogical boundary running through the seas directly below him, it was all just– water.

And that thought was his undoing, for whatever solid surface he had been sitting upon, gave way.

A sudden splash, and he was under water, sinking.

His left ear echoed with horrific screams, welcoming him into its eternal embrace, while his right thrummed with eerie, ineligible whispers. His left side was being stabbed by what felt like a million iron needles, while the right was cold, yet comfy.

The jarring dichotomy was terrifying.

Desperate to swim upwards, Miles was horrified to find his hurried strokes passing through the liquid, failing to provide the required opposing force that would push him to safety of the surface above.

He struggled, gulping in some water, tasting something ghastly and…

The manifested world collapsed.

Miles found himself back in the clinic, gagging, a reflexive response to dislodge the imagined water he had consumed.

Zhan Shen's reassuring hand calmed him, “You alright Master Miles?”

Miles heaved heavy breaths, struggling to disentangle the surreal experience from tangible reality.

Finally, having calmed himself enough, he answered with a silent nod.

With a confirming pat, the old butler continued without missing a beat, “Good, that’s realization. Go again, but remember, meditation isn't aethercraft or transporter science. This here problem needs a very simple ideology, one you have had all this time. All you need to do is sit upon the water, as you always have.”

Miles let out a confused breath but nodded once more.

He was finally making strides in this esoteric skill that he had mostly humored for years, never knowing its true purpose. The occasional bouts of shock and terror were nothing compared to what he had experienced in the mansion, and thus, overwhelmed by excitement and intrigue. Gaining control over his Vampiric nature would be an added bonus.

Obliging Zhan Shen, Miles allowed reality to dissolve, and the sundered world to manifest around him once more.

This time, he deliberately clung to his breathing.

His breath was his anchor, for anytime his mind wandered, particularly to the logical specifics of sitting upon a body of water, he would look to the past, of the countless times he had achieved this very, seemingly impossible task.

'Zhan Shen is right. If it is water that I've sat on all this time, why not again?'

He had practiced for nearly a decade, and that unwavering, consistent practice surely helped. Not even a seemingly catastrophic change, not even the logic of water and physics could disrupt the power of familiarity and habit, with ease.

And this approach... actually worked.

The ripples subsided, the skies calmed, and the world was truly at peace.

The experience was almost magical, an acknowledgment of something that had been ignored due to logic, something he may never have considered under the assumption that the manifested world was merely a place of mental focus. Well, it was that too, but it was also a reflection of reality, his reality.

Miles could actually feel the lap of roiling ripples, the wetness of the different seas upon his crossed legs, and yet, there he was– sitting on water.

‘Hah! So, I sit upon a sea, not because it makes sense, but just because I think, no, I believe I can!’

The realization was obviously founded upon the concept that the manifested world would become exactly what he made of it, and it was solidified with an exhale.

The answer to his achievement was almost instantaneous, echoing through the world, “Good, very good.”

The occasional ripple grew into mild waves, but Miles reined in his wavering thoughts.

“Second question then. If one may sit, could they stand? And if they may stand... could they walk?”

***

A towering heap of garbage, refuse and discarded corpses, concealed by the shadows of an unremarkable building, a common sight in the outer city.

But hiding within, stomaching the disgust of living amidst garbage, hid a man.

Greasy black hair clung to his head, almost indistinguishable from his filthy, darkened appearance.

Hayato Ryota shivered, whatever liquid from the trash he had been hiding in, a disgusting wetness had seeped onto his back, even though his cloak.

The white cloak, proof of one's affiliation with Hakuryuu, enchanted by the revered Jade Dragon and his rat spirit, was his only defense against the filth, for it seemed impervious to most contamination, proved by its mostly pristine appearance despite his recent love for dumpster diving.

In contrast to its whimsical appearance adorned with childish scribblings of what might be dragon scales, the cloak doubled as sturdy armor. Practicality that was worthy of the risk of being conspicuous.

“Alright you f*cker, focus," he muttered to himself, "You almost messed up that last weave. The surveillance noticed, but not long enough to get flagged. No more mistakes.”

Ryota's eyes glazed over, vision shifting to his conceptual net weaver lair, the one programmed into the peripheral neural interface hidden within his right shoulder. The access was almost instantaneous for public privacy was seldom a corpo concern. The City Security feeds flashed through the neural displays before him, as he glanced through, searching for motion, movement or people.

And a few seconds later, having found nothing but some confirmed other junkies, he relaxed.

Ryota tensed his bicep, along with a specific finger movement.

His net weaving deck activated in response, letting loose a type of custom needle daemon, sending the horde weaving through the decade old surveillance system, stitching in bogus code into the original subroutines, forcing the cameras to loop through videos of empty streets.

The orc invasion had worked in his favor. It was much easier to sell the repetitive video of empty streets as legit. Nothing of note to get flagged. There was also lower risk of being spotted and having his location sold for a quick credit.

A quick double check through the feeds in his shoulder net deck, making sure that everything was as they should be, and Ryota almost jumped out of the heap of trash, welcoming the fresh air. Well, as fresh as Yumekuro air could be.

He didn’t bother cleaning himself, the filth and grime had long become a part of him, the white cloak his only saving grace.

The overview of surveillance reduced gradually as Ryota walked through the pathways with purpose. The surroundings however turned increasingly gruesome, garbage and corpses now spewing onto the streets, no longer hidden in discrete alleyways.

At least there were some people now, well, if you counted the other junkies as people.

Ryota didn't mind nor care for any of it, even allowing his strider implants to assist in navigating the mess. He rushed forth, no longer wary of surveillance, even as he trampled corpses, other addicts, and the sidhe knows what else.

His eyes searched for the signal they had agreed upon, and found it almost instantly, quite noticeable even through the fog of Yumekuro.

A flickering holo-projector, distinctive, but not unusual enough to be out of place.

Good, they had arrived, and followed his instructions well. Although they were a bunch of newbies, fresh blood that he had introduced to the gang himself, they were also loyal to a fault, and had immediately agreed to help out in his time of need.

Dreaming of food and a change of clothes, Ryota hurried towards the beacon.

He hadn’t seen his wife in a week, and he was sure she was worried sick. Unfortunately, all networks were corpo owned, and he couldn’t risk contacting her. Not when it could put her at risk, especially if her importance was found by those that sought him.

His initial plan had been to hide out with some friends until things blew over, but the corpos and gangs getting involved had thrown a wrench in that plan. Now, the best he could do was to use these would-be gangsters to his advantage. With their help, and some decent cover, he’d make it to Haruka’s. They had the perfect place to hide there, and with some magical pixie help, it should be accessible. He hoped.

A solid plan, if any.

But as the mists cleared before him, revealing what lay behind, the scene he arrived at shocked him to the core.

Perhaps it was his shock that was unusual, for the scene was reminiscent of all that he had witnessed on his way through the streets of Yumekuro.

The difference was that this was simply more recent.

Corpses upon corpses, blood flickering in the light of the holo-projector, lifeless faces that had once been full of hope and pride.

The boy that had wanted to be a fireball hurling ‘wizard’, whatever that was, was now a charred corpse, the source of a terrifying explosion.

That hot-headed kid who was supposedly a dragon among men and used up all his savings on dragon scale implants, his face was shattered in, one eye missing.

The girl that had refused to do harm, and had picked a neural disruptor for her weapon, had had her head bashed in with the same shield she had chosen to protect those that she could.

The two brothers, the ones who couldn’t afford a proper strider, and had to share a pair, decent kids they were, floated in pools of blood.

One of them, the older one, had been gifted one arm of a mantis blade by his sibling, but that entire arm was missing…

Oh, there it was, right through the chest of the short one, the one with the loudmouth, always trying to prove himself.

Death. Terrible Death. That was all there was here.

Hayato Ryota was frozen still, shocked and in disbelief, when...

“Well, well, well. No wonder I couldn’t find anything, this place is so far off the capital grid. You pick the place, Mr. Hayato? You seem too shocked to have been involved in, well, terrible luck this.”

A voice echoed in the air, causing Ryota to swivel around in surprise. He didn’t even see who they were yet, but his arms had already flexed, and his fingers moved.

The moment his weaving deck found the potential seam, he let loose the daemons.

The man had appeared out of nowhere, donning silver armor, face covered by a helm. A suit so characteristic no one in Capital City would not know what it meant.

A Knight.

Ryota hurried to pull back the needle daemons, but it was too late.

His painstakingly created offensive code exploded mid transmission, the push back of the failed attack reaching his own deck. Searing heat flooded through his implants, the defense he had coded himself, just barely holding against the explosive response of what was surely, Capital Corp's automatic net weaver defense protocols.

The Knight cocked his head, “You still stand? …I suppose your reputation is warranted.”

Hayato Ryota’s heart pounded against his chest.

How did they find him so fast? F*ck. He didn’t mess up, he was careful!

His mind raced, partial shifting into his peripheral net weaving deck, searing through code for potential escapes.

Offensive daemons were no longer a viable option, he had to do something else. Something, anything!

Meanwhile, the Knight ignored him, walking through the corpses, seemingly searching for something.

“You know, the death of your compatriots is very unusual. My inbuilt systems can’t find any latent traces here, as if they had just up and died, just like that. But the nature of the kills are all quite obvious. Is that not confusing? And the distinct wounds in the necks I seek are missing. But…”

The relaxed figure seemed to tense, “I know enough to know, this ferocity matches those that I want. So, Mr. Hayato, what do you know?”

The helm turned, gleaming white eyes piercing into him. They expected an answer, leaving no room for refusal.

And so, answer he did.

Ryota’s left arm burst open, four compartments popping out with searing heat. The flames burned his skin, as he couldn’t properly prepare his hand for fear of being noticed, but he grit his teeth.

Swoosh!

The four miniature nat-tech missiles burst forth, swiveling through the air, already manually locked into the silver figure so that no disruption system could ever affect it.

The Knight didn’t react, or even try to move away, simply standing there. But at the last moment, just before the missiles touched his armor... they stopped, impossibly remaining floating in mid-air.

“A terrible attempt Mr. Ryota, I saw that coming from a mile away.”

The missiles swiveled around, now aimed at him, and the moment this happened, Ryota had had enough.

No more waiting, and he let loose everything he had managed to prepare in haste.

The code he had hurriedly stitched into his former gangster kids burst forth, his original assistance in coding most of their systems his greatest boon.

The neural disruption wave from the dead girl hit the knight, apparently unexpected, causing him to stumble and the missiles to waver. But before the floating bombs could actually be let loose and rush at Ryota...

The infernal blaster from the would-be mage exploded, blasting into the knight, and... the missiles.

BOOM!

Ryota had already been running, so the explosion behind him only knocked him off his feet, throwing him forwards into a heap of garbage.

“F*ck!”

Something rotten hit his open mouth, but he didn’t care, he just pushed himself up and ran away.

Ryota didn’t look back.

His location was blown, and he could no longer risk going for Haruka, not when a Knight was after him.

Trying to figure out what he could do, Ryota rushed away, the striders in his legs burning at full capacity, his daemons completely let loose, traces be damned, to burn out any and all the surveillance he came across.

He still didn’t look back, fearing it would waste time.

But maybe he should have, because if he had, he might have noticed it.

A small dot of crackling blue lighting, silent, unseen, whizzed through the air right from the source of the explosion, perfectly avoided the white cloak, and pierced into his neck.

A wave of nausea hit Ryota, but he didn't think much of it.

He simply shook his head and focused on his escape, that street now far behind him.

Back in the alleyway, the flames of the explosion continued to burn, the corpses of the young Hakuryuu and even some unfortunate other junkies blazing with cremating fires.

But as the smoke cleared, from the epicenter emerged a familiar figure.

Silver armor, pristine and untouched by the explosion, but now glowing with energetic white sigils.

Knight Xavier coughed out some smoke but seemed otherwise unaffected. He gazed ahead, eyes gleaming white. “Run little snake, run. Lead me to exactly that which you wish to hide.”

***

Miles' eyes looked ahead, the endless expanse of the dual seas before him. It helped immensely, to not see the illogical act he was performing. It had only taken a few tries and he had achieved it with relative ease. The act of standing upon water.

It was mesmerizing, to find solid ground under his feet even as they felt the lap of waves, the touch of liquid upon his soles.

And now, he was even attempting to reach for the next stage.

Tentatively, Miles took a step forwards, and it found solid ground.

The seas rippled beneath, but with a focusing exhale that calmed the seas, he stepped forwards, finding another solid foot hold.

All good, but on the third step… a streak of lightning crossed the skies, the water rippled a bit too much, and... his focus gave way.

With a loud splash of dichromatic sea water, Miles was drowning once more.

Well not really, because he had held his breath well before he was submerged. So, he was not drowning yet, just, sinking.

This had happened so many times by now, that after the first few, the experience had become somewhat routine, entirely devoid of the initial terror that had gripped him.

Miles continued to descend into imagined depths, once again finding himself to have become a peculiar anomaly. Gravity affected him, for he sunk like a stone cast into a pond, but whenever he attempted to swim, the red and white waters refused his intended touch, simply passing through.

But the familiarity with this experience had granted him calm, allowing Miles to gaze around, a couple minutes of holding his breath never being a problem.

The underwater expanse seemed to extend infinitely, dwarfing even the dark oceans he had witnessed, back when he had visited Mt. Olympus with his parents.

The line of boundary, the rupture that sundered the two seas was similar, now revealed to be a wall that stretched into unseen depths and endless distances, eternally separating the dichromatic oceans.

Every sinking descent would place him at its very center, phasing through the boundary just as the waters refused his touch. Fortunate, he would always sink right through the middle, his body perfectly divided, each half immersed in a different sea.

The blood sea retained its inherent terror, the screams and pin stabs persistent, while the ghostly sea was eerie yet soothing, an odd dichotomy that he had become accustomed to, to some extent.

Miles could even breath still, slow, controlled exhales leading to bubbles released into the sea to float upwards, a task that seemed impossible for him.

This act of drowning gave him a subtle sense of intimacy, a morbid connection to himself, but it was faint. Miles could never explore the feeling further, for even with his newfound peace, sinking into unknown depths remained jarringly unnatural, and his return to reality was always swift.

And as expected, the manifested world shattered.

Wiping off imaginary water from his eyes, Miles stared at the old butler, “Two steps, that’s all I managed. Old Zhan, are you sure this is the only way?”

Zhan Shen rolled his eyes for the near dozenth time, Miles' response being similar every single time, “Again, it is supposed to be difficult! Standing within the mind world is only a slight difference from sitting. Walking is another thing altogether!”

Miles heaved an annoyed sigh, “But when can I control–”

Zhan Shen abruptly raised his index finger, signaling Miles to silence.

Closing his eyes, he muttered, “There’s someone… new rushing here. No, not one, two.” The old butler frowned, “First guy, not much of a threat, but the other, they're actually difficult to focus on. He's a troublesome one.”

‘What? Looters? Gangsters? What kind of individual would make even old Zhan think twice?’

Even before Miles could ask, the answers came to his enhanced ears, rumbling through the metal.

***

Ryota's bounding strides were almost explosive, the tar of the roads occasionally even shattering right through due to the force of his striders. The fact that he was leaving an easy-to-follow trail unrealized.

The ache in his legs was intense, the burn of overworked implants seeping into his natural muscles.

But then, a familiar flash of light just up ahead, decor he himself had set up, functional in its cover and tasteful in its color.

The sight filled him with joy, the feeling of returning home granting him renewed energy.

He would be safe now. This was where he wanted to be after all, the solution to all his problems.

He was so sure of this, beyond a shadow of a doubt, when an unsettling question gnawed at him.

Why…?

That was when a veil within him lifted, revealing a truth he had somehow failed to acknowledge. Even as he reached for the broken iron door, his eyes fell upon the familiar signboard of flickering will-o-wisps. HARUKA’S FAETASTIC EMPORIUM.

His joy turned to horror, “No! I– I didn’t mean to.”

The door swung open.

His eyes fixated on her, his beautiful wife, and a scream tore through him, “RUN! A KNIGHT–”

Something collapsed into him from the skies, he felt his bones snap, and screams, screams that were not his. Even as Ryota tried to reach for her, everything went dark.