A familiar sound echoed.
Zzzzsup!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ARCANA STATUS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Reality Fracture Progress:
Wolfrezon Cub Defeated ×1
Adult Wolfrezon Defeated ×12
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Authority EXP +4,800
Authority Level: 35 → 39
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
STR 16 → 19 AGI 18 → 21
DEX 17 → 20 VIT 17 → 22
PER 20 → 24 WIL 29 → 40
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
New Record Added
Pack Slayer Defeat an entire Alpha Pack alone.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Arcana Points Earned +2,400 AP
Current AP: 3,185
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zekai stared at the floating screen.
"...Level thirty-five already?"
He let out a short laugh. "So hunting really is the fast track."
Warmth spread through his coat pocket again.
"...Hm?"
He reached in and pulled out the wolf-shaped pendant he'd torn off the Relic Collector's chain — silver, laced with old cracks running through its surface. One of a few he'd scooped up off the ground before the helicopter's downdraft could scatter the rest.
"...Almost forgot about you."
He turned it over a few times.
"...Arcana." A beat. "What's sealed inside this thing?"
Zzzzsup!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ARCANA ANALYSIS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Relic Classification: Soul-Sealed Relic
Contained Soul: Wolwing
Status: Permanently Sealed
Current Vessel: Ancient Wolf Pendant
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
His brow pulled tight. "...Permanently sealed?"
His fingers closed around it without meaning to.
Aldric's face surfaced in his mind. A soul trapped, unable to move forward, unable to come back.
"...That's no different at all."
His eyes dropped. "...So it just stays a prisoner forever?"
Silence. The Arcana didn't answer.
He lifted his head, gaze sweeping the battlefield — twelve Alpha corpses scattered across the snow.
Then something clicked. His eyes narrowed.
"...Wait."
He looked at the pendant. Then at one of the dead wolves. Back at the pendant.
"What if—" A pause. "—a soul doesn't need another relic."
"What if it just needs a body."
"...Can a sealed soul move into a different vessel?"
The interface flickered.
Zzzzsup!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ARCANA RESPONSE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Compatible Vessel Detected.
Soul Integration...
Possible.
Warning: Original consciousness of the vessel has already perished.
Only an empty body remains.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"...That's enough for me."
Zzzzsup!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ARCANA RESTRICTION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Companion Creation Authority:
Exclusive to The Fool.
Only the Bearer of The Fool may offer a wandering soul a new existence.
This Authority cannot restore the dead.
It only permits the birth of an Arcana Companion through a willing soul and a compatible empty vessel.
All other soul-sealed relics remain bound by their original laws.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Interesting."
He crossed to the largest corpse in the clearing, its body still faintly warm with lingering energy.
Another window opened.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE FOOL'S AUTHORITY
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Fool never walks alone.
Offer companionship to a wandering soul?
YES / NO
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He didn't tap anything. Instead he spoke to the pendant directly.
"...What do you want?"
Nothing, for several seconds.
Then a thin blue light leaked out of the cracked shell and gathered in the air in front of him.
A small wolf's spirit formed, its body translucent, glowing like something built out of moonlight instead of flesh.
Its eyes found his.
Then dropped to the dead Wolfrezon at his feet.
"...Better than staying trapped forever." Its voice barely rose above the snowfall.
"If you'll have me—"
"—I want to live again."
"I give you my loyalty."
The Arcana answered on its own, not from any command Zekai had given, but because the Fool had just accepted its first companion.
He smiled. "...Then let's give you another shot."
He tapped YES.
The pendant lifted into the air. The Wolfrezon's body rose off the snow with it, crimson energy pouring out of the corpse, azure light streaming out of the Wolwing's soul.
Flesh on one side. Soul on the other. Red and blue, drifting toward each other slow, then fast.
The instant they touched—
BOOOOOOM!!
Violet light tore across the clearing. Snow spiraled outward in a ring. The corpse convulsed, bones cracking and resetting, muscle reshaping under the skin, fur bleaching from dark gray to silver-white. Violet markings crawled across the new body like veins lit from underneath.
The crimson eyes dimmed and died.
In their place, calm sapphire blue opened instead.
The light dispersed.
What stood in front of Zekai belonged to neither creature anymore — something stitched together out of both, and new because of it.
Something new entirely.
The creature opened its eyes. Zekai stared at it for a second.
Then—
Zzzzsup!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
REWARD ADJUSTED
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Alpha Wolfrezon ×1 → Companion Vessel
Arcana Points −1,200
Current AP: 1,985
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zekai's eyes dropped to the window.
"...You took the payment out of my reward?"
The interface vanished. He stared at the empty air.
"...Seriously?"
The newly formed wolf tilted its head.
Zekai looked at it, then at the spot where the system had disappeared.
"So you cost me Twelve hundred AP? before you've even introduced yourself."
A beat. "...We're going to get along wonderfully."
The wolf blinked.
Then it stepped forward and pressed its head against his arm.
Zzzzsup!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ARCANA EVOLUTION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
New Species Created: Leewolf
Origin: Soul Integration Successful
Classification: Arcana Companion
Authority: The Fool
Bond Status: Complete
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The creature opened its eyes, looked down at its new body, flexed a paw. Then lifted its head toward Zekai.
It closed the distance quietly and pressed its head into his arm.
"My name is Nuke."
"I'll walk beside you—"
"—Origin."
Zekai let out a short laugh. "Nuke, huh." A pause. "I like it."
Then he frowned. "...Why 'Origin,' though?"
Nuke looked down at his own paws before answering.
"When my soul got sealed, I lost my memories." A quiet beat. "I didn't remember who I was. Didn't remember where I belonged."
He lifted his blue eyes to meet Zekai's.
"But you gave me a new start."
"Another chance to exist." Nuke's ears lowered, voice softening. "So — you're my Origin."
Silence sat between them for a second.
Zekai scratched the back of his head, awkward. "...That's a heavy title to hand somebody."
Zzzzsup!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ARCANA COMPANION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Nuke
Species: Leewolf
Classification: Arcana Companion
Authority: The Fool
Bond Level: 1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HP: 100%
STR: 12 AGI: 18
DEX: 16 VIT: 13
PER: 20 WIL: 14
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Companion Skills
• Pack Instinct (Rare) Can sense hidden enemies, killing intent, and nearby lifeforms.
• Moonstep (Rare) Greatly increases movement speed on natural terrain.
• Grave Fang (Rare) Empowers its fangs with Grave Energy, allowing them to tear through supernatural defenses.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Companion Trait
The Fool's Hound
A loyal companion born under the Authority of The Fool.
Its growth is linked directly to its master.
As the Authority Bearer becomes stronger, Nuke evolves alongside him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Zekai read through it. "...So you level up too."
Nuke's tail thumped. "Woo!"
He laughed. "...Guess we're starting from the bottom together."
He scratched behind Nuke's ears. "Let's stay alive long enough to become something dangerous."
"...I'd love to keep chatting." A glance around the snow. "But we're still stuck inside a Reality Fracture."
They kept moving through the drifts, Nuke ducking between trees and reappearing a few minutes later, tail high.
Zekai stopped. Something hit the snow beside his boot.
Clack.
He looked down. A monster horn, the size of his forearm, lying in the white. He stared at it. Then at Nuke, sitting a few feet off, tail going a mile a minute.
"...What am I supposed to do with this?"
Nuke tilted his head, entirely pleased with himself.
Zekai sighed and nudged it aside with his boot. "Don't need it."
Nuke trotted off into the trees again. A minute later—
Clack.
A second horn landed next to the first.
He looked down, flat. "...I said I don't need it."
Nuke's tail sped up. Zekai stared at him for a long five seconds.
"...You're impossible."
Nuke looked completely satisfied with that assessment.
He picked the horn up anyway and dropped it into storage. "Fine. One."
Nuke's ears shot straight up.
"Don't get excited. One."
The tail wagged faster. He looked away. "...Great. I've already raised a hoarder."
He pointed toward the Arsenal. "Rest up for now."
"When I need you, I'll call."
Nuke lowered his head, formal. "I await your command, Origin Lord."
His body dissolved into violet particles, gathering into a small wolf-shaped crest before folding back into the Arsenal.
The clearing went quiet again.
Zekai looked out at the endless white treeline. "...Quest first. Everything else after."
He pulled Null Drakular free of the snow, letting it hang loose at his side, and kept walking deeper into the fracture.
Wind moved soft across the wreckage behind him. He glanced back once — Wolfrezon bodies scattered across the drifts, some of them creatures that had nearly ended him a few hours earlier.
Now the whole pack lay still.
His eyes dropped to the blade in his hand, his own face reflected in the polish. His mouth curved, faint. '...I'm actually changing.'
He'd finally started catching up to the world he'd spent his whole life chasing.
His grip tightened. "If I keep growing like this—"
"—then maybe."
He closed his eyes for a second. Aron's smile. Marcus laughing under circus lights. Sara, crying in front of a headstone in the rain.
When his eyes opened, something settled behind them. Certainty.
"No."
"I'm not leaving anyone behind again."
"Not Aron."
"Not anyone."
He rested the blade across his shoulder. "I'm finally moving forward."
Without another word, he turned deeper into the forest and kept walking.
Ahead of him, the air bent wrong. A near-invisible seam shimmered between two ancient pines.
"...There it is."
"That's the fracture's core."
Something felt off about it, though. Not just unstable.
He narrowed his eyes.
Alive. That was the word for it. Alive in a way none of the wolves had been.
"...Arcana." A beat. "Analyze it."
Silence.
"...Seriously? You're ignoring me now?"
A few seconds passed. Then the interface loaded — except instead of clean text, it glitched violently, letters twisting into broken symbols, red fractures spidering across the display.
A̸N̸A̷L̶Y̸S̷I̸S̶... E̶R̸R̷O̸R̷... D̷O̷ N̸O̶T̷... T̷O̸U̴—
The screen vanished mid-word.
"...What?"
For the first time since any of this had started, the Arcana had looked genuinely afraid.
He reached his hand toward the distortion anyway. "...Guess there's only one way to find out."
His fingertips touched the black membrane.
The world tore open.
A headache split through his skull like a blade driven straight into bone.
"...Ghh—!"
He staggered, dropped to one knee, both hands clamping over his head. Something inside his mind felt like it was being pulled apart from the inside out.
His vision blurred.
"...What is this."
"The pain's — coming from inside my own skull."
The forest spun around him.
"Something's pulling at my mind."
Darkness closed in.
Something on the other side of that fracture had just touched him back.
✦ End of Chapter 58 — The Touch Beyond ✦