"Mr. Lamena? Can you hear my voice?" Moreira asked, unable to hide his true feelings.
From his perspective, he could clearly see that Zavi's body was intact, without wounds, yet his expression was empty as he kept passing through the bedroom wall, going in and out repeatedly.
However, from Zavi's perspective, he had never passed through any wall at all. He was simply walking normally on the second floor, as if their existence were like oil and water, occupying the same space but never mixing.
Moreira's eyes widened, his lips trembling as he said, "I don't understand… how can he do that…" he muttered with a bitter smile, feeling that this world was very strange and different.
Meanwhile, Zavi's steps suddenly stopped as he leaned against the stair railing, and his mind abruptly froze, unable to function.
"I don't understand… I don't understand… I don't understand. Damn it," he shouted in frustration, then glanced toward the open bedroom door. "How much longer is that person going to sleep?" he muttered to himself irritably after trying various ways to wake Moreira without any satisfying result.
He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, trying to calm his mind. After feeling his body and thoughts become slightly lighter, he stood upright, walked down the stairs, and decided to leave the apartment to get some fresh air.
Click...
The door opened slowly but surely. When he reached out his hand again, instead of obtaining what he expected, Zavi felt as if he had fallen into a silent dark abyss.
'Huh? This is...'
He felt as though his body were bound by something. Every time he breathed, his mind kept asking: what is happening to my body?
The thought had barely crossed his mind when misfortune struck again. From behind, his body was violently thrown, flung out of the house like a leaf carried away by a strong wind.
Bang!!
The apartment's main door slammed shut, as if someone had deliberately pushed it.
Startled, his brain failed to process what had just happened. He immediately turned around while standing up, and his blue eyes began to glisten when he saw the scene before him.
Various terrifying ghostly forms, far too many for any human to count, appeared out of nowhere at the exact moment the apartment and the surrounding buildings, including the street itself, evaporated like boiling water constantly heated by extreme flames, completely replaced by their arrival.
Not long afterward, strange murmurs loud enough to deafen ears, make knees tremble, and even pull a soul from its body echoed around him.
"Who is that human?"
"How did he enter here?"
"Is this our new companion, granted by the 'Ancient Ghost King who rules the astral realm'?"
"Isn't that a human? How could he come here?"
"Get out of here, despicable creature!"
"Does he intend to do something in this realm?"
Upon hearing those murmurs, Zavi felt as if his eardrums were about to burst, his head spun violently, and cold sweat drenched his face as though his soul were about to disappear.
The situation had completely changed. What had once been the apartment courtyard had now become a boundless and undefined world, the astral realm, surrounded by thick white fog that prevented him from seeing anything ahead except himself.
The voices of those ghosts could kill millions, no, hundreds of millions of humans with only one or two words. Unable to withstand such immense mental pressure, and because of assistance from another being, his consciousness gradually faded. His soul did not shatter, but it was replaced by strange events that awaited him.
Yet not long afterward, Zavi suddenly awakened in shock when he heard those voices again, nearly dying once more, repeatedly until he could no longer count how many times it happened.
His mental state, his soul, his emotions, all of them shattered. He did not know what to do, could not escape this place, and the only thing he could do was cry in despair, begging for help.
Meanwhile, on the second floor of the apartment, Moreira stood silently, observing Zavi's movements which in reality had not changed at all.
"Mr. Lamena truly cannot hear me? Are we in different worlds?" he muttered to himself, considering another possibility related to the phenomenon of being dragged into another realm.
After thinking for a moment, and finding a definite answer filled with doubt while realizing he might have ignored this possibility before, Moreira quickly approached. Then he saw Zavi's body stop on its own, sitting a few meters from the bedroom entrance before finally falling backward onto the corridor floor beside his room.
A pocket watch appeared afterward from nowhere. This made Moreira hesitate, thinking twice before picking it up, convinced that if he brought it outside the apartment, Zavi would awaken.
Secondly, he was unsure what would happen if he touched that watch, suspecting that the object might not originate from this world. He could feel a dark purple spiritual energy surrounding it, making his shoulders tremble and the hairs on his neck stand.
"..."
He remained silent, then glanced behind him to make sure the window was still open. He took a deep breath, each breath placing his heart between anxiety and the shadow of approaching death.
Moreira slowly exhaled as he reached out his hand. He gave a small nod, then rushed forward, grabbed the watch with his right hand, spun around, and hurried toward the bedroom window before throwing it out.
The watch spun briefly in the air before gravity pulled it downward, landing in the middle of the stone road.
"What is this!? Ahhhhhhhh!" Moreira screamed when a dark purple aura mixed with a grayish aura surged violently across his entire body, seeping into his pores and piercing deep into his bones.
That gray aura slowly flowed out of Moreira's body, as if trying to take something from within him, forming a slightly transparent wolf without flesh or blood, only a dark purple aura within it and a grayish aura covering its entire form.
The wolf lowered its head briefly as Moreira's body was thrown backward. Then it turned and leaped out through the window toward the pocket watch lying on the stone road.
When a clawed hand wrapped in a pale gray aura touched the watch, the wolf's body evaporated and was instantly sucked into it, as if pulled by a vacuum.
Upstairs, inside the room, Moreira stood still while trying to find the wolf's presence.
"Gone? But what is this?" His pupils widened as he stared at his index finger, seeing a pale gray aura within it, through which the dark purple aura flowed through the window toward the pocket watch lying outside.
He nodded. The thought of pulling his finger back crossed his mind, followed by a cynical smile clearly visible on his face.
With a swift motion, Moreira pulled his hand backward, as if drawing thread from a spool.
"Good..."
The watch shot back, flying through the window with the speed of an arrow, passing right beside him before slamming into the bedroom wall, leaving a rather large crack before falling due to gravity.
"Phew, now what should I do?" he muttered after realizing that staying here would be dangerous. "Damn it! I don't have enough money to pay for all this."
After panic and resignation swept through his thoughts, he turned around and decided to observe the dark purple aura wrapped in the pale gray aura flowing from the tip of his index finger.
He bent down, picked up the watch, and examined it, checking whether there was any difference compared to other watches. Finding nothing unusual, his curiosity shifted to the design inside it, and his thoughts urged him to open its cover.
"Should I just try it? There's no harm, right?"
After muttering to himself, he decided to open it. Then its aura burst out, forming the wolf he had seen earlier, while Zavi's body that had been lying beside the room was pulled toward that anchor, the wolf.
"Hah!? I can't believe Mr. Lamena's body came here by itself..." Cold sweat began to cover Moreira's face as the hairs on his neck stood up.
'What kind of ability did Mr. Lamena actually choose? This is completely different from the Transmitter ability I once wanted.'
After thinking for a moment, he unconsciously swallowed to hide his nervousness. Was this strange sensation caused by the apartment itself, which felt isolated? Or merely the sharp and disturbing feeling piercing his shoulders because he was worried about his friend, the source of all this?
He did not know. But one thing was certain. Anyone who tried to master supernatural abilities would be attacked by something mysterious and unseen, striking their soul, as if they were not allowed to possess such power.
'Where is Celvira now? It feels like she already knows what is happening and is simply letting it happen. So this is how you act.'
Moreira bent slightly and gently tapped Zavi's shoulder, trying to wake him.
"Ahh!" Zavi jolted awake instantly, as if his consciousness had just been violently slammed back into his body.
Immediately after waking, whether from sleep or from a long nightmare that felt as though it had lasted thousands of years, he sat upright. His soul felt cracked, his mind empty, his heart hollow. That was the first sensation that greeted him when his consciousness returned.
Tears gathered beneath his eyelids, swelling before finally streaming down his rough cheeks.
His mouth opened slightly, as if he wanted to say something but could not. All he could do was stare at Moreira, who returned his gaze with eyes full of disbelief.
"Sir?? What exactly happened?" Moreira asked, waving his hand right in front of Zavi's face.
He saw Zavi staring blankly ahead, his gaze empty, as though he had lost any reason to keep living.
"Damn it." he cursed softly. "What about our cooperation? Are you going to break your promise? Or were all your words just nonsense?"
Moreira's voice suddenly grew hoarse, rising louder and echoing throughout the room. "Answer me... Sir!"
At the same time, a faint sound was heard behind them. The bedroom door closed by itself, without any gust of wind. Moreira felt the hairs on his neck stand up, yet he did not have time to turn around.
Meanwhile, just outside the room, Celvira stood silently. Her hand was still on the doorknob she had just released, her face remaining flat without expression as the voices from inside the room slowly faded.