The question did not leave him.
It did not fade with movement, nor dissolve with distraction. It simply adapted refining itself, sharpening its edges, becoming something quieter and far more precise. A question that no longer demanded an answer immediately, but one that would not allow itself to be ignored.
It followed him to the edge of absence.
The hollow still remained.
It wasn't large, not in the conventional sense, but its presence distorted perception. The ground there did not look broken or destroyed, it looked removed. Like a segment of reality had been cut out cleanly, leaving behind something that neither air nor light seemed entirely comfortable occupying. Even the surrounding space behaved differently, subtle distortions rippling at the edges as if the world itself had not yet decided how to correct the error.
Moretti stood beside it, hands tucked loosely into his coat pockets, his gaze fixed not on the size of the hollow, but on its nature. He studied it the way one would study a sentence written in a language they almost understood.
"You know," he said after a while, his tone casual in a way that felt intentional, "most people who come this far into theory either stop… or go insane."
Erdin didn't look at him. His attention lingered on the hollow, not out of curiosity but of recognition.
"And which one are you?" he asked.
Moretti's lips curved slightly, not quite a smile.
"I read."
The answer sat between them longer than it should have. Then Moretti exhaled slowly, shifting his weight as if deciding something.
"You wanted to know about the sixth type."
Erdin's eyes moved, just slightly.
Moretti crouched near the hollow, dragging his fingers lightly along its edge without touching it directly, like someone aware that contact might not behave as expected.
"It's not a type," he said. "Not really."
His voice carried less certainty now, distance.
"No structure, affinity, nor discipline, or alignment to any recognized Magia expression."
He tapped the ground beside the hollow once, deliberately.
"No permission." Silence stretched.
"They call it different things," Moretti continued, rising back to his feet. "The unwritten vein, the absent core, the null expression, the thing that exists where Magia fails to categorize itself."
He glanced at Erdin, studying his reaction.
"And most people call it nonsense."
Erdin's voice came calmly.
"But you don't."
Moretti scoffed softly, though it lacked real dismissal.
"I think it's a story," he said. "The kind people create when they start noticing cracks in a system that was supposed to be complete."
He paused briefly, then added.. "There's an old record, fragmented. Referenced in margins, then erased from main texts. Scholars who brought it up were discredited, their work archived under 'theoretical anomalies.'"
Erdin listened without interruption.
"They say someone tried to reach it" Moretti said.
A faint pause followed.
"And?"
Moretti's expression didn't shift.
"No body, trace, residue, collapse signature, zero Magia feedback, no distortion field."
He gestured toward the hollow.
"Not even this."
A quiet chuckle escaped him. "Sounds like a fairy tale."
Erdin didn't respond, Moretti continued anyway, voice lowering slightly.
"Because if it were real… then everything we know about Magia, every classification, all discipline and institution built on those five types…"
He stopped. "…is incomplete."
The word lingered.
Erdin spoke into it.
"The limit," he said "for how many types a core can host."
Moretti blinked once.
"…Three," he replied. "That's the theoretical maximum. In reality, most people destabilize before they even manage two. The soul vein rejects conflicting outputs, it's not designed for that kind of strain."
Erdin nodded slightly, as if aligning pieces in his head.
"And if the soul vein were expanded?"
Moretti didn't answer immediately.
"And stabilized through forced adaptation," Erdin continued, "could it host all five?"
Silence.
Then Moretti turned fully toward him.
"You're serious."
Erdin didn't look at him. "It's possible."
Moretti laughed, but there was no humor in it.
"No," he said. "That's not possible. That's self-destruction dressed up as curiosity."
He stepped closer, his tone sharpening.
"Your core wouldn't just fail, it would collapse. Conflicting Magia outputs would tear through your regulation system. Your soul vein would overload trying to process incompatible structures."
He tapped Erdin's chest once. "Your body wouldn't hold. Your identity wouldn't hold."
His voice dropped. "You wouldn't die cleanly."
Erdin opened his mouth…
…and the world tilted.
When he woke, the first thing he noticed was continuity.
Sound layered over sound cups clinking, quiet conversation, the low hum of a city that never truly stopped. The kind of noise that existed not to be heard, but to confirm that the world was still functioning.
Then came warmth, external.
He was seated.
Across from him, Moretti sat with a cup of something steaming faintly in his hands, watching him with a look that balanced between mild concern and detached observation.
"Took you long enough," he said.
Erdin blinked once, grounding himself.
"…How long?"
"Three hours."
A pause.
Erdin exhaled slowly. "…I see."
Moretti leaned back slightly, studying him.
"You exhausted your Magia."
Erdin didn't respond, so Moretti continued.
"People misunderstand what Magia is," he said. "They think it's energy… a resource. Something you use and replenish like fuel."
He shook his head.
"It's not."
He tapped his chest lightly.
"It's closer to a life function. The soul vein channels it. The core regulates it. But the source…"
A brief pause.
"…is you."
He took a slow sip before continuing.
"When you use Magia, you're not just casting. You're converting internal existence into external effect… meaning life itself is what forms Magia.. life force. Output isn't free, it's mediated through your structure."
Erdin's gaze sharpened.
"You run it dry, you don't just lose power," Moretti said. "You interrupt the system that keeps you stable."
A beat. "Push past that… and your core stops regulating."
Another pause.
"And when that happens, your body doesn't know how to exist properly anymore."
Erdin's hand moved slightly toward his chest.
Moretti noticed and didn't comment.
The café screen flickered.
News, a distorted broadcast filled the space.
"…another incident linked to former VEIL operations witnesses report abnormal behavior, structural mutation…"
The image stabilized, and something moved. A human figure… once. Now something else.
Its body had expanded beyond proportion, muscles layered in unnatural density, joints misaligned yet functional, its structure reinforced to the point where it no longer resembled balance… only force.
A Forma user out of control.
"They've changed," Erdin said quietly.
Moretti didn't deny it. "Yeah."
Silence.
"…Would you go back?" Moretti asked.
"To VEIL."
Erdin looked at him and answered before he could.
"No."
His tone remained even.
"They're hiding something."
Moretti studied him for a moment. "You still think like one of them."
Erdin didn't respond.
"…What are you?"
Moretti blinked.
Erdin's gaze was steady now.
"I tried reading your Magia signature," he said. "Twice."
"And?"
"Nothing."
A pause.
"No alignment, or any Magia classification, nor detectable output structure."
Erdin tilted his head slightly.
"So I'll ask directly."
His voice lowered. "What are you?"
Moretti smiled faintly.
"Someone who prefers not to be categorized."
He was about to continue…
A scream cut through everything, the shift was immediate.
Glass shattered outside. People ran. The atmosphere fractured into urgency.
Erdin stood instantly, his focus already sharpening.
Through the window… the creature moved.
Not just fast, incorrectly fast. Its movement displaced air in violent bursts, each step cracking the pavement beneath it. When it swung its arm, the pressure alone tore through part of a building, sending debris outward without direct contact.
"…That's excessive," Erdin muttered.
The creature lunged.
A woman stood frozen in its path.
Erdin's hand lifted, Magia forming instinctively.
"Don't." Moretti's voice cut through him.
"If you push your output right now, you won't recover."
Erdin didn't lower his hand.
A snap echoed, Decisive.
The woman vanished.
The creature's strike followed through…
…and missed entirely, not by chance. It simply did not connect.
Someone stood there now, between cause and outcome.
He looked young, around Erdin's age, maybe younger, but carried himself with a quiet certainty that didn't match his appearance. His hair was a muted red, not bright but subdued, falling in layered strands that framed his face in a way that felt deliberate without trying. His eyes were dark… black, focused.
His posture was relaxed, too relaxed. Like the situation had already been resolved.
He exhaled lightly, glancing at the displaced space where the woman had been.
"…That would've been inconvenient."
The creature turned toward him, the air shifted.
Erdin felt it immediately.
Divana.
Not just probability manipulation, outcome authority.
The creature attacked again, direct strike. Guaranteed but it didn't land… it was denied.
The ground split beneath the force of its movement, shockwaves rippling outward, cracking structures and distorting the air. Another VEIL operative appeared, coordinating evacuation, moving civilians out with trained efficiency.
The red-haired boy barely moved.
"You're making this louder than it needs to be" he said, almost bored.
The creature roared, energy gathering in its mouth, compressing into something unstable.. dense enough to level an entire block.
Erdin's eyes narrowed. "That output… the radius."
"Yeah," Moretti muttered. "That's bad."
The boy lifted his hand slightly, Snapped and reality obeyed.
A boundary formed, absolute. The blast fired and instead of spreading, it compressed inward, folding into itself as if space had been instructed to reject expansion.
Then… it reversed.
The energy collapsed back onto its source, consuming it completely.
Silence followed.
The creature was gone, removed.
The boy exhaled again, almost lazily, and snapped once more.
The damaged environment corrected itself.. structures restoring, debris reversing, fractures sealing as if the event had never occurred.
"…Who is that?" Erdin asked.
Moretti didn't look away. "Ace."
A pause.
"VEIL's new trump card."
Erdin's gaze sharpened slightly. "…for something like that?"
Moretti nodded. "Yeah."
Erdin looked back at where the creature had been.
"…That's too much."
Moretti didn't respond immediately. "…their system really has changed," he said finally.
And somewhere beyond perception, something watched through absence.
And for the briefest moment… Erdin felt it.
Something… that did not belong to any system he understood, something that did not align.