Sitting on a bench across from a building, a gentleman observed in refined attire. He wore a black top hat, a long coat over a waistcoat, and held a cane, sipping his coffee.
The gentleman dropped the cup onto the bench, stood, and brushed himself off. He crossed closer to the building.
It was Percy moving toward the entrance. At his left stood a man dressed like a butler, holding a briefcase and an umbrella—Klaus. He stretched a hand forward, directing Percy to climb the stairs.
At the front door, Klaus knocked twice.
Both of them were slightly out of place, surprised—this was exactly what Lady Ophelia Ravenscroft had instructed. They were here simply to enter the house and place the briefcase, as if they had forgotten it.
The door opened. A lady with red hair shifted her stance and said,
"Good morning, sirs. How may I help this warm visit?"
Klaus adopted the posture of a refined butler and replied,
"Oh, madam. I am Klaus Ravenwood. Beside me is my humble master."
He continued, "We are here to discuss matters regarding the store of your husband."
The red-haired lady glanced around before letting them inside. She offered them long chairs.
"May I offer you gentlemen anything?" she asked.
Refusing would mark them as suspicious. Klaus answered,
"Just a cup of tea, thank you."
With a gentle smile, the red-haired lady turned and passed the stairs and the door separating the kitchen from the parlor, preparing the tea.
Both of them took the first potion at once. That alone had already opened the door to their spirituality.
Now only the second potion remained. The process would not be gentle—they had to wait.
Orin's mind, however, wandered. His gaze flicked around the house, noting the unsettling vibe. Through the faint layers of illusion, he could see clearly—more than the red-haired lady herself.
His attention shifted to the creature silently following her, its presence barely perceptible yet undeniably there.
Realizing that the simple job they had come to do had turned into something far bigger than expected, Klaus could not hide the excitement in his eyes—though he tried to think of something else.
Klaus placed the briefcase in the corner near the chair. The mission was already successful. Rising to leave in a rush, both of them stood up.
But the red-haired lady was already finished making the tea.
Holding a tray with two cups, she approached them, turning them toward the chairs to sit. The tea was ready, but a brief beam of light cutting through the window caught their attention—glinting off the briefcase.
She stared at it, noting the heavy spirituality emanating from it.
A smile curved her lips. "What is that?"
Klaus, distracted, barely noticed. "Oh… do not pay it any attention."
Orin Morvane, however, acted immediately. He lunged forward, kicking the table and sending the cup of tea flying.
Klaus, still holding a cup and about to drink, turned sharply to Percy.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"No time to explain—run!" Percy—Orin's body moving instinctively—shouted before Klaus could react or question him further.
The gentle warmth of the red-haired lady shifted. She moved faster than expected, snatching the briefcase with a loud, commanding voice.
Now understanding the danger, Klaus jumped from the chair.
"Run! Run!" he shouted, and both of them sprinted, climbing the stairs, seeking a way out. Every attempt—every door, every window—was suddenly blocked or shut tight.
"What was that? How did she know?" Klaus yelled.
Orin glanced back and replied, in the same measured words Percy would have used, "I do not know."
For reasons neither could comprehend, the entire house shifted around them. Their hiding spots disappeared as the walls expanded, dragging them into a single, vast room.
The space stretched wider and longer, a void expanding inside what should have been a house.
Klaus and Percy froze, fear gripping them as they turned. Before their eyes, the room merged with an immense ocean. Waves stretched endlessly beneath them, yet the roof and clouds remained above. The impossible scene—the merging of house and sea—defied everything they knew.
It was unbelievable.
No time to wait. No time to waste. With only a brief knowledge of what he'd experienced so far, Klaus quickly drank the last potion in his hand. He grabbed the revolver with both palms, crushed the empty bottle, and fired straight ahead.
The red-haired lady stood afar, watching.
Orin Morvane froze in place, struggling to comprehend what was happening. His eyes flicked back toward the briefcase—still there, untouched. Without hesitation, he sprinted straight for it.
That briefcase was no ordinary object; it was the secret holy artifact from the church, the one they had brought to the house.
Reaching for it, a small, writhing mass of tentacles—an octopus-like appendage—snatched at him, dragging him into the ocean. The water transformed into a viscous mix, as though liquid and flesh had fused. Percy's body could not withstand the pressure, forcing Orin to desperately think of a way out.
Klaus, still distracted, continued firing at the red-haired lady—not realizing he had exhausted his last bullet.
After wasting every shot and missing, he jumped back, away from the red-haired lady, his hands trembling, the tension coiling tight in his chest.
Forcing his hand free from the crushing, liquid pressure and the writhing octopus dragging him under, Orin seized the potion he still held and drank it.
A faint whisper of words left his lips as he enchanted a spell:
"Key to madness and power, gate to secret and knowledge. He who stands before wisdom called Death, grant me a connection to the spirituality of the world."
For a moment, nothing seemed to change. The pressure of the liquid, the octopus, the dragging force—everything remained, suffocating, relentless.
Then, as if time itself had stopped, he found himself standing in a fragment of space. He turned his head and looked down at his legs—burning red roses consumed them, petals smoldering and bleeding into the void.
He looked up, through the infinite stretch of space, and saw an eye staring directly into the world, unblinking, unyielding.
Orin shifted back, losing his balance, and fell into the deeper void. He landed before a mass of lifeless bodies, standing atop a cosmic deity, its presence immense, impossible to comprehend.
He turned slightly, and the void twisted again—giants with distorted, contorted bodies moved across the space. Nine planets orbited around the fragment of the world he was on, a fragmented moon hung impossibly close, and the sun blazed at the edge of everything.
There were no borders—only endless oceans, unbroken and infinite.
Breathing through a whisper, he said, "What is this?"
The twitch of his fingers, the quiver of his lips, the sweat sliding down his face—they marked the impossibility of it all.
Without realizing, he shifted again, seeing the entire multiverse entangled into a single incomprehensible form, each universe weaving into the next.
Then, just as suddenly, he snapped back into Percy's body. For a brief, dizzying moment, he had been removed from life itself, from the Mechanism. This was beyond the manuscript he had been chasing—it was something else entirely.
The crushing pressure was gone, his spirituality restored.
He leapt away from the tight, suffocating space. The octopus vanished as he drew his revolver, firing rapidly. The creature disappeared in a burst of dark fluid, and Orin ran straight ahead, the void behind him dissolving into the familiar yet chaotic reality of the house.