Arthur stared, his breath catching in his throat. The room gleamed an antiseptic white, every surface reflecting harsh light that made his eyes water. A man in a pristine white suit sat behind a desk directly before him, his posture unnaturally rigid.
"Nice to meet you, King Arthur," the man said, his voice sharp and commanding, each word clipped with military precision. "I guess it's finally time to have our talk. Please, sit down."
Arthur scanned the room, his pulse quickening. A white chair materialized—one he hadn't noticed before, perfectly camouflaged against the sterile walls. The realization unsettled him. How long had it been there? He walked over and lowered himself into it, his muscles tense, his eyes locked on the man who watched him with an expression he couldn't quite read.
"Now that you've seated yourself, we shall begin." The man pulled out what appeared to be paper—completely black with white text that seemed to writhe and pulse across its surface like living things. He thrust it toward Arthur with an aggressive snap of his wrist, the motion almost violent in its suddenness.
Arthur snatched it, his fingers trembling slightly as he glared at the letters that burned into his vision, searing themselves into his memory.
*Dear King Arthur,*
*This is the Black Phoenix Kingdom. We have unfortunate news to tell you. Because we cannot come to you directly due to circumstances we will not disclose here, we are sending this letter to warn you about the Blood Core. Their forces are growing in number. We wish to team up with you and your kingdom to stop them. We must knock down this force before it becomes too powerful, before we are unable to stop it. Please reply to this letter as fast as possible.*
Arthur's mind raced, trying to process the implications. "What? The Blood Core? What is—"
But before he could finish, the five minutes expired. The system had warned him about the memories of this world downloading into his brain, which would cause immense pain—even death. He'd thought he had more time. He'd been wrong.
*No. Are the five minutes already up?*
Before Arthur could speak another word, his body convulsed as if seized by invisible hands. Agony exploded through him. His skull felt like it would split in half, pressure building behind his eyes until he thought they might burst. His eyes became bloodshot instantly, the whites flooding with crimson. Blood leaked from his eyes, nose, mouth, ears—every pore of his body, including his skin, weeping red.
The pain was beyond anything he'd ever experienced. It transcended physical sensation and became something else entirely—a violation of his very existence.
*I'm going to die. I'm going to die here.*
Arthur thought about his life—everything that led to this moment. The void that had swallowed him. His mother's face, fading in his memory. The academy where he'd barely begun to find his place. All of it flashed before him in fragmented images. He was going to die in a world he'd just entered, a world he barely understood.
Then a thought crossed his mind in pure panic, cutting through even the pain: if he died in this world, would he die in the outside world as well? After all, this was simply the void conjuring up a world for him to enjoy and grow stronger in. That made him think about the real world, the academy—all of it. If he died here, would his body just rot away and wither in his bed while his roommates slept nearby, oblivious? If that happened, the world would end. The Church of the Black Serpent would win.
The realization hit him harder than the physical pain. He had never told his roommates about the Church of the Black Serpent. He'd forgotten to talk to them about that threat, too caught up in his own struggles. He hadn't told them about the system either. He'd told them nothing of real importance. The void, his life—he'd spoken to them, of course, shared casual conversations and surface-level details, but they basically knew nothing about him. Nothing that mattered.
*I'm going to die, and the Church of the Black Serpent is going to destroy the world. My quest of destroying them within two years will fail.*
His void system—who knew what would happen to it? And this new system as well. He wondered what would happen to both systems—the one in this world and the one back in his old one. Would they simply cease to exist? Would they find new hosts? The questions swirled through his fragmenting consciousness.
Arthur opened his eyes—or tried to. Everything was red. The entire floor was covered with his blood, a growing pool that reflected the white ceiling above. More still leaked from his pores, his body betraying him in the most fundamental way. He was being drained dry, his life essence spilling out onto the pristine white floor.
The man in the white suit looked at Arthur, and his eyes widened in alarm, his professional composure finally cracking. He immediately rushed out of the room, his footsteps echoing in Arthur's fading awareness. Minutes later—or was it seconds?—doctors burst in, their voices urgent but distant. Who knew if it was already too late for Arthur? Nearly all his blood had been sucked dry. Who knew if he even had brain damage? He still shook in the chair, blood pouring—surprisingly, as if he hadn't lost enough already. Still, more blood began to pour, defying all logic and medical possibility.
Eventually, Arthur's vision went black, and with it, his consciousness slipped away into darkness.
---
Soul stood in the middle of the dormitory room, staring at both his roommates with his characteristic calm. Kai still slept, his red armor and gauntlets on at all times, as if he expected battle even in dreams. Arthur slept peacefully—but if only Soul knew what was happening within his head, the catastrophe unfolding in another world entirely.
His third roommate, Fay, was gone. Her armor, her blades—it seemed like she'd just left for training or some personal errand. But he couldn't have known that what was happening to her would be just as catastrophic as what was happening to Arthur. The dormitory held more secrets than any of them realized.
Soul closed his eyes, his breathing steady and controlled. After minutes of deep concentration, he appeared in a black void, the familiar darkness welcoming him like an old friend.
*All right, let's see if the condition is finally done.*
After saving Cato, Soul walked toward the ten-year-old girl still unconscious on the void floor, her small form looking even more fragile in this endless darkness. After her procedure—saving Cato from the sickness that had nearly turned him into an animal—she had passed out from the amount of energy she'd used. The strain had been too much for her young body.
Now that Soul thought about it, he wondered how Dormitory 15 was doing. The thought nagged at him despite his usual detachment. He wondered if the two girls had finally gotten free from the possession that had gripped them. He wondered if everything was normal, if Cato was okay, if Cade had finally escaped his human form, if Mina was all right. Then he began to wonder about Quill and Leo, their faces appearing in his mind unbidden. None of them knew him personally, and he didn't know them either—not really. The only people he knew were those in his dormitory room and, of course, the people within Dormitory 15. But he wondered how they were doing as well, a rare moment of genuine concern breaking through his usual reserve.
He looked down at Ellie, but her condition still hadn't improved. Her breathing remained shallow, her face pale.
*So it seems like every time she uses too much blood magic, she just goes unconscious. Are there any other conditions I have to worry about?*
Soul's expression remained as calm as ever, though a flicker of worry passed through his eyes.
*I'll have to see that later. Of course, I could ask Bill when she wakes up, but I don't even know if he would say anything. He's not exactly forthcoming with information.*
Soul closed his eyes, then finally peered back into the dorm room through his connection. His other two roommates slept soundly, unaware of the supernatural events swirling around them.
*I guess I should go to bed then.*
Soul walked toward the bed and soon laid down beside Arthur, settling into the mattress with practiced ease.
But what was happening in the void—in the other world—was also impacting Arthur's body in ways that defied natural law. His body began to shake subtly, the tremors barely visible. The tremors weren't terrible, just a simple vibration that might have been mistaken for a dream. But they showed that the world Arthur inhabited right now was clearly influencing his outside body, the barrier between realities growing dangerously thin.
Then Arthur stood up, his movements mechanical and wrong. His eyes opened to their normal color, but his expression was completely emotionless—blank in a way that Arthur's face had never been before. But how was this possible? He was in the other world, unconscious and bleeding out. He could always leave that world at any time and return to this one, but the way he was right now—that was simply impossible. The rules had changed.
Something controlled Arthur. Something else inhabited his body.
Arthur's body stood upright, rigid and unnatural, and a voice emerged—strangely feminine, robotic in a way that sent chills through the air.
"Interesting," the system said, the word dripping with cold curiosity.
The system was controlling Arthur now that he'd been knocked out. It was going to do what Arthur couldn't. It was going to complete Arthur's quests whether he liked it or not. It was going to destroy the Church of the Black Serpent—because if Arthur died, it died as well. Self-preservation drove it now, pure and simple.
Arthur—or rather, the system controlling him—the void system began to move Arthur's limbs around as if it had never inhabited a human body before. The movements were jerky, experimental, like a puppeteer learning to work new strings. After a few minutes of manipulating Arthur's body, testing the limits of flesh and bone, it finally got the hang of what it was supposed to be doing. The movements became smoother, more natural.
But then its eyes narrowed, Arthur's features twisting into an expression of recognition and threat. It sensed something—another system. The other system within the void, within the other world where Arthur now lay unconscious and bleeding. It couldn't let another system control its host. It couldn't allow such a thing. If it had to fight the other system, then it would fight. No compromise was possible.
Arthur was its only host, and the system would make that clear. No one would interfere with its host ever again. The possessiveness was absolute, primal.
"Interesting," the system said, its voice cold and threatening, each syllable sharp as a blade. "Someone dares to mess with my host."
The system walked Arthur's body back to the bed and laid him down with surprising gentleness, arranging the limbs in a natural sleeping position. It had business to do. It had fighting to do. And it had a host to reclaim from whatever force dared to challenge its claim.
If it had to appear in both worlds to protect Arthur, then it would. But no other system would do its job for it. This was personal now.