The words weren't in any language; they were the concept itself, branded into me.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the pressure vanished. The eyes turned away, dismissing me, returning to their passive observation of the sea below. The connection was severed.
The release was so abrupt I almost fell out of the air. The ghost of the pain echoed in every nerve ending, a deep, psychic ache. But beneath the pain was that new, unshakable knowledge. I knew where I was. And I knew I had been seen.
I didn't wait for another look. I turned my face upward and willed myself to ascend faster, desperate to put as much distance as possible between me and those golden, judging eyes. I had to get out. Now. And when I was embraced by the veiled sky of colour, I couldn't deny the deep-seated relief I felt.
*****************************************************************
Consciousness returned slowly, like a fog reluctantly lifting. The first thing I was aware of was a dull, all-over ache, a deep-seated exhaustion that felt like it had sunk into my bones. I was lying on something hard and cool—the familiar stone of the Slayer's statue.
The second thing I saw was Sasrir.
He was sitting a few feet away, his back against the stone, idly spinning a dagger between his fingers. It wasn't one of his shadow weapons. This was a real, physical blade, beautifully forged from a dark, starlit ore that seemed to drink the faint light. He noticed my eyes were open the moment I managed to pry them apart.
He didn't startle. He just stopped spinning the stiletto, set it down carefully, and moved over to a small, dimly burning fire pit he'd built. He speared a piece of cooked meat with a sharpened stick and came to kneel beside me.
"Don't try to move," he said, his voice low and even. "Just eat."
His arm slid behind my shoulders, helping me lean forward just enough. Every movement felt jarring and wrong, like my spine was disconnected from the rest of my body. I was a puppet with cut strings. He brought the meat to my lips, and I took a small, tentative bite. It was gamey and tough, but warm. I managed a few more bites in silence, my jaw feeling stiff and unfamiliar.
The question must have been blazing in my eyes because he didn't wait for me to try and form words.
"The Golem is dead," he stated, matter-of-factly. "I managed to shatter its core after your light show weakened it. We got the Shard."
He gestured with his chin toward the beautiful stiletto on the ground. "That's it. The Midnight Shard. A useful tool."
He fed me another piece of meat before continuing. "You, however, pushed too far. The blood loss and Essence drain sent you into systemic shock. You've been out for four days."
*Four days.* The thought tried to form, but it was slippery and hard to hold onto.
"I've been nursing you," he continued, his tone clinical, as if reading a report. "Feeding you protein-rich meat from the Scavengers we hunted. I also shattered every Soul Core we had and channelled the raw Essence directly into you to accelerate your body's natural healing processes."
He paused, and a flicker of something that wasn't quite annoyance crossed his features. "I also... bled myself on the Crucifix. It seems our connection allows my vitality to supplement yours when channelled through the Memory. It was... inefficient, but it appears to have worked."
He looked at me, his dark eyes assessing. "Your body is recovering. Your mind, however, seems to have taken its own trip. You've been... elsewhere. Muttering things that made no sense. About a sea of colors and... eyes."
He fed me the last piece of meat. "The important thing is you are back. Now, rest. We are safe for now. The hard part is over."
I did so silently like a good patient, feeling the genuine concern and worry Sasrir had for me despite his calm and collected exterior, along with...guilt?
'Ah yes, of course he would guilty. He was the one who talked me into going after the Midnight Shard after all, he probably blames himself.'
I gave him a weak, reassuring smile and closed my eyes. The thing I had experienced while I slept was surreal to even think about, but I wasn't so muddleheaded anymore to not know what had just transpired. I had, somehow, entered the Sea of Collective Subconsciousness, also known as the Mind World for short, where every sapient being is represented as an Island and the collective deeper ego of Mankind was the Sea. The Sky was a Spiritual veil that led to the Spirit World, and the entrance/exit for those not of the Visionary Pathway. Then that would make the bizarre godlike thing at the end...
Biting my lip at the thought, Sasrir put his hand on my shoulder. "What did you see in there?" he asked directly, blunt but worried.
"I think...I just had a face-to-face with the Visionary Uniqueness" I confessed, causing Sasrir's eyebrows to furrow and then widen. "You talked with it?!"
"No, no, God no," I waved my hands to explain myself. "I was stuck in the Mind World while you were nursing me, and my ego kept being bled from me by the Sea. After walking for some time, I found a Mind Island and I guess I tapped into it, because I felt like I experienced the entire life of someone. Shortly after, I was called back here, but on my way out I saw a creature that was a mix between a brain and a galaxy, with the golden Dragon eyes of a Hypnotist. After locking gazes with it...I think I got the Potion formulae for Psychiatrist and Hypnotist from it."
"...Well, that does align with what happens in the story with Klein" Sasrir admitted, but he was still watching me suspiciously. "Anything else?"
I took a shallow breath, focusing on relaying the facts, keeping the lingering, indescribable terror of that gaze locked away. "It gave me the formulae. For the Visionary Pathway. Sequence 7, Psychologist. And Sequence 6, Hypnotist."
I recited them flatly, the knowledge surfacing in my mind with cold clarity:
Sasrir absorbed the list, his expression unreadable. "Interesting. A direct download from the Uniqueness. Efficient." He then voiced the obvious, practical problem. "But these ingredients… 'Tree of Elders'? 'Mirror Dragon'? Do such things even exist here? This isn't the world these potions were designed for."
As he said it, the information in my head… shifted.
It was instantaneous. The names of the flora and fauna didn't change, but their definitions did. The knowledge rewrote itself, adapting to the new reality.
"They do," I said, the new understanding settling in. "But not like that. Not anymore." I focused, reading the updated entries now burned into my memory. "The 'Tree of Elders' is a Gloomwood Mangler, a 'Mirror Dragon' is a Reflective Wyrm, the 'Illusory Chime Tree' is a Whispering Madness Bloom, while the 'Mind Dragon' is a Thought-Devourer."
I looked at Sasrir, a plan forming from the cold, logical part of my mind that was now running the show. "The formulae have adapted. The core components are the same, but the sources are creatures of the Dream Realm. And we have the perfect tool to harvest them without the risk of spiritual contamination."
I tapped my chest where the Unshadowed Crucifix was stored within my Soul Sea. "We use this. Its purifying light can incinerate any lingering corruption or madness from the materials as we extract them. We can make these potions. We can advance."
A slight frown creased my brow. "There's just one problem. I know the names it gave me… but I don't actually recognize the Nightmare Creatures they correspond to. I know what we need to hunt, but I have no idea where to find them." I let out a short, frustrated breath. "We're going to need a bestiary. We'll have to wait until we get back to the Waking World and get our hands on a proper Academy monster encyclopaedia."
"Alright then...now onto the most important part: why the hell is the Visionary Uniqueness inside your soul?"
I was quiet for a long moment, the pieces finally clicking into a terrifying, coherent whole. The answer had been in front of us all along, written plainly in our status screens. We just hadn't understood what it truly meant.
"I think... I am the Visionary Uniqueness," I said, the words feeling both absurd and utterly true. "Not just a holder of it. I am it. Brought to life, given a human form and a human consciousness. Just like the actual Adam from the story was."