Phong woke like he'd lost a wrestling match with a freight train.
Every muscle protested.
Joints filed complaints.
Some places he hadn't known had nerves were now drafting legal briefs.
He groaned into the pillow.
Last night…
They hadn't meant to. Not exactly.
But the world had felt unstable.
A red-text boss had descended.
Guilds had been erased.
The news had shown fire swallowing people whole.
Even the air had carried urgency.
It was the same urgency that once pushed Dominic to one knee, ring shaking in his hand, after a near-death dive.
When the world feels fragile, you reach for something solid.
They had.
Now his back reminded him, in perfect detail, that Alex wasn't only warmth and quiet laughter.
She was a Level 29 Mind Blade.
Stats stacked miles above a Level 1 farmer with a dead EXP bar.
He shifted.
Instant regret.
Alex stirred beside him.
"You alive?" Her voice came low, lazy.
"Debatable."
She rolled onto her side and propped her head on her arm, studying him.
"You're dramatic."
"I'm a shroom and you're a mama polar bear," he rasped. "Stats-wise."
She smirked. "Skill issue."
He groaned again.
She laughed softly and leaned over to kiss his cheek.
He blinked, then hesitated.
"Can I… brush your hair?"
She frowned at him at first. "Now?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
He forced himself upright, moving like an elderly man negotiating stairs.
"My uncle used to brush my aunt's hair every morning."
Alex blinked.
"He complained the whole time," Phong added, trying to sound lighter than he felt. "Said it was too long. Too much maintenance."
"And she?"
"She pretended not to hear him."
Alex studied him for a beat.
Then she held out the brush without a word.
She shifted to sit by the tiny attic window.
Across the street, the church clock tower stood unmoving and solemn.
Phong sat behind her carefully, wincing once, and began.
Slow strokes.
Gentle.
A steady rhythm.
The same rhythm he'd watched as a kid from the staircase.
Below them, the street was not normal.
Cars lined the curb.
People dressed in black.
Neighbors clustered in quiet groups.
Funerals.
Communal. Multiple.
The Phoenix hadn't only burned through Floor Two.
It had burned through families.
Through small communities.
Through futures.
The morning news kept looping downstairs, muffled but relentless.
Ten thousand confirmed fatalities worldwide.
Ten thousand.
To politicians at the top, it barely registered. A rounding error in a world of eight billion.
To the people gathered across the street, it was everything.
Crying carried faintly through the glass.
Raw. Unfiltered.
Alex's shoulders went still.
Phong kept brushing.
Slow.
Steady.
He rested his chin against the top of her head.
This room, this tiny attic with its slanted ceiling and roof window, had once been his whole universe.
Now it felt smaller than ever.
Alex's phone kept streaming updates. Both had forgotten to exit YouTube after getting lost in last night heat of passion.
They weren't good.
China had lost contact with Yue Ting. Their Level 35 Taoist Master. Their first confirmed footing on Floor Three.
Communication blackout after the Phoenix rampage across Floor Two.
Speculation spiralled.
Rescue teams couldn't stabilize the region.
Major guilds consolidated.
Corporate sponsors tightened their grip.
Alex closed her eyes briefly.
"She was strong," she said quietly.
"Yes."
"Doesn't matter."
He didn't argue.
Strength didn't shield you from anomaly-tier chaos.
Then celebrity faces filled the broadcast.
Fundraisers. Livestreams. Gala events.
"Support the victims."
Alex's jaw tightened.
"They're building brand equity," she muttered.
Phong didn't disagree.
Grief, commodified.
Tragedy, monetized.
Then another face appeared.
Polished. Measured.
Josh's father.
The man with immaculate hair and a PR team that probably slept in rotating shifts.
He stood behind a podium and spoke about innovation, investment, and launching a "Boss Early Warning System."
Predictive analytics.
Risk mitigation.
National security.
He delivered it like a promise.
Then the resigned senator appeared beside him.
They shook hands and smiled for cameras.
A huge investment announced on the spot.
Optics repaired in real time.
Yesterday's reckless leadership turned into today's philanthropic pioneer.
Phong watched without expression.
"He's too good."
Alex tilted her head slightly.
"You mean his media team?"
Phong shrugged. "Fair."
The system aboveground also had its own kind of Shifting. It repositioned influential man from one position of power to another.
Phong finished brushing her hair and set the brush aside.
He leaned forward and wrapped his arms gently around her shoulders.
Alex leaned back into him like it was the easiest thing in the world.
The clock tower chimed.
Slow.
Measured.
Across the street, mourners lowered a coffin.
Then another.
The air felt heavy.
Not dramatic. Just thick.
Ten thousand.
A statistic in headlines.
A world-ending loss in living rooms.
Phong rested his chin against her shoulder.
"We can't fix this," Alex said softly.
"No."
"We can't out-level it either."
"Not in the next decade, no."
She let out a long breath.
"But at least the choices we make now are ours."
He nodded.
Mountain.
Lake.
Camp Stymphalian.
Names given to Bruno and Nyx.
Barbecue night.
This attic room.
Brushing hair.
Small anchors against catastrophe.
The Phoenix was a red-text anomaly.
Unpredictable. World-altering.
But here, in a small room overlooking a church clock tower, they held something steady.
Not heroics.
Not politics.
Just presence.
Alex turned her head slightly.
"Do you regret it?"
"Last night?"
"Yes."
Phong didn't hesitate.
"No."
Alex nodded once.
"Good."
They stayed there a long time.
Watching. Listening. Holding.
Outside, the world mourned.
Inside, they decided quietly not to let catastrophe dictate everything.
Not their grief.
Not their love.
Not the shape of what they would grow next.
---
The house woke slowly.
A coffee machine started downstairs.
Floorboards creaked.
The news kept looping tragedy footage on mute.
Dominic came halfway up the attic stairs, paused in the doorway, and took one look at Phong.
He stopped.
Phong had a different kind of stillness now.
Not exhaustion.
Not drifting.
Grounded.
Dominic narrowed his eyes, then grinned.
"…Well."
Phong blinked. "What."
Dominic stepped in and clapped his shoulder.
"You graduated."
Alex raised a brow from where she sat cross-legged on the floor.
"From what."
Dominic waved a hand like it was obvious.
"Boy to man."
Phong choked. "Can we not—"
Dominic laughed and retreated downstairs.
Two minutes later, the unmistakable sound of aluminum rustled against thin plastic.
Dominic came back holding two Pepsi cans.
He cracked them open with ceremony.
"To growth."
Phong stared at the can.
"You're celebrating my personal development with soda."
"Soda? You wounded me. PepsupremaSi is precisely what the doctor ordered for events like this."
Alex leaned against the wall, amused.
"Romantic."
Dominic shoved the can into Phong's hand anyway.
"Drink."
They clinked cans.
Janet's voice floated up from the kitchen.
"Before you celebrate too much, we need to talk."
They went downstairs.
The TV still ran low-volume coverage of the Phoenix aftermath.
Casualty maps.
Red clusters blinking across continents.
Janet stood by the table with her arms crossed.
"We don't go down immediately."
Dominic blinked. "I was just thinking—"
"No." She held up a hand. "Media eyes are everywhere right now."
"Government agencies are scrambling."
"Sponsors are desperate to prove relevance."
"If anyone notices an independent team operating cleanly while guilds collapse…"
She let it hang.
They didn't need the rest.
Dominic grinned despite himself. "That's my wife."
Janet didn't smile.
"Lay low."
Alex nodded. "Agreed."
The morning had started warm.
Grounded.
Personal.
Tragedy had already stained it.
Then it got worse.
The news switched segments.
From funeral footage to "rising young leaders in the diver community."
The screen filled with a familiar face.
Josh.
Same haircut. Same tailored jacket. Same calibrated expression of grief.
He sat across from a sympathetic anchor.
Behind him, a blurred backdrop of team insignias and sponsor logos.
"Your guild suffered losses recently," the anchor said gently.
Josh nodded, solemn.
"We did."
They mentioned the friend who'd died during the troll chaos, mauled in the confusion.
Even in death, the friend got squeezed for one last ounce of narrative value.
Josh tightened his jaw just enough.
"It's hard," he said.
"But we'll honor them by continuing."
"Will this change anything?"
Josh leaned forward, voice steady and righteous.
"If it did, it gave us another target. First the trolls. Now the Monstrous Phoenix. We won't be reckless. We know our limits. I will not let anyone else die in vain."
He lifted his chin.
"One day, America will conquer the Monstrous Phoenix and prove we're the best country in the world."
The camera cut to highlight reels.
Clean footage. Hero angles. Polished edits.
"We'll continue their mission," Josh said. "That win against the Phoenix will be for them."
Phong watched without blinking.
Alex's fingers curled against the couch.
Then the segment pivoted, seamless.
A clip of Josh's father at a press conference.
Boss Early Warning System.
New investors.
Strategic alliances.
Then Josh again.
Young. Determined. Brave.
Father and son.
Public safety.
Youth leadership.
Tragedy repurposed into momentum.
Funding secured.
Compassion harvested.
Dominic's jaw tightened.
Janet's eyes sharpened.
Alex leaned back slowly.
"Their PR team is criminally underpaid."
Phong glanced at her.
She didn't look away from the screen.
"Honestly," she added, dry as dust, "turning two spoiled Humpty Dumpties into media sweethearts like that?"
She shook her head.
"That's Olympic-level image control on top of gold-medal mental gymnastics… or self-brainwashing. Pick one."
Dominic snorted. "Humpty Dumpties."
"They fall upward," Alex said.
Janet muted the TV.
The silence that followed weighed more than the funerals.
Not because of the Phoenix.
Not because of the dead.
Because of the machine behind the screen.
Josh didn't look haunted.
He didn't look like someone who'd watched a friend die.
He looked managed.
Strategically emotional.
Phong felt something familiar move in his chest.
Not rage.
Not revenge.
Clarity.
The world above the dungeon could be as ruthless as the one below.
Different monsters.
Better suits.
Cleaner fire.
Dominic leaned back.
"They'll get funding."
"Yes," Janet said.
"They'll get sympathy."
"Probably."
"And they'll push harder."
"No sane person doubts that," Dominic muttered.
Alex looked at Phong.
"You okay?"
Phong nodded once.
"I expected it."
That was the difference now.
Months ago, this would've lit him on fire.
Now he saw the pattern, recognized the machination, and refused to let it steer him.
Janet shut the TV off completely.
"No dungeon dives."
"No public appearances."
"We let the storm move elsewhere."
Dominic stretched.
"Barbecue leftovers for lunch?"
Alex laughed softly despite herself. "Yeah."
Phong stood and walked to the kitchen window.
Across the street, black-clad families still gathered.
The church doors opened and closed.
Slow. Patient.
The world grieved.
The world spun.
And on a screen, two men had turned catastrophe into opportunity.
Alex slipped her hand into his.
Dominic cracked open another Pepsi like punctuation.
Janet started slicing vegetables with controlled precision.
Life didn't pause for hypocrisy.
It didn't stop for propaganda.
It moved.
And so would they.
Just not loudly.
Not recklessly.
Not on someone else's stage.
Camp Stymphalian had learned to survive between mountain and lake.
They could survive between tragedy and narrative too.
And Phong, Mudskipper between worlds, no longer felt like the boy watching from the attic window.
He felt like someone choosing where to stand.