The white light cleared, and the group hit the ground hard in a crowded city square. The transition was violent, and as they scrambled to their feet, Lustra collapsed. The green aura around them flickered once and vanished.
"I'm empty," Lustra gasped, her face pale. "My mana is completely drained."
The protection was gone. Instantly, the heat of Toya's real-world fever slammed into them like an open furnace. It felt like standing inside a pre-heated oven. Bellona's skin began to hiss, and sweat poured down her face. "I'm a War Goddess... I can take... the heat..." she muttered, though she was swaying on her feet.
Asobi looked around, her purple mist thinning in the scorching air.
"It's hot enough to boil water in here," she whispered.
Ivory checked the sandglass, her hand trembling.
"One hour left. Just sixty minutes until Toya's physical body gives up. We are so close to the Core, I can feel it pulsing!"
They pushed through a narrow alley and burst into the town square. A massive crowd was gathered around the gallows. Haruto's heart stopped. Hanging from the ropes were a middle-aged man and woman.
"Toya!" the lead guard roared.
"Show yourself, or they die! We know you're hiding in the shadows of this city!"
Toya's mother looked out at the crowd, her voice strong despite the rope around her neck.
"Don't come out, Toya! Our lives were over the day the palace burned. Don't throw yours away for us!"
"Live your life, son!" his father shouted. "Live it on your own terms!"
Haruto watched, his mind racing. "Wait... the jumps," he muttered.
"School at 3-5, Garden at 8-10, Dungeon at 13-15... then he should be nearly 18 , this isn't just a memory. This is practically very recent. He did something recently—something huge that made him a fugitive."
Suddenly, the air hummed with a terrifying frequency. A streak of blinding white light descended from the sky like a falling star. It was moving so fast the world seemed to freeze.
Slice.
The ropes holding Toya's parents were severed in a heartbeat. Before the guards could even draw their weapons, the white light touched the platform.
The white light didn't just fade—it condensed. The glowing streak slowed down and solidified into a humanoid form, flickering with the same unstable energy that had been burning through the mind-scape.
But it wasn't Toya.
As the light took shape, a clear, melodic female voice echoed through the square.
"Are you Toya's parents?" she asked, her tone both urgent and curiously detached.
Before the stunned couple could even nod, she raised her hands, scanning the surrounding area with a mechanical precision. "Confirmed."
Without a second's delay, she scooped both of Toya's parents into her arms as if they weighed nothing.
"Mission objective secured. Thank you for your cooperation," she said to the confused crowd—and then, with a deafening CRACK of broken sound barriers, she ignited into a streak of silver-white light and vanished into the sky.
"What in the hell was that?"Bellona shouted, shielding her eyes from the afterglow. "That wasn't a human. No one moves like that! That was... pure energy."
Haruto watched the empty sky where the light had disappeared, his brow furrowed. He turned to his team, but noticed Asobi looking pale. Her purple mist was vibrating erratically, her eyes wide with a flicker of recognition.
"Wait..." Asobi whispered, her voice trembling. "That signature... it felt almost like—" She stopped herself, shaking her head quickly. "Never mind. It's impossible."
Haruto caught her gaze. "Asobi? You know who or what that was?"
"I... I can't be sure," she muttered, pulling her mist closer to her body.
Before Haruto could press her for more, the ground beneath them began to liquefy. The city square, the gallows, and the screaming guards all started to dissolve into gray static. The intense heat they had been fighting suddenly vanished, replaced by a terrifying, hollow chill.
As the white light faded, the group materialized in a void of absolute darkness. The air here didn't just feel hot; it felt heavy, like they were standing at the bottom of a boiling ocean.
Lustra was nearly doubled over.
"The heat... it's spiking again! It's coming from the center!"
Bellona slammed her shield into the dark ground, her face drenched in sweat.
"I can take it! My skin is burning, but I won't move an inch!"
Asobi looked restless, her purple mist swirling erratically as she tried to make sense of the shifting data around them. Meanwhile, Ivory was staring at her sandglass, her expression tense as she wiped sweat from her forehead.
Haruto, however, was just trying to keep his cool. Man, this feels exactly like those nights when I was stuck without the AC, he thought, trying to stay grounded. But at least that doesn't come with a tragic backstory. He realized that the Mana Fever wasn't just a glitch; it was a physical manifestation of everything Toya had been through.
"Look!"Ivory shouted, pointing toward the center of the room.
There, suspended in the darkness, was a massive White Aura Sphere. It was pure, radiant, and the source of the suffocating heat. "That's it!" Ivory confirmed.
"That's Toya's Mana Core! And we've actually made good time—we still have over 40 minutes left!"
"Finally!"Lustra exhaled, relieved.
"Let's get to work," Bellona added, stepping forward.
But just as they moved, a jet-black cloud erupted from the white sphere. The group instantly dropped into their fighting stances—Bellona raising her shield, Lustra charging her remaining mana—but Asobi stepped back, calmly pulling out a cigarette and taking a slow, deep puff of purple smoke.
The black cloud solidified into a perfect replica of Toya.
"Toya? How are you here?" Haruto asked, stunned.
"I am not the Toya you know" the figure replied, his voice hollow and cold.
"I am his Consciousness."
"Look, we don't have time for a long intro," Haruto snapped.
"Just tell me—are you a friend or a foe?"
"My duty is to protect this Core," the Shadow replied.
"A Core that you have disturbed with your presence."
"We're here to fix it, you idiot!" Haruto yelled.
"I cannot let you touch the Core," the Shadow said, his eyes glowing with a dark light.
Bellona didn't wait. She stepped into the front, her sword glowing with golden fire.
"Fine then. We fight. This is my territory!"
But to everyone's surprise, the Shadow Toya actually stepped back, raising his hands in a defensive gesture. A strange, knowing smirk crossed his face.
"Wait," the Shadow said, looking directly at Haruto.
"I know who they are. You told me about them, didn't you? They are Goddesses. Any one of them could kill me in a heartbeat and erase this consciousness forever."
The room went silent as the Shadow's gaze shifted from Bellona to Haruto. He didn't look like he wanted to fight anymore—he looked like he was testing them.
The atmosphere in the dark void grew even heavier, the heat from the white sphere pulsing like a dying star. Haruto stepped forward, his eyes locked on the Shadow.
"What do you want?" Haruto asked, his voice steady.
"If you know who we are, then you know we're here to save you."
The Shadow Toya let out a dry, hollow laugh.
"Save me? Why? Why do you want to 'fix' me so badly? Just let me go. Let me die."
"Are you kidding me?" Haruto snapped.
"You're 18 years old! Your whole life is ahead of you. Don't talk like it's over."
The Shadow tilted his head, his red eyes flickering with a cold, ancient exhaustion.
"You don't even know half of it. You've seen a few clips, a few memories, and now you think you understand my life?I don't know if I've been cursed by whatever God is running this world. Every single time I try to end it—every time I'm ready to close my eyes—someone 'saves' me. And every time, I just end up running again. It's a loop. I'm tired of being rescued."
Haruto felt a pang of frustration. He remembered the small boy in the garden, the one who had a reason to fight.
"Don't say that. What about the flower? Do you remember the crystalline rose the Princess gave you? The promise you made to become the strongest?"
The Shadow froze. For a second, the black static around his form stabilized. Then, his voice dropped to a whisper so cold it made the boiling air feel like ice.
"Men only get flowers at their funeral, Haruto."
The line hit Haruto like a physical blow. The silence that followed was absolute. Even Bellona lowered her sword, her fierce expression turning into one of grim realization. Asobi took a long drag of her cigarette, the purple smoke lingering in the air like a shroud.
Haruto stood there, paralyzed by the sheer weight of that sentence. He realized then that this wasn't just a "Consciousness" guarding a Core—this was the part of Toya that had weaponized his own trauma. He wasn't trying to fight them with swords; he was trying to dominate them with his despair, making them feel as hopeless as he did.
The Shadow didn't vanish immediately. Instead, the black static around him began to settle into a solid, solemn form. The coldness in the air didn't lift, but the hostility changed into something resembling a final, desperate dignity.
"I can see it in your eyes, Haruto," the Shadow whispered, his voice no longer echoing. "
"You actually want to fix this 'core.' I respect that. But a problem this deep... it doesn't just go away without a price."
Ivory checked the sandglass—it was glowing a deep, warning red.
"Haruto, we have to hurry! The Core is reaching critical mass!"
The Shadow raised a hand, stopping Bellona before she could lunge.
"Wait. I will let you save him. I will let you link your blood to the Core. But I have one request—a binding contract. If you refuse, I will collapse this entire mind-scape right now, and we all die together."
"Speak," Haruto said, his jaw tight. "We don't have much time."
"When you leave this place," the Shadow said, his eyes locking onto Haruto's with an intensity that felt like a physical weight,
"every single memory you have seen here—the school, the garden, the dungeon, the Princess—it will all be deleted. You will wake up in the real world, and you will remember none of this. To you, Toya will just be the friend he has always been. You will know his strength, but you will never again know his shame."
The entire team froze in shock.
"What?!"Lustra cried out, tears fresh in her eyes. "After everything we saw? After how much we cried for him? You want us to just... forget?"
Ivory gripped her staff, her voice trembling with professional hurt.
"This is his life's data! To delete it is to lose the context of who he is! How can we help him if we don't remember why he's hurting?"
The Shadow's expression didn't change.
"Because this memory is my strength as long as it stays within me. The moment it leaves this mind-scape and enters yours, it becomes my ultimate weakness. I cannot allow anyone—not even a god—to walk the earth knowing how much I was broken. That is my price for survival."
Haruto looked at his team. He saw the pain on Lustra's face and the frustration in Bellona's eyes. But then he looked at the flickering White Sphere—the heart of a boy who just wanted to be strong enough to keep a promise.
"Fine," Haruto said, his voice echoing with authority.
"I accept. His dignity is worth more than our memories."
"Hauto!" Bellona started to protest, but Haruto raised a hand.
"He's right, Bellona. We came here to save his life, not to collect his secrets. If forgetting is the only way he can look us in the eye tomorrow, then we forget."
The Shadow Toya bowed his head slightly. "Very well. The contract is sealed."
He snapped his fingers, and a wave of dark, shimmering energy washed over Haruto, Asobi and the Goddesses. It felt like a cold mist passing through their brains.
"This truth stays with me," the Shadow whispered as his form began to dissolve into the white light of the Core.
"Now, save him. Before the 'System' realizes you were ever here."
With a final flicker of black static, the Shadow vanished, leaving the path to the pulsing White Sphere completely open.
As the Shadow Toya vanished into the static, the silence he left behind was terrifying. All eyes turned toward the Mana Core, but instead of stabilizing, the white sphere began to expand violently. It wasn't just glowing anymore; it was roaring like a miniature sun.
"What's happening?!"Haruto yelled, shielding his eyes from the blinding radiance.
"Why is it getting bigger? I thought we made a deal!"
Ivory scrambled to check her sandglass, her face pale with confusion.
"I don't know! We still have 30 minutes on the clock, but the internal pressure is spiking! The Core is rejecting the vacuum left by the Shadow—it's losing its shape!"
Bellona slammed her hands down, her body reflecting the chaotic light.
"We're out of time to talk!, it's now or never! If that thing gets any bigger, it'll wipe out this entire mental sector!"
"Tell me what to do!" Haruto shouted over the hum of the energy.
"The blood-link!"Ivory cried out.
"You have to introduce your Admin Blood to the center of the heat! It's the only 'Code' strong enough to stabilize a Level 99 fever!"
Haruto looked at his hand, then at the pulsing sphere. "How do I...?"
Bellona didn't wait. She drew her divine blade in a silver flash.
"Hold out your hand. This is going to sting, but it'll save his life."
With a swift, precise movement, Bellona grazed the tip of Haruto's finger with her sword. A single, dark crimson drop of blood welled up.
Haruto stepped forward, his heart hammering against his ribs. The heat was scorching his skin, but he pushed through it, extending his hand until his fingertip made contact with the surface of the roaring White Core.
Tshhh.
The moment the drop of blood touched the mana, the screaming sound stopped. A ripple of deep red energy flowed through the white sphere, turning the chaotic fire into a calm, steady glow. The "corrupt file" was being overwritten by Haruto's presence.
Suddenly, a massive shockwave of Pure White Light exploded from the center of the room. It wasn't hot this time—it was cool, like a breeze after a long summer day.
Haruto felt the memory of the dungeon, the Princess, and the palace start to slip away from his mind like sand through his fingers. He tried to hold onto them for a second, but the contract was absolute.
Everything went white.