The Night Shed Forest wasn't a forest anymore. It was breaking apart.
With the executioner dead, the rules of the world completely shattered. The sky above was a broken mess—a bright, burning sun on one side, and a deep, starry night on the other. Gravity stopped working. Giant boulders, ripped-up trees, and pools of glowing water floated up into the cracked sky like trash thrown into the wind.
In the middle of the chaos, Sam sat on a floating chunk of damp dirt. His arms were wrapped tight around the unconscious Lumi.
[Do you want to exit the world Now?]
[Yes / No]
Sam ignored the prompt. He looked down at Lumi. Her breathing was weak but steady. The untouchable goddess who just cut a giant World-Serpent in half was gone. She was back to being the exhausted girl.
'She really just did that,' Sam thought, completely in awe.
'A fraction of a percent of her true power, and she erased an Apocalypse. What kind of lottery did I actually win?'
He brushed a dirty lock of platinum hair out of her face. He could leave right now. He survived. He beat the zero-percent success rate. He could press 'Yes', wake up in his 'Real' World, and leave this nightmare behind.
But there was no way he was leaving without her.
"System," Sam coughed, his throat dry from the dust.
"Will she come with me? To my real world?"
The System promt Paused for a second
[Query Acknowledged.]
[Analysis: The summoned entity 'Lumielle' is not currently bonded to the Host's soul. As an unbonded entity, she is tethered to the spatial coordinates of her summoning. The Host's summon will not be able to cross the dimensional threshold into the 'Real' world.]
Sam's stomach dropped. The air around him suddenly felt freezing cold.
"What do you mean she can't cross?" Sam demanded, panic spiking in his chest. He gripped her shoulders tighter. "I summoned her! She's with me!"
[Warning: The structural integrity of the Night Shed domain is critically failing. Total dimensional collapse is imminent.]
[Probability of the unbonded summon's survival in this collapsing, magic-less world: 0.000001%.]
Sam stared at the glowing numbers. His eyes went wide with pure horror. If he left, she would stay here. She would be trapped in a dying dimension without any mana. She would just be erased along with the dirt and the trees.
"No. No, absolutely not," Sam muttered. His mind raced. He looked at the screen, focusing on the specific words it used. "System! You said she isn't bonded! What is bonding? How do I do it?!"
[Clarification: A Soul Pact cannot be unilaterally enforced by the System. It requires explicit selection and mutual consent. There are three available types of pacts the Host may initiate.]
[1. The Absolute Pact]
[Description: This pact is traditionally utilized with entities deemed highly untrustworthy or volatile in the long term. It establishes absolute, unquestionable command over the Summon. The relationship parameters are rigidly defined as Master and Servant respectively. Free will is suppressed to maximum.]
[2. The Committed Pact]
[Description: This pact is initiated when a Summon willingly commits their ownership to the Host. It requires subservience, but allows for basic autonomy. The relationship between the Host and the Summon remains Master and Servant, it heavily dependent on how the Host chooses to treat the creature.]
[3. The Equal Pact]
[Description: A rare pact forged between beings possessing absolute, unwavering trust. The beings are bonded equally by the soul. Their life force, magical capacities, and growth will permanently synchronize with each other.]
[WARNING: There are massive demerits to this pact. Due to the total synchronization of life force, the Host and the Summon's lives become entirely tethered. If the Summon dies, the Host will instantly die. If the Host dies, the Summon will instantly die.]
[CRITICAL WARNING: Dimensional collapse in 60 seconds. The System suggests the Host and the Summon make a decision as fast as possible.]
Sam read the text, holding his breath. The ground beneath them suddenly lurched, tilting at a sharp angle. He wrapped his arms around Lumi and dug his boots into a root so they wouldn't slide off.
"Lumi," Sam said, shaking her shoulder. "Lumi, wake up. Please. You have to wake up right now."
She groaned. Her amber eye fluttered open, glassy at first. She blinked, looking up at the broken sky. She watched a giant boulder casually float up into the clouds.
"Did..." she whispered. Her voice was incredibly weak. The royal attitude was completely gone. "Did you throw a stick at it?"
Despite the countdown ticking in his head, a breathless laugh escaped Sam. "No, Lumi. You killed it. You killed the whole world. But we have a massive problem."
She slowly turned her head to look at him, wincing. "A problem?"
"System," Sam thought.
"Make the screen visible to her. I want her to make the decision."
Instantly, the blue screen shifted. It expanded so Lumi could see the bright text. She stared at it. Her eye widened as she read the brutal truth. She saw the zero-percent survival rate. She saw the world collapsing.
And then, she saw the three pacts.
A heavy wave of guilt hit Sam. He looked at her pale, tired face.
'This is my fault,' Sam thought, his chest aching.
She used to be a Sovereign. She commanded armies, wore glowing armor, and could erase monsters with a flick of her wrist. And he had dragged her into this dirty nightmare. Because he panicked, she had to eat bitter berries, shiver in a cave, and fight for her life in a world that stole her magic.
And now, to survive, she had to tie her immortal soul to a weak mortal who couldn't even throw a stick straight without her help.
"Lumi," Sam said, his voice shaking. He couldn't look her in the eye. He stared at the dirt.
"I'm so sorry. I dragged you into this. I made you live like a scavenger. And now I'm the reason you're going to die if you don't do this."
He swallowed hard.
"You don't have to choose the Equal one," Sam continued softly over the roaring noise of the breaking world.
"If you pick the second one... I swear on my life, I'll never treat you like a servant. I'll find a way to get your power back. I'll get you home. Just pick one so you don't disintegrate."
Lumi didn't say anything.
The silence between them felt heavy, cutting right through the noise of the collapsing world.
She stared at the System interface. Her fingers slowly reached up.
She remembered the bitter berries. She remembered the perfect spear throws. She remembered the sweet cream bun he bought her, and how he stubbornly refused to leave her behind when the World-Serpent showed up.
For a month, he didn't treat her like a god. But he didn't treat her like a monster, either. He treated her like a partner.
Lumi slowly turned her head. She looked at Sam.
Her eyes wasn't cold. It wasn't arrogant. It was soft, filled with a quiet warmth that made Sam's breath catch.
She didn't complain about her lost power. She didn't complain about her pride.
She simply reached out to the blue screen. Without a second of hesitation, she pressed her finger against the third option.
[Option 3: The Equal Pact.]
[Ding!]
The sound rang out, echoing deep inside Sam's soul.
A bright, warm light exploded between them. It wasn't the scary, destructive light of her greatsword. It was comforting.
Sam gasped. An invisible tether slammed into his chest, locking right onto his life force. In that split second, he felt her. He felt the massive, sleeping ocean of her magic. And she felt the fragile, stubborn spark of his soul. Their lives crashed together, syncing up, tying their fates and pain into one shared existence.
[Pact Confirmed. Soul Synchronization Complete.]
The second the prompt flashed, the Night Shed Forest finally gave out.
With a deafening CRACK, the floating island, they were sitting on broke into a million pieces. The cracked sky shattered like glass. The freezing, dark void rushed in to swallow the pieces of the broken world.
They were falling into the endless dark.
[Do you want to exit the world Now?]
[Yes / No]
Sam didn't even think. He wrapped his arms around Lumi, pulling her tight against his chest as the wind tore at them. He slammed his hand against the 'Yes' button.
The DreamScape collapsed.
In a blink, the Night Shed Forest was entirely erased, leaving nothing behind.
But Sam and Lumi were already gone. A flash of teleportation light swallowed them, pulling them together into the comforting darkness as they warped back to the real world.