The black sea was glass. Not a ripple, not a wave. Just an infinite, obsidian mirror reflecting a sky that held no stars.
Arthev sat on the surface of his own mind, the silence ringing in his ears. Across from him, the One-Tail floated on his side, picking his teeth with a massive claw. The beast looked bored, which was usually a bad sign.
"A month," Arthev repeated. The words felt heavy, like stones dropping into a well. "You're telling me I've been comatose for thirty days."
Shukaku stopped picking his teeth. He grinned, a slow spreading of jagged ivory.
"Thirty-two, if we're counting hours," Shukaku corrected, his voice echoing in the mental space.
"You were out cold, Stunned Face. Drooling and everything. I was starting to wonder if I needed to find a new lease."
Arthev looked down at his phantom hands. In this space, he felt fine. But the concept gnawed at him. A month. In the outside world, seasons changed in a month. Wars could start and end.
"My injuries," Arthev said, his mind racing back to the memory, the claw punching through his sternum, the shattered arm, the cold embrace of death. "That beast… it cored me. I shouldn't be alive."
"You shouldn't be," Shukaku agreed, floating closer.
"But your tenant has green thumbs. While you were bleeding out, that Spirit of yours, it woke up. Just a little. Sprouted right out of the blood-soaked rocks."
Shukaku's eyes narrowed, losing their mirth for a moment.
"Weirdest thing I've ever seen. It didn't just heal you, it knit you back together. Muscle, bone, organ. It pulled energy from the earth itself to do it. I tossed in some soul power to keep your heart beating, but the heavy lifting? That was the Tree."
Arthev went still. The Ten-Tails. Or at least, the seed of it. It was active. It was protecting its host. That wasn't just a martial spirit; it was a survival mechanism.
"And the beast?" Arthev asked. "The serpent?"
"Dust," Shukaku scoffed, waving a paw dismissively.
"I turned it into gravel. But... it dropped something. A souvenir. It's sitting right next to your body. You might want to wake up and take a look before you starve to death."
Arthev took a deep breath, steeling himself. "Wake me up."
The transition wasn't gentle.
It was like being slammed into a wall of concrete.
GASSSSSSP.
Arthev's eyes flew open, his body arching off the cold stone floor as air rushed into his shriveled lungs. Pain, dull, aching, stiff, radiated from every joint. His mouth felt like it was filled with sand, his throat parched dry.
He collapsed back onto the stone, coughing violently. Dust clouds puffed up around him.
'Easy, kid,' Shukaku's voice rasped in his head. ' muscles are stiff. You've been playing statue for four weeks.'
Arthev groaned, rolling onto his side. He forced his eyes to focus.
The chamber was a ruin. The floor was cratered, the walls slashed with deep gouges where wind blades had struck. The ceiling was a web of cracks. It was a miracle the place hadn't collapsed on top of him.
He pushed himself up, his arms trembling. He checked his chest. The skin was smooth, pale, unblemished. He rotated his left arm. It moved perfectly.
"Healed," Arthev croaked, his voice a wrecked whisper. "Actually healed."
He looked around. There, sitting in a pile of rubble where the Serpent Beast had died, was a small object.
It wasn't a bone. It wasn't a core.
It was a cube.
Arthev crawled over to it, his movements jerky. He reached out, hesitating, then brushed the dust away.
It was metallic, but the metal was matte black, absorbing the dim light of the ruins rather than reflecting it. It was about the size of a grapefruit, etched with geometric lines that were too straight, too perfect for any blacksmith's hammer.
'Looks like junk to me,' Shukaku grunted. 'No Soul Power in it. Dead as a doornail.'
"No..." Arthev picked it up. It was surprisingly light. "It's not junk."
He closed his eyes, then snapped them open.
Shinragan.
The world turned high-definition crimson. Time slowed. Arthev focused his gaze on the surface of the cube.
What looked like smooth metal to the naked eye exploded into complexity.
"Micro-etchings," Arthev whispered, his eye spinning.
"These lines... they aren't decoration. They're circuitry. Or something like it. This is a containment unit."
He rotated the cube. There were no seams. No hinges. But on one side, the geometric patterns converged into a singular, complex mandala of lines.
'Circuitry?' Shukaku asked, confused. 'You speakin' alien now?'
"Technology," Arthev corrected.
"Advanced. Absurdly advanced. This doesn't belong in this era. It doesn't even belong in this world. A Rank 93 beast shouldn't have this inside it. It's like finding a supercomputer inside a shark."
He stood up, using the wall for support. His legs wobbled, but held. He looked around the decimated chamber with new eyes, his Shinragan scanning not for enemies, but for patterns.
"If the beast was guarding this... or carrying it... then this room isn't just a cave."
He scanned the walls. Stone. Stone. Blast mark. Stone.
Stop.
On the far wall, partially obscured by a fallen slab of rock, there was a section of the wall that remained perfectly smooth, untouched by the battle.
Arthev limped over to it. He shoved the debris aside, gritting his teeth against the weakness in his limbs.
Behind the rubble was a pedestal. It was carved from the same black stone as the cube, rising waist-high from the floor. On its surface was a depression.
A square depression.
"A key," Arthev murmured.
'I don't like it,' Shukaku rumbled, his tone shifting to a low growl. 'That thing smells... wrong. Cold. Artificial. You sure you want to plug it in?'
"We're trapped in here, Shukaku. No exits. This might be the only way out."
Arthev took a breath, steadied his hand, and placed the cube into the slot.
CLICK.
It was a sound of mechanical perfection.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then, the hum started. It was low at first, vibrating in Arthev's teeth, then rising in pitch until it was a whining screech. The geometric lines on the pedestal flared to life, glowing with a harsh, cold blue light, a stark contrast to the warm Soul Power of the Douluo continent.
A beam of light shot upward from the cube, striking the ceiling.
It fanned out, constructing a shape from photons and dust.
Arthev stepped back, kunai instinctively finding his hand.
A figure materialized in the air.
It was humanoid, but tall. It wore robes that seemed to be made of liquid metal, shifting and flowing over a slender frame. The face was angular, severe, with eyes that glowed with the same cold blue light as the machine.
It wasn't a ghost. It wasn't a Soul Remnant. It was a recording.
The figure raised a hand, palm open. Its mouth moved.
"Zha'keth vadis, ul'thera kwe vadis. Syl'varen thok, dren'zul."
The voice was distorted, synthesized, echoing through the chamber with a metallic resonance.
'What is that?' Shukaku hissed, his chakra spiking in agitation. 'It sounds like grinding metal. Is it casting a spell?'
"No," Arthev said, his blood running cold. He stared at the hologram, his mind reeling.
The Shinragan spun, memorizing the lip movements, the sound waves, the structure of the light.
"That's not a spell. It's a language."
'Sounds like he's choking on rocks.' Shukaku muttered. 'You understand any of it?'
"Not a word," Arthev said, tension creeping into his voice. "And that's the problem."
The hologram stared at him, unblinking
.
No soul. No energy. Just light and data.
To be continued....