Elias sat cross-legged on the floor of the shack.
Jamie hovered nearby, shifting from foot to foot.
The firelight cast trembling shadows across the walls, throwing the space into uneven pools of gold and amber.
SK moved around Elias with deliberate care, kneeling to arrange talismans in a precise hexagon around him.
Each mark was intricate. Symbols nested within symbols. Circles, triangles, and lines intersected in ways that made the floor look like a map of constellations.
"This is bloody insane," SK muttered under his breath, not looking at anyone in particular. "A procedure for cleaning cursed artifacts, not people. Don't know if you'll come out of this in one piece, kid."
Elias met his gaze evenly.
"Wait, huh?!" he said making as if to get up.
"And you wanted to try it on me the last time."
SK shrugged.
"They're all means to the same end," he replied. "And you don't get to bloody complain. We wouldn't be doing this if you hadn't slapped on that damn mask. Now sit your ass down and let me work."
He traced a faint circle around the hexagon, connecting the points like a circuit.
Elias's pulse thrummed in his ears.
"Stay in the centre," SK said, voice rough with concentration. "Keep calm. Eyes closed."
Elias exhaled slowly. Closed his eyes.
The air shifted.
It smelled of ozone and wet stone.
The hexagon glimmered faintly, edges of the talismans humming in unison.
SK's hand hovered above Elias's head.
"Right, listen carefully. I can't follow you into your domain. What gonna do though is I'm gonna break off a piece of me. Just a shard, a fragment of my soul. You take it inside your domain. Stick it into fox inside you. I'll handle the rest here in the real world. You just hold it, feed it, guide it."
Elias nodded.
"Understood," he said closing his eyes and appearing under the star spangled sky of his domain.
SK pressed his fingers to his chest. Pain bloomed across Elias' body as the foreign essence entered his domian.
A shard of his soul lifted, a shining fragment of muted orange, shimmering with the resonance of his being.
It floated toward Elias, drawn along an invisible current.He raised a finger and touched the shard.
It felt like a cold wind, slipping through his awareness, a strange weight in his spirit.
And then—chaos.
The connection to the outside snapped.
Abruptly, the world fell silent.
The shack's warmth, the firelight, Jamie's presence—all vanished.
Perched atop a torii gate, the Kitsune stirred.
Her eyes glowed like molten gold, tails fanning behind her in impossible shapes, each one moving independently yet with deadly purpose.
"I've seen enough," she said.
The voice was not one.
It was many. Young women, old women, girls and mothers speaking in layered echoes, all fused into a single, terrifying harmony.
Elias froze as her voice echoed through the space.
He felt the fragment of SK's soul in his hands. Warm. Faintly vibrating.
"I never thought I'd encounter a second World," the Kitsune said, descending from the torii with grace that was alien and predatory.
Elias's chest tightened.
The sigil of The World, infinately interlocking circles floated above them.
He gathered himself.
"I take it that you know Deus then?" he asked boldly, voice steady despite the fear curling in his chest.
The Kitsune's gaze hardened.
Then she attacked.
Flames erupted around her, heat boiling the still water of his Flow, causing it to hiss and evaporate.
Her tails shifted. Sharpened. They whipped through the air with impossible speed, cutting through his defences he barely had time to set up, seeking to pin him, catch him, consume him.
Elias stumbled backward.
He could feel the Spark of SK's soul fragment trembling against the weight of the fox's power.
He made a decision.
"I need more time," he thought.
He arranged his defenses, small motions of the ocean, currents like walls and nets, guiding minor swells to slow her advance. More beast constructs manifested and lunged at the fox.
She laughed, a chorus that shook the stars, then lunged again tearing through them.
Elias shaped the shard into an arrow and fired it at the blindspot but the fox caught it and crushed it with her maw.
It shattered and was estinguished. The resonance of SK's soul screamed in his mind. Pain radiated, burning like fire through his core.
The fox recoiled, snarling. In the real world, SK coughed out blood but ignored the soul damage and focussed on keeping the circuit active.
Elias's vision blurred with echoes of his own power, the Flow of his manifestations evaporating faster than he could replenish them.
The Kitsune's flames roared as she struck with a tail that twisted impossibly, aiming to impale him outright.
Elias surged, pouring all of his still Flow into a single, concentrated effort.
The ocean of his domain roared. Galaxies whirled. Nebulae crashed like waves, glowing sigils spinning at impossible speeds.
He exhaled. Focused.
The fox collided with him.
He pushed.
He expelled.
He forced her back, the power of his domain erupting outward, overwhelming her momentarily.
Stars flickered. Water boiled. The torii groaned.
He thought he had done it. By analysing the shard of SK's soul and its reaction to a spiritual being he understood somewhat how to affect the astral body in a similar manner.It was all about corruption and trying to consume the opponent, not just push back or gaurd against.
Predation on a metaphysical level.
Again, where he failed in willpower, he made up for in energy.
Then pain exploded in his back as his being could not handle the strain of forcing out a higher entity.
A tail she had detached moved like a lance, stabbing him through the back.
Flashes of memory tore across his mind.
A bygone Era. A white fox stood atop a mountain, overlooking a vista of forgotten lands. Faces of people long gone.
Corruption seeped through the wound. Tendrils of something dark and unnameable burrowed into his spirit.
He felt it twisting, reshaping, threatening to consume him from within.
On the floor of the shack, Jamie's hands trembled Elias had collapsed and was now slowly flaoting in the air as flames consumed him.
"Ellie—!"
Her voice cracked.
She moved to him.
SK's voice cut sharply across the room.
"Bloody hell, Jamie! Stop! Don't touch him! The circuit's delicate. One wrong move and you'll be corrupted too!"
She froze, panic raging in her chest.
The hexagon's light pulsed faintly, responding to the disturbance within Elias's soul.
Inside his domain, the fox's eyes gleamed.
She hissed, flames licking at the edges of his Flow, tails coiling like serpents.
"Nothing good will come from you serving that person little one." She expanded in size and brough the skewered boy closer to her mouth.
"Stop struggling and be consumed by me. Vanishing into non existence is a fate far better than what He has in store."
Her maw closed shut and Elias was consumed.