The illusion did not begin with darkness.
It began with red.
Not the vivid, theatrical red of fresh wounds, but something older, heavier, soaked into the world itself. Elias stood still as the scene unfolded around him, the floor beneath his feet soft and uneven.
When he looked down, blood lapped quietly at his ankles, warm and slow, rippling with each breath he took.
The sky above was the same color.
Clouds hung low, swollen and bruised, as if the heavens themselves had been cut open and left to bleed without end.
Spider lilies bloomed everywhere—at his feet, along the horizon, climbing over broken shapes half-buried in crimson mud. Their petals curled outward delicately, beautiful and cruel, red as fresh veins.
Elias's mind screamed.
This is bad.This is very bad.
He knew this place.
Not from the novel.
From the umbrella.
This was its soul prison.
The realization struck him so hard he nearly staggered, though his body remained upright, unmoving, his expression blank as ever. Inside, panic slammed against his ribs, frantic and sharp.
Why here. Why now. This isn't supposed to show this. This is internal. This is sealed.
But the test had not created this place.
It had touched him.
And the umbrella had answered.
Elias lifted his gaze slowly.
There were bodies.
Not scattered randomly, but layered, stacked, arranged as if the land itself had grown tired of holding them apart.
Some were human, some barely recognizable, twisted by dark residue and half-digested curses. Others were shapes that should never have existed in the first place, their outlines warped and unstable, slowly dissolving into the blood-soaked ground.
At the far end of the field, lying at the base of a mound of spider lilies, was something Elias recognized immediately.
The Jackal god.
Or what remained of it.
Its massive form was torn open, dark flesh collapsing inward as countless red butterflies swarmed over it in silence. They fed methodically, wings brushing against one another with soft, almost tender movements. No frenzy. No chaos. Just consumption.
Elias felt sick.
He hadn't known the umbrella kept the remains.
He hadn't known it bound what it devoured.
He had assumed it erased them.
Apparently, he was wrong.
"So this is it."
Noah's voice cut through the stillness.
Elias turned his head.
Noah Fallow stood a few steps away, unharmed, untouched by the blood, as if the world itself had bent to avoid staining him. His expression was no longer politely curious. His eyes gleamed with sharp interest, the kind that dissected rather than observed.
Cain and Celestia were nowhere to be seen.
This space was not meant for them.
Only Noah had been pulled in.
Elias swallowed.
"This isn't—" he began, then stopped.
How do you explain something when your face refuses to cooperate, when your tone stays calm no matter how violently your thoughts crash?
"This is the umbrella," Elias said instead, evenly. "Not me."
Noah tilted his head.
"The umbrella doesn't exist here," he replied mildly. "I don't see it."
Elias looked down at his arm.
The tattoo burned faintly beneath his sleeve, pulsing in slow, measured intervals, like a second heart.
"It does," Elias said. "Just not in a way you can hold."
Noah took a step forward.
Then another.
He stopped near the spider lilies and, without hesitation, sat down atop the blood-soaked ground as though it were a garden bench. The flowers bent beneath his weight but did not break.
"A medium," Noah mused. "No… more than that."
His gaze sharpened as it settled on Elias.
"You're binding them," he said softly. "Souls. Dark matter. Residual curses. Everything the umbrella devours doesn't disappear. It's anchored to you."
Elias felt his stomach drop.
"That's wrong," he said immediately. "I don't control it. I don't command anything. I just—"
"You endure it," Noah finished for him.
He smiled.
"That's worse."
The butterflies continued their silent feast behind them.
Noah leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees. "A weapon like that would consume anyone else. Artifacts break. Mediums crack. Even hunters with reinforced souls can't shoulder that much corruption without losing themselves."
His eyes lifted.
"But you're still here."
Elias didn't respond.
What was there to say.
Noah studied him openly now, no longer hiding his scrutiny. "Your expression never changes. Your pulse barely rises. You see spirits that should be invisible to you. High-rank ones. Low-rank ones. Things walking beside me that even trained hunters can't perceive unless they specialize."
Elias's fingers curled slightly.
"I never pretended," he said quietly. "I just… didn't announce it."
Noah laughed softly, genuinely amused.
"How modest."
He stood, blood rippling around his boots.
"This place," Noah continued, gesturing around them, "is a cage. Not a throne. Not a domain. Everything here is bound, contained, forced into stillness."
His gaze flicked briefly toward the Jackal god's remains.
"You don't release what you take," he said. "You imprison it."
Elias felt cold.
"That wasn't my choice."
"But it is your nature," Noah replied.
Silence stretched between them.
Noah's smile faded into something thoughtful. "Now I understand why the Evan family never noticed."
Elias stiffened.
"A useless bastard son," Noah went on calmly. "Indifferent. Talentless. Barely present. Who would suspect a thing?"
His eyes locked onto Elias's.
"A monster doesn't need to bare its teeth if it never intends to hunt."
Elias inhaled slowly.
"I'm not hiding power," he said. "I'm avoiding it."
Noah's smile returned, wider this time.
"Of course you are."
He stepped closer, stopping just an arm's length away. The blood-soaked world began to tremble. The illusion strained, fractures spreading across the sky like cracks in glass.
Noah extended a hand.
"You can't walk free," he said gently. "Not anymore. Either you're eliminated, or you're observed."
Elias closed his eyes briefly.
This was inevitable.
When he opened them again, his gaze was steady.
"…What do you want," he asked.
Noah produced a thin folder, pristine and untouched by the blood, and placed it into Elias's hand.
"A test invitation," he said. "Central Association. Direct evaluation."
He smiled, eyes gleaming with something close to delight.
"I'll be your recommender."
The world shattered.
Red dissolved into white.
The assessment chamber rushed back into existence, light flooding Elias's vision as the formation powered down. He stood exactly where he had been before, hands free, body unharmed.
Cain stared at the readings in disbelief.
Celestia took an instinctive step back.
Noah remained beside Elias, calm as ever.
Elias looked down at the paper in his hand.
Then he sighed.
"…This is going to be a problem," he murmured.
*****
Noah Fallow had not expected to be sent to the middle of nowhere.
Again.
The request came from ISD with all the usual pleasantries—urgent assistance, remote countryside, possible cult activity, low-priority but unstable.
Normally, Noah would have declined. Not because it was dangerous, but because it was dull. Rural cases rarely produced anything new. Same rituals. Same desperation. Same ending.
But he had accepted anyway.
Partly because he was bored.
Partly because when one had lived for centuries, even mild inconvenience counted as variation.
The town itself was forgettable. Quiet streets, wary eyes, people who spoke in lowered voices even when nothing was listening. Celestia greeted him with visible relief, nearly vibrating with energy as she dragged him through briefings and reports. She was competent, sharp, emotional in a way Noah found faintly amusing.
She argued with him.
She rolled her eyes when he teased protocol.
She laughed too loudly and swore into her phone when things went wrong.
It was… entertaining.
They reached the cult site too late.
That was obvious the moment Noah stepped inside.
The place was wrecked—not in the chaotic sense, but in a way that suggested something decisive had passed through. Ritual circles were shattered with precision, symbols erased at their core rather than smeared. Survivors sat in corners, shaking, eyes unfocused.
They kept muttering the same word.
"Butterflies."
Noah crouched in front of one of them, a woman clutching her head like it might fall apart.
"Slowly," he said gently. "What did you see?"
Her pupils dilated.
"Red," she whispered. "So many. Wings everywhere. Screaming—no—they were screaming—"
She gagged and turned away.
Noah straightened.
Interesting.
Whoever did this knew rituals. Ancient ones. The seal had been released cleanly, not forced. That meant preparation, knowledge, and restraint. A brute wouldn't have managed it.
Celestia swore under her breath. "Elias did this."
Noah barely reacted.
"That name again?" he said lightly.
She glared at him. "Don't start."
He didn't care enough to press. Names repeated themselves all the time in investigations. Patterns meant nothing until they did.
Noah did what he always did next.
He spoke to victims.
He reassured them. Promised safety. Lied gently where the truth would only worsen the damage. He was good at that. Had always been. Monsters trusted calm voices.
He left last.
As he passed the graveyard on the way back, something hit him.
Something colder.
Denser.
Noah stopped walking.
His breath caught—actually caught—and for one rare, fleeting moment, fear slid down his spine like ice.
What was that?
His eyes snapped toward the source.
A young man knelt before an old, abandoned grave, placing flowers with unhurried care. Black coat. Turtleneck. An umbrella resting against his shoulder like a casual accessory.
The energy around him was wrong.
Like a sealed abyss.
Noah smiled.
There you are.
The information matched quickly. Elias Graves. Formerly Elias Evan. A nobody, D-rank hunter. No significant achievements. No remarkable records.
And yet.
The man stood calmly when Noah approached, completely unfazed by the blade at his throat. He knew who Noah was—Noah could see it—but there was no reverence. No fear. Just mild annoyance.
The audacity was delightful.
The café only confirmed it.
Elias did not try to impress him. Did not flatter him. Did not probe for favor. He answered questions plainly, drank his tea, and looked like he couldn't care less whether Noah existed.
Perhaps he truly didn't know.
After all, Noah had two faces.
To hunters, he was an immortal exorcist.
To civilians, a refined entrepreneur whose name appeared in magazines rather than reports.
Still, the pressure was undeniable.
It came from the umbrella.
When Noah asked to hold it, Elias hesitated only briefly before allowing it.
The moment Noah's fingers closed around the handle, something whispered.
Kill.
Devour.
Tear it apart.
Eat everything.
Madness surged through his veins, ancient and familiar, crawling along the dark energy that kept him young, kept him alive. His instincts screamed to consume, to break, to dominate.
And yet—
Elias held that thing every day.
How strange.
A puzzle, then.
Noah liked puzzles.
When Elias refused his invitation, Noah did what he always did when curiosity outweighed consent.
Blackmail was such an ugly word. He preferred inevitability.
The test was meant to satisfy him.
Just a look.
Just a glimpse.
And what he saw—
Oh.
Oh.
The mind realm was not chaotic.
It was organized.
A prison.
Blood-filled skies. Spider lilies. Bound corpses layered with care. A god's remains left to rot beneath butterflies. Everything devoured but never released.
And Elias stood there, emotionless, insisting calmly that it was "the umbrella."
As if Noah were a fool.
There was no such thing as a separate domain.
A medium reflected its bearer.
That place was Elias's mind.
A cage built around himself.
Noah had not felt excitement like that in decades.
He could not let this one go.
Not after fear.
Not after wonder.
Not after finally finding something that resisted him.