When Junior and Millie returned from the parking garage, they immediately dove into figuring out what had happened. Millie browsed her phone while Junior queried Athena. Achilles rested near Junior, harness off, eyes closed.
The news didn't seem entirely bad at first.
Millie found a video of a kentauros game in progress during the recent troubles. The recording showed a wide, grassy field, a single bold line dividing the arena in half. Targets of different shapes and point values were scattered across each side in careful, tempting patterns.
Two jockeys in garish, sponsor-plastered jumpsuits started from opposite ends of the field. Their outfits were a riot of clashing logos that flashed past in chaotic bursts as they galloped toward the centre line. The jockeys guided their horses masterfully, clearing low barriers with smooth, powerful bounds while leaning into every motion with practiced ease.
Each jockey struck out at the closest targets on their own side. Doru (a cavalry spear for thrusting) tips snapped out to leave bright streaks of chalk across mannequin armour, while akontia (a lighter javelin for throwing) whistled through paper hoops attached to flexible posts. Neither jockey lingered longer than necessary. Every second spent on their home field risked falling behind in the bonus points waiting across the line on their opponent's side.
Kentauros was a fast-paced game and this match was no exception. It was a uniquely Palean sport built on the historical traditions of mounted combat tactics.
The course was a blur of colour and speed, the air filled with the rapid clomp of hooves on turf, the tearing of ripped targets and the cheers of the watching crowd. Over the thunder of hooves and the noise of the crowd, the voices of two excitable sportscasters came through the audio feed.
"…and there they go!" the first caster exclaimed. "Both riders are off the line at full gallop — Sariás in the neon green kit on the near side, Doukanis in the red-and-yellow disasterpiece on the far. Look at that acceleration!"
"Oh, he's wasting no time at all!" the second smoothly joined in. "Doukanis is skipping those low-value dummies entirely — bold move! He's banking everything on getting to the centre line first. If he can tag one of the ten-pointers before Sariás crosses—"
"Wait, wait … Sariás with a clean fence clear … beautiful form … and—oh! Perfect akontion throw! Right through the upper hoop. That's textbook work right there."
"That's gonna put pressure on Doukanis for sure. You cannot leave freebies on your own side at this point in the season. Not when the standings are—"
Millie tensed. Even Junior had interrupted his queries to Athena to fully listen in on what was happening.
For a moment, it was as if someone had muted the audio. The crowd noise ceased, the announcers cut off and even the sound of hooves quieted down as the jockeys slowed their horses to a halt.
"Thaleia? Your screen just changed too, right?"
The previous exaggerated excitement of the first caster was gone now as if it never existed. He sounded sombre now. Serious.
Perhaps deadly so.
"…Yes. My overlay shifted. That's - this is new."
The second caster's voice was much less steady than the first.
The crowd noise grew once again - not screams, but a low, rising murmur, the shared intake of thousands of people coming to realize that the returning stability of the last few weeks have perhaps been nothing more than wishful thinking.
The camera jerked slightly, as though the operator's arms had gone slack for a moment. The view swings off the jockeys toward the stands. The crowd is shifting to its feet, hands rising instinctively toward those ever-present blue screens only they can see.
Millie watched, unblinking. She wanted to catch the exact moment everything changed.
Just as suddenly as the burgeoning mass panic began, it stopped. As if a light switch was flipped, everyone on screen went from rising anxiety to relative calm. Arms lowered. People looked around. A few looked hesitant or unsure, but even more looked bored. Others even started calling out for the kentauros match to resume.
"That's so freaky looking," Millie murmured.
"What happened?' Junior asked quietly.
"Nothing." Millie blew air through loosely flapping lips in a sound somewhere between exasperated, humorous and rude. "Suppose that's what it looks like when thousands of people get an out-of-body vacation to Boring Crystal Land - at least subjectively - then get shuffled back to reality in an instant. At least it's not a full-on Apocalypse Now out there."
Junior frowned at Millie's strange references but didn't comment. "Sometimes it's easy to forget the Reclamation System isn't much more than an annoyance for the vast majority of people. That less than one percent of the population is cursed like me."
"You're not cursed, my dude," Millie said automatically.
He didn't respond, returning to questioning Athena instead. Millie sighed.
The condo fell quiet again, broken only by the faint hum of the ventilation. Junior sat rigidly in the stillness, the unchanging System text pressing at the edge of his awareness.
Several long seconds passed before he exhaled and dragged a hand through his tightly curled hair. A quiet gesture, but curt. Frustrated.
"I just want to know one thing," he said finally, voice low. "Why? Is that too much to ask?"
He focused back on the ever-present blue screen. The same inscrutable lines, teasing at deeper mysteries. The same lack of answers.
"Apeirosis Resonance," he muttered, just loud enough for Millie to hear. "Sapience Boundary. Liminal Confluence."
And then, the one that taunted him the most.
Apeirosis: 0.26%
His jaw clenched.
"Why do we still not know what any of this means?" Bitterness crept into every syllable. "Weeks since Integration. Thousands, maybe millions of Reclaimed. Governments, universities, corporations … all of them must be studying it. And yet somehow, nobody can give me a single gods damned explanation. Why won't anyone tell me? Why won't anyone help me?"
His frustration didn't explode outward; it collapsed inward. With every word his voice grew quieter, until his words were barely more than breath.
Millie's forced cheer was gone. She looked at him with open sadness.
"I'm helping you, Junior," she said softly. "Maybe not perfectly. But you're not alone in this. We'll figure it out. We just have to keep trying."
Her sincerity was warm and real — but Junior wasn't in a place to receive it. A hundred sharp retorts rose: that she wasn't Reclaimed, didn't have the nightmares, didn't live waiting for the next horror he alone would face.
He swallowed all of them.
Instead, he spoke to the smarthome assistant, his voice controlled but edged like a blade.
"Athena," he demanded more than asked. "What is Apeirosis?"
"I couldn't find any verified definitions for 'Apeirosis' in my public data sources," Athena replied after the briefest pause. "I did locate several mentions on the Galatean Coast Guard forum through your logged-in access, but the posts are inconsistent and speculative. No accepted explanation exists yet. I'm sorry, I don't have enough information to tell you what it means."
"Public data sources," Junior repeated with emphasis. "Who knows what private data sources are out there? There could be treasure troves of knowledge for all I know. Locked away from nobodies like me, kept only for the elites." The bitterness was back with a vengeance, sharp and biting as Junior practically spat the words.
Millie blinked, taken aback by the uncharacteristic venom.
"Do you really think that's likely?" she asked. Then her brain immediately pivoted to her favourite genre, and she nodded almost reluctantly. "Okay … I admit that LITRPG stories love conspiracies. Hidden factions. Secret System-creators watching from on high. Or aliens from other integrated universes interfering with humanity. But those are stories.
"I might be decent with computers, but I'm not the kind of codebreaker who shrugs off latticefire burnwalls and brute-forces a cold-vault mesh node before breakfast. I still need, like, three cups of tea just to remember my own password."
Junior's mouth pulled into a thin, almost-smile. Millie's dramatic flair was predictable, yet somehow still surprising.
The unborn smile lingered for half a heartbeat ... then faded as one phrase from Millie's ramble snagged on something deeper.
Hidden factions.
Secret architects pulling strings.
The words landed like a cold tap on an old bruise.
Junior straightened slightly. His breath hitched. Memory rose uninvited: Orestes in this same living room, speaking with that infuriating calm about gods, old plans, bloodlines, and truths waiting to be reckoned with.
Millie looked at Junior and was about to shrug again, but instead she froze. Something about the intense, focused look on his face.
"Millie," Junior said slowly. "I never did tell you about my dear Uncle Orestes."
Millie frowned at the seeming non-sequitor, but her eyes widened as he continued.
"He visited a few days ago. A lot of what he had to say doesn't matter, but he hinted at things. Things I dismissed at the time. Things I didn't want to believe. About the old gods. About Palea being a prison. Conspiracies stretching decades, maybe longer."
Junior couldn't see it, but by now, Millie's eyes were practically shining.
"Junior, this … you!" she stammered. She was practically salivating with excitement.
Junior chuckled darkly.
"So do you want to pay my uncle a visit with me?"