Leon opened his eyes slowly, as if the world were returning to him in layers. The first thing he felt was a dull, throbbing ache behind his temples, not sharp, just heavy, like after a long illness or an overly intense dream. He blinked a few times, trying to bring the room into focus… and then he saw red eyes.
Not an ordinary red. Not blood. Not fire.
They were deep, layered, crimson threaded with dark ruby, and something almost black near the pupils, as if light fell into an endless depth and never came back. Those eyes were unnaturally calm and somehow crushing at the same time. They weren't simply looking at him.
They were piercing him, like, in a single instant, they could see his whole life, his thoughts, his doubts.
Leon lay perfectly still, hypnotized by their depth.
"…beautiful," slipped out of him softly, almost without his consent.
And in that same second, Cold Mind hit.
A freezing pulse rolled through his mind like a shockwave, brutally shattering that unnatural fascination and snapping clarity back into place with a pain that felt like a migraine. Leon jerked his head back and scrambled away without even trying to stand, dragging himself across the floor, heart hammering, eyes locked on the woman who had been unconscious not long ago.
Now she was sitting up, her gaze fixed on Leon.
And only then did he notice something else, her wings were smaller. Still black, still feathered, but reduced, tightened to fit the apartment's space so she could move without slamming into walls and furniture.
She watched him in silence.
Then she spoke.
"So… you're the one who bandaged me?"
Her voice was… unsettling.
Not loud. Not raised. But it had a purity and depth, like every word was perfectly balanced, no roughness, no strain, resonating somewhere deep in the listener's chest. Soft, yet absolute, like a sound that didn't need force to be heard.
Leon's brain stopped working.
The image blurred. Sharpness vanished. His lips parted slightly. A thin string of drool slipped from the corner of his mouth as his body stopped responding to commands. Cold Mind was running at full power, firing impulse after impulse, trying to wrench him out of it, but her voice was too strong, too direct, as if it bypassed his mind and struck the core of his consciousness.
The woman frowned when she saw his condition.
Only then did she lower her gaze and look at herself, the bandages, the wings, the room, and something shifted in her expression when she looked back at Leon and understood where she was.
"Ah…" she said more quietly, more to herself than to him. "It seems I've landed in one of the lower worlds."
She lifted her eyes again, and looked at Leon with something that resembled pity mixed with regret.
And then her silhouette began to change.
Her wings slowly withdrew, feathers dissolving into the air like black smoke that vanished without a trace. Her presence became more… human. Still beautiful. Still unnaturally perfect. But without that crushing, dominant pressure that had been paralyzing his mind.
In the same moment, Cold Mind delivered one last desperate pulse.
Cold slammed into Leon's skull hard enough that he hissed and blinked rapidly, like waking from a nightmare. The world snapped back into focus. Shapes regained their edges.
Leon sucked in a sharp breath and stared at her, terrified, his heart pounding like a hammer.
The girl took a calm, deep breath, as if checking whether everything had truly settled into place, then gave a small nod to herself.
"Now…" she said quietly, "it should be better."
She looked at Leon more carefully, no longer like an object, or something that existed "below," but like someone real.
"You helped me?" she asked after a moment. "You treated my wounds?"
Leon watched her with obvious tension. Even now, more "human" than before, her presence still stirred unease in him. When she spoke again, a shiver ran down his spine, but this time he could endure it. He nodded, hesitantly at first, then more clearly.
"Yes… it was me," he answered, short and blunt.
A genuine look of surprise appeared on her face, followed by something Leon recognized as real gratitude, untouched by superiority.
"Thank you," she said, meeting his eyes. "Truly."
But then she tilted her head slightly, studying him as if she was only now reading him, and authentic confusion surfaced in her gaze.
"But… why are you so weak?" she asked, completely sincere, without mockery. "Even if this is a lower world, you should have undergone at least your first evolution. You should be a First-Order being."
Leon blinked.
"…What?" slipped out automatically.
He waved a hand, visibly thrown.
"What lower worlds? What evolution? What does 'First-Order being' even mean?" The questions tumbled out one after another.
This time she looked surprised. Her brows rose, her lips parted just slightly, like she genuinely couldn't believe what she was hearing. She lifted a hand and scratched her cheek, a small, reflexive gesture that, paired with her looks, came out almost… cute.
"You…" she started, staring at him. "Are you an idiot, or have you been living under a rock?"
But then something changed.
Her gaze unfocused, as if for a fraction of a second her awareness spilled far beyond the room, beyond the building, beyond the city. Her eyes widened sharply. Her face went pale.
"No…" she whispered. "That's impossible…"
She snapped her eyes back to Leon.
"Has the Essence Record only reached your world recently?" she asked quickly.
Leon frowned.
"Essence… what?" he repeated, then hesitated and added, "If you mean the… system… then yes."
He glanced instinctively toward the window, where daylight was brighter than before.
"A few hours ago. Though…" He corrected himself with a slight grimace. "Maybe more. I don't know how long I was out."
She listened in silence.
When he finished, she lowered her gaze, and something heavy settled into her eyes, sadness that felt mature, ancient, completely wrong for how young she looked. She went quiet for a moment, as if weighing words that mattered.
"So it is…" she said softly. "It's only beginning."
She looked up at him again, no trace of superiority now. Only something Leon recognized as compassion.
"If the Essence Record appeared here so recently…" she continued slowly, "…then your world is entering a phase most ordinary people never walk away from."
After that, she did something that made Leon's blood run cold, she began calmly removing the bandages from her body, like they were nothing but an inconvenience, not the only thing holding her injuries together.
"Wait, !" Leon blurted immediately. "Not yet, your wounds, they… "
He cut off mid-sentence.
Because where he'd seen deep cuts, dark bruises, places that barely looked stable…
There was only smooth skin.
No blood. No scars. Not even redness.
As if the injuries he'd treated with shaking hands and a pounding heart had never existed at all.
Leon stared, completely stunned.
"…How…" he mouthed soundlessly.
She glanced at him and let out a small laugh, quiet, not mocking, more like gentle amusement at a child's reaction to something obvious.
"When you pass the threshold of Fifth Order and become a higher being," she said calmly, "injuries like those will be trivial. Something that fades before you even have time to worry about it."
Leon swallowed hard.
Fifth Order.
Higher being.
It sounded so far away it felt unreal.
She looked at him one last time, and when she did, Leon felt the air in the room subtly change, like reality itself was starting to bend under her presence. From her back, wings began to grow again, slowly, almost majestically, black, feathered, larger than before, as if no longer constrained by the need to fit into human space.
"As a reward for your help," she said, her voice turning slightly more serious, "I'll give you one piece of advice. So listen carefully."
Leon straightened instinctively.
"The Essence Record…" she began, "…doesn't reward those who gain levels the fastest."
Her gaze sharpened, cutting, penetrating.
"It rewards those who fight opponents stronger than themselves."
The words sank deeper into him than he wanted to admit.
She smiled lightly, without that crushing charm, more… human.
"Farewell," she said.
"Wait!" Leon blurted. "How, what's your name?"
She paused for a fraction of a second.
"Valeria," she answered evenly. "And if fate allows… perhaps we'll meet again."
Leon opened his mouth. He wanted to say more, ask more, stop her for even a moment,
But Valeria spread her wings.
One beat.
The air rippled. The light dimmed for the briefest instant… and she was gone, as if she'd never been there at all.
No boom. No flash. Only emptiness where she'd been standing.
Leon stood alone in the living room, in the quiet apartment, with bandages lying uselessly on the floor.