The first sensation was pain. A throbbing symphony echoing in every fiber of his being, from deep muscles to fingertips. Then came the light. Rays of a silvery sun filtered through the canopy of devastated trees, caressing his face with a warmth that felt almost unreal.
Indra opened his eyes.
The sky above was a canvas of violet and dark clouds, tinted by the Other Side's peculiar sun. He blinked slowly, his mind a whirlwind of confusion and dull agony. And then, the most fundamental and astonishing truth hit him like a shock:
He was alive.
A hoarse sigh escaped his lips, followed by a wave of memories as vivid and painful as ice needles driven into his skull. The desperate escape, the Dormant Terror's roar, the strategic siege, the overwhelming sense of powerlessness. The Silver Storm erupting like a final judgment, the hallucinatory pain of chaotic energy tearing his soul apart. The silent fury, the desperate creation of his own technique in the sanctuary of his mind. The titanic battle, the broken body, the last, desperate Veil Vortex.
His eyes, still adjusting to the light, scanned the scene around him. He was exactly where he'd blacked out. The ground was a lunar landscape of craters, trees reduced to charred splinters, and the earth churned and black. And at the center of this epicenter of destruction lay the corpse of the Dormant Terror.
The sight was grotesque. The colossal beast was split in two, as if a capricious god had drawn a line with a divine blade. Black organs and thick viscera spilled out, forming a fetid pool that saturated the air with a metallic, rotten odor. Indra felt his stomach churn, not just from the smell, but from the incredible, unbelievable reality that he had done that.
His mind felt wrapped in cotton, numbed by residual pain and post-traumatic shock. Perhaps it was the side effect of being struck by a Storm ray and forced to absorb that chaotic energy. Perhaps it was simply the mental collapse of having faced death and returned.
None of that mattered. The primordial fact remained: he had survived.
A flash of lucidity cut through the fog in his mind. The Practical Exam! It ended at noon. His aching body moved almost on instinct, and his wrist rose before his eyes. The reinforced obsidian smartwatch—the one Sophie had said was nearly indestructible—was still there, untouched by the carnage around him. The display glowed softly.
09:07.
Three hours. He still had time. A profound, almost dizzying relief washed over him. He wouldn't be disqualified. Not after surviving that.
It was then that the incongruous details began to click into place.
His left arm—which he vividly remembered being reduced to a useless piece of shattered flesh and bone—ached, but responded. He flexed it, his fingers opened and closed. The pain was there, an insistent reminder, but function was restored. Impossible.
His gaze lowered to his own body. He was clean. The visceral memory of the warm, fetid blood and viscera covering him like a second mantle was unmistakable. Now, his skin was immaculate, just dirty from the black earth of the ground. Only small bruises and superficial scratches dotted his torso, wounds a Graduate, with his accelerated metabolism, could heal in hours.
What was happening?
A soft meow, absurdly close, broke the silence. Indra felt a small weight snuggling into his abdomen. He pushed himself up on his elbows, his muscles complaining in pain, and looked down.
There, nestled comfortably in his lap, was a cat.
It was small, its fur predominantly white as snow. Its paws, the tips of its ears, and the tip of its tail, however, were a deep, vibrant purple, like twilight. And its eyes... its eyes were a shocking pink, intense and intelligent, fixed on him with an expression that was both serene and deeply knowing.
Indra recognized it instantly. It was the same cat that had followed him on the way to the Academy, that had watched him with such unusual curiosity.
"You..." Indra's voice came out hoarse and weak. "You really are my Spirit Beast?"
The cat didn't answer with words. It just stretched its neck and gently rubbed its head against Indra's hand, a low, satisfied purr vibrating in its small chest. It was a gesture of affection, of recognition, of belonging.
A wave of familiarity, warm and comforting, flooded Indra. It was a connection that needed no words, a resonance coming from the deepest layers of his being. The legends were true: a Spirit Beast was an extension of a Paranormal's own soul.
He decided not to question it. The Other Side had its own rules, absurd and inexplicable. Acceptance was often the only option.
With an effort, Indra sat up, the cat adjusting gracefully in his lap. He looked at his body again, and the second wave of surprise hit him.
His physique had changed. Again.
He had always been athletic, thanks to sports. Becoming an Apprentice and then an Awakened had refined his body, making it stronger, faster, more defined. But this... this was another level.
Every muscle was now a sculpture of anatomical perfection. His torso, bare and free of his shirt's tatters, displayed a blocky, defined abdomen, broad pectorals, and arms whose muscles delineated under the skin without an extra gram of fat. It wasn't the exaggerated bulk of a bodybuilder, but the absolute harmony and density of an elite predator, the ideal form that nature or energy could conceive. It resembled, indeed, the idealized statues of ancient gods.
The cat in his lap made a low sound, a "mrow" that sounded suspiciously like a muffled chuckle, its pink eyes blinking with amusement. Indra blushed slightly, feeling vulnerable under the feline's judging and amused gaze.
He then turned his attention to his clothes—or the lack thereof. The metal wristbands, his favorites, had snapped and been lost in the destruction. The chains hanging from his belt were gone. His black jeans, miraculously, had survived relatively intact, though now adorned with strategic tears that made them look like they came from an alternative fashion boutique—which, for his style, wasn't all bad. His shoes were scuffed and dirty, but usable.
The shirt, however, was a lost cause. Only strips of black fabric remained, hanging like dead seaweed on his shoulders. With a sigh of resignation, Indra grabbed the tatters and tore them off, leaving his torso completely exposed. Well, he wasn't the first to fight shirtless.
It was when his next search began. His Jian. Where was his sword? He scoured the area with his eyes, mentally sifting through the debris around the bear's corpse. Nothing.
The cat, watching his growing frustration, raised a purple paw and gently touched Indra's finger—specifically, the steel dimensional ring he wore.
"Hmm?" Indra murmured, looking at the feline. "You want me to look in here?"
The cat nodded its head, a deliberate, purposeful movement, as if exasperated by its companion's slowness.
Indra closed his eyes, concentrating. His consciousness plunged into the extra-dimensional space of the ring.
And what he saw there took his breath away.
In the organized space of the ring rested his Jian, intact and clean, as if carefully stored. But around it, piles of Inner Cores glowed with faint lights. Dozens of small, opaque cores—from the Lesser Creatures and Imps he'd faced or that were caught by the Storm.
And dominating the scene, six cores that looked like small black stars. They were larger than the others, the size of clenched fists, and emanated a profound darkness that seemed to suck in the light around them. At the heart of this darkness, malignant red sparks pulsed like embers in the heart of an infernal forge. The cores of the Dormant Terror.
A muffled laugh, laden with disbelief and triumph, escaped Indra. The final proof. The undeniable proof. He had really done it.
He counted quickly. The smaller cores added up to about 400 points. Added to the 94 he already had... 494 points. The number echoed in his mind. He had aimed for 100. He had gotten almost five times that. The feeling was euphoric and overwhelming at the same time.
There was no time to celebrate. He still had a goal.
Looking at the cat—who now seemed deeply pleased with itself—Indra announced: "We need to go back. To the cave."
He needed to see the damage. The Sword Dance engravings were there. He had mastered only six of the forty-eight movements, and that had elevated him to unimaginable heights. The prospect of mastering all of them... was dizzying. Even destroyed, perhaps there was something to salvage, some fragment of knowledge.
Determined, Indra carefully placed the cat on his shoulders. The creature clung naturally, its tiny purple claws holding on firmly without hurting him. Indra stretched his aching body, feeling his muscles protest, but they yielded under a determined command. He was a Graduate now. Pain was a reminder, not a limitation.
With a last look at the battlefield that had almost become his grave, Indra turned his back on the colossus's corpse and set off toward the river, the waterfall, and the secrets that might still be hidden in his destroyed cave. The cat on his shoulders looked back, its pink eyes glinting with ancient knowledge, before turning forward, vigilant. His journey—their journey—was far from over.