The door of the small hut groaned as Yami shouldered it open.
The carcass of the deer slipped from his grip, hitting the wooden floor with a dull thud before he dragged it to the far corner. There, near the storage pit where the air stayed cool, he let it rest — meat for later..
He staggered toward the woven mat that served as his bed and dropped onto it, his breath ragged. His ribs ached from the fight, his pulse still loud in his ears.
For a long while, he just lay there, staring at the low ceiling.
What the hell was that thing?
The last image before he blacked out still lingered — a formless shadow, slipping into him like smoke and sinking deep, deeper, until it was simply there. In his mind. Or… somewhere else.
He sat up slowly. If it had gone inside, then there had to be a way to find it.
'Well usually meditation can help in various novels i read so let's try it'yami thought.
Meditation seemed the only option.
Yami closed his eyes, sitting cross-legged on the mat, hands resting on his knees. He slowed his breathing, letting the outside world blur — but his mental landscape remained empty. Nothing but the faint thrum of his own thoughts.
Minutes passed. Nothing changed.
He shifted, tried again — this time holding his breath for longer, changing his focus, even forcing his will outward like an invisible push. Still, nothing.
A memory from earlier struck him: that instant before the chains appeared… the bone-deep despair, the cold grip that wasn't just fear but something primal. And then… a pulse. Not warmth, not light, but something.
He tried to recreate it — letting his mind sink into the same shadowed place, clawing for that feeling. But it was like chasing mist. Every time he reached for it, it scattered.
Finally, he exhaled in frustration.
The chains must have changed things…
On impulse, he tried again — but instead of searching the space around his mind, he focused inward… downward… into his own chest.
That's when he saw it.
A golden star, faint but steady, pulsed at the center of his heart.
He leaned closer in his mind's eye — and saw that it wasn't just a star, but the origin of the chains he had glimpsed before.
His awareness shifted to his eyes. There, too, the light burned:
• His right eye held a black star, circled by a thin golden ring.
• His left eye held a golden star, edged by a dark, black ring.
Strange symmetry. Not born of nature.
He turned his focus upward, to his mind. But no matter how he strained, it was still empty, sealed.
Then an idea came.
If I can connect them…
He willed the light from his heart to stream upward, passing through the burning points in his eyes before touching the locked space of his mind.
Something shifted.
The empty dark lit faintly, shadows gaining shape.
And then he saw it.
A cage.
Not one, but dozens of chains, golden and black, wound and crossed in impossible patterns, sealing a single figure inside. Its form flickered — part beast, part void — but its presence was unmistakable to him.
Yami's breath caught.
He knew that silhouette.
Not from life… but from words he himself had once written.
The Abyssal One… Ma'virex.
The same creature from his old novel, born in ink and imagination — now staring back at him from the depths of his own mind.
His brow tightened. An Abyssal One… born after the making of the Zero Grid itself.
Back then, he had described it as a corruption without a mind—no will, no cunning, only raw instinct to infect or destroy.
The notes were vivid in his memory:
It was destroyed once, by Aetherion—the Primordial near the Abyss's edge. Ma'virex had escaped the depths, tried to breach the Grid. The encounter burned its name into history.
Yami's gaze dropped lower, tracing the list of powers he had written with meticulous strokes.
• Abyssal Corruption — pure taint, unstoppable once rooted.
• Abyssal Flames — black fire, ranked the fifth most destructive force in known existence.
• Void Manipulation — the stillness that unravels matter and will alike.
He shut his eyes, recalling the cold weight of that knowledge.
Then yami sees the cage and the area resembles the jinchuriku mindspace .
"So I became jinchuriku of cosmic horror beast ,not bad" yami chuckles as thinks about it .
He set the journal aside and lifted his hands, fingers brushing the spectral chains coiled faintly around his forearms. They were not of iron or chakra—something older hummed through them.
When he closed his eyes and reached further, his mind plunged into a vision.
Two celestial shapes emerged from the darkness.
One burned bright as the heart of creation—a golden star, pulsing with law and purity.
The other was a star of void-black, swallowing all light yet pulsing with strange, steady vitality.
His breath caught.
Aether Star… and Abyss.
Both seemed tied to him, threads of unseen power pulling from his very core.
He tested their resonance.
The Aether Star thrummed with the might of banishment—absolute erasure of corruption—and a bastion for his mind and spirit.
The Abyss Star answered differently; not destruction, but nourishment, mending thought and spirit until nothing could breach them. Genjutsu… illusions… all useless against me, he realised.
⸻
His gaze returned to the page describing Ma'virex. That black flame of corruption—uncontrollable by any mortal or god. But now…
'If he wove the chains and the twin stars' powers together, he might not just kill the beast—he could tear its spirit apart. Replace it with a new one, bound and tamed.
It would lose some of its strength, yes. But those remnants, he could claim—turning its raw destruction into his own physical power'.
A thin smile crossed his lips.
A win, win situation