The three days of preparation passed in a blur of training, meetings, and quiet anxiety. Corrin spent every morning on the training ground, drilling with his spear until his arms shook. He'd added a new technique—a spinning sweep that transitioned from shield block to low thrust—and it had knocked Ami off her feet twice.
Kael disappeared into the forest each day, returning at dusk with a fresh kill and ammunition casings littering his path. His pistols fired cleaner now, the arcs dimmer, the shots more precise. He'd stopped missing.
Ami threw herself into logistics—supplies, maps, contingency plans. She contacted the other parties that would join the expedition, building a network of contacts and favors. She also learned to drive the new government-issue transport, because no one else would.
Aurelion did none of these things. He stayed in his cabin, door closed, the lantern burning late into the night.
The book was old—its leather cover cracked, its pages yellowed, its spine held together with tape and stubbornness. He'd found it in the ruins of a library during one of his early contracts, buried beneath rubble and ash, forgotten by everyone but him.
The Inner Fortress: A Treatise on Dantians, Chakras, and the Flow of Mana
He'd read it a dozen times. The first time, it had seemed like nonsense—poetry masquerading as science, metaphor pretending to be instruction. But the second time, something had clicked. The third time, he'd started to feel it.
The dantians were energy centers in the body. Lower, middle, upper. The chakras were similar—wheels of energy that spun and channeled power. Humans had written about them for millennia, long before the portals, long before mana was anything but a word in fantasy novels.
They had been right.
Not completely. Not perfectly. But close enough that Aurelion could use their framework to understand what was happening inside him.
His old power—the Demon King's power—wasn't just sitting in his soul like a pool of water. It was blocked. Locked behind barriers that had formed when he'd been reborn in this body. The dantians were gates. The chakras were locks. And he'd been trying to break through them with brute force for months.
The book taught him a different way.
Flow, not force. Open, not shatter. Patience, not desperation.
On the first night after Greymoor, Aurelion sat cross-legged on the floor of his cabin, his back straight, his hands resting on his knees. The lantern flickered. The valley was quiet.
He closed his eyes and reached inside.
Not for power—for paths. The lower dantian, just below his navel, was where raw mana accumulated. He'd been drawing from it without thinking, the way a drowning man gasps for air. But the book taught that the lower dantian was a reservoir, not a tap. It needed to be filled, not drained.
He breathed. Slow. Deep. Each inhale pulled mana from the air, from the earth, from the lingering traces of demons he'd killed. Each exhale pushed that mana into the lower dantian, compressing it, storing it.
Hours passed. The lantern burned low. The valley slept.
When he opened his eyes, his hands were steady. His heart was calm. And the power inside him had grown—not in a surge, but in a shift. 9.2%.
Not much. But more than he'd had.
On the second night, he focused on the middle dantian, at the center of his chest. This was the seat of transformation—where raw mana became his mana, marked by his will, shaped by his intent.
The book called it the "forge of the self." He understood why.
The energy that came from the lower dantian was crude, unrefined. It was like iron ore—valuable, but useless without fire and hammer. The middle dantian was the forge. Here, mana met identity. Here, his soul—the fragment of the Demon King—could imprint itself on the power he'd gathered.
He sat in the darkness, his hands over his heart, and he pushed. Not force—flow. He imagined the mana rising from his navel to his chest, passing through a gate that had been rusted shut for months.
It resisted.
He breathed.
It creaked open.
The power rushed through, and he gasped—not in pain, but in recognition. The mana was his now. Not borrowed. Not stolen. His.
9.7%.
On the third night, he reached for the upper dantian, at the center of his forehead.
The book was vague here. The authors had never managed to open it themselves—they'd only theorized. The upper dantian was the seat of transcendence, where mana became something beyond mana. Where power became presence.
Aurelion wasn't sure he believed it. But he'd learned to trust the framework, even when the map was incomplete.
He closed his eyes. Breathed. Felt the mana rising from his chest to his head, pressing against the gate behind his eyes.
It didn't open.
It shuddered.
He pushed harder. The gate held. But something leaked through—a trickle of something that wasn't quite mana, wasn't quite will, wasn't quite anything he could name.
10.0%.
He opened his eyes.
The lantern had gone out. The room was dark. But he could see—every detail, every shadow, every mote of dust floating in the air. The world felt sharper, clearer, more real.
He looked at his hands. The scars from Caelus's blade were gone.
The vehicle arrived the next morning—a rugged transport, armored and mana-reinforced, loaned to Valley's Watch by Central Command.
Corrin drove. Ami rode shotgun. Kael sat in the back, his pistols across his knees, watching the landscape blur past.
Aurelion sat in the passenger seat behind Corrin, his new blade across his lap, his eyes on the road.
"You're quiet," Ami said.
"I'm thinking."
"About the expedition?"
"About what's inside the portal."
Corrin glanced at him in the rearview mirror. "You think it's open?"
"I think it's opening."
They reached the edge of the Stain by midday.
The wrongness pressed against them—the too-long shadows, the delayed echoes, the air that tasted like static. Other vehicles were already there. Hunters in heavy armor, government officials in crisp uniforms, portable command tents sprouting from the dead earth like mushrooms.
Valeris met them at the perimeter.
"Valley's Watch. You're the last to arrive."
"We're also the least important," Aurelion said. "What's the situation?"
She led them to a command tent. Inside, a holographic display showed the red portal—pulsing faster now, its surface rippling, its light bleeding into the surrounding air.
"The portal is destabilizing," Valeris said. "We've detected mana spikes unlike anything on record. Something is trying to break through."
"From inside?"
"From inside." She looked at Aurelion. "Your mission is to enter the portal, assess the source of the instability, and report back. Do not engage unless absolutely necessary."
Ami frowned. "Enter a portal that's actively destabilizing?"
"We'll have stabilization teams on this side. They'll keep the rift open long enough for you to get in and out."
"And if they can't?"
Valeris didn't answer.
The party gathered at the edge of the Stain, waiting for the order to move.
Corrin checked his spear. Ami tested her blade. Kael cycled mana through his pistols, watching the arcs dim and brighten, dim and brighten.
Aurelion stood apart, staring at the red portal in the distance.
"Do you feel it?" Kael asked, appearing beside him.
"The heartbeat."
"It's louder now."
Aurelion nodded. "It's almost time."
The order came at dusk.
"Strike teams advance. Portal entry in thirty minutes."
They moved.
The Stain pressed against them, heavier than before, the wrongness almost physical. Corrin's spear seemed to hum. Ami's blade left trails of light. Kael's pistols crackled with energy that fought back against the static.
Aurelion walked at the front, his hand on his sword.
The red portal loomed ahead.
It was open.
Not fully—a crack, a seam, a wound that was bleeding light into the darkness. But open.
Aurelion stopped at the edge of the crater. The others stopped with him.
"Something's coming through," he said.
"Demons?" Corrin asked.
"Something older."
The crack widened. The light grew brighter. And from within the portal, a voice—not heard, but felt—whispered across the Stain.
"Finally."
Aurelion drew his blade.
The crimson veins pulsed. The gem blazed.
"Valley's Watch," he said. "With me."
They stepped into the light.