The Captain approached the bars, his silhouette momentarily frozen in place. He took a deep, calming breath before uttering in a low voice, almost with a sense of hallowed reverence:
"Water Abyss of Sleep."
Albert, as if sensing a sudden shift in the fabric of reality, stopped writing in blood upon the wall. He spun around violently, fixing his bloodshot eyes on the Captain. He opened his mouth to scream, but in that same instant, he felt the ground beneath his feet vanish.
A muffled gurgling sound escaped Albert's throat. He looked around in terror, seeing thick, black water pressing in on him from all sides. He tried to flail his arms and legs, fighting for oxygen, but every movement only caused him to sink deeper into the cold darkness. Just as the gloom was about to consume him entirely...
Puff.
The darkness vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Albert blinked, feeling soft ground beneath his feet. He found himself in a strange, oneiric world where the sky was the color of deep indigo and the clouds resembled slow, watery currents.
"I... what? What's happening?" he gasped, touching his face, which was no longer covered in black veins.
"Albert" he heard a familiar voice say.
The Captain stood before him.
He looked exactly as he did in the dungeons, but he radiated an aura of peace that soothed the boy's rampaging mind.
"Captain?" Albert took a hesitant step forward.
The man nodded, a visible sadness in his eyes. Without a word, he extended his hand and spoke another formula:
"Mirror of the Depths."
In a split second, massive panes of watery mirrors began to sprout around them. In each, as if in a macabre spectacle, images of Albert from the past few days appeared. He saw himself raging in the cell, tearing out his hair, writing blasphemous signs in blood, and snarling at Weronika.
As soon as these images met his eyes, Albert felt a wave of cold sobriety flood his mind. His consciousness, previously fragmented and dark, began to fuse back together.
His thoughts became clear, and the weight of madness eased for a moment.
He looked at the Captain, who was watching him with a gentle smile.
"Better?" the commander asked.
Albert slowly nodded, still dazed by the sudden return of rationality.
"I pulled you into the dream world so that we could speak for a moment without the interference of the voices," the Captain explained.
Suddenly, the Captain's hand flinched, and one of the watery mirrors shattered with a loud crack. The surface of another began to shake violently, and the world surrounding them rippled dangerously. The man grew serious, and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.
"I cannot maintain this for much longer," he said quickly, looking Albert straight in the eye.
"Listen to me carefully. Show me your puzzle-core, quickly. I have strong suspicions that it was corrupted during the advancement. If it did not evolve as it should have, that is why you are falling into madness so rapidly. Show it to me before this space collapses!"
Albert looked at the Captain with deep uncertainty.
He was a hero who had reincarnated into this body, yet from the first day, he had been plagued by incomprehensible voices and whispers, driving him to the brink of insanity.
Though initially, for a day or two, he could control it, over time he began to lose track of time and do things he would never have condoned.
Now, having regained rationality for a moment thanks to the Captain's power, he looked at the panes of watery mirrors with horror, realizing his own downfall.
He feverishly searched Albert's memories of the man standing before him and of the puzzle-core itself.
This Albert respected him and considered him one of his most trusted people, he thought, trying to understand how to summon the structure of his power.
After a moment of hesitation, he reached out his hand and began to trace a pattern with his finger on his left breast, exactly where his heart was located.
The air in the dream world rippled, and suddenly, illusory puzzles flared before Albert. In the very center sat a gigantic piece named:
Specter Weaver.
Seeing the name and the appearance of the puzzle, the Captain's brow furrowed slightly. Though his face stiffened for a moment, he did not reveal his fears to Albert.
He nodded in a gesture of thanks, watching as the watery panes around them began to crack.
"Please, hold on just a little longer," he said sadly.
Albert did not have time to reply. He felt a violent jerk and, in a fraction of a second, found himself back in the dark dungeon.
His regained consciousness immediately began to drown in gloom; he started to moan, squeal, and laugh maniacally once more.
From Weronika's perspective, the Captain and Albert had simply frozen motionless for a dozen seconds. Suddenly, the boy began to thrash again and emit inhuman sounds. The Captain turned away from the bars, and Weronika immediately ran up to him.
"Did you find anything out, Captain? Is it possible his core simply mutated?" she asked, hope in her voice.
The Captain frowned and shook his head, maintaining his gravity. "The name of his puzzle-core is Specter Weaver," he announced coldly.
Weronika was surprised to hear those words. "But... isn't that the correct name?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.
The Captain nodded. "Yes, the name is correct. The appearance of the puzzle also seems appropriate."
Weronika looked at Albert, writhing on the straw, with complete incomprehension. "Then... why? Why is this happening?"
The Captain looked at Albert with deep sadness and replied in a heavy voice, "There is only one explanation. His mind was not strong enough to hold the newly acquired power."
Weronika looked at Albert in disbelief, rebellion against the commander's words painting her face.
"But that's impossible!" she cried, turning to the Captain. "You know very well that Albert did everything correctly according to the rules of our Organization. He never rushed before an advancement, and you saw perfectly well that for the first few weeks after the evolution, everything was fine with him."
The Captain's brow furrowed, and his hands tightened into fists on his elegant cane.
"I don't understand it either, Weronika," he replied, measuring his words. "But you know well how this world works. The more power you gain, the easier it is to fall into madness."
He bit his lip, and a bitter confession escaped his chest through clenched teeth: "Most of our companions' deaths are not in battle, but precisely this - losing oneself to madness."
Tears appeared on Weronika's face, which she immediately wiped away with her uniform sleeve.
"But Albert had no problems with Echo of Condemnation!" she sobbed. "You yourself said he was ready for evolution. So I don't understand... why, why did this happen?"
The Captain let out a heavy sigh, and his gaze became hopelessly sad.
"Relay the message to the rest," he said quietly. "They may visit Albert for the last time today."
Weronika's eyes went wide. She understood the hidden meaning of those words - Albert had been written off. She wanted to scream, to protest, but ultimately she only nodded in silence, allowing tears to flow freely down her cheeks.
"I will send the message to the rest of the Children of the Star immediately," she whispered and quickly walked away, not wanting the Captain to see her weakness.
The man watched her short green hair remain in disarray for a moment before shifting his gaze back to Albert. He stood there motionless for over twenty minutes, looking at his friend raging behind the bars, as snatches of memories began to flash before his eyes.
He saw Albert during their first joint mission, when the boy had unraveled the enemy cult's trap with extraordinary wisdom.
He saw him smiling by the campfire, as the group of ten celebrated another victory and Albert shared his dreams with them.
An image appeared of an intimate conversation on the walls of Werg Castle, where Albert, full of faith in the future, thanked the Captain for every lesson.
He saw him as a brave warrior who unhesitatingly covered his comrades' backs in the southern reaches of the continent of Eura while they were on a mission in Aegos.
Those images - full of life, courage, and intelligence - suddenly shattered like a pane of glass. In their place returned the brutal reality of the Zalris dungeons: the sight of Albert who, squealing and writhing in the dirty straw, was finally losing his humanity.
The Captain let out a heavy sigh and turned on his heel, leaving the dark corridors of the dungeon.