Yuto and Shinny moved through the wasteland without speaking, their footsteps carrying them across an endless expanse of sand, fractured stone, and wind-carved rock formations that seed even more alien beneath the cover of night.
The desert transford after sunset.
During the day, the landscape had been dominated by relentless heat and blinding light, every horizon wavering beneath waves of distortion that made the world appear as though it were constantly lting. Now that oppressive furnace was gone, replaced by an entirely different kind of hostility.
Cold.
Not the gentle coolness that followed a warm day back on Earth, but a dry, penetrating chill that seed determined to slip through clothing and settle directly into bone. The wind swept endlessly across the dunes, carrying grains of sand that whispered across stone and scraped against exposed skin with faint, abrasive touches.
The darkness should have been absolute.
Yet sohow it wasn’t.
Yuto found himself noticing it more with every passing minute.
There was no moon hanging overhead.
No stars bright enough to explain the visibility.
No glowing crystals embedded in the terrain.
No distant source of illumination lurking beyond the horizon.
And yet the wasteland remained visible.
A strange pale radiance seed to exist everywhere at once, thin and diffuse, washing over the landscape in a ghostly glow that cast shadows without revealing where the light itself originated. The effect made the world feel dreamlike, as though reality had been reconstructed from mory rather than built according to natural laws.
Yuto’s gaze slowly drifted upward.
The sky bothered him.
It had been bothering him for days now.
During daylight hours, there was no sun.
At night, there was no moon.
And yet both day and night still existed.
Light appeared when it should not.
Darkness arrived without any celestial body governing it.
Nothing followed the rules he understood.
The longer he remained in the Astral Realm, the harder it beca to believe this place was connected to Earth in any aningful way.
At first he had assud it was simply another dinsion, a parallel space sohow attached to the real world.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
Perhaps this realm existed on an entirely different planet.
A world orbiting a star unlike any humanity had ever seen.
Or perhaps even that assumption was too grounded.
Perhaps this wasn’t a planet at all.
Perhaps the Astral Realm existed completely outside the normal structure of reality.
The thought lingered in his mind as he walked.
Eventually he glanced sideways toward Shinny.
The swordsman moved silently beside him, his posture relaxed but alert, every step balanced and controlled despite the uneven terrain beneath his feet.
"Do you know what the Astral Realm actually is?" Yuto asked.
Shinny remained quiet for several seconds.
His eyes drifted across the horizon.
The wind tugged lightly at his clothing.
Finally he spoke.
"I don’t know."
Yuto wasn’t particularly surprised.
If anyone had asked him a few weeks ago whether his summoned swordsman possessed secret knowledge about the mysteries of existence, he probably would have said yes.
Now that he actually knew Shinny, the answer seed far less certain.
Still, curiosity pushed him onward.
"What about your life before you beca my summon?"
That question produced an imdiate reaction.
Not dramatic.
Not obvious.
But enough.
Shinny’s pace slowed slightly.
A faint crease appeared between his brows.
Yuto blinked.
He had never seen Shinny frown before.
The expression looked strange on him, like a feature he wasn’t accustod to using.
The swordsman thought deeply.
Long enough that the wind filled the silence between them.
Long enough that Yuto began to wonder whether he had asked sothing impossible.
Eventually Shinny answered.
"I don’t know."
Yuto stared at him.
"You don’t rember?"
Shinny shook his head.
"No."
"Nothing at all?"
Again, Shinny shook his head.
For a brief mont his expression remained troubled.
Then, almost instantly, the uncertainty vanished.
The familiar warmth returned to his features.
"My earliest mory is being summoned by Master."
Yuto nodded slowly.
Silence returned.
Yet his thoughts refused to settle.
Did Shinny have a life before becoming a summon?
The question seed obvious.
Of course he must have.
Shinny spoke like a person.
Thought like a person.
Felt emotions like a person.
So what had he been before?
Had he once walked beneath a different sky?
Had he belonged to a family sowhere?
Had there been parents waiting for him?
Friends laughing beside him?
People who rembered his na?
Or had he once been a warrior?
A hero?
A criminal?
A king?
The possibilities multiplied endlessly.
Every answer only created more questions.
Had soone mourned his disappearance?
Did anyone know what had beco of him?
Did he even have a real na before becoming Shinny?
The more Yuto thought about it, the stranger the situation beca.
His summon existed.
Clearly.
Undeniably.
Yet his entire existence before their eting appeared to have been erased.
The mystery unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.
Then suddenly the train of thought shattered.
Shinny’s hand rose sharply.
The change was instantaneous.
The relaxed expression disappeared.
The swordsman’s eyes narrowed.
His posture tightened.
Without speaking, he gestured for silence.
Yuto stopped imdiately.
Every trace of casual conversation vanished from his mind.
Shinny pointed toward a distant cluster of rocks partially buried beneath drifting sand.
Yuto followed the direction.
At first he saw nothing.
Only shadows.
Stone.
Darkness.
Then movent.
His eyes narrowed.
There.
A steel-plated beetle.
The creature moved slowly across the wasteland, its enormous armored body partially concealed by the terrain. The strange glow illuminating the desert reflected faintly from its shell, causing sections of black tal-like plating to shimr whenever it passed through open ground.
Yuto crouched instinctively.
The beetle hadn’t noticed them.
Not yet.
For several long monts he remained completely still, observing.
Watching.
Studying.
The creature followed no obvious pattern.
Its movents were steady.
thodical.
Occasionally its horn dipped toward the ground as if searching for sothing beneath the sand.
Yuto tracked every motion carefully while simultaneously examining the surrounding terrain.
Distances.
Cover.
Escape routes.
Potential blind spots.
Slowly, a plan began forming in his mind.
The funny thing was that he wasn’t nervous.
A few weeks ago his stomach would have been twisting itself into knots.
His pulse would have quickened.
His palms would have grown slick with sweat.
Now there was only anticipation.
He had grown stronger.
Far stronger.
The difference wasn’t rely physical.
Sothing fundantal had changed.
He was still only a Disciple.
Still near the bottom of the ladder compared to truly powerful Ethereals.
Yet he was no longer ordinary.
His soul rank had evolved.
He was a nace now.
The title carried weight.
More importantly, it carried confidence.
And if things sohow spiraled beyond his control, he wasn’t alone anymore.
Beetle was only a summon away.
Shinny stood beside him.
His growing army stood behind him.
For perhaps the first ti since entering the Astral Realm, Yuto felt sothing approaching certainty.
He wanted this fight.
Not because it was necessary.
Not because it was strategic.
Because he genuinely wanted to know.
He wanted to asure the distance between the person he had been and the person he was becoming.
He wanted proof.
Evidence.
Sothing tangible that demonstrated his growth.
Yuto slowly turned toward Shinny.
"Stay close."
Shinny nodded imdiately.
"If sothing goes wrong, step in."
Another nod followed.
The swordsman’s expression carried complete trust.
Complete confidence.
"But this one is mine."
A grin spread across Shinny’s face so quickly it almost seed childlike.
He imdiately raised a thumb into the air.
"Good luck, Master."
A faint smile appeared on Yuto’s face.
Then he turned away.
His eyes settled on the unsuspecting beetle moving through the darkness.
The cold wind brushed against his clothes.
The distant monster continued forward, completely unaware that a hunter had already chosen it as prey.
And with asured, silent steps, Yuto began moving into position.
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