Neo did not sleep for long.

An hour at most, maybe less. It was poor sleep, shallow and uneven, but better than none. He had lived in Zone 0. Compared to that, stealing an hour from exhaustion counted as luxury. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Still, as he pushed himself off the ground, one thought crossed his mind with dry honesty.

’Looks like I got used to sleeping in a real bed these last weeks.’

He straightened and rolled his shoulders once.

Despite everything they had seen inside the tower, despite that thing seated on the throne above, despite the way it had closed half the room’s distance in a handful of steps, Neo’s mood wasn’t bad.

It should have been, probably.

Instead, a part of him kept circling back to the same fact.

A Divine Soul Relic.

He had gone into the tower and walked back out with something absurd in his soul. A relic that could eat other weapons, improve them, change shape at thought alone, and drain far less Soul Essence than it had any right to.

That alone was a monstrous gain.

’Now I just need to get out of this Breach, and everything goes back to normal.’

The lie in that thought was obvious enough that even Neo almost laughed.

Nothing was going back to normal.

His mind went to the boss again. The black throne. The six swords. That impossible burst of movement.

Neo had seen enough Soul Beasts and Awakeneds by now to understand something simple: that speed did not fit anything he had encountered so far. It did not feel like Ember. It did not feel like Vein. It didn’t even feel like the gap between those and something a little higher.

The Duskmane had been Throne.

Fifth Core.

And Roderic Duplain had killed it.

Neo’s mouth flattened.

’What Core is someone like him at, then?’

He didn’t like following that thought very far. It made the world feel wider in all the wrong ways.

Even so, they had one advantage here.

Fifty-three Awakeneds.

That was a lot of people.

On paper, it should have been enough.

In practice, reality was uglier. Not everyone here had a class fit for combat. Some people awakened strange utility classes, odd support types, things useful in the right hands but unimpressive when six blades were coming for their throat. Those people only had their enhanced bodies to lean on. Awakened or not, that still had limits.

Neo imagined himself years from now, far above this.

Saint Core.

Strong enough that rules bent around his existence because nobody wanted to test whether he cared about them. Strong enough that men like Roderic stopped looking like walls and started looking mortal again.

The image pleased him more than it should have.

When he reached the hut, Snot was already awake.

More than awake.

He was leaning over Max with both hands near his throat, not quite strangling him yet, but clearly entertaining the thought.

He sensed Neo before turning.

"This isn’t what it looks like," Snot said at once. "I was trying to shut him up."

Neo stepped inside and glanced from him to Max. "Yeah. That part’s believable. The method looked permanent, though."

Snot finally turned his head.

That was enough movement to wake Max.

His eyes opened.

He saw Snot hovering over him with both hands out.

And, for reasons only Max would ever understand, the first thing he did was jolt upright, throw both arms across his bare chest as if protecting his body from Snot’s suspicious hands, and blurt out.

"Nyo~"

The hut went dead quiet.

Neo stared.

Snot stared harder.

Neither of them looked prepared for that sound to come out of a man built like a siege wall.

Snot got off him immediately.

Neo kept staring anyway.

Max pushed himself up onto one elbow and frowned. "Why are you both looking at me like that?"

He glanced between them, seemed to realize what had happened, and tried to recover with dignity that wasn’t available to him anymore.

"It was a joke," he said. "You know. Like girls sometimes do in shows."

He got no farther than that.

Neo lifted one hand slightly. "We understand, Max. Thanks for explaining."

That only made it worse.

For a few breaths, the hut sat in a deeply uncomfortable kind of quiet.

Then the flap opened.

Marika stepped in first, Alice behind her. Marika stopped after one glance around the room and narrowed her eyes.

"What happened?"

Snot pointed straight at Max. "Ask him."

Now she was interested.

Marika turned toward Max with obvious delight. "Max. Tell me."

Max lowered his head at once.

Bad move.

That only made Marika more curious. She moved closer, slid around behind him, and wrapped both arms around him from the back with shameless ease.

"Come on," she murmured near his ear. "Tell me."

Max froze like a hunted animal.

Alice, meanwhile, looked at Neo in silence.

He understood the message immediately.

Spare us.

Neo gave the smallest nod and stepped in before Marika could make the man die of embarrassment.

"Nothing important," he said. "Just a stupid joke." He shifted his attention to all of them. "But Snot and I do have something to tell you."

That wiped the amusement out of the room fast.

Marika released Max at once. Alice straightened slightly. Even Max looked relieved to be given another subject to exist inside.

Snot moved to the entrance and pulled it shut.

After that, the two of them explained everything.

The way they had entered the tower. The first floor with the angel statue and spiral stairs. The second floor and its twisted little farming system, where Soul Beasts climbed up from below and got trapped in a narrow path by that pale flame. The gray-haired group exploiting the place for Souls while keeping the rest of the camp outside. The higher floor full of Vagabonds. The final room. The throne. The boss.

The more they spoke, the quieter the hut became.

Marika was the first to break the pause after.

"You two snuck into the tower," she said slowly, "and nearly died."

Neo shook his head. "I didn’t. Snot nearly died. I saved him."

Snot turned toward him in disbelief. "Excuse me?"

Marika stared at both of them. "That wasn’t the correction I expected."

Max dragged one hand down his face. "This sounds much worse than I thought."

Alice nodded once.

Snot folded his arms. "Worse, yes. Impossible, no. We saw the boss with our own eyes. That means we know what waits there."

In a place like this, real information was worth more than courage.

Snot kept going. "Honestly, the smart move is telling Byron everything. If everyone uses that second floor to farm before the tower run, it helps all of us. Neo and Alice could reach Vein. The others would get stronger too."

Max gave a slow nod. "That makes sense. The more people who can stand properly in that fight, the better."

Neo leaned back slightly. "To be honest, we considered keeping quiet and using it ourselves."

That got a look from Marika.

Neo didn’t bother softening it. "But yes. If everyone knows, our overall chances go up."

Alice crossed her arms. "That’s unusually generous from you."

"It’s also practical."

That answer sounded so much like Neo that nobody argued with it.

Before the conversation could move any further, a shout cut through the camp outside.

Then another.

Voices rising.

The whole hut heard it.

Snot moved first and pulled the entrance open. The others followed him out.

Byron stood in the open with the gray-haired bastard in front of him, both of them mid-argument.

And judging by the expression on the gray-haired boy’s face, he was furious about something.