Outside the massive dark iron doors of the Endless Tower, the oppressive silence of the black obsidian corridor reigned supreme.

The blinding suffocating white light radiating from the threshold had completely vanished the exact second Klaus had stepped inside.

Now, the double doors were just dark, silent iron, offering absolutely no hint of the nightmare occurring behind them.

Mirela had been pacing the landing for what felt like hours. Her goat ears twitched nervously with every imaginary sound.

She clutched her moon-crystal staff with her eyes locked onto the dark metal.

Anya sat quietly on the top step of the spiral staircase, her purple eyes tracing the ancient runes carved into the floor.

She knew what was happening inside, which was the Trial, but she couldn’t intervene... Neither did she know exactly what he was doing.

"It’s been too long," Mirela whispered, chewing nervously on her lower lip. "Anya, how long does the trial usually take? Is he... is he stuck?"

Before the six-year-old Shinigami could answer, the atmosphere on the landing abruptly shifted.

The dark iron doors didn’t open, but they suddenly, violently flared with a brilliant, blinding pulse of white light.

VWOOSH!

The spatial barrier ejected the host.

A body tumbled backward out of the light, completely devoid of momentum. It didn’t fly across the room this time.

It just fell out of the threshold, tumbling clumsily down the first few black stone stairs before coming to a stop near Anya’s small feet.

"Klaus!" Mirela cried out, dropping her staff and rushing forward but as she reached the bottom of the stairs and looked down at the man lying on the obsidian, she froze.

The dark, rugged stubble on his jaw was gone, replaced by thick, wiry patches of stark white.

The deep grooves around his mouth had deepened into severe, heavy canyons of aged skin.

The thick muscular build he had possessed just an hour ago had withered. His shoulders were stooped, his chest looked sunken with his skin hanging loosely over his collarbones.

His dark hair was completely, entirely white.

He didn’t look like a man in his late thirties anymore... He looked like an elderly man teetering precariously on the edge of his twilight years, his body ravaged by the relentless, cruel passage of time...

Klaus lay on the cold stone with his chest barely rising and falling.

He slowly pushed himself up onto his trembling elbows. His joints popped and cracked audibly, echoing in the quiet stairwell.

He raised his head, looking at the blurry terrified face of the goat-eared maid staring down at him.

Klaus let out a dry agonizing groan that sounded like a death rattle.

"Apparently..." Klaus rasped, his voice a weak, gravelly wheeze that tore at his throat. "Dealing with regrets is harder... than I..."

He paused with a violent hacking cough racking his frail body.

"...expected."

The agonizing, dry wheeze of Klaus’s voice echoed weakly against the cold obsidian walls of the Endless Tower.

He lay crumpled at the base of the massive dark iron doors, his body ravaged by the lethal penalty of the Second King’s trial.

"Klaus!" Mirela cried out with the sound tearing violently from her throat.

She didn’t hesitate.

The goat-eared maid dropped her moon-crystal staff. It clattered loudly against the black stone, entirely forgotten.

She threw herself down the first few massive steps of the landing, her boots skidding against the slick obsidian as she rushed to his side.

Her mind was completely consumed by pure panic. She saw the gray pallor of his skin. She saw the way his chest hitched and struggled just to draw in a single, shallow breath of the stale air.

Mirela dropped to her knees beside him.

She reached out, her hands shaking violently, desperate to pull him up, to hold him, to transfer some of the warmth from her magic ring into his freezing, frail body.

She grabbed his left arm, her fingers wrapping securely around his wrist and forearm, and pulled upward to lift his torso off the cold stone.

SNAP!

The sound was sickening, and impossibly loud in the dead silence of the stairwell. It sounded like a dry, brittle branch being stepped on by a heavy boot.

Klaus didn’t scream.

He didn’t have the breath or the energy left to scream.

A muted agonizing gasp escaped his pale lips, his white eyes widening as his entire body convulsed in a violent spasm of pure physical shock.

Mirela froze.

The resistance she was so used to feeling from him... the dense unbreakable muscle of a man was completely gone.

His body wasn’t a fortress anymore... The trial hadn’t just stolen the years from his face; the parasite had hollowed out his marrow, turning his skeleton into fragile, brittle glass.

Mirela looked down.

Klaus’s left hand hung at a horrific unnatural angle from his wrist. The bone had completely fractured under the pressure of her frantic, demi-human grip.

Mirela released his arm instantly, as if she had just touched a burning coal. Klaus’s shattered hand dropped back onto the obsidian floor with a dull thud.

Mirela fell backward, landing hard on her hands.

She stared at her own palms as her lips parted in paralyzing horror. Her pupils shrank to tiny pinpricks.

She had mutilated her Master simply by trying to help him.

"No... No, no, no..." Mirela hyperventilated as tears instantly streaming down her face as she scrambled backward away from him, terrified to touch him again. "I’m sorry! Oh Goddess, I didn’t mean to! I’m so sorry!"

Before Klaus’s frail body could fully collapse back against the hard stone, the ambient air in the stairwell violently shifted.

Anya was there.

The six-year-old Shinigami moved with a desperate speed that completely betrayed her usual calm demeanor. She dropped to her small knees beside Klaus.

Her striking purple eyes glowed with a frantic, blinding luminescence. Anya raised both of her small, pale hands, her fingers spread wide.

VWOOSH!

A thick, swirling cloud of dense purple spatial magic erupted from her palms. The ethereal energy didn’t form a weapon or a shield.

It flowed directly underneath Klaus’s broken, withered body, condensing rapidly into a soft, glowing, levitating cushion of pure mana.

It caught him perfectly, holding his frail spine and shattered wrist in a state of weightless, absolute stasis, completely eliminating the pressure of gravity on his brittle bones.

Anya kept her hands raised, maintaining the magical stretcher, but her ancient, analytical composure had completely shattered.

She wasn’t looking at him like a Shinigami observing a mortal vessel. She was looking at him like a terrified little girl watching her father die.

"Father..." Anya whispered, her voice trembling violently, tears welling up in her luminescent purple eyes. "Father... stay with me. Please."

Klaus lay suspended on the bed of purple magic.

The excruciating pain of his broken wrist throbbed through his nervous system, but the overwhelming exhaustion dragging his consciousness down into the abyss was stronger.

He looked up at the blurry, tear-filled face of the silver-haired child hovering over him.

He saw the fear in her eyes... He wanted to speak... He wanted to tell her that it was okay, that he had figured out the rules of the trap... that he knew how to convince the other guy in the next loop...

Klaus tried to nod and he tried to offer her a reassuring smile but the physical toll was simply too massive. The muscles in his neck refused to obey. His eyelids fluttered, incredibly heavy, slowly sliding shut as the last dregs of his adrenaline completely evaporated.

"Father!" Anya screamed, her melodic voice breaking into a sob that echoed endlessly up the massive shaft of the Endless Tower.

The darkness rushed in, swallowing Klaus whole as he completely passed out.

...

Hundreds of miles away, far beyond the apocalyptic blizzards of the Haunted Winterlands, the world was entirely different.

The world panned away from the freezing desolate north, flying rapidly across vast, sprawling forests, rolling green plains, and towering mountain ranges, until it finally descended upon the beating, brilliant heart of the continent.

The Capital of the Empire...

It was a sprawling, magnificent metropolis of towering spires, bustling markets, and grand, sunlit avenues.

The sky above was a flawless, brilliant shade of cerulean blue, completely devoid of the bruised, iron-gray clouds that plagued the northern territories.

The air was warm, smelling of fresh bread, blooming jasmine, and the distant, metallic clinking of the royal blacksmiths.

Standing perfectly still amidst the chaotic, vibrant bustle of the inner city’s most affluent district, bathed in the warm morning sunlight, was Serra.

The blonde healer was standing at the base of the massive, wide marble steps that led up to the Grand Church.

The structure in front of her was a breathtaking, overwhelming testament to divine architecture.

It was constructed entirely of pristine, polished white marble, adorned with towering pillars, intricate gold-leaf arches, and massive kaleidoscopic stained-glass windows that depicted the ancient triumphs of the Goddess Luneth.

Serra wore her formal, tailored white and blue priestess robes, identifying her as a senior healer of the faith but right now, she wasn’t acting like a high-ranking cleric.

She stood near a beautiful bubbling marble fountain in the courtyard, entirely oblivious to the nobles and merchants walking past her.

Both of her hands were clasped tightly together against her chest, her knuckles turning white.

Her head was bowed, her blonde hair falling like a curtain to shield her face, and her soft blue eyes were squeezed tightly shut.

She was praying.

It wasn’t a standard recited prayer for the health of the Empire or the blessing of the crops.

It was a fierce intensely personal plea that consumed her entire heart.

’Please, Goddess...’ Serra prayed. ’I pray for Klaus. Please... bring him back to us safely.’

She didn’t know where he was.

When she and Zephyra had boarded the carriage to the Capital two weeks ago, Klaus had smiled that terrifying, empty smile and told them he was going to stay in Galen Town but Serra wasn’t a fool.

She possessed a deep emotional intuition that came from years of healing people.

She knew he was lying... She knew he was gone and probably Mirela was with him...

Serra squeezed her hands tighter, ignoring the dull ache in her fingers.

She didn’t care about his sudden terrifying darkness.

She didn’t care that he had started acting like a ruthless person to push them away.

She loved him... Serra loved her Boss and he gave her reasons to love him everyday.

She just wanted him back.

She wanted him to return to the Forest-Edge Compound, safe and whole, so she could brew him tea, bandage his cuts, and slowly, patiently prove to him that they were never... ever going to leave him behind.

’Keep him safe from the cold. Keep him safe from his own heart,’ Serra pleaded silently.

She held the prayer in her heart for a long, quiet moment, letting the warm sunlight wash over her face.

Finally, she let out a slow, steadying breath. She unclasped her hands, opening her striking blue eyes.

The fierce anxiety in her chest didn’t vanish, but it settled into a manageable quiet ache.

She had done all she could for him from afar. Now, she had a duty to fulfill.

Serra smoothed down the front of her pristine white robes, adjusted the small, golden holy symbol pinned to her collar, and began the long ascent up the massive marble steps toward the towering golden doors of the Grand Church.

Usually, the cathedral was the most chaotic crowded location in the entire Capital.

On any given day, the massive entry hall was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with low-ranking healers seeking guidance, heavily armored paladins receiving their blessings before a campaign, and hundreds of desperate commoners and nobles alike begging for miracles.

The air was typically filled with the loud overlapping echoes of chanting choirs and the heavy scent of burning incense but today, as Serra pushed her hands against the heavy, intricate golden doors and stepped over the threshold, the atmosphere was entirely different.

The Grand Church was dead silent.

Serra paused in the doorway, her blue eyes widening in surprise.

The cavernous, breathtakingly massive main hall was entirely empty.

The long, polished wooden pews that could seat thousands were vacant.

The chanting choirs were gone. The paladins guarding the aisles had been dismissed.

The only sound in the entire cathedral was the soft, echoing click of her own boots against the pristine white marble floor.

Vibrant, colorful beams of light streamed through the towering stained-glass windows high above, casting long, kaleidoscopic shadows across the empty aisles.

Serra walked forward, her footsteps echoing loudly in the suffocating silence.

As she moved down the center aisle, her eyes locked onto the front of the cathedral.

There, at the very base of the colossal, weeping marble statue of the Goddess Luneth, the only other people in the entire building were gathered.

Kneeling on the plush, velvet cushions at the foot of the altar were three other young women.

Serra recognized them instantly.

Like her, they were Saintess Candidates and had received the mandatory urgent royal summons to report to the Church for some reason.

They were all dressed in identical, pristine white and blue robes, their heads bowed in deep reverence.

Standing on the elevated marble dais above them, directly beneath the weeping statue of the Goddess, was the current Saintess.

She was an incredibly powerful woman.

Her long hair was a stark, pure white, cascading down her back like a waterfall of spun silk.

She wore elaborate, flowing robes spun from golden thread that shimmered with an inherent divine luminescence.

Her face was heavily lined with age, but she stood perfectly straight, unbowed by the centuries she had served the Church.

The holy mana radiating from the Saintess was so intense, so overwhelmingly pure, that the very air around the altar felt thick and heavy, pressing down on Serra’s shoulders with an undeniable, suffocating divine pressure.

Serra approached the front of the hall.

She didn’t speak... She didn’t break the sacred silence.

She walked over to the velvet cushions, smoothly lowered herself down, and assumed a deeply respectful kneeling position beside the other three candidates, bowing her head.

The silence stretched on.

For several long, agonizing minutes, the only sound in the cavernous cathedral was the soft breathing of the four girls.

The divine pressure in the room continued to build, making the hairs on the back of Serra’s neck stand straight up.

Finally, the ancient Saintess moved.

She slowly lowered her hands, gazing down at the four kneeling girls from the elevated dais.

Her eyes, pools of glowing, radiant silver, swept over each of them, analyzing the purity of their souls and the depth of their mana cores.

"Welcome all of you," the Saintess spoke.

Her voice wasn’t loud, but it possessed a strange, resonant sound that carried effortlessly through the massive, empty cathedral, echoing off the high vaulted ceilings and stained-glass windows.

"Welcome back to the heart of the Church," the Saintess continued. "I know the summons was sudden. I know it pulled you away from your vital duties, your patients, and your assigned parties in the outer territories."

The Saintess slowly descended the marble steps of the dais, the golden fabric of her robes trailing behind her like liquid light. She stopped just a few feet away from the kneeling girls.

"But looking around this empty hall, feeling the absolute silence of this sacred sanctuary," the Saintess announced, her glowing silver eyes narrowing slightly, "I am sure you have already surmised that this is no ordinary evaluation."

The four girls remained perfectly still, their heads bowed, but the collective anticipation in the air spiked violently.

Serra’s heart hammered against her ribs. She swallowed hard, her mind racing through the ancient texts and Church protocols she had memorized.

The cathedral was only ever cleared of all personnel for one specific, monumental ritual...

"As you can guess," the Saintess declared, her voice echoing with profound, absolute authority. "I have called you all here because today is the day."

The Saintess stopped pacing.

She turned her glowing silver eyes, bypassing the other three highly acclaimed candidates entirely, and locked her gaze directly, unmistakably onto the bowed head of Serra.

The air in the cathedral seemed to freeze as the divine pressure concentrated entirely onto the young blonde healer that had been in Galen Town.

Slowly, unable to resist the command inherent in the silence, the four girls raised their heads, looking up at the woman standing before them.

Their breath caught in their throats and their eyes wide with awe and barely contained shock.

The Saintess didn’t look away from Serra.

Her expression softened, a mixture of profound sorrow and intense expectation crossing her weathered face.

"Our Goddess, Luneth," the Saintess declared, the words hanging in the air like a thunderclap, "is going to choose a new Saintess."

’A new Saintess?’

She was just a senior healer from Galen Town... She didn’t belong here, surrounded by the towering, gold-leaf arches and kaleidoscopic stained-glass windows of the Capital’s holiest sanctum...

The fact that she had been chosen when she was younger was simply a fluke.

She could feel the overwhelming confidence radiating from the woman kneeling just a few feet to her right.

It was Christina.

Christina was the personal, hand-picked assistant to the current Saintess. She was the daughter of a high-ranking Duke, possessing a flawless elegant posture, pristine, custom-tailored white robes, and a mana core so incredibly dense with holy magic that she practically glowed in the dim lighting of the cathedral.

Christina didn’t have the curviest figure, but she carried herself with the aristocratic certainty of a queen who was simply waiting for her crown.

There was absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind... including Serra’s... that Christina was the chosen successor.

"Again... Our Goddess, Luneth," the Saintess declared once more. "is going to choose a new Saintess."

Serra held her breath.

The woman standing on the elevated marble dais slowly turned her back to the four kneeling candidates.

She faced the colossal, towering white marble statue of the weeping Goddess Luneth that dominated the entire front of the cathedral.

The Saintess raised both of her frail, trembling hands high above her head.

"I have served my time as the vessel," the Saintess chanted. "I return the grace. I return the light. I empty my core so that the Goddess may find a new home."