Cold air slapped Eathan’s mask, and the world shrieked back into full sound as he yanked it off. The gondola pitched beneath them—jiangshi ferryman hopping in horror, oar digging deep.
“It’s awake!” he wailed. “Honoured guests, it’s awake—Level?Five hazard, this is not in my contract—”
Behind them, the river erupted.
One of the Infant’s heads broke the surface, bigger than their entire gondola. Its skin shone in the twilight, tears staining the silver water black. Two more bulged up beside it, sagging and wobbling.
The Infant opened its mouth and wailed.
It was a raw, ripping wail—like every baby that had ever cried all at once, drilling straight into the nerves.
Every hair on Eathan’s arms stood up. His vision pixellated at the edges.
[Humanity] has decreased by 1%! (33% → 32%)
His hands didn’t want to hold anything.
[Auspicious Aura], however, did not take instructions from fear.
Raw, golden light burst out from his chest, more a reflex than a decision. It raced over his shoulders, down his arms, and seeped into the river all around the boat.
Memory motes nearest them brightened, less frantic now. The water immediately around the gondola stilled, its chaos smoothed. The Infant reared back as if someone had thrown cleaning solution in its face.
For a creature that fed on tangled regrets and unclean endings, the Auspicious Beast’s aura was the opposite of a snack.
All nine pale faces scrunched at once. The closest head recoiled with another infantile howl. Two others immediately followed up, shrieking in sympathetic outrage. The river heaved one last time in a tantrum, a great wave rearing to flip them—
“Row!” Chewie screamed.
The boatman didn’t need telling twice.
Despite being already halfway to panic blackout, he dug his pole into the shallower water and hopped, stiff legs kicking as if trying to propel both himself and the boat.
The wave crashed into the water around them. Instead of capsizing them, however, it shoved the gondola forward like a kicked toy boat.
They shot across the current in a dizzy lurch.
Behind them, one last angry wave surged as the Infant sank, sending a final crest roaring after their tail. The wave slammed into the stern, lifting them almost vertical. Eathan hugged Bai Hu’s cracked core to his chest and desperately did not think about mortality statistics for river accidents in the afterlife.
The boat crashed back down, somehow still one piece.
The jiangshi paddled in choppy, terrified strokes, chocolate bar clutched somehow in his vest with suicidal devotion.
“Honoured guests!” he wailed, hopping and rowing at once. “It’s awake, it’s awake, it’s awake—!”
“Extra tip if we live!” Eathan shouted back.
They burst out of the heavy mist almost sideways, into the comparatively civilized chaos of the upper channels. Other boats scattered to either side, shouting curses; more than one ferryman crossed himself with three different religions.
A few frantic minutes later, the gondola slammed into an Emergency Disembarkation dock—a strip of stone under a sign politely reminding patrons to “Leave Regrets At The River.”
They tumbled out onto the steps in a heap.
For a few long breaths, the only sound was their own gasping.
Eathan sprawled on his back, mask askew, still clutching the glowing, cracked core cluster to his chest like a very holy football. Water streamed off him, pooling in small silver puddles that evaporated too quickly.
Chewie sprawled beside him, small chest rising and falling hard. After a while, she scowled up at the eternal twilight.
“We almost died,” she said, “because of a river?baby.”
Eathan managed a wheeze. “Technically… that was nine river?babies.”
Chewie made a strangled noise that could have been agreement or despair.
The jiangshi ferryman crept up to the dock’s edge, still hugging the chocolate bar to his chest. His eyes shone with tears.
“Honoured guests,” he said, trembling. “I—I must insist on an adjustment to the fee. The hazard conditions were… significantly beyond the advertised scope. There is also emotional damage. And boat sanitation.”
Eathan stared at him.
Then he started laughing.
It came out a bit hysterical, but once it started, it wouldn’t stop. Chewie joined in, helpless, more from adrenaline crash than humour.
“Right, right,” Eathan said finally, wiping at his eyes with the back of a wrapped hand. He flicked a transfer from his ID.
“Hazard pay,” he said. “And you never tell anyone what you saw.”
The jiangshi checked the incoming total. His eyes widened. “Of course not! My lips are sealed. Completely. Like my joints. I saw nothing. I ferried no one. Have a… have a nice afterlife.”
He clutched his falling wrist like a holy text and retreated to his boat.
Silence settled again, less ragged now. The murmured noises of the souvenir stalls drifted down the steps.
Eathan pushed himself upright, ignoring the complaining muscles. The core in his hands thrummed quietly—unmistakable, that prickling signature like metal and starlight and the faintest edge of kindness that never fully reached the surface.
Mister White, reduced to something he could wrap his fingers around. He didn’t know whether to laugh again or feel sick.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Fractures ran through the main cluster of the core like veins of lightning frozen mid?flash. In some places, the glow pooled; in others, shadows veined the cracks where the missing shard should have fit.
Eathan swallowed, thumb brushing one jagged hairline.
Chewie rolled onto her side to look. Her usual stare was softer, mouth pressing into a line.
“We didn’t get all of him.”
Eathan saw that shard again in his mind—spinning away, dragged into the Infant’s orbit, slipping into the dark.
Guilt tried to rise.
He pushed it down. One thing at a time.
“Most of him,” he said quietly. “Enough that he’s not just… dissolving out there alone.”
“Yet,” Chewie said bluntly.
“Yet,” he agreed.
Chewie sat up, watching him. She tipped her chin at the core. “We need something to keep that from falling apart.”
As if on cue, a neat chime rang from the inner pocket of his robes.
Eathan blinked, then fumbled out a small, square talisman engraved with purple lines—Hai Xianmo’s “personal VIP concierge token,” presented with far too much ceremony back at the Bureau.
The next second, a translucent figure popped into the air at his shoulder: tidy robes, neat hair, expression hovering between respectful and eager. Hai Xianmo’s miniature avatar bowed at a perfect forty?five degrees.
“Honoured Enlightened Phantom,” he greeted. “We noticed a spike in hazard readings in your vicinity. May this humble one assist with anything?”
Eathan eyed him. “Can you recommend something that stabilises divine cores that have been manhandled by a river monster?”
Chewie raised an eyebrow at his bluntness over her mask.
“But of course, Your Honourable.” Hai Xianmo did not even blink. “In a case as such, you will require an anchoring conduit. Commander Meng’s Bureau authorizes only a handful for divine?grade cores.”
He glanced aside, fingers flicking through invisible files.
“Please proceed twenty?three steps up from your current position and turn left. Kiosk Seven. Ask for a ‘Memory Lattice Capsule.’ It is designed to keep fractured cores from shedding further essence while you… ahem… deal with the rest.”
“Is it going to try to eat our Karma?” Chewie asked.
“It will absolutely ask for it,” Hai Xianmo replied. “I suggest you negotiate. You remain Tier?2; your bargaining position is… favourable.”
Eathan squinted. “Is this… official advice?”
“…Unofficial,” Hai Xianmo said, lips twitching, “consider it friendly professional guidance.”
Chewie folded her arms. “And officially?”
“Officially, the Bureau does not encourage mortals or recent visitors to handle divine fragments at all.” His gaze flicked back to Eathan, lingering a breath too long. “But the Bureau is also… aware… that some situations arrive pre?handled.”
Eathan exhaled. In other words, they knew what they were up to and decided not to stop them. At least yet.
“Thank you,” he said sincerely.
“Of course,” Hai Xianmo replied. “And… honoured guest?”
“Yes?”
“Please accept my congratulations,” Hai Xianmo added with professional brightness, “on successfully not dying.”
The avatar folded out of existence.
They traded a look.
“Useful stalker,” Chewie said.
“Persistent,” Eathan agreed.
***
They hauled themselves up the steps again, muscles protesting, Bai Hu’s core carefully cradled.
At Kiosk Seven was a squat kiosk sat under a canopy of dull bronze charms. Its sign read:
[PERSISTENT FORM SOLUTIONS]
“Because Falling Apart is Inconvenient.”
Approved by Meng’s Bureau (after three revisions)
An elderly zombie woman peered over a pair of huge round glasses at their approach. Shelves behind her gleamed with rows of crystalline boxes, jars, and oddly folded talismans.
“Welcome, welcome,” she said, voice crackly but kind. “Looking for something you don’t want the river to nibble, mm?”
Her eyes flicked to Eathan’s ID, widened a fraction at the Tier?2 sigil, then dropped to what he was carrying. Her brows climbed.
“That… is not a souvenir.”
“Long story,” Chewie said.
“Working on upgrading it to ‘returned property,’” Eathan said. “We were told you might have something to keep it from… disintegrating.”
“Mhm. You heard right.” The zombie grandma shuffled sideways, reaching up to a high shelf. “For that, you’ll want this one.”
She plucked down what looked, at first glance, like an absurdly oversized transparent glue stick.
It was a smooth cylinder, palm?length, with a twistable base and a cap that clicked when she removed it. Inside, instead of actual glue, a delicate lattice of golden lines spiralled up the core like a three?dimensional circuit board.
Chewie stared. “You’re kidding.”
“Memory Lattice Capsule,” the zombie grandma said. “Form factor: ergonomic. Transport?friendly and less suspicious in crowds. Young spirits especially like disguise.” She rotated it between her fingers; the inner lattice caught the twilight and shimmered. “Designed for high?value items. Stabilises structure, filters ambient Oblivion, keeps outside influences from chewing on the contents.”
Eathan eyed it. “It looks like stationery.”
“Divine technology is stationery once you’ve lived long enough,” she said. “Question is whether you want to keep carrying that raw core like a leaking lantern, or ‘glue’ it together before something hungry notices.”
Chewie folded her arms. “Sounds great. Also sounds like the beginning of a tourist scam.”
“Prudent child. Good.” The zombie grandma clicked her tongue. “In that case, try first and pay after.”
Eathan blinked. “You’re serious?”
“Half my clients are half?erased by the time they reach me,” the grandma said, waving a hand. “Bad for business if they start rumours. Put just the edge in. We’ll see if it bites back.”
She twisted the base; the inner lattice flared to life, runes along the cylinder’s side lighting up in sequence. A faint hum filled the stall.
“Stabilisation mode, low intensity,” she added. “Safe for testing.”
Eathan and Chewie exchanged a look.
“Just the edge,” Chewie reminded.
“Just the edge,” he agreed.
Very carefully, he angled Bai Hu’s core so that one fractured corner hovered over the open capsule mouth. The glow from the lattice reached up like thin, golden threads and brushed against the crack.
The reaction was immediate.
Light bled from the core into the lattice and back again, forming a loop. The jagged glow at the fracture softened; the uneven pulse they’d both been feeling in their teeth smoothed out by a hair.
No screaming, no exploding, no sudden river?wide alarms.
“Oh.” Chewie exhaled, shoulders dropping a milimeter. “Okay. That’s…actually working.”
“Told you.” The zombie grandma sounded satisfied. “Whole session is thirty minutes, according to the manual. For maximum effect, you twist to full output and let the lattice run a complete cycle to ‘remember itself’.” She paused, then added dryly, “Side note: doing that in public is like waving a flare at every bored inspector and Spirit?Tuber in the district.”
Eathan’s fingers tightened around the core. He pictured the capsule blazing for a whole half hour, on a busy riverbank full of kiosks and gossip addicts.
“Yeah, no,” he said. “We have somewhere decent to stay.”
Grandma chuckled. “Wise. Then let’s make it official.” She tapped the side of the capsule; the light dimmed back to standby. “It’s very limited in stock. Normally a thousand Karma,” she went on, turning to her ledger, “but for…”
Her gaze dipped once more to his ID.
“…for an honoured Tier?2,” she corrected smoothly, “three hundred. And I’ll throw in a travel sleeve.”
“Travel sleeve?” Eathan echoed.
She shoved a padded, string?tied pouch at him, just large enough to fit the gluestick?capsule. “Shock?resistant, spill?resistant, andnosy?onlooker?resistant, if you don’t wave it around.”
Eathan didn’t even haggle. His hands were starting to shake.
300 Karma has been subtracted from your [PROFILE]! (7580 → 7280)
The capsule warmed briefly in his hand as the trade registered.
The zombie grandma smiled. “Bring it back for maintenance if you stay past a fortnight. Divine things sulk when confined.”
“We’ll try to be gone before it develops cabin fever,” Eathan said.
Chewie tipped her chin. “Thanks, Granny Glue.”
They stepped back out into the open, capsule now sheathed in its unremarkable pouch, Bai Hu’s core faintly glowing through the fabric when Eathan glanced down.
At the dock’s edge, Eathan turned for one brief look.
The River of Oblivion rolled on below, a wide silver band cutting through endless twilight. Far downstream, the surface darkened. If he squinted, Eathan imagined he could still see a tiny flicker of light—one lost shard tumbling along the current, slipping further from reach.
The illusion of Area 001 in ruins flickered at the edge of his mind, uninvited and sharp. For a second, he saw again the broken skyline and the Paladins’ masks.
He breathed in, slow. Out, slower.
Not fixed, he reminded himself. Neither that future, nor this core, nor the White Tiger’s story.
He tightened his grip on the pouch until the lattice’s faint warmth pressed into his palm.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go figure out how to put a Commander back together.”
Chewie fell into step beside him, boots tapping softly against the stone.
They left the riverbank behind, heading toward the distant shimmer of the VIP hotel wards, the Memory Lattice Capsule a steady weight between Eathan’s hands.
Behind them, the River of Oblivion flowed on—patient, hungry, and, for the moment, one god lighter.