The transition from the Mind CatchJai
His eyes snapped open. The first sensation was an overwhelming, crushing weight. His limbs, once light as air in the dreamscape, were now anchors pinning him to the bed. Every breath felt like inhaling liquid stone. His pupils dilated wildly, struggling to process the flickering torchlight of the infirmary.
The silence of the room was instantly shattered. A heavy wooden chair scraped across the stone floor and toppled over with a resounding thud.
"HE’S AWAKE! BY THE ANCESTORS, THE PRINCE IS AWAKE!"
The shout came from the Chief Physician
"Chief..." Jai’s voice was a dry, agonizing scrape, as if his throat had been lined with sandpaper. "How... how many days?"
The Chief grabbed Jai’s hand, his fingers trembling with a relief so profound it bordered on hysteria. Tears welled in his eyes, spilling over his weathered cheeks. "Jai... my boy... it has been five months
Jai’s heart didn't just skip a beat; it seemed to stop entirely. The world tilted. "Five months? But... the Flesh Gate... the war... we’ve been away from the palace for an entire year now?"
"Yes," the Chief whispered, his voice thick. "The world did not stop while you fought your demons, little Prince. Winter has come and gone while you slept."
The heavy oak door was thrown open with such force it rattled on its iron hinges. Alaric Chenwongo
Following Alaric, the rest of the team poured in—James, Rhea, and the younger disciples. Their cries of joy filled the room, a chaotic symphony of relief. Even little Arthur was there, his tiny hands clutching Jai’s blanket, weeping with an intensity that only a child who had feared losing a hero could possess.
But amidst the cacophony of celebration, Jai’s gaze drifted toward the shadows of the doorway. There stood Zayn
"Jai..." Zayn’s voice was a ghost of a sound, cutting through the noise like a cold blade. "My mother... Queen Morlin
The joy in the room evaporated instantly, replaced by a suffocating, leaden sadness. Jai felt a cold stone settle in the pit of his stomach. The Queen—the woman who had treated him like a true son, who had sacrificed her very life-essence to anchor the black hole and protect the kingdom—was gone. While he was trapped in his own imagination, playing out scenes of Zeron and the iron city, the light of the Dwarf Kingdom had been extinguished. The guilt was a physical weight, pressing down on his chest until he could barely breathe.
For the next hour, Jai sat in a daze, listening to the history he had missed. The world had moved on without him. He learned how the Dwarves and Humans had forged a brotherhood in the ruins, their shared sweat and blood creating a bond that would last generations. He learned of the "Gifts of the Fallen"—how the orphans rescued from the Flesh Gate had been returned to their families, and those whose parents were lost were adopted by Dwarf adults who had lost their own children. It was a beautiful, tragic alchemy of grief turning into a cycle of new life.
Two days later, Jai forced himself to stand. His Qi-channels were sluggish, his muscles atrophied, but Alaric refused to stay in the mountain of memories a moment longer. Using his restored spiritual powers, Alaric opened a high-level transit path through the ancient, winding tunnels, guiding the team back toward the Human Kingdom
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The journey took two days—a trek through the wild, magical landscapes of Aetheleon that Jai now viewed with different eyes. He had left as a boy seeking adventure; he was returning as a man who had walked through the abyss and carried the weight of a dead Queen’s legacy.
When they finally saw the towering, iridescent white walls of the Human Capital, Jai felt a strange sense of displacement. They entered the Grand Hall of the Palace
At the far end of the hall, seated upon a throne of obsidian and gold, was Aunt BeatriceRena
Jai watched in confusion as Rena stepped forward. She did not offer a hug. She did not speak. Instead, she took a ceremonial silver blade. With a terrifying, focused intensity, Rena sliced a piece of her own ear and a strip of flesh from her palm. She placed the bloodied offerings into a bronze brazier filled with black coals that burned with a flickering purple flame.
"What is she doing?" Jai whispered to Alaric, his stomach churning.
"A soul-tether ritual," Alaric replied, his eyes narrowed. "She is calling her son, Rayn
A thick, oily black smoke began to pour from the brazier, swirling in the center of the hall like a miniature hurricane. The air grew cold, and the sound of a distant, echoing heartbeat thrummed through the stone floor.
Meanwhile, on Earth:
It was 2:00 AM in the heart of China. The city was silent, but in the penthouse of the Zhang International Tower, the air was vibrating. Rayn
Underneath his bed, a black ritual mark—etched in spiritual ink by a power he didn't even know existed—began to glow with an abyssal light. The space around the room began to fold. The glass and steel of the penthouse blurred like ink in water.
Rayn didn't wake up. He didn't see the neon lights of the city vanish. He didn't see the sterilized silence of his home replaced by the flickering torches of an ancient palace.
In Aetheleon:
The black smoke in the Grand Hall parted with a violent, thunderous roar. The space fractured with the sound of a thousand mirrors shattering. Suddenly, a massive, modern king-sized bed appeared in the center of the hall, resting upon the stone floor as if it had always been there.
Lying upon it, dressed in silk pajamas and looking utterly out of place, was Rayn.
The silence in the hall was absolute. Every warrior, every healer, every magistrate, and every soldier stared at the sleeping man. Rena fell to her knees, her bloodied hand reaching out toward the son she hadn't seen in twenty years.
Beatrice stood up, her eyes flashing with a combination of triumph and dread. "The Sovereign has returned," she whispered, her voice echoing through the rafters. "And with him, the chaos that will reshape the heavens."
Jai looked at the man on the bed. His breath hitched. He looked so much like the person he had seen in his visions many months before—the man in the office, watching football. Jai wondered, his mind reeling.
The crowd of ministers and magistrates whispered in hushed, terrified tones. They looked at Rayn’s face and were struck by his beauty—a celestial, cold handsomeness that inherited the best of Beatrice’s bloodline. The "Cold King" of Earth had arrived in the realm of magic.
Rena walked toward the bed, her movements slow and reverent. Beatrice felt a flare of annoyance at the murmurs of the court. She looked back at the magistrates with a gaze so sharp it felt like a physical blow. The hall turned into a dead silence instantly.
Rena stood beside Rayn. She looked at how big her son had become. For twenty years, she had feared he was dead or suffering in some hellish dimension, never knowing that his father had hidden him in the mundane world of Earth.
She took Rayn’s right hand. The blood coming from her palm was warm, but it was strange—it was transparent blood
The warmth and the sudden sensation of moisture triggered Rayn’s dormant instincts. He felt an annoyance in his sleep, a disturbance in his perfectly regulated world. He turned over, his hand instinctively stretching out toward the bedside table to check the time on his alarm clock.
His hand met only empty air.
Rayn’s eyes slowly opened. He was confused, his mind still clouded by the lingering remnants of a dream about a board meeting. He frowned, wondering where his clock was.
Then, he saw it.
He wasn't in his penthouse. He was in the middle of a cavernous hall filled with people dressed in ancient robes and armor. He turned his head and saw a woman kneeling by his bed, weeping, her hand gripping his. He saw the transparent, water-like blood flowing down her wrist, feeling the strange warmth of it against his skin.
Rayn’s professional mask didn't slip, but his heart began to pound. He looked at the woman—Rena—and then at the massive, glowing eyes of Beatrice at the end of the hall. He looked at Jai, whose golden aura flickered in confusion. Rayn sat up in his king-sized bed, the silk sheets rustling in a world where silk was a luxury of kings, and realized that the "business" of his life had just been replaced by something far more dangerous.
The two worlds had finally collided. The "Cold King" was no longer on Earth. He was in Aetheleon, and the fight for throne was just started..
