I stared up into the sky and screamed. The power was crushing me, but I wouldn’t fall.

But I could feel doubt creeping in.

I had done it, but it wasn’t enough. The pressure was too much, my soul and body were shaking. I hadn’t cracked like a dam yet, but I could feel that it was just a matter of time. There was simply too much pressure, more than my body or soul could handle. Energy and mana were rushing into me, and I knew that the moment I let this form fade, my spirit would crack.

I drew my everything up into a sharp point, then slammed it against the darkness.

I could hold on. It might not be perfect, but I would not die.

I hammered my will against the pressure, and slowly but surely, I began to understand it.

The power of the spellbinder bond had alleviated the soul bond, but not removed it. Too much of the bond had been spent elsewhere, trying to keep up with the racing potential of the detonated beastmark inkstone.

But the beastmark wasn’t my only source of pressure. I could feel three others, one much stronger than the other two.

It took me a long time to understand them. Cognitively, I knew what they were, but cognition was of limited use in this fight. I needed a different kind of understanding, one that ironically enough, I didn’t understand.

The weakest was featherlight, practically carrying itself, the power of my staff. It strengthened my spirit as much as it weighed on it, and connected me to something – or somethings? – that I didn’t understand.

That was… strange. The power of a staff was focused internally, why was it connecting to something else?

But I didn’t have time to ponder. Whatever the other thing it was connecting me to was, it added no weight.

I dismissed the staff from my mind.

The second weakest was the Runelight Lens, my growth item. It was strong, a well crafted growth item that had a valuable natural treasure and multiple resources poured into its creation at the sacrificial altar. It was perfectly suited to expanding my senses, one of my strongest weapons.

The lens added pressure. A lot of pressure.

But not even a quarter as much as the third.

Dusk.

My oldest soulbond, one that I’d doubled down on with an extra binding knot. Dusk was an entire astral plane, a pocket world. Dusk was a person, with curiosity, hopes, and dreams.

And she was in distress. Her own power was adding to the pressure that was crushing my spirit and body, and she wasn’t able to do anything about it.

But I could.

I reached for the pressure that was Dusk, and I allowed it down. My body splintered and cracked in the spiritual space, but Dusk appeared next to me. Her eyes widened, and she reached out, taking my hand in hers.

With her tiny frame, I looked like a giant.

She looked at me, squared her shoulders, then focused.

I didn’t know much about spirits, but I knew that they achieved a dominion, a sort of… realm of control. It helped them specify their power, and was part of how more granular spirits appeared. It was the power they unlocked at spellbinder, but Dusk’s legacy and nascent truth had let her channel bits of it before, though they’d exhausted her quickly.

Up until this point, Dusk hadn’t solidified her dominion, like a beast who hadn’t chosen their form, or a human who hadn’t bonded to something.

In that moment, Dusk’s dominion formed, and I could see it. I stood there, present within her dominion, Dusk on my shoulder, and the world spread out around me, a river to my left, trees to my right, mountains capped with snow behind me, and sand beneath my feet.

Capturing me within her dominion had taken an inordinate amount of power, and I could feel that if she’d chosen to develop her dominion without me, she could have easily painted a much larger picture, given herself more to work with. She was a worldspirit, after all.

But she hadn’t.

Dusk had incorporated me into her spiritual dominion, and I felt that settle around me. Like a half-baked cake, it was helping with the spiritual pressure, but it wasn’t done yet.

Dusk slapped my hand, and I felt life mana, extracted from the red star tree, fill me. She gave me a serious look, and let out a sound like the whipping wind in the mountains.

She told me to not die.

I seized the mana, and with an effort of will, I forced myself to reappear in my mana-garden.

I was still on my hands and knees, near my newly opened third gate death mana, and I could feel the overflowing power of life filling my life gates. I clamped down onto it, not letting it go to waste, and started crawling towards my life gate. I saw something glowing in my ungated mana as I crawled through, but I couldn’t spare the effort to tilt my head, I needed everything for this.

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I crawled under the boughs of my massive tree, over the roots, until I stood near the third gate for life mana.

Then I staggered to my feet, using the bars of the gate to lever myself up. I thrust my hand into the air, conducting as much mana as I could, and I felt more flowing in from Dusk, flowing into me. I brought my fist down on the gate.

Unlike the death gate, life blew open in a single strike. It was as if it was out of balance, and wanted to return to its correct orientation.

I supposed in a way, that was true.

Light exploded from the tree behind me, and the connection point, and I saw the bark of the tree begin to turn a shimmering rainbow color, while the mushroom became the black of ink. The branches of the tree began to weave their way under the gills of the mushroom, forming constellations, though not ones I recognized. I changed, spirit and body.

Again, there was the stable flow of more power, freeing me from bonds I’d worn around my ankles all my life, and letting me walk unobstructed for the first time.

And again, I felt a socket open in the gate, a place I needed to fill with power.

I reached out for Dusk, and with her already working me into her dominion, it was even easier than directing the flow of the beastmark into my death gate.

Death resonated with the power of the bestial.

Life resonated with the power of the spiritual.

Ungated mana, where the two opposing powers came together as one, resonated with the power of humanity.

It was like a key clicking into a lock, like the last puzzle piece slotting into place, like spell-machined gears in a clock.

The pressure lifted from my spirit and my body, and I could breathe again.

The last thing I heard before I passed out was the rustling of Dusk, calling out one word.

Victory.

The first thought I had upon waking up was that I felt bad for Kene. They’d had to tend to me after I passed out too many times.

The second thought was that I seemed to pass out a lot. I needed to talk to Kene about that. They were the medical mage, they’d probably be able to tell me. But maybe it was nothing to worry about? I was in a lot of stressful situations, after all.

The third thought was pain. So much pain. I had been in bad shape after the trial trail, and this was like that, but everywhere in my body and spirit at the same time.

The fourth thought was that I was awake!

I blinked my eyes open to see Kene sitting in a chair next to me, with Dusk on their shoulder. We were in a somewhat familiar room – the guest room of the old man who’d taken care of me and fed me after the Idyll-Flume.

I sat up gently, and Kene flicked the book they were reading closed and gently pressed me down.

“You need to sleep,” they said. “Get some rest.”

I collapsed back into bed and slept without dreams.

When I woke up the second time, it was to find Kene feeding me broth. I blinked and reached for the spoon, taking it in shaking hands, then slowly taking a sip.

“What happened?” I asked, and Kene screwed up his nose.

“You pushed way too hard, and forced yourself to take the full power of the detonation. Even Edgar has no idea what effects the mark is going to grant now. But even though you were only under its pressure for a few hours, you managed to deal yourself a lot of damage – I’m going to chew you out for that later, once you’re feeling better.”

“That’s fair,” I admitted, taking another sip of broth.

“Your body basically stopped working,” Kene said. “It was like all of your organs were suddenly shutting down at once. Your spirit was faring better, but not by much. I was pumping power into you like crazy, drawing on everything in Dusk’s realm, and Edgar was even using some sort of spell to directly restore my mana reserves.”

Kene let out a slow sigh.

“Then you managed to bond it, and the pressure lessened, but it was still bad. Edgar said that you would only have a few days left to live, and tried to wake you, but you didn’t let the spell slip through. You were still fighting. That… Scared me. It scared me a lot.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, letting the spoon clink into the bowl and reaching out for Kene’s hand. They took it, and I gently ran my thumb over the back of their hand.

“Dusk and I were both in a bad state then, when she froze. We had moved you into her realm, just on the off chance it would help, and it… When I say she froze, I mean the entire world froze. It was like someone had entirely stopped time. And Dusk said you were reaching for her. It took you two hours, but you connected to her, and she sent power into you. Edgar had to help her this time, but then you broke through again and bonded her.”

“That lines up with my memories, mostly,” I said. “Though it felt like seconds or minutes for me. How bad is the damage?”

“You’ve been out for the better part of a week, and if you hadn’t been showing steady signs of improvement, Agnes hadn’t been force feeding you potions nonstop, and Dusk couldn’t feel you getting better…”

Kene shook their head and squeezed my hand.

“I’m so glad to have you back.”

“I’m glad to be back,” I said with complete honesty. “I didn’t think it would be this bad.”

“Neither did I,” Kene admitted. “If I had, I wouldn’t have agreed.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I pointed out. “How bad is the damage?”

“It’s not great,” Kene said. “You’ve done something to your mana channels, something I don’t understand. They’ve somehow fused into your body. Like extra cardiac veins, but made of purely mana and energy. That could be explained with your full gate spells, much like the other changes. But the channels, they’re… Wrong…”

“How bad is it?” I asked, though I was interested to know what other changes the alter truffles had accelerated. My entire body was numb and sore at the same time, so I couldn’t really tell.

“It… depends on how you want to measure it,” Kene said haltingly. “I consulted with both the hag, Edgar, Agnes, and my grandmother, and we don’t think it can be fixed. Edgar says that he’s not even confident that direct attention from the Healer, an Elohian Occultist specialized in healing, is going to fix it.”

They drew themself up and took a deep breath, but my mind was caught on the fact that they’d consulted with the hag.

For me.

“That’s the bad part. The good part is that you should be able to cast, once the spiritual strain and bodily strain is gone. How much, we don't know. What effects these... rooted channels... will have, we also don't know."

Kene held up two fingers.

“Two months. If you can wait two months, then you’ll be able to cast again. You should be able to walk in a few days. But I don’t even want you to think about touching your mana for those months, not even ungated spells. Don’t try to slip into your mana-garden, don’t try to use mana senses. Nothing.”

“I understand,” I said seriously. I might take risks, but I wasn’t completely stupid. I could feel just how bad of a shape I was in.

Two months… That was just in time for the vision of falling stars that I’d had when I’d been working on my Depths of Starry Night happened. That sent a shiver down my spine.

Two months to cast.

A few days to walk.

I reached my hand out to Kene and squeezed it.

“Thank you.”

I would need to adjust my plans again, but maybe this wouldn’t be all bad.

I’d been running for a long time now.

It was time for a rest.