Contrary to its name, the Banksi Well wasn’t actually a Well, at least not in the human sense of the term. If anything, it could be described as a small pool, albeit one that was embarked on all sides by three layers of nicely-sculpted rings of stone, studded with precious gems in the grooves and furrows to increase their artistic appeal. The middle ring carried a constant repetition of the Goddess Amaterasu’s sigil in the middle, separated by red corals. The entire structure lay in the middle of a large, open chamber, supported by large, ionic pillars with wide, circular mirrors geometrically placed to ensure an impossibly high number of reflections of whatever was going into or coming out of the pool.

“These mirrors aid in concentrating the Eternal Light on the surface of the Well. Any being of spirit would find themselves incredibly weakened while it is within it.”

“How weakened?”

“Enough that a reasonably strong Asukan could force even me into being Bound to them.”

Lukas arched an eyebrow. Even among kami, Arah was a level higher than most. He was weaker when compared to the raiju he had absorbed earlier, but nothing to scoff at.

“The power of the Well increases exponentially with every passing moment. Unless the emerging kami can shatter the Well with a single blow right off the bat—”

“It’d have no choice,” Lukas finished. “But you are not Bound to me via the Shikigami Ritual. Would that—”

“Have an effect on me?” Arah wondered, “Nothing significant, I think. The last time we came out of the Haze, it was through this portal. I found myself pressed by an impossible force on all sides, but aside from that discomfort, nothing of concern happened. It probably helped that there were no Asukans around ready to bind me. In a twisted way, the Eternal Light also increased the hold your own Bind had upon me.”

“I see.”

“Once you enter the mists, allow me to manifest outside. I shall guide the way.”

Unleashing an ifrit that obviously had sinister plans for him in the middle of the mist-world and blindly following him into it? Yeah, not happening. He’d probably use the Stratim prototype. It had come in useful earlier. It’d do so again. Even to this date, he was still not sure how he had been comprehending the vast, endless array of mana patterns of all the mists all around him even though they appeared to be nothing but seemingly random patterns of color all around him.

“All right. Here goes nothing.”

He stepped into the Well—

— and found himself back in that endless sea of mist and damp and color, engulfing the terrain as far as the eye could perceive. The utter impossibility of direction perception flooded through his nerves, giving him the weird feel of floating in space devoid of gravity. There was no way up or down, right or left in this void of shadowy mists.

This was the Haze. A world with broken laws, broken rules, and broken Truths. A Has-Been that would have fared better by constricting back into itself or… becoming something like him. Instead, it was sprawled out, tearing through a different world like the roots of a tree no longer alive. Existing for the sake of existence and nothing more.

Tanya had described it as an all-penetrating reticulum that gnawed through Reality itself. The Rules of Space were wonky here on the best of days, but if one knew how one could use this Haze to quickly travel around the world with impunity. If he could master navigating through it, he’d literally be anywhere in the world. Accomplish nearly almost everything.

“Release me!” Arah requested.

The moment Lukas did that, a sudden rush of impressions stormed into his mind. It tore at his perceptions, flooding them with random images and smells and sensations. It was like standing in a sandstorm, only instead of inflicting pain, every random grain forced you through an experience, a memory, so disjointed and intense and rapid that there was nothing to hold onto. Overflowing lava burnt his skin while the coldness of the frigid tundra settled on his fingertips. The earth shook as hills and plateaus rose out of it while tides of a hungry ocean wanted to sweep him away and tear him into nothingness. Lightning streaked across the skies while a calming breeze carried the scent of flowers to his nostrils. The images doubled, redoubled, and multiplied into thousands of separate impressions all coming at once.

They hammered against his mind as Lukas tried to keep his own identity from being sandblasted away by these foreign sensations.

And then—

And then they were gone.

He was back in the shadowy mists.

“What,” he panted, “the hell was that?”

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The ifrit, who had now assumed an ethereal construct, grinned back at his Host. “That was you feeling the attention surging from the kami around you. Even with my claim upon you, you have way too much capacity, enough to bind with yet another kami.”

“They're trying to possess me?”

“Possess… is a strong word. I’d rather describe it as trying to imprint themselves upon you. An attempt to stake their claim of sorts.”

Oh. That kind. Some animals tended to urinate on a bush or a general area to mark it as their territory, staking their claim upon it. Then he realized that he was effectively imagining himself in the bush’s place and shook his head vehemently.

Yeah, his imagination needed therapy.

But at least unlike the previous time he was here, he was not without resources. Or information for that matter.

Activating Function — Living Anomaly

Nexus reestablished

Ikai Realm

Nature

Spiritual

Status

Fragmented

Primarily Energy Core

Mana

Lukas took careful note of that.

“Alright,” He replied, staring at the ethereal construct of his Bound ifrit. “We’re here. Now tell me about this Outsider business.”

The creature opened its maw and cackled. “It’s an old legend. About a power from the Outside. A power that would bring about the World’s Demise. A power that both Asukan and Yokai have been seeking desperately for a long, long time.”

“And… you think that applies to me?”

The ifrit shrugged. “You are an Outsider. The laws of the world outside, and the Haze inside, do not seem to apply to you. You have an immense number of spiritual imprints upon your soul, imprints of creatures that I have not known even existed. If there is anyone—”

“Wait right there!” Lukas snapped. “Tell me this. You’ve got literal gods on both sides. Why would an Outsider even matter? Surely you don’t think I’m powerful enough to…” Lukas froze, realizing the irony of what he was about to say, “...challenge a God?”

Arah laughed. “You have decades before you can stand before the might of a King and win, Outsider. The very idea of you, as you are now, to even stand before a God and last for more than three seconds is hilarious.”

Lukas scowled but said nothing. He knew exactly how easy it was for Inanna to squash him like a bug if she wanted.

“Then why do you even need an Outsider?”

“Because no God can End a world. It goes against their very existence. Even ending Part of a World is a Sin is grave enough to obliterate the entire Pantheons. Trust me, I’d know.”

Which was where the power of the Outside came into the equation. A God could not end the world. But with the help of this power from the Outside, one could.

Lukas instinctively took a step back and considered the situation. End the World. ‘World’ in this case was a loosely defined term. An Anomaly was a World, His own planet, a Lostbelt, was another. The subastras around the Origin— the place he was currently shacking up, was yet another.

He had risen through the destruction of Lostbelt Earth.

He had gained power through the destruction of the Crypt of Fiendish Worms.

And now he was standing in the midst of a Haze, the leftovers of a shattered world that was the Ikai Realm.

Was this what Tanya’s other form— Fimbulwinter meant when she said she had plans for him? End the World? It certainly fitted with her MO about deleting all potential and returning everything into the eternal blackness of the In-Between.

“How does this have anything to do with Inanna? I wanted to bring a Goddess back, not end the World.”

The ifrit laughed. “A favor in exchange for a favor, Partner. Something similar happened during the Great War. The Elders of my kind remember winning the war. We kami remember the Moon God being slain. We remember the Lost Emperor gaining ground against Amaterasu—”

The ifrit paused. “And then it wasn’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“We do not know. The Moon God should have been dead. Instead, he was there, as if the reality of his Death had been turned upon itself. The Lost Emperor— who had Amaterasu on the defensive, was losing ground. The Yokai kingdom was obliterated. The Ikai Realm, fragmented. And just like that, we lost.”

Lukas inhaled. “And— there’s a God among Asukans capable of doing that?”

Arah shook his head. “The truth is we do not know. The memories of the War are gone. No one remembers how it ended. Why it ended. No one remembers how our Ikai became this… Haze.”

Lukas staggered back. This— this was eerily similar to a past situation he had faced. Back when he had— he had—

——"The way I see it, one of two things have happened. The first is that my life is a great lie. Something, or someone, tampered with my memories to make me remember a life I’ve never lived. A history that never occurred. A reality that never was.

Or.

My World. His History. Myself— it all existed. And someone has gone to extreme lengths to erase it out of existence” ——

It couldn’t just be a coincidence, could it?

Lukas came to a decision.

“You said the Elders of your kind witnessed this… Shift, right? Is there a way to communicate with them?”

Arah grinned. “There is.”