Three days passed in a rather mundane routine.

  Ulrich visited Selena twice more, sharing tea and conversation that felt increasingly precious given his anticipation toward the advancement. He spent hours in the Sanctuary's library, studying texts on various topics, including but not limited to mysticism.

  It helped that Father Lorel's lectures at St. Samuel Church provided grounding in mysticism, though the elderly priest's warnings about ritualistic practice sounded more like nagging than anything else.

  Now, standing before Captain Ottis's office, Ulrich's anticipation mixed with dread. The notification had arrived this morning, a simple note stating that the Rank 2 Rune was ready.

  He knocked twice.

  "Enter."

  Rosaline waited inside alongside Captain Ottis, her usual cheerfulness subdued by the gravity of the matter relating to any Watchman's advancement. She offered a small smile. "Ready to take another step?"

  "As ready as I'll ever be." He nodded.

  Captain Ottis stood, gesturing toward the door. "The Repository, rather, Memorial Hall specifically. Freddy has prepared the rune." He paused, gray eyes assessing Ulrich with familiar intensity. "You understand the risks?"

  "Insanity, transformation into an abomination, death, the usual stuff." Ulrich recited from memory. "Roughly thirty percent failure rate for Rank 2 advancement with proper preparation."

  "Higher without preparations," Rosaline added. "Maybe fifteen percent. Not wonderful odds, if you liked gambling."

  "Comforting."

  They descended into the Sanctuary's lower levels, passing through corridors Ulrich had walked through many times before. But today, the familiar stone walls felt oppressive, the weight of earth above pressing down with symbolic significance. The Repository occupied the deepest section, a vast underground complex housing dangerous artifacts, forbidden texts, and the Memorial Hall, where significant rituals were conducted for some reason.

  Freddy's living quarters sat adjacent to the Repository's main area. The supervisor was a thin man with perpetually ink-stained fingers, his hair gray despite appearing no older than forty. He answered their knock immediately, as though he'd been waiting.

  "The rune is sealed and ready."

  Freddy nodded to them in turn as a form of greeting, then retrieved a solid metal box from a reinforced cabinet, its surface covered in inscriptions that pulsed faintly with contained energy. Setting it on a small table, he unlocked three separate mechanisms before the lid finally opened.

  Inside, nestled in black velvet, sat a pitch-black marble the size of a baseball. It absorbed light rather than reflecting it, creating a void-like appearance that hurt to look at directly.

  "Rank 2 Rune of Shadow," Freddy announced with a beaming smile that contrasted his haggard appearance. "Complete synthesis, quality assured, and Freddy verified!" He glanced at Ulrich. "Don't drop it. The energy will haunt this place, and as you may know, it's already haunted enough."

  "Noted."

  Captain Ottis lifted the box carefully. "We'll proceed to Memorial Hall. Thank you, Freddy."

  "For the goddess!" Freddy saluted, tapping his chest thrice, then closed the door after them.

  The Memorial Hall occupied one of the back areas of the Repository. Torches lined the walls in precise intervals, their flames burning with unnatural steadiness. The ceiling disappeared into darkness overhead, giving the impression of infinite space, something Ulrich had never grown used to. At the center was that cold stone he'd stepped on several times by now.

  Ulrich stood at the center, studying their preparations. His mouth felt dry despite the cavern's humid air and moisture.

  "So," he said, trying to find comfort in his own words, "I'm supposed to swallow this thing? Just like before?"

  "Yes." Captain Ottis's reply was flat, professional, and somehow managed to sound like dry humor despite the delivery.

  Rosaline laughed. "What, were you expecting it to dissolve on your tongue like cotton candy? Advancement requires a certain act of commitment, Ulrich. Literal and metaphorical."

  "Wonderful. I was hoping for the metaphorical kind."

  "Too late now." She moved toward the platform's edge, shadows already gathering around her fingertips. "We'll set up containment while you mentally prepare. Try not to think about the failure, it helps."

  "You're terrible at comfort."

  "I know." She shrugged.

  Captain Ottis and Rosaline worked with practiced efficiency. Rosaline traced complex patterns in the air, her spirituality weaving darkness into tangible barriers. Shadow Veil, the same spell she'd used during his Rank 1 awakening, but evidently amplified. The barrier shimmered into existence, a translucent dome of shadow that covered the entire platform. Given his current mastery of Shadow Vision, Ulrich was confident in being able to grasp a bit of its principles.

  As for replicating it? Impossible.

  "Affects abominations and spirits," she explained, noticing Ulrich's focused gaze. "Won't harm you unless you stop being human."

  "Again, terrible at comfort. And you've told me that before."

  Captain Ottis moved to the platform's opposite side, channeling his own spirituality. His spirituality coalesced above Rosaline's Shadow Veil as he invoked a spell, forming a massive spherical construct covered in foot-long spikes. The weapon hovered like a suspended executioner's tool, each spike aimed downward toward the center.

  Exactly where Ulrich currently sat.

  "That seems excessive," Ulrich nervously pointed out.

  "It's precisely sufficient." Captain Ottis's tone remained professional. "If you transform, the spikes drop. Death is preferable, trust me."

  "How reassuring, the both of you.

  Rosaline finished her preparations and stepped back, examining the layered barriers with a critical eye. "Probably will hold out well, even if you turn for the worse."

  "Probably?"

  "Nothing's certain in this line of work." She smiled, but something in her expression suggested genuine concern beneath the teasing. "You'll be fine, Ulrich. You've come this far, and this won't be your last."

  He wanted to believe that. Wanted to trust that his preparation, his completed Vital Rune, his accumulated experience would be enough. But standing before the platform with that pitch-black stone waiting, doubt crept in like cold fog in the dawn of morning.

  Captain Ottis set the metal box at the center, next to Ulrich. "Whenever you're ready. No rush."

  He didn't say much as he opened the box following Freddy's movement, revealing the Rank 2 Rune of Shadow, which took the form of marbles.

  "Any last words of wisdom?" Ulrich asked, not looking up.

  "Don't die," Captain Ottis said.

  "Just don't look or listen to things you shouldn't," Rosaline added.

  "You two should write inspirational poetry."

  Despite everything, Rosaline laughed. Even Captain Ottis's expression softened slightly. The moment of respite helped, grounding Ulrich in the present rather than letting his anxiety spiral. Though he was rarely an anxious person.

  He sat cross-legged, positioned himself at the exact center of the small lifted platform, and pulled the marble from its velvet nest. The rune was surprisingly heavy, dense with compressed spirituality and accumulated shadow essence; he could feel it. It pulsed against his palm like a second heartbeat, throbbing and tremoring in his hand.

  Ulrich raised it to his lips.

  "See you on the other side," Rosaline said softly.

  He swallowed.

  The marble forced its way down his throat like swallowing a stone. It tasted worse than he remembered from Rank 1, like vomit mixed with decay and something fundamentally rejected by the human tongue. His body denied it instinctively, throat constricting, but the rune continued downward with inexorable momentum, as though it had found purpose in falling down.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Then it hit his stomach, and his vision went black.

  Immediately, the sensation of falling overwhelmed him. Not falling through space but through infinite layers of existence itself. His body felt sticky, as though mud and honey clung to every surface. The darkness pressed against him from all directions, suffocating and intimate.

  Then the voices emerged from the vast expanse of endless void.

  Whispers in languages that shouldn't exist, syllables that hurt to hear but carried meaning in manners indescribable. Ulrich understood fragments despite himself not knowing their content, the concepts scratching at his sanity like a sharp razor running along glass.

  "...Time continues..."

  "...A peculiar existence..."

  "...price of sight..."

  He tried closing his eyes, but possessed no eyes to close. Tried covering his ears, but had no physical form. The voices intensified, pulling at his consciousness like hooks in flesh.

  Don't listen. Don't look. Don't engage. And yet, somehow, all of it seemed to penetrate directly into his soul.

  "Ulrich Constantine..."

  His name. They knew his name. Whatever it was, was looking and speaking to him.

  "...buried in earth..."

  "...search for eternity..."

  "...she waits... Night..."

  The compulsion to listen grew overwhelming. Part of him recognized these weren't random murmurs but targeted messages, information meant specifically for him. Knowledge that could answer questions he'd carried since his transmigration, no doubt about it.

  But this knowledge had a price, and their answer might be twisted in manners he could not comprehend with the mortal's mind. He'd learned that much from studying the related records regarding corruption and insanity, from seeing what happened to those who looked too deeply into things humanity wasn't meant to understand, and from prying into the matter of secrecy.

  Ulrich focused on his Vital Rune. The sensation anchored him, providing a reference point in the infinite descent. He poured his will into maintaining that anchor, refusing to drift toward the voices no matter how compelling they became.

  And the descent continued.

  Time lost meaning. He might have been falling for seconds or centuries, only gods know. The sticky sensation intensified until he felt encased in something solid, trapped like an insect in amber, or a tight glass jar filled with rocks.

  Then everything shifted.

  All the voices cut off abruptly. And the darkness transformed from absolute void to something different, something with texture and dimension that was grounded in reality.

  Ulrich's consciousness congealed, gaining substance if not physical form.

  He opened eyes he didn't possess and saw Donghai City.

  Not the Shadow Realm. Not Belham's streets. The modern metropolis from his repeated dream, the setting that had haunted his sleep for a decade, with its perfect loop of mundane routine that never changes.

  But this time, he had no body. His perspective floated above the ground like a disembodied spirit, hovering over familiar terrain that looked wrong in ways he couldn't immediately identify. This feeling was similar to lucid dream walking, yet he had never felt this estrange and hazy before in his own dream.

  The ruined church stood ahead, its broken walls silhouetted against a gray sky. The graveyard surrounded it, overgrown and neglected. Ulrich drifted forward without willing the movement, drawn by invisible currents toward a specific location.

  His tombstone, the same one Ma'am Felanor had shown him on their first meeting. Here, the graveyard existed in the future, six hundred years removed from the Belham he knew. The Celtic inscription remained partially visible despite weathering.

  "Here lies Ulrich Constantine..."

  Someone stood before the grave.

  A woman in an elegant dress, golden hair falling in waves past her shoulders. She held a bouquet of white flowers, their petals pristine against the decay surrounding them. A Chinese fox mask covered her face, ornate and beautiful despite the funerary tone.

  Ulrich watched, unable to move or speak, as she knelt and placed the flowers carefully at the tombstone's base. Her movements carried practiced grace, suggesting this wasn't her first visit, nor will it be the last. Yet, Ulrich knew that if this is the future in his dream, then... this was certainly the last she would ever see the tombstone again.

  Then she reached up and removed the mask, perhaps wanting fresh air.

  In that moment, Ulrich's consciousness recoiled in shock.

  Selena's face. Exact in every detail, from the gentle curve of her jaw to the warm hazel, almost green eyes that had looked at him with such genuine care days ago. But something was different, a hardness in her expression that Selena never displayed, a weight of experience that suggested decades of accumulated struggle and strife.

  This woman... Autumn Hall? The first person after him to enter this ruined ground? Mentioned by Ma'am Felanor during their first meeting?

  She stood and spoke to the tombstone in a voice that was Selena's but aged, weathered.

  "I found it, Ulrich. The truth I sought." Her fingers traced the Celtic inscription. "The Eternal Club held the answers, just as 'She' said. But knowing doesn't change what happened. Doesn't bring back what we lost."

  She paused, and something like a smile crossed her features. Not Selena's bright radiance but something sadder, more resigned and hopeless.

  "Six hundred years, and it all felt like a long, drawn-out dream. Searching for something I can't name. Perhaps that's my own eternity to seek."

  Autumn put back the mask and stood, turning to leave. As she walked away, Ulrich's perspective remained fixed on the tombstone, on the flowers that would wilt and be replaced in another visit, in another loop of whatever cycle this was.

  Then reality yanked him backward, as though someone had pulled on the chain.

  The sensation was violent, like being pulled through water at impossible speed. The graveyard disappeared. Donghai City vanished. The infinite descent reversed, becoming an ascent that burned through layers of existence until—

  Ulrich gasped, his physical body convulsing on the Memorial Hall's stone floor. Air flooded his lungs. Sensation returned to limbs he'd forgotten he possessed. The world materialized around him in familiar features, solid and present and real.

  Captain Ottis and Rosaline stood outside the barrier, watching with intense focus. The bronze spike sphere remained suspended, ready to drop but not yet triggered.

  "He's back," Rosaline said, relief clear in her voice.

  Ulrich tried to speak but only managed a cough. His body felt strange, restructured at an almost fundamental level. The Vital Rune in his chest pulsed with new intensity, no longer merely complete but transformed into something greater, yet emptied.

  Rank 2.

  He had succeeded.

  Captain Ottis examined the barriers, confirmed they remained stable, then nodded to Rosaline. She dismissed the Shadow Veil with a gesture, the translucent dome dissolving like morning mist. The bronze spike sphere followed, Ottis's spirituality reclaiming the construct and dispersing its energy.

  "Congratulations," Ottis said, offering a hand to help Ulrich stand. "You're officially Rank 2."

  "How long?" Ulrich's voice came out hoarse.

  "Forty minutes. Faster than my advancement." Captain Ottis's expression remained neutral, but something in his tone suggested approval. "Faster than any record in this Sanctuary's history, actually."

  Rosaline approached, studying him with professional attention that went beyond casual observation. "How do you feel? Mentally, I mean. The advancement experience can often leave long-lasting scars."

  Ulrich wanted to tell them about Autumn Hall, about seeing Selena's face in a graveyard six hundred years in the future. But the words wouldn't come. His mind felt fractured, split between present reality and that strange vision. And he did want to bring up that secret of his.

  "I'm fine," he managed. "Just... disoriented."

  "That's normal." Rosaline didn't sound convinced. "Rank 2 advancement involves deeper contact with the rune's essence. Everyone experiences something different during the process."

  Captain Ottis's gray eyes narrowed slightly. "What did you experience?"

  "Falling. Voices. Darkness." All true, though incomplete. "Nothing I couldn't handle."

  The lie felt slightly wrong, given that Captain Ottis had asked for his trust, but Ulrich couldn't explain what he'd seen without revealing the repeated dream, without exposing connections he didn't yet understand. The vision of Autumn Hall at his gravestone felt too significant to share casually, too personally shocking.

  Captain Ottis studied him for a long moment, then nodded. "We'll conduct a full debriefing later. For now, rest. Your body needs time to adjust to the transformation."

  "Agreed." Rosaline's cheerfulness returned, though muted. "You look like you're about to collapse. Let's get you to the recovery room."

  They led him from the Memorial Hall, through corridors that felt simultaneously familiar and alien. Ulrich's perception had changed, his senses enhanced beyond Rank 1's parameters. He could feel shadows differently now, not just see them but sense their texture and depth.

  There were also new spells, abilities granted by the completed Rank 2 Rune. But Ulrich's thoughts remained fixed on that graveyard, on Autumn Hall's face that was Selena's face, on words spoken to his tombstone six hundred years from now.

  "The Eternal Club held the answers..."

  "Six hundred years, and I still come here..."

  The recovery room was small but comfortable, designed for post advancement rest among many other uses. Rosaline helped him onto the cot while Captain Ottis retrieved some water and food.

  "Your advancement speed is concerning," Ottis said bluntly.

  "I'll be careful."

  "You should be." Captain Ottis set the water beside the cot. "Report to my office tomorrow morning. We need details of your advancement experience for the records."

  Ulrich nodded, not trusting his words entirely. He'd grown too used to his way of handling sensitive matters. Captain Ottis departed with his usual professional demeanor, leaving Rosaline to monitor him.

  She sat in a chair by the door, studying him with those perceptive eyes. "You're not fine, are you?"

  "I will be."

  "That's not the same thing." Rosaline leaned forward. "Advancement can reveal truths we're not ready to face. If you saw something disturbing, something that doesn't make sense, that's normal. The Rune's essence carries memories and knowledge that aren't always pleasant."

  "I understand."

  "Do you?" Her tone sharpened slightly, as though to scold him. "Because you look like someone who just glimpsed their own grave."

  The accuracy of that observation made Ulrich flinch. Rosaline noticed, her expression shifting to genuine concern.

  But I... Did? He laughed to himself, not giving that thought any voice.

  "Rest," She said finally. "We can discuss this later if you want. Or not at all, if you prefer. But don't let it eat at you alone, Ulrich. That's how good Weavers go mad."

  She left, closing the door softly.

  Alone in the recovery room, Ulrich lay back on the cot and stared at the ceiling. His Vital Rune pulsed steadily, stronger than it had ever been, even the Rank 1 in it crystallized stage.

  But all he could think about was Autumn Hall, kneeling before his tombstone with Selena's face, speaking of eternal searches and discovering the truths too late. Ulrich decided to find the opportunity to sleep and enter that dreamscape.

  I don't believe there can be such coincidences!