The door slammed open, the sound ricocheting through the shaken air of the training hall. Liam's voice tore in after it, sharp with panic: "Dama!" His boots pounded the floor as he caught sight of the boy, hunched over, shaking, his stitched companions pressed tight around him. The sight stopped Liam cold for a heartbeat—he had never seen Dama so...undone.

In the next heartbeat, Liam continued his stride, dropping to his knees so fast he slid across the polished wood, the prick of exposed splinters a mere afterthought. His hands landed on Dama's shoulders, steadying. With urgency, his voice trembled as he asked, "Dama. what happened!? What's wrong? Talk to me buddy."

Soon after, Domitius strode in and stood in the doorway. His eyes scanned the situation, first landing on a shaken and heaving Dama, then to Okun and Miuson. His usual composure was edged by a rare sharpness as his expression said what words didn't: "What in the gods' names happened here?" His eyes flicked to Dama's gasping body, then back to the pair.

Okun only shook his head. Slowly, deliberately. His broad shoulders sagged in a way that admitted both truth and weight: he didn't know.

Inside, though, the truth gnawed at him—the echo of that hatred he felt still crawled like bugs over his skin. He could almost taste the poison of it on the back of his tongue.

But to speak it aloud now, to tell Domitius and everyone present that Dama's very soul carried a wound like no other, would open doors they weren't ready to walk through. Questions with either no answers or answers none of them could comprehend.

Liam's hands moved with calm, practiced precision as he checked Dama over—palms pressing gently along ribs, fingertips tracing the places like a doctor practiced. There were no signs of trauma or the like. Only thing that wasn't right was every pulse under Liam's fingers: Dama's heartbeat hammered like a trapped bird, too fast and ragged for someone his size.

Liam stared into Dama's face and realized the other signs, too. The breaths were short, rapid, tearing, shoulders spasming with each inhale. His pupils were wide and glassy, with a film of tears catching the light. He was present in the shell of his body—his eyes tracked, they were focused on Liam's face—but there was no answering spark in them. It was like the part of him that moved and thought had stepped aside and left panic at the controls.

Liam eased Dama down until his head rested in the crook of Liam's arm, one steadying hand cupping the boy's jaw to keep it from jerking. Up close, Liam could see the shape of fear carved in the small muscles of Dama's face. He whispered the boy's name once, soft, then again, a little firmer, but nothing cut through the haze.

Tachycardia. Hyperventilation. Dissociation. Inwardly, Liam catalogued everything too quickly to voice. "A panic attack."

"Mumu," Liam said, voice low but sure, "I need you to sit infront of me."

The stuffed bear moved without hesitation, settling his wide belly on the floor and opening his patched arms. Nini padded close, tail tucked but alert.

Liam scooped Dama into his lap and then eased him onto Mumu's belly so the plush bear could cradle him upright. Mumu's soft body yielded and supported Dama, his stitched arms closing around the boy in a steadying hug. Even in panic, Dama sagged into that warm pressure as if the fabric could hold him together alone.

Liam sat opposite them in a criss cross position. He placed both hands flat on his own knees, then looked into Dama's eyes until he had the boy's attention—small as it was. He let his shoulders drop and drew two long, exaggerated breaths in front of him, slow and visible: in through the nose, out through the mouth.

"Listen to me, Dama, you're having a panic attack. That feeling—this—will pass. You are safe. Everyone is here. Mumu is here. Nini is here. I'm here. You are here." He kept his voice steady, a rope Dama could hold onto. "Look at me and breathe with me, slowly. In—two, three. Out—two, three."

He kept his gaze locked on Dama's, showing the boy exactly how to match the rhythm: slow, deep, deliberate breaths.

Dama's inhales were ragged at first, then began to even out as he matched Liam's slow rhythm. Each exhale lost a fraction of its frantic edge. His shoulders that had been tight and trembling began to ease.

Mumu's stitched arms stayed firm around him and Nini pressed her plush head against his hip like a warm anchor. Little by little the tremor in Dama's hands eased. His chest rose and fell in time with Liam's measured breaths—and so did his panic attack subside.

A relieved Liam smiled and let out a breath that was half encouragement, half praise. "That's it. Good. Keep breathing." He said, voice low and steady like a metronome.

While he continued to demonstrate the breathing, Liam's mind turned over the strange pieces that didn't fit easily. Panic attacks weren't normal for Dama. The boy had never shown anything like this before. Only person he knew that had anything near to panic attacks was Kina when she was pregnant.

Then, the memory of Dama's golden burst flashed in his head. "Did the Transference somehow go wrong?"

Did Dama fail the Soulful Transference?

Liam almost reached for the question, almost let it loose into the room. But the instant the idea formed, something else stopped him—something he couldn't help but feel even without touching the boy. An invisible current coursed through the air around Dama: not the thin feel of a frightened child, but a real, heavy presence of soulura.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Liam's fingers felt it the way one felt a pulse in the dark. Dama's soulura, even now, poured out of him, alive and active. If the Transference had been a failure, that current would not be there.

Liam's brows furrowed as he pushed the first suspicion aside. Whatever trauma had ripped through Dama's mind was something else, but what?

Eventually, Liam folded all of his questions and tucked them away like laundry, primed to be taken out later. Right now, Dama was fragile in a way that he could break open again from any amount of pressure. He would not prod. Not now—not while the boy's breath was still finding its calm.

Instead he kept his voice soft and practical. "You're doing great, buddy." Liam told Dama, offering another steadying breath for the boy to mirror. "Remember, you're okay, you're safe with us."

Dama's eyes, still glazed, tracked Liam's face and slowly, the muscles around them eased. In the warm ring of Mumu and Nini's embrace, with Liam's steady presence, the room's tension began to thin.

Smiling wider at Dama's progress, Liam's eyes drifted down and focused on something peculiar. "Dama? Why are you clutching your chest, buddy?" He leaned closer, knowing for a fact there weren't any injuries on Dama.

Dama blinked and looked down. He didn't even realize he was clutching his chest. His fingers were locked over the place the spike had pierced—over ribs that throbbed even without a visible wound. He tried to relax them, to let his hand fall, but it wouldn't listen. The knuckles were white. His whole arm trembled like a rusted pipe.

He swallowed. A broken sound came out—more a stuttered gasp than words. "I—" He forced air through his teeth, reaching for bravery, yet finding only a broken syllable. "I—" The letters fell apart in his mouth as his heartbeat sped and his breath came in small, jagged pulls remembering why he was clutching his chest.

Inside his head, everything fractured into two channels.

One part of him was calm and reasonable—the labored facts that Liam had said: Dama is safe, he was in Briarstone, the Curse was gone, his nightmarish experience is over.

The other part, however, spun with counter-questions—what if?

What if this wasn't real?

What if he never truly left that nightmarish experience?

What if it returns?

It was that staggering discord—certainty and doubt fighting over the same body—that had his muscles betraying him.

Knowing this now, Dama took a long, shaking breath, forcing himself to obey his own command: "Relax your hand."

His hand still resisted like a limb asleep. Slowly, painfully, Dama clenched his will and pried his fingers open. They moved as if underwater, pressured by something all around him, making them feel like weights. Finally, he turned his palm toward himself.

His hand trembled so badly the skin rippled with goosebumps. The small hairs on his forearm quivered in rhythm with it. Even when the panic was soothed a fraction by Liam's guidance, the aftershocks remained—tiny, persistent earthquakes under his skin.

As the shaking continued, Dama's mind flashed to an image that made his chest ache in a different way: Giona—curled into herself after a nightmare. He remembered how he always tried to soothe her, wrap an arm around her, press his forehead to hers, whisper that she was safe.

As he reminsciend about Giona's tear and fear stricken face whilst clutching his shirt, Dama questioned his mind why he was remembering this moment of all things. The next split second, it hit him—the trembling.

How her whole body trembled as she woke, the same unsteady breath, the same unruly shaking of her hands. What Dama was going through reminded him of Giona's frequent freak outs. "Is... Is this how Giona felt...every time...?"

The thought made Dama's breathing cease in shock. It lingered in him as he stared at both his shaking hand in reality and Giona's face in his mind.

The memory wasn't done. Just like every other time, after a few moments of breathing with Dama and sometimes burying her face into his chest, Giona would look up at Dama with a small smile without fail—cheeks rosy and wet from her tears.

Seeing that, Dama's shaking began to stop. "That smile..." He whispered to himself as he struggled to clench his palm into a fist, his muscles protesting. The thought tightened around him like a promise he had to keep.

As Dama's breathing steadied, the trembling of his chest and arm slowing in rhythm, the storm inside his body subsided. His heart still pounded, but it was no longer clawing out of control; his mind no longer swallowed whole by panic. Relief began to creep into the room like a quiet warmth as he finally managed to clench his fist.

And then, just as that fragile calm settled—everything shattered.

A sudden gust of cold wind exploded into the room through the open front doors. Embers from the torches and dust swirled in violent spirals, the chill cutting so deep it made bones ache. Domitius, who had been leaning against the doorway, grunted and hunched forward, bracing himself as the gale shoved against him like a living wall.

This was no normal wind.

Liam froze first, every hair on his arms and neck standing on end. The breath that entered his lungs carried more than air—it carried a presence. A living weight, unseen yet undeniable, pressed into his chest the same way he had felt during the encounter with the Oni on the road to Briarstone.

Only this time…it was stronger—vastly stronger. His stomach dropped—it was almost unreal.

Mumu and Nini reacted next. The fox's whole body stiffened, fur bristling so sharply it seemed every strand of hair was on edge. Her tail shot up, ears flicked forward, and a low growl built in her throat. Mumu instinctively pressed closer to Dama, his protective instincts blazing.

"The hell?" Domitius barked, his voice sharp but not without strain. He turned, squinting into the white blast of cold.

The wind howled, intensifying as though in answer. Shards of ice spun into existence, glittering in the dim light like a thousand tiny knives.

They whipped through the air, and Domitius cursed, throwing an arm up to shield his face as they seared across his skin and burned into his eyes like frozen fire. The force shoved him backward, his boots scraping against the floorboards as he stumbled several inches inside.

Mumu shifted instantly, turning his back to the onslaught to shield Dama with his own body, wrapping his arms tight around the boy's trembling frame. The cold struck him hard, but he wasn't affected in the slightest.

Nini coiled around Liam, her long, stitched body pressing close to trap what warmth she could and stave off the thousand tiny knife assault.

Okun and Miuson themselves both snapped into stances. Every nerve in their bodies screaming at the unnatural pressure in the gale.

Then, amidst the chaos, a sound cut through the roar.

Gong…

A low chime. Deep, resonant. A bell. Its toll carried through the screaming wind like a voice older than the storm.

Everyone's heads turned toward the sound, ears and eyes straining against the icy howl.

Dama, Liam, Mumu, and Nini stood in confusion—none of them knew its meaning. But for Domitius, Okun, and Miuson, recognition struck like a hammer to the chest.

It was the Briarstone Village bell.

Their eyes widened with grim certainty. Only one possibility fit the sound of that bell combined with the unnatural storm battering their door.

It was Miuson's voice that broke through the cacophony, ragged but loud enough for all to hear, the weight of dread carried in every syllable:

"THE ONI!"

-

Next: (Chapter 94) The Oni Cometh

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.