Damien blinked at a white ceiling and reached for the mask on reflex, fingers finding bare skin instead. His stomach dropped for a second before the rest of it caught up with him. Same silver platform under his back. Same narrow room. Same door with no handle anywhere on it. He could’ve sworn Xuan Wuye had just dumped him right back where he started.
Then the system cleared its throat, so to speak, and settled the question for him.
➤[Return transfer completed.]
➤[Registered identity restored: Damien.]
➤[Welcome back to Earth-69.]
His red braid shortened and darkened back to black, falling loose across his forehead. The Rakshasa mask, the cloak, the baggy robes all folded away into his inventory, replaced by the clothes he’d registered in.
He caught his own reflection in the silver wall. Twenty-one years old, pale, exhausted, dark circles under both eyes that ninety points of permanent body refinement apparently hadn’t bothered clearing away.
Guess the pill can fix bones but knows better than to touch insomnia’s territory.
The operating room door opened onto the empty Sanctuary hall, and the moment he stepped through it, a storm of notification chimes hit him all at once.
➤[Unread Messages: 146]
Most of them were from John. He opened the oldest one first.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
John Jones: Reached Murim?
(six hours later)
John Jones: Tell me when you reach the Sanctuary.
John Jones: Boy?
John Jones: DAMIEN.
John Jones: I know you cannot sleep, but that does not mean you should disappear.
John Jones: If you are dead, I will enter Murim and drag you back.
John Jones: Imran says that is not how death works. He has become negative with age.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The messages kept going through every mood John apparently owned, jokes, real worry, flat anger, a bargaining phase, more anger, and a genuinely detailed threat aimed at any Murim physician who so much as bruised him.
Imran’s messages were shorter and fewer.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Imran Ali: Status report requested.
Imran Ali: No response after forty-eight hours. I have begun collecting entry intelligence. John has been instructed not to act independently.
Imran Ali: John is acting independently.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rahul had sent seven pictures of black outfits without a single word of context.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rahul Modi: If you’re going to be mysterious, at least be mysterious with proper tailoring.
Rahul Modi: Please respond before John assembles a team.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The girls had weighed in too, each in her own register.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Doctor Smoke: Send proof of life. A pulse is preferred, but coherent swearing will be accepted.
Naked Nun: Did you fight anyone strong? If yes, describe his skills first, then his injuries.
Madam Marvel: Respond.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
No follow-up from Madam Marvel after that. Somehow the single word sat heavier in his chest than every capital letter John had thrown at him combined.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DeluluGirl_404: Bro named himself Earthling and then left Earth. This is elite-level false advertising.
DeluluGirl_404: If you got isekai’d twice, blink in chat.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He answered them one at a time, the same three words to every single thread.
Damien: I’m back.
John replied before Damien had even closed the last window.
John Jones: PENTHOUSE. NOW.
Imran Ali: Confirm physical condition and whether your identity remained secure.
Rahul sent a crying face, an explosion emoji, and a formal complaint that Damien had ignored all seven outfits. Doctor Smoke asked if he still had all his limbs. Naked Nun asked if any missing ones had at least been removed attractively. Madam Marvel sent one word: Good. DeluluGirl_404 replied with twenty-seven moon symbols and the words THE LORE CONTINUES.
He reassured Imran his identity had stayed hidden, told Salma he’d kept every limb he’d started with, ignored Naked Nun’s follow-up entirely, and left the Sanctuary.
Viremont’s avenues felt strangely restrained after Cloudstep City. Weapons stayed tucked away in inventories here. People wore ordinary shirts and coats instead of flowing robes. Aerial trains slid between glass towers overhead, system ads shifting silently across floating screens above the road.
Nobody leapt between rooftops. Nobody carried a sword to go buy vegetables. No Level 101 guard stood posted at any gate he passed.
This is why Imran kept telling me not to judge every server by this one. For the first time, the warning actually landed.
The elevator recognized him and carried him straight up. The doors opened, and John stood there waiting on the other side of them, loose trousers, one slipper, an apron stretched tight across a frame far too large for it, mustache twitching, the front of his hair as thoroughly defeated as Damien remembered. Underneath all of it, though, sat the unmistakable pressure of a legendary player working hard not to destroy the elevator with his bare hands.
"Hello, Mr. John."
John grabbed him and lifted him clean off the floor, the hug compressing every newly strengthened rib at once.
"You vanished for six days!"
"Three were spent in a coma."
John let go so fast Damien dropped a few inches back to the floor. "A coma?"
"The usual kind."
"You’re stronger now, physically! There should not be a usual kind anymore!"
"There is, for me."
John gripped both his shoulders and checked his face, his neck, his arms, like a missing organ might be hiding in plain sight somewhere obvious. "You look the same."
"Thank you."
"That wasn’t a compliment. You still look like death’s been asking you to move in with it."
"The treatment’s still incomplete."
John pulled him through the door. A pan smoked faintly somewhere behind him in the kitchen.
"Were you cooking?"
John glanced back. A small flame flickered up off the pan. "Not anymore." He flicked one hand, and a burst of pressure crossed the room and snuffed the fire out along with half the stove’s control lights.
They sat in the lounge. John didn’t wait for tea, food, or Damien’s own attempt to organize his thoughts first.
"Everything. From the moment you went in."
Damien told him. Cloudstep City, the Dreaming Moon Pavilion, the Dream Corridor, Mo Xian. How the Broken Road unit had solved the whole case together, how the false assassins had slaughtered them for it, how Mo Xian had taken him afterward as a research subject.
John stopped joking the second that part started. Pressure gathered around the sofa, thick enough that the table began to tremble under it.
"Name."
"Mo Xian."
"Level?"
"I don’t know."
"Location, then?"
"He’s dead."
"Who killed him?"
"The Dark Lord."
The pressure dropped away instantly. "Which Dark Lord?"
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