Ulrich's eyes opened to an empty, almost transcendental quiet. He'd expected the bustling streets of Donghai City, the honking cars and pedestrian chatter that always accompanied his arrival on that wooden bench.

  Instead, he floated above the cityscape like a summer ghost.

  The sensation was identical to navigating the Dream Sea, his astral body suspended in empty air without physical support. Below him, Donghai's modern architecture spread out in familiar patterns. Glass skyscrapers caught sunlight, elevated highways carried traffic in organized streams, and parks dotted the urban landscape with green islands.

  But he existed outside it all, an observer severed from the scene's reality.

  Ulrich took several moments to orient himself, testing his awareness of the White Cube's presence. The domain presence remained stable around him, invisible but tangible, creating a boundary between his consciousness and the dream's environment. He could perceive the cube's walls through some sixth sense, feel their infinite whiteness even though his eyes registered only normal sky.

  The state was novel, unprecedented in all his previous experiences with the recurring dream. Usually, he manifested physically within the confines of this dream, solid and subject to the timeline's rules. This floating observation suggested fundamental differences in how he'd accessed the dream this time.

  That was a question for later inquiry. Right now, he had an opportunity.

  Ulrich's thoughts turned to the Silver Bough, the black book that had started everything. His very first loop had begun with encountering Zheng San, a disgraceful thief who stole a small pouch not worth considering.

  And in his current state, floating with his Rank 1 abilities active in the dream and the White Cube's power at his disposal, divination seemed possible in ways it hadn't been before.

  He wanted to know the book's origin. Where it came from, how it arrived in Gu Lan's possession, what chain of events had placed such profound knowledge in a random apartment six hundred years in the future.

  Ulrich willed his astral form toward the familiar address, drifting through Donghai's sky like wind-given consciousness. The city passed beneath him in miniature, and within minutes he descended toward the mid-rise building that housed Gu Lan's residence.

  Passing through the exterior wall felt like moving through cold mist, insubstantial resistance that parted around his astral body. The apartment's interior materialized exactly as he remembered. Cluttered desk, empty coffee cups, stacks of paperwork creating organized chaos.

  And there, resting on the desk's corner, the Silver Bough.

  Black leather binding with silver script forming characters in Ancient Hermes. The book radiated a subtle spiritual pressure. Ulrich reached for it, expecting his incorporeal hand to phase through without contact.

  Instead, his fingers met resistance.

  Not physical solidity, but spiritual connection. The book possessed an astral presence that his current state could interact with, creating a bridge between observer and observed that shouldn't exist according to normal dream scrying rules. Not that he knew much of the rules in the first place.

  He focused his intent, channeling spirituality through the connection while simultaneously drawing on the White Cube's innate power. The combination felt unstable, two different energy sources mixing in ways that created concerning resonance. But Ulrich maintained his concentration, repeating a single phrase in his mind with obsessive clarity.

  The origin of the Silver Bough. The origin of the Silver Bough. The origin of the Silver Bough.

  The words became a mantra, a focal point for his divination attempt. His Seer intuition came naturally, enhanced by the White Cube's influence and the unique conditions of accessing the dream this way.

  Reality rippled.

  The apartment faded, replaced by overlapping scenes that existed simultaneously in Ulrich's perception. He was witnessing the book's history in reverse, watching its journey backward through time like a film running in the opposite direction.

  Except something was

  Every scene showed censorship, deliberate obfuscation that blocked specific details. People's faces appeared blurred or glitched, their features distorted by what looked like visual interference. Surrounding landscapes shifted unpredictably, locations obscured by fog or darkness that shouldn't naturally exist. Even the book's physical appearance flickered, its details unstable.

  ?

  Ulrich recognized the pattern from Ministry texts he'd studied. Certain objects, particularly those containing high-level mystical knowledge, possessed inherent resistance to supernatural investigation. The resistance wasn't deliberate defense so much as a natural consequence of their existence, reality itself protecting information too dangerous for human grasp.

  The Silver Bough contained wisdom from Hermes, the legendary figure who'd systematized mystical practices and encoded fundamental truths about existence. Of course, such a book would possess anti-divination properties. Its very nature demanded protection from those unprepared to handle its contents.

  But Ulrich was already committed to the divination, his spirituality invested too deeply to withdraw safely. He pressed forward, watching the censored scenes flow backward through time with increasing speed.

  Decades reversed in seconds. The book changed hands through generations, passed between individuals whose identities remained hidden behind interference. Ulrich caught glimpses of libraries, private studies, and hidden sanctuaries where the volume rested between transfers.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The journey accelerated further, centuries blurring together. Then suddenly, abruptly, the reverse playback reached its terminus. The very first moment, the origin point where the Silver Bough came into existence.

  A

  The scene crystallized with shocking clarity.

  A desk in a room Ulrich didn't recognize, though something about the architecture felt hauntingly familiar. Lamp light casting warm illumination across paper and ink. A hand moving with practiced precision, writing characters in Ancient Hermes with the fluency of someone who'd spent years mastering the language.

  And the face above that hand, concentration evident in the set of the jaw and the focus in the eyes.

  face.

  His own features, unmistakable despite the temporal impossibility. Not blurred or censored, and certainly not protected by the anti-divination traits that had obscured everyone else. Just his face, clear and undeniable, staring down at the Silver Bough as he wrote its contents with careful deliberation.

  The revelation struck with the weight of a mountain.

  It was .

  had written the book.

  Would write it, at some point in a future that created the past he currently observed.

  Ulrich's consciousness reeled, logic fracturing under the weight of inverse causality. If he wrote the Silver Bough in the future, and the book existed in this six-hundred-year-distant dream, then the timeline formed a closed loop. The knowledge he'd gained from reading the book would eventually allow him to recreate it, which he would then place back into the timeline, ensuring his past self would discover it and gain the knowledge that would allow him to write it.

  A circular causation and self-creating information. This forms a loop that was fated to happen again, and again, and again.

  And he didn't remember writing it. No memory of sitting at that desk, transcribing Ancient Hermes characters with such practiced ease. Which meant this hadn't happened yet from perspective. This was future , performing actions that present him has yet to do.

  The contradiction spiraled through his thoughts with increasing violence.

  As a Weaver, losing control meant risking insanity. And a mental instability could trigger catastrophic spiritual degradation, transforming consciousness into something monstrous and alien.

  Ulrich felt that edge approaching, as his grip on sane thought began to slip.

  Then the White Cube pulsed.

  Not aggressively, but soothingly. The infinite whiteness surrounding his awareness expanded slightly, creating buffer space between his consciousness and the spiraling chaos. The purifying properties that had cleansed the Leviathan's mark and expelled Donnie's possession activated automatically, stabilizing Ulrich's mental state before it could collapse completely.

  His thoughts clarified with painful abruptness, sanity reasserting itself through sheer force of the White Cube's influence.

  And as his awareness stabilized, the version of him in the scene spoke.

  The future Ulrich looked up from his writing, not toward the present Ulrich observing from temporal distance, but toward some unseen presence only he could perceive. His expression was solemn, weighted with knowledge and resignation.

  "This is the only way," Ulrich said, his voice carrying across an impossible distance yet not losing any clarity. "And with this, began the first closed loop."

  The . Not the only loop or even the most important loop. Just the first one, the initial iteration that would set everything else in motion.

  Which meant there were more. Other loops, other cycles, other instances of causality folding back on itself in ways that present him couldn't yet comprehend.

  And his future self had done this deliberately. Choosing to create a temporal paradox, to write a book that would teach his past self knowledge he shouldn't possess, to set in motion a sequence of events that led inevitably back to this moment of creation.

  The question burned with desperate urgency. What circumstances would drive him to such drastic action? What knowledge had he gained that made this choice seem necessary? What was trying to prevent or ensure by creating this loop?

  He opened his mouth to ask and demand answers from his future self across the temporal barrier.

  But the scene was already dissolving.

  Reality fractured like glass struck by an invisible hammer, the vision of future Ulrich writing the Silver Bough shattering into fragments that dispersed into nothing. The reverse playback of the book's history evaporated completely, leaving no trace that it had ever occurred.

  And Ulrich's consciousness snapped backward with violent force.

  His eyes opened to the sound of crashing waves.

  The Dream Sea spread below him in familiar chaos, bubbles rising and popping in endless rhythm. The White Cube floated at a comfortable altitude above the churning waters, exactly where he'd positioned it before sleep claimed him.

  Ulrich remained motionless for long moments, processing what he'd witnessed. His breathing came steady despite the racing thoughts, his body calm even as his mind worked frantically to understand implications that seemed designed to resist comprehension.

  His future self had created the book that taught his past self the Hermetic Principles. The knowledge formed a closed loop, self-creating information that had no true origin point because it existed in circular causality.

  And this was deliberate. His future self had spoken of it as "the only way," suggesting constraints or necessities that present Ulrich couldn't yet perceive. And that the passing of this knowledge was a necessary act to maintain the loop as it was. Perhaps, to guide the current toward a certain ending deemed necessary.

  The temporal implications and complexity made his headache worse than any Leviathan's speech had afflicted. But beneath the confusion, a pattern emerged.

  Ma'am Felanor had said he would face a choice. A painful decision that would eat at him alive. She'd mentioned a blue star, whatever that meant, and warned that the loops were ending or beginning, depending on one's perspective.

  Perhaps this was connected.

  Perhaps his future self's decision to create the first closed loop was part of whatever choice Ma'am Felanor had warned about. Perhaps the entire sequence of events, from his transmigration to the recurring dream to discovering the Silver Bough, had been orchestrated by his own future actions.

  The thought was terrifying and oddly comforting simultaneously.

  Terrifying because it meant he had no true agency, was simply following a script his future self had written. Comforting because it suggested his future self had survived long enough to implement complex temporal manipulation, which implied he wouldn't die in the immediate catastrophes approaching Belham. And yet, what was that gravestone in Belham? The message?

  Ulrich floated in the White Cube above the Dream Sea, surrounded by an infinite whiteness and churning sea water. He tried reconciling his understanding of reality with what he'd just witnessed, but failed.

  Some truths were too large to grasp all at once. And he could only stare at the boundless sea, trying to dot his thoughts on each bubble that rose and fell.