The words rested in the air, spoken through Victor's mouth but carrying an aura that made Ulrich's teeth ache. Victor's body remained frozen in that impossible position, back arched, head tilted at angles that suggested a broken vertebrae, if lucky. But his eyes, those white, pupil-less orbs, tracked Ulrich's movements with beastly instinct. There was no mistaking its intent, not for a Seer whose senses are enhanced human's limit.

  Ulrich waited for the attack. Expected violence, the sudden lunge of a possessed body. His finger metaphorically rested on the trigger, ready to unleash the dozens of congealed Dark Arrows.

  But nothing happened.

  simply observed him, Victor's head tilting fractionally as though examining a crate of curiosity. Seconds stretched into uncomfortable length, and still no attack came.

  The question burned in Ulrich's mind, charring the inners of his brain. A Great Existence, he recognized the signature, the unfathomable pressure that reminded him uncomfortably of his first dream scrying attempt, possessed his colleague's body. Such entities should contain malice so powerful and thick that it should've attacked any lifeform on sight, as it did before. Yet, simply watched.

  Ulrich's enhanced senses painted a detailed picture of Victor's possessed form. Subtle muscle tremors that suggested the body was struggling to contain whatever inhabited it. Skin temperature dropping rapidly, approaching hypothermic levels. Heartbeat irregular, skipping beats before resuming in patterns that followed no biological rhythm.

  And beneath it all, a presence that made Ulrich's Blessing of Night buzzed he couldn't fully articulate. This thing was ancient, powerful beyond measure. For reasons unknown, it held back. And that frightened him.

  "Why are you following me?" Ulrich kept his voice steady despite the fear coiling in his chest, sweat dripping down his cold palm.

  Victor's mouth curved into something approximating a smile, but the expression couldn't be any less terrifying.

  When spoke, the words carried weight that pressed against Ulrich's spirituality like physical force. His Vital Rune pulsed uncomfortably, instinctively trying to shield his consciousness from whatever mental assault accompanied the entity's speech.

  "Following implies purpose." The layered voice paused, Victor's head tilting further until tendons stood out like cables. "I am curious. You possess something that catches attention in the boundless sea."

  "What attention?" Ulrich forced the question through gritted teeth. Each word the entity spoke made his head throb, made his thoughts feel sluggish and difficult to maintain.

  "You smell of places that should not be reached. Spaces between spaces." Victor's possessed form shifted slightly, weight redistributing in ways that suggested the entity was becoming more comfortable with its temporary vessel. "A scent clinging to your essence like perfume. Faint, but unmistakable to those who know what to seek. Such as "

  Ulrich had no idea what that meant. Places between spaces? His transmigration from Earth? The Shadow Realm? The recurring dream of Donghai's future? Nothing in his experience suggested he carried some metaphysical marker detectable only to entities of this magnitude.

  "I don't understand," he admitted, seeing no value in pretending otherwise.

  "You would not. Lower forms rarely comprehend the patterns they exist within. I suppose the Axis remained obscure." The entity's tone held no malice, only the indifference detachment of something observing another specimen. A specimen.

  "But that is not the only reason for curiosity."

  Victor's hand raised slowly, one finger extending to point directly at Ulrich. The gesture should have been simple, but something about it made Ulrich's danger sense explode. Far more greatly than when he'd encountered the Flesh Golem, or that Tainted Myriad Undead King.

  "You are ," the entity stated. "By existences that stand beyond mortality's limitations. Two gaze upon you with interest, and their attention creates... ."

  Ulrich's mind raced. The Night Mother? He served her church, operated under her authority through the Ministry. That made complete and total sense. But a second watcher? Who or what else observed him with sufficient power to draw a Leviathan's notice?

  "Who watches me?" The question emerged barely above a whisper.

  Victor's smile widened impossibly further. "That revelation would—"

  The entity froze mid-sentence.

  Not gradually, but with the abruptness of a record player suddenly stopping. Victor's body locked completely, the possessed form becoming a statue mid-gesture. Then Ulrich felt it.

  Another presence, materializing with such casual effortlessness that reality simply folded around it to accommodate arrival. This wasn't the gradual manifestation of the Leviathan, the slow gathering of supernatural pressure. This was instantaneous, absolute, the universe acknowledging something that existed beyond its physical limit.

  On the floor near Victor's frozen form, a small object appeared.

  Soft pink fabric, button eyes, floppy ears. The kind of toy a child might carry. It sat innocuously among the ritual circle's salt markings, completely out of place in the room's oppressive atmosphere.

  Ulrich felt no malice from it. And that made it all the more terrifying.

  The plushie's button eyes fixed on him with awareness no inanimate object should possess. When it spoke, the voice was childlike, cheerful, completely at odds with the existential dread flooding Ulrich's consciousness.

  "Hello, Ulrich Constantine! "

  The words didn't simply travel through the air. They resonated through dimensions Ulrich couldn't perceive but somehow felt, creating harmonics that made the Leviathan's speech seem crude by comparison. His Vital Rune pulsed frantically, trying to protect him from something his human consciousness couldn't fully grasp.

  Victor's possessed form remained frozen, but Ulrich caught subtle changes. The Leviathan's presence, that ancient awareness inhabiting his colleague's body, was receding. Not willingly, but compelled. Dragged backward by force so absolute that resistance was meaningless.

  "You're rather interesting," the plushie continued, its voice maintaining that unsettling cheerfulness. "Most people don't attract quite so much attention from the boundless depths."

  Ulrich wanted to speak, to demand explanations or understanding or anything that might help him comprehend what was happening. But his voice failed, trapped in a throat that had gone completely dry.

  The plushie tilted its head, ears flopping with the motion. "Don't be frightened. I'm quite friendly, really. Just thought I'd check in, make sure our guest didn't overstay their welcome."

  Victor's body convulsed once, violently, and the Leviathan's presence vanished completely. Not gradually fading but instantly erased, expelled from reality with the authority of something that could rewrite fundamental laws at will.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The temperature stabilized. The oppressive pressure disappeared. Victor collapsed forward, unconscious but no longer possessed, his body returning to normal human condition.

  Ulrich stared at the bunny plushie, his enhanced senses painting a picture that made absolutely no sense. The toy appeared completely ordinary now, just fabric and stuffing. But the memory of its presence, that nobility beyond human comprehension, lingered like afterimages burned into his retinas.

  "There we go," the plushie said, its button eyes somehow conveying satisfaction. "Much better. You really should be more careful about Spirit Readings, Ulrich. Never know what might hitch a ride through the veil."

  "What are you?" Ulrich managed, his voice emerging hoarse.

  "A friend." The plushie's tone carried genuine warmth, which somehow made everything worse. "I'll be watching over you. Making sure things don't get too complicated. After all, we wouldn't want anything unfortunate to happen, right? After all, we're ."

  Ulrich opened his mouth to ask more, to demand clarity about what "watching over" entailed and why this entity had any interest in his well-being.

  But the ancient presence vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.

  The bunny plushie became just a toy, inert and lifeless. Its button eyes held no awareness, its fabric form collapsed slightly without whatever force had animated it. Ulrich stared at it for several long moments, unable to reconcile what he'd just witnessed with any framework of understanding he possessed.

  Then another presence manifested.

  This one felt different from both the Leviathan and the bunny entity. Colder, yet familiar in ways Ulrich couldn't immediately place. The air grew heavy with the scent of midnight, that particular quality of darkness that existed in the hours before dawn.

  It materialized from shadows that hadn't existed moments before. More precisely, was a woman, one extremely familiar woman.

  She wore the same black starry dress from his dream encounters, her fair skin seeming to glow faintly in the room's dim light. Those mechanical eyes swept across the space with clinical precision, noting every detail invisible in her gaze.

  Her gaze settled on Ulrich, and he felt his heart stop.

  This was her, no doubt about it. The Servant of Night from his future dream, standing before him in the present day. Meeting her for the first time, though he'd already spoken with her in a timeline six hundred years removed from now.

  Had this moment existed in her past?

  Ulrich forced his expression neutral, burying the shock beneath layers of practiced composure. He was just another Watchman to her, anonymous and insignificant. Nothing to suggest they'd met before.

  Ma'am Felanor's attention shifted to Victor's unconscious form, then to the bunny plushie lying inert on the floor. Something flickered across her mechanical expression, but too fast for Ulrich to identify. Recognition? Concern? Her face returned to blank neutrality before he could decipher it.

  Ma'am Felanor moved toward Victor with smooth, gliding steps that suggested her feet barely touched the floor. She knelt beside his unconscious form, one hand extending to rest against his forehead. Pale light emanated from her palm, washing over Victor in waves that made Ulrich's skin prickle.

  "He will recover," she announced after several seconds of examination. "The possession left no permanent damage. Fortunate, given what inhabited him."

  "What was it?" Ulrich asked, testing how much information she might provide.

  "A Leviathan. Ancient dream creature that roams the boundless ocean where all dreams converge." Ma'am Felanor stood, her mechanical gaze returning to Ulrich. "They rarely take interest in material realm affairs. You must have attracted its attention somehow."

  Before Ulrich could respond, her eyes narrowed fractionally. That subtle attention shifted from general assessment to focused examination, and Ulrich felt her awareness pierce through him like a wave of cold air.

  She his Blessing of Night.

  The realization came with absolute certainty. Her gaze lingered on his chest, where the Vital Rune pulsed with shadow energy. Whatever perceiving abilities she possessed had identified his talent, one that Captain Ottis had warned him to keep secret.

  Ma'am Felanor's mouth opened, the beginning of a question forming.

  Then she stopped.

  Mid-word and mid-breath, her entire body going still in ways that reminded Ulrich uncomfortably of Victor's frozen possession. But this wasn't an external force, he realized. This was something internal, a command or directive overriding her initial impulse.

  Her mechanical eyes grew distant, as though listening to voices Ulrich couldn't hear. The moment stretched awkwardly; Ma'am Felanor's attention drifted elsewhere entirely while her physical form remained present.

  Finally, she blinked, returning to her immediate surroundings. When she spoke again, the questioning tone had vanished completely.

  "The contamination is resolved. Your colleague will wake within minutes." Ma'am Felanor turned toward the door without further explanation. "Inform your Keeper and Captain that a Leviathan breached the material realm through possession. Security protocols should be reviewed."

  "Wait," Ulrich called out, unable to stop himself. "What should I—"

  "You need do nothing, Watchman. This matter is concluded." Ma'am Felanor paused at the doorway, her starry dress seeming to merge with the surrounding shadows. "The Mother's grace protects her servants. Remember that. Always."

  She vanished into darkness, leaving no trace of her presence beyond the faint scent of midnight that lingered in the air.

  Ulrich stood alone in the ritual room, Victor still unconscious on the floor, a bunny plushie lying innocuously nearby, and his mind absolutely reeling from everything that had just occurred.

  A Leviathan had possessed Victor. Claimed Ulrich carried some scent from "places between spaces." Revealed he was watched by two Great Existences whose attention created distortions across time.

  Then a Lord, whatever that truly meant, had descended into a children's toy to banish the Leviathan with presence alone. Promised to remain his "friend" and watch over him. The implications of that promise felt more ominous than any threat.

  And Ma'am Felanor, the Servant of Night from his future encounters, had appeared in the present. She noticed his Blessing of Night, started to question him, but stopped as though commanded by some external force.

  Had intervened to prevent Ma'am Felanor from exposing Ulrich's talent? But why? What purpose did keeping him anonymous serve?

  Too many questions and variables he couldn't control, predict, or even guess. The world of high-level mysticism operated according to rules Ulrich barely understood, and he'd somehow positioned himself at the intersection of forces beyond his comprehension.

  Victor groaned, consciousness returning gradually. Ulrich moved to his colleague's side, helping him sit upright as awareness filtered back into pale gray eyes. Victor blinked several times, disoriented and confused.

  "What happened?" His voice emerged rough, damaged. "I was performing the Spirit Reading, and then..."

  "And then something intervened with the process," Ulrich said carefully. "A Leviathan. It possessed your body."

  Victor's expression shifted through several emotions too quickly to track. Horror, disbelief, residual terror. "How did you..."

  "I didn't. Someone else intervened." Ulrich decided that omitting the bunny plushie was the wisest course. "A Servant of Night appeared. cleansed the contamination and expelled the Leviathan."

  "A Servant?" Victor processed this, still clearly struggling with fragmented memories. "Those are myths. Urban legends about the Mother's direct matron."

  "Apparently not." Ulrich offered a hand, helping Victor stand. " said you'd recover fully. No permanent damage."

  Victor touched his temple, wincing. "Feels like someone drove railroad spikes through my skull. But otherwise intact." His gaze sharpened, focusing on Ulrich with returning clarity. "Did the Spirit Reading reveal anything else before the possession?"

  "I don't know. You were deep in the trance when it happened." Ulrich chose his words carefully, editing out the Leviathan's revelations about being watched and carrying mysterious scents. "Can you remember anything from the reading itself?"

  Victor's brow furrowed, concentration evident. "Fragments. Images. The spirit was definitely summoned deliberately, bound through ritual to haunt the boys. Victor Suchet's face, I saw that clearly. And..."

  He trailed off, expression troubled.

  "And what?"

  "A symbol. Engraved somewhere, maybe on a ring or pendant. An eye with radiating lines, but beneath it..." Victor shook his head. "I can't remember clearly. Probably because the possession had interfered with my readings."

  Ulrich helped his colleague toward the door, both of them exhausted and mentally shattered. The investigation had yielded some information: Victor Suchet's definite involvement, the deliberate nature of the haunting.

  As they left the ritual room behind, Ulrich glanced back once at the bunny plushie still lying among the salt circle's markings.

  I'll be watching over you, The promise echoed in his memory.

  Two Great Existences watched him, according to the Leviathan. The Night Mother, obviously. But the second... Could it be the Lord who descended into that toy? The entity powerful enough to banish a Leviathan with ease, to promise friendship in tones that suggested omniscience?

  Ulrich didn't know. Couldn't know, given his limited perspective and understanding.