It felt like I was trapped in a water park—if the water park had been designed as a tomb. Water surged in from cracks climbing higher and higher, rising fast. But this wasn’t some twisted theme ride. This was a death trap, built to drown me.

  I fought to clear the rubble, muscles straining with mana-fed strength—but the ship had caved in on my side. Every chunk I shifted just made another collapse into place, like digging through sand that hated me.

  So I changed tactics. If I couldn’t burrow through the rubble, maybe I could bust through the hull—punch a hole straight into the ocean and escape that way.

  Small problem: the mana ward grid had somehow activated in this clusterfuck. That, combined with reinforced hull plating already built to withstand the impossible, left me with one choice—

  Somehow break it.

  Or drown.

  first tried shaping my hand into a blade—like I had during the Calamari buffet—but this time sharper than ever. With my progress in Aspiration’s Folly, the Second Dream, I was hoping it would be enough.

  As I drop into the stance, mana flaring, the water’s already at my waist. Not much time left. I channel the flow, focus my intent, imagine my hand is a blade that can cut through anything.

  I swing.

  The water splits around me like Moses parting the sea. My palm slams into the hull—sparks fly, blue light floods the chamber.

  No electrocution, thankfully. But all I manage is a small fracture in the ward.

  It’s not enough.

  The water climbs to my chest. I’m starting to float, my footing slipping. I grit my teeth and try again, driving every shred of power I have into the strike. The fracture widens—but I can’t get proper stance anymore. The water’s too high. My power drops.

  Now there’s only a tiny pocket of air.

  And I’ve got nothing left.

  That satchel. I’d been too lax. Too slow.

  All this strength—this gift—meant nothing in the end. I was helpless. Weak.

  I drowned.

  ***

  I’m back in Swart’s realm.

  The bastard is swimming in an imaginary pool.

  When he notices me, he stops mid-stroke—still hovering in the air like water’s there—then casually pretends to climb a pool ladder out of nothing. He grabs a nonexistent towel, pats himself dry, wraps it around his waist, then slicks back his bald head like some smug beach bum.

  He’s mocking me.

  I start laughing—manic, unhinged. Not from joy. Pure—fucking hell, I don’t even know. How is a man supposed to feel when a quasi-god turns your death into a punchline? When you drown, and it doesn’t even stick?

  Am I actually dying? Is he the one reviving me? Or is he just here to laugh while someone else hits the reset switch?

  Maybe he does it for fun. Maybe for someone else. Hell if I know—I’m not some higher being with answers.

  Just a man who keeps dying.

  Swart tsks at me and wags a finger like I’m a child caught stealing snacks.

  “Lighten up, mister Calamari Chef. You only die once—well, in your case, countless times—but that’s all the more reason not to get your panties in a twist.”

  He slings an arm over my shoulder like we’re old drinking buddies.

  “You know, I told you to reach the Third Dream by now. But nooo. Ever the empty-headed, bug-brained, dunce, idiot, moron, useless, talentless, etcetera etcetera boy you are.”

  I just stare at him.

  Not angry. Not even annoyed.

  Just… dejected.

  Blank.

  I don’t know anymore.

  Maybe he is Satan. Why not? Why would Satan not lie about who he is? Why tell the truth?

  Yeah. This is hell.

  And he’s Satan.

  And this whole fucked situation is my personal brand of damnation.

  “How could I be Satan? Look at me!” he chirps, gesturing at himself all cutesy—hands spread, striking a twirl like he’s modeling for some infernal pageant.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I’m harmless.”

  Yup.

  He’s Satan.

  “Anyhow—” Swart waves dismissively, as if brushing away my existential crisis. “I do hope you get over your confusion about me. But let me remind you—you’ve got bigger fish to fry. Hah! Fish! Because you were drowning in an ocean! I’m just too damn funny. Look—Satan could never.”

  I just… sit down.

  What the fuck am I supposed to do?

  Wait—maybe it depends where the loop starts. If I time it right, maybe I can—

  “No,” he cuts in, grinning like he read the script ahead of me. “You start after you wake up from the explosion-induced knockout.”

  Hell.

  Hell.

  Hell.

  He grabs me by the shoulders—gentle, warm, reassuring like a friend trying to ground me. But then his mouth opens:

  “Can you not, dumbass? Focus-pocus, you’ve got a duty to do—cheerio! Just keep refining your skill and you’ll make it out.”

  I finally snap. Open my mouth and let it spill out.

  “…You know how many times I’ll have to die to accomplish that!?”

  He blinks. Tilts his head. Looks at me like I’ve forgotten how chairs work.

  “So?” he says, tone light. “Dying’s no biggy. You should really get over it.”

  ‘Should I? Wouldn’t that make me inhuman?’

  “You are already,” he says flatly, voice suddenly cold. “So stop caring, Empty.”

  I wish he’d stop reading my damn mind.

  Fucking Satan.

  “Hey! My name is Swart,” he snaps, suddenly playing offended. “And if you don’t like me reading your fucking memories, maybe remember where you are—my realm, my rules, ungrateful prick.”

  He folds his arms, acting all huffy like I hurt his feelings.

  “Anytoodle,” he chirps, mood flipping in a blink, “I’ll give you a tip—since you’re so special. The Third Dream is about the external. Got it?”

  I stay silent. I feel—

  “It was entertaining to watch the sushi pro in action—so keep it up, bug,” he says, actually trying to sound encouraging.

  I freeze, caught off guard. That almost sounded… empathetic.

  Satan doesn’t have empathy.

  Before I can ask if he just tried to cheer me up—

  Snap!

  ***

  I wake, dazed, half-conscious from the explosion. The cabin’s flooding. My head’s pounding.

  Time to train.

  For—I don’t even know how many lives.

  I shoot to my feet, already bracing myself.

  Frustration still churns in my gut—hopelessness trying to drag me back down—but Swart, in his own warped way, is right. If I have countless lives… how could I possibly fail?

  And I won’t.

  Even if I have to sacrifice everything.

  Because I will keep this life—the one that freed me from the shackles of mundane madness.

  I steel myself. Lock into a stance.

  This time, with a sharp focus on the external.

  But to understand that, I need to connect it to the internal.

  If the First Dream was about noticing mana—awakening it—then it’s what allows the flow to move through the body, empowering it. The Second Dream is about using that energy through imagination. I can sharpen my hand beyond any blade, make my legs stronger, faster, lighter.

  The Third Dream must be about projecting that energy outward—imagination applied outside the body. Change the world around me. Influence the ward grid. Disable it. Destroy it. Escape through the hull.

  Or maybe—maybe I don’t even need to do that.

  Maybe I could just cut through the rubble.

  Swart didn’t tell me that, of course.

  Fucking Satan.

  And why didn’t I think of that the first time?

  Maybe I am dumber than I thought. Without the loop, I—

  No. Best not dwell on it.

  I ready myself for a new test. Same method. New target.

  The water’s at my knees—earlier than last time, but I’m trying something different now. I breathe, shift, swing.

  Air and water split clean down the middle. My strike lands square against the rubble clearing a path revealing—

  Zzzzt!

  A arc of electricity.

  Pain rips through me.

  Electrocuted.

  Dead.

  Of course. Of course the rubble beyond is charged.

  Ward grid, mana crystals—whatever it is, this hell-hole found a way to punish me for thinking.

  Maybe Swart isn’t Satan. Satan wouldn’t be this creative.

  ***

  I’m back—again—sprawled on the flooding floor.

  Fine. I can’t go through the side. Maybe the roof.

  I fire upward—

  Nope. Just like the wall, it’s warded too.

  Okay.

  Fine.

  I train.

  What followed was countless lives spent trying to apply my mana externally.

  It took fifteen loops just to slightly inject mana into the ward—barely enough to flicker the light.

  Twenty-nine to make a hole the size of a pinky tip.

  Sixty to punch it out to fist-sized—finally broke through the wall… only to drown faster. My “progress” made the water pour in quicker.

  Ninety to clear enough space for half my torso.

  But on the ninety-first?

  Something clicked.

  Call it enlightenment. Call it raw willpower. Or just pure genius—because, obviously, I am one.

  I realized the trick wasn’t brute force. It was flow.

  My mana had to match the current of the ward—slide into its rhythm, not fight it. First, flow with the structure. Saturate it. Then, once it’s full—change it. Warp it. Or, in my case, overwhelm it with sheer volume until it overloaded and cracked wide open.

  And it worked.

  The ward stuttered.

  The metal groaned.

  And this time, when I punched through, I didn’t stop until the hole was big enough to fit my entire body.

  Water burst through, furious as ever, flooding the cabin. But I was ready.

  I grabbed the edge of my man-made escape hatch, holding on as the room filled. When it finally stabilized, I slipped through.

  I was out. Free of my tomb.

  I swam upward, lungs straining, heart hammering, expecting to see the raft waiting—just like protocol.

  Instead, I surfaced into chaos.

  The ship was a sinking, burning wreck. Rubble floated in every direction, scattered like confetti in a storm—and, of course, it was storming. Because why wouldn’t it be? I shouted once. Twice.

  Nothing.

  No raft.

  No crew.

  No Hein.

  I searched every inch I could reach—clinging to shattered plating, diving down into twisted corridors.

  No one.

  The ship slipped fully beneath the waves.

  And I was left drifting, alone, on a slab of debris in the middle of one of the most dangerous oceans in the world.

  Praying I’d drift ashore before something else found me first.

  Everything after that felt like a blur—somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, between towering waves and flickers of black.

  I drifted, clinging to my miserable little slab of salvation, praying to everything holy in that some sea monster wouldn’t suddenly rise and decide I looked like lunch.

  It felt like days.

  Maybe it was days.

  Eventually, the ocean calmed. The storm faded. The world grew still and deceptively serene. The only thing breaking the silence was a moving reef—slow, massive, and alive.

  I stared at it, dead-eyed, until instinct kicked in.

  Reef migrations. The books said they returned to shore eventually—then drifted off again. This one looked like it was heading toward the New World. Maybe I’d get lucky.

  Not like I had a choice.

  A moving reef was better than the open ocean that would eventually claim me.

  Some of the coral jutted above the surface. I jammed my plank between two outcroppings, wedging it in tight. A makeshift platform.

  I climbed onto the ramshackle platform and squatted.

  And I took a shit.

  Nature called, and honestly, I didn’t want to soil myself. Dignity was in short supply, but I figured I’d try to keep what little was left.

  And so, I waited—riding a reef toward the so-called promised land.

  About three days in, I was dehydrated. No rain. Naturally—just when I needed it most, the sky stayed clear.

  Somehow, I didn’t die from heatstroke or thirst. Maybe this body really was built to survive.

  Out of sheer necessity—and maybe delusion—I spent my days trying to coax water or fire out of mana. After the first day, I gave up on fire. Too much theory, not enough energy. Focused entirely on water instead.

  And eventually… it worked.

  Tiny droplets. I managed to shift the nature of my mana just enough to make it cling to moisture in the air, pulling it together into beads of water. Crude, barely enough to wet my tongue—but it kept me alive.

  For fire, my idea had been to heat the air, speed it up until combustion sparked—turns out, that’s a bit more complicated when you’re stranded, starving, and half-dead. Still on the to-do list.

  But those water droplets? They saved me.

  And that’s when I realized—beyond the tricks, beyond the borrowed reflexes—this body really was made to survive.

  Ironically, by dying. Over and over.

  But then another striking revelation hit me—fish.

  Reefs usually have fish. I could’ve hunted them, drank their blood for water, eaten them for food. Primitive, sure, but effective.

  Except when I looked around…

  Nothing.

  The reef was dead silent. No fish. No schools darting between coral, no shadows in the water. Just coral and the odd scavenger organism clinging to stone.

  No fish.

  In a reef.

  Ah. Yes. Of course.

  Wouldn’t want things to be too convenient. Wouldn’t want to eat anytime soon. Gotta fast for the diet, build character, all that crap.

  Perfect.

  After weeks of reef-riding under a perfectly clear, unrelenting sky—body wasting away, bones starting to show—I finally reached land.

  I could barely move. Every breath hurt. But I forced myself to slide off the coral, dropped into the water, and started swimming.

  Somehow, I didn’t drown—though I came close, more than once.

  White sand greeted me. Pristine. Palm trees swayed in the breeze. A dense jungle loomed just beyond. Shells littered the beach. No trash. No footprints. No signs of civilization.

  Definitely not Earth.

  I dragged myself onto shore, crawling like a skeleton freshly spit from the sea.

  I lay there, half-dead, face buried in sand.

  Then I spotted a crab.

  The damn thing actually scuttled toward me—probably thought I was just a warm, convenient delivery. Fresh corpse, buffet style.

  As it got close, I summoned every shred of strength I had left, lunged, and grabbed it. Palm-sized. Thick shell. Decent meat.

  I killed it, then ate it.

  Slowly.

  I remembered from some survival show that after extended starvation, you’re supposed to ease back into food—bland, small bites. Crab wasn’t exactly bland, but I figured if I took it slow, I’d keep it down.

  At least I could still make water with mana. So vomiting wasn’t the end of the world.

  But for now, I had food.

  Real food.

  And I was alive.

  Barely.