The current of the green river carried Izan once again. The water did not feel liquid, even though it flowed like any ordinary stream; it felt more like an icy mist.

This time, the young man could clearly see the spectral arms dragging him downstream, and rather than becoming frightened, he lay on his back, relaxing his entire body.

It did not take long for him to reach the broken bridge leading to the Dark Palace. When he did, the hands gently lifted him until he stood before the building's imposing entrance.

The boy stopped once again to take in the sight. The palace was enormous, so much so that from the outside he couldn't even tell how many rooms it contained.

His gaze was dull and expressionless, convinced that none of this place was real. Deep down, he doubted whether everything he was experiencing was simply part of a very long nightmare.

After a moment, Izan sighed and resigned himself to his apparent reality. There was something about this place that gave him a sense of familiarity, dulling his doubts.

He stretched his legs, somewhat pleased to be able to stand again, and with renewed determination walked toward the carved black stone archway. As he passed through it, the entrance door opened to welcome him.

When he entered the palace, the first thing he saw was Clara sitting on the floor. Upon hearing him, she hurriedly stood up.

“You're back!” she said excitedly. “Don't scare me like that. I saw you disappear, and then you wouldn't answer me.”

“I was scared too, you know?” Izan replied calmly.

Despite feeling as though he was going insane with every passing moment, talking to his friend calmed him down and brought him back to familiar ground in that chaotic world.

“Sorry it took me so long to come back,” he added, approaching her.

“What are you talking about?” Clara asked, furrowing her brow. “It was only a few minutes.”

“Minutes? It felt like hours to me.”

“No, no. It was only a little while,” she said curiously. “I tried talking to you like before, but you couldn't hear me, so I sat down and waited in case you came back. That's when I heard your thoughts... asking for help.”

“Spying on someone else's thoughts isn't very nice, you know?” he grumbled, but immediately added, “Although I guess it's fair.”

“Instead of complaining, you should thank me,” she scolded him angrily.

“I know.” Izan laughed as he approached and hugged her. “Thank you... thank you... I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here.”

The boy could no longer hold back his emotions and began to cry.

Clara said nothing. She hugged him tightly and offered her shoulder so Izan could unload all the emotional weight he had been carrying.

Both of them could feel the other's touch and body heat, yet they couldn't help perceiving a strange distance between their bodies, as if they were touching and yet, at the same time, weren't.

When Izan stopped crying and his breathing returned to normal, Clara was the first to speak.

“Now that you're calm, tell me something.”

“What?”

“What did you mean when you said it was fair for me to hear your thoughts?”

Clara pulled away from the embrace and looked at him seriously, though she still wore a faint smile.

“Oh, that...”

Izan thought for a second about what he was going to say, then laughed.

“So when you came to this world, you thought you were a real princess, huh? You even thought that guy Vash was handsome and could become your prince.”

Clara's face turned bright red with embarrassment, but after the initial shock wore off, she became angry.

“You idiot! How do you know all that?”

He merely laughed as his friend punched him in the arm.

“Come on. Let's explore this place while I explain,” the boy told her.

Izan told Clara again about his situation in the pit and how he had eaten her flesh. He explained that afterward, his mind had traveled into her memories, reliving everything that had happened from Professor Isaac's class until they reunited in the other world.

As he explained everything, the two of them tried to open the wooden doors, reinforced with iron along the sides of the palace, but they all remained locked, and no one answered from the other side.

“So, by eating me... that sounds horrible... but anyway, by eating me, you started reliving my memories,” Clara said with a shudder. “And you didn't just see my memories. You saw my thoughts too.”

“Exactly,” Izan nodded, kicking one of the doors to see if it would give way. “But it wasn't like watching them. It was like living them myself. It felt as though I were you, thinking and feeling exactly as you did at the time.”

“I'd like to be surprised, but I think I'm already expecting anything to happen,” she said irritably.

“Don't get mad. It's not like I wanted to get inside your mind,” Izan replied. “All these doors are locked. Let's go upstairs.”

Clara didn't answer but followed her friend, reflecting on everything.

“When you managed to hear me, was it after or before you entered my memories?”

“After the first ones.”

“And you came here and left... and then you ate... me... It still sounds weird to say that,” Clara sighed. “But what I'm getting at is that both times, you heard me after eating.”

The two climbed the white stone staircase. While the girl remained deep in thought, Izan paid attention to his surroundings, searching for answers.

The staircase had a black iron railing covered with smooth, polished wood. After twenty-four steps, it split into two paths, one on each side, like the grand imperial staircases he had seen before.

“Do you think I'm here because you ate me?” Clara concluded.

Izan, who had reached the landing, turned around.

“That's what I was thinking. Especially because of the voice that told me to eat more.”

“Yes... the voice...”

“I have two options,” Izan argued, shrugging his shoulders. “I can accept that all of this is real and that, somehow, you're still alive in here, whether it's one of my abilities or not. Or I can accept that I've completely lost my mind and I'm imagining everything.”

“I prefer the first option. At least that way I'm still alive, and I'm not a product of your imagination.”

“Me too, although I'm still having trouble believing it,” he admitted with a sigh. “So first, we need to find out if the one behind that voice is somewhere around here.”

Clara nodded seriously.

“All right, there are two paths,” Izan pointed out. “Should we split up?”

“Are you an idiot?” the girl scolded him. “You spend all your time watching horror movies, and you want to make the number-one mistake in those stories? No. We're staying together.”

He laughed to himself, thinking that if this Clara was nothing more than his imagination, at least he was imagining her exactly as she really was.

“By the way, if this palace is part of your power, shouldn't you know everything that's in here?”

“Do you really think all of this belongs to me?” Izan asked.

“Actually, it's mine, but let's say I'm lending it to you,” a slightly high-pitched voice replied.

It was the voice Izan had heard before.

Both Clara and the boy jolted in surprise and began looking in every direction.

Standing in the great entrance hall of the Dark Palace was a strange presence.

His features were thin and refined, as though his face had been sculpted for the sole purpose of achieving perfection.

His purple skin shimmered as if it emitted a faint glow, and his hair was as thick as a finger and perfectly combed back, with a few strands falling over his shoulders.

Above his head floated a crown the color of molten metal, with two points rising from the front, one on each side, like horns.

The imposing man had a bare torso, displaying his firm pectorals as though they were a trophy, while a white-and-red velvet cloak concealed his shoulders and back.

“Yes, yes, I know you don't know who I am. I already know you're going to ask,” he said irritably. “I'm the God of the Underworld. Oh, what a surprise! I never would've guessed!”

He accompanied his final words with a few exaggerated hand gestures but immediately changed his expression, becoming completely serious as he declared:

“I don't have much time, and there's a lot we need to talk about.”