In a forgotten village on the edge of nowhere, a boy named Jio grows up ignored by the world. Quiet, unimportant, barely surviving — he’s the kind of kid no one would remember if he disappeared.
But kindness has a strange way of shaping things.

When Jio helps a stranger left to die at the edge of the desert, he doesn’t expect anything to change. He just does it because it feels right.
That stranger isn’t quite who she seems, and Jio isn’t just some quiet beggar boy.
Not really.

But for now, this is just a story about surviving, about learning to care in a place where no one teaches you how, and about how small acts of kindness can begin to shift the world — even before the world notices.

❖ Chapter 13: The Bell Between Realms


Not because they weren't being hunted—but because neither of them believed they would be caught.


Jio walked with his usual expressionless calm, his coat slightly torn, scarf dragging after him like a lost thought. Havella walked a step behind, rubbing her temples as if dealing with a toddler.


"Left, Jio. Left. That's your other left."


"Oh, but it does," she snapped. "Unless you want to walk into a dimensional thorn field. Those things shred flesh like paper and itch for three days."


Jio looked down at a twisted root rising from the red soil like a skeletal hand. He stepped over it.


She sighed, dramatically brushing dust off her cloak.


They walked for a while longer in silence. The border of the new realm was close now—the sky above them had shifted subtly, taking on fractured hues of gold and blue. The air felt thinner.


Finally, Jio spoke, tilting his head slightly.


"Why didn't we see guards on the last floor?"


"Oh, that. Easy. They're lazy. It's called being afraid of cubic implosions. One wrong sneeze down there, and they destabilize reality itself."


"Exactly! Brilliant security strategy: if no one goes near the danger zone, no one triggers the danger zone." She twirled a finger. "Genius-level thinking."


A shimmering distortion crackled like glass before them—the threshold to the next realm. Havella exhaled slowly, flexing her hands. Her magic pulsed faintly—Steal was adapting to new dimensional rules.


Just as they were about to step through—


A bell. Massive. Ancient. Echoing across every layer of stone and cloud.


Then a whisper—no, not sound, but presence—spread like a cold hand around their ankles.


"How?" Havella hissed, eyes darting back. "I erased every trace."


Jio turned his head slightly. His hand gripped the hilt of nothing—his light forming quietly in his palm.


And somewhere far off, across layers they had not yet stepped into—


A shadow sat upon a twisted throne made of light and bone.


Eyes pale like the void, lips curled in disdain. As if watching two insects crawl toward something sacred.


Chapter 13 - -13