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Isolde steps closer anyway.

“You are not fractured,” she says firmly. “You are integrated.”

The word hits harder than the spell.

Integrated.

The devourer widened the channels beneath my ribs. The bond with Isolde stabilized them. The containment construct keeps trying to tear me apart along lines that no longer exist.

I stop fighting the spell like it has found weak seams.

Instead, I feel the shape beneath the pain.

Infernal current moves through me in smooth, coherent paths. Mortal heartbeat and hunger pulse in the same rhythm. The structure does not resist itself anymore. Vaerith built this spell to separate competing forces.

There are no competing forces left.

The realization settles through me with startling clarity.

I inhale slowly.

The containment hooks sink deeper into my core expecting collapse.

I open the channels wider instead.

Sable’s eyes widen. “Why is he doing that face?”

Rhazek watches me with intense focus. “Because he understands the structure now.”

“That explanation somehow made this worse.”

The pale rings around my chest pour inward, trying to fracture what they encounter. The moment the force reaches the reorganized channels beneath my ribs, the spell loses its leverage. The containment magic floods through pathways already stabilized by the devourer’s integration and the bond Isolde anchored into place.

Pain shifts into pressure.

Pressure becomes current.

Current folds cleanly into the structure of me.

Gold light surges beneath my skin, brighter than before but perfectly controlled. The containment rings flicker from pale white to molten gold as my core absorbs them completely. I feel the hybrid architecture inside my blood reorganize one final time, tightening into something stronger and cleaner than anything I have experienced since the contract rewrote my species.

Then the hunger goes silent.

Not restrained.

Not chained.

Quiet.

The sensation nearly knocks the breath out of me.

The hunger rests beneath my ribs without clawing at the edges of itself. It feels immense, dangerous, and entirely mine. No internal war. No endless strain between instinct and control. Just power waiting patiently inside coherent structure.

I laugh softly.

Sable points at me immediately. “Why is he laughing during catastrophic magic?”

Isolde’s eyes widen as the shift reaches her through the bond. “Corin?”