Flying through Lord Malakor's shadow dimension was like taking a very depressing and very confusing tour of a haunted house the size of a galaxy. The space outside the "Odyssey" was a dark, gloomy, and deeply weird landscape.

It was a place made of feelings. Giant, half-formed structures, that looked like they were made of solidified fear and old, sad memories, drifted past them in the eternal, twilight gloom. They flew past a mountain range that seemed to be made of pure, solidified regret. They saw a slow, dark river that felt like it was made of liquid despair. This entire, private universe was a direct reflection of Malakor's own, grumpy, and very dramatic soul.

"Well," Scarlett muttered, as she carefully navigated the ship around a floating, shadowy island that seemed to be radiating pure, uncut grumpiness. "He's certainly got a theme going on here. I'm guessing he's not a big fan of bright colors or happy music."

In the very center of this gloomy, cosmic landscape, a single, massive structure rose up, a black, jagged spike against the gray, twilight sky. It was a towering fortress, a castle made of pure, solidified shadows and jagged, obsidian-like stone. It was the ultimate gothic nightmare, a place so dark and spiky it looked like a heavy metal album cover had come to life.

This was the Castle of Shadows. And at the very top of its highest tower, Zara's fading signal told them, the Reality Loom was being held.

But the castle was not unguarded. As the "Odyssey" approached, a swarm of dark, shadowy figures poured out from its walls. They were vaguely humanoid in shape, but their forms were indistinct, like smoke or shadows given a temporary, human form. They had no faces, no features, just a cold, empty presence.

These were the Shades.

"What are those things?" Ilsa's voice growled over the comms from her battle station. "Are they ships? Soldiers?"

Ryan, who could feel the nature of this strange, psychic place, had the answer. His face was grim.

"They're not soldiers," he said, his voice a low, somber whisper. "They're ghosts. They're the psychic echoes, the souls, of every single person Malakor has ever killed. And he has bound them to his service, to be his eternal, ghostly army."

The news sent a chill through the entire ship. They were not just fighting an army. They were fighting an army of the dead, a legion of tormented souls.

As the army of Shades swarmed toward the "Odyssey," they did not attack with weapons or energy blasts. Their attack was much quieter, and much more personal.

They were beings of pure, psychic energy, and their assault was an assault on the mind. A wave of pure, cold despair washed over the ship, and with it came the whispers. The Shades targeted the deepest, most painful regrets of every single person on the crew.

On the bridge, the weapons officer suddenly saw a vision of his childhood home, of his parents, of a fight he had had with them before he left to join the military, of all the things he wished he had said but never did. His hands froze on his console, his eyes wide with a deep, personal pain.

In the engine room, the chief engineer was suddenly lost in a memory of a past mission, of a friend she had been unable to save, of a single, wrong decision that had cost a life.

The entire crew was being crippled, not by force, but by their own, personal ghosts.

Ryan, as the most powerful psychic on the ship, was hit the hardest. He was a being of deep empathy, and he felt not only his own regrets, but the echoes of everyone else's. He was suddenly drowning in a sea of his own past failures.

He saw visions of all the people he had failed to save, of every choice that had led to disaster, of every mistake he had ever made. The weight of it all was crushing, a mountain of guilt that threatened to overwhelm him, to paralyze him with despair.

He was on the verge of being completely overwhelmed.

But then, in the middle of that dark, stormy sea of regret, a new presence appeared in his mind. It was not a memory. It was an echo.

It was the calm, steady, and deeply reassuring presence of Jaxon and Kaelia, their souls now a permanent, witty part of the ship's own.

"Whoa there, boss," Jaxon's familiar, roguish voice echoed in his head. The voice was warm, and it was real. "Looks like you've got a bad case of the 'what-ifs.' Classic rookie mistake."

"Everyone's got ghosts, Ryan," Kaelia's cheerful, confident voice added. "Every single person who has ever lived has a long, long list of screw-ups and bad days. That's just part of the deal."

Their voices were a lifeline in the darkness. They were not telling him that his regrets were not real. They were not telling him to just forget about them. They were telling him that it was okay.

"The trick isn't to try and outrun your ghosts," Jaxon's voice said, full of a simple, profound wisdom that he had probably learned in a hundred different seedy space-bars. "You can't. They're faster than you are. The trick is to learn how to fly with 'em. You let 'em sit in the co-pilot's seat. You listen to what they have to say. And then you politely tell them to shut up, because you've got a job to do."

Their memory, their simple, human, and deeply practical wisdom, was the anchor he needed. He took a deep, mental breath. He looked at the ghosts of his own past, at all his failures and regrets. And he did not push them away.

He accepted them.

They were a part of him. They were the scars that had made him who he was. And he would not be ashamed of them.

The sea of despair in his mind calmed. The weight of his guilt did not vanish, but it was no longer a crushing weight. It was just… a part of him.

With his own mind now clear, he reached out and sent that same, simple, powerful message of acceptance to the rest of his crew, to all of his friends who were trapped in their own, personal nightmares.

And one by one, the crew of the "Odyssey" began to fight back against their own ghosts.

They fought their way through the swarming army of Shades, their weapons now firing with a new, grim purpose. They broke through the ghostly blockade and arrived at the castle itself.

They teleported a small, elite team—Ryan, Scarlett, Ilsa, and a few of her best Iron Wolves—directly into the castle's throne room.

The throne room was a vast, cavernous space, its walls seeming to be made of shifting, living shadows. And in the center of it all, sitting on a massive, spiky throne of pure, solidified darkness, was Lord Malakor.

He was not alone.

Behind his throne, floating in the air and pulsing with a strange, unstable, and very powerful light, was the Reality Loom.

Malakor was not just holding it here. He was plugged into it. Dark, shadowy tendrils of his own energy were connected to the Loom, and he was actively drawing power from it. The air in the room crackled with a dangerous, reality-warping energy.

He was using the Loom to expand his own, private, shadow dimension. He was no longer just a king of this place. He was in the process of becoming a true god in his own, private, and very grumpy universe.

He looked at them, and a slow, cruel smile spread across his shadowy face.

"Welcome to my home, little flower," his voice purred in their minds. "I do hope you enjoy your stay. It will be a very, very long one."