[LUCAS – First Person POV]
Notification
「 Wake up, monkey. 」
That was the first thing I heard after slipping out of what I thought was eternal darkness. Not a majestic "you've survived," not a glorious "arise, main character," but that.
"...ugh, what the hell is this now?"
I groaned, blinking my eyes open into nothing but pitch black.
"Hey System, turn on artificial bulb or something. Light magic. I don't care, just light."
「 No. Die in the dark, I guess. 」
Ugh. Useless ahhh ai system.
I tried to sit up, only for my body to scream like I was hit by a truck. Oh right. That walking exoskeleton freak—Swarm Tyrant. Last thing I remember is catching its slam to my face.
"System… Full Restoration. Please."
「 Using Level-Up Bonus: Restoration Activated. You're welcome, lightbulb. 」
A glow pulsed in my chest. It wasn't warm, not even comforting. Just that crisp chill you feel right before getting serious. The pain vanished, my body tingled with fresh mana rushing through my circuits.
I let out a breath, pushed myself up, and noticed a figure beside me.
Celia.
Unconscious, still breathing, but bruised like hell. Her hair clung to her cheek with dried blood, and for once, she didn't look murderous.
"…At least she is still alive."
And then the most logical question hit me: how did we end up here?
"System. Status report."
「 After getting folded like a paper crane, your vitals dropped into the red. I shut down your body to protect your brain. You're welcome again. 」
"Okay, yeah, fair. But… how did we get here? Last thing I remember was the Tyrant making salsa out of my spine."
「 Unknown individual intervened. Saved both your lives. 」
That made me freeze.
"Who?"
There was a pause.
「 Entering Analysis Mode. Please wait while I rearrange my data. 」
Riiight. Guess while he's doing that, I should check my progress.
"Status."
Status Menu
---------------
Name: Lucas
Class: Mage
Level: 11
Age: 15
Attributes – 3 New
Strength: 5
Agility: 8
Endurance: 6
Perception: 7 → 10
Intelligence: 13
Mana: 11
Divine Creation: 4
Skills
Light-Elemental Magic
Mana Control (Lv. 4)
Divine Protection of Chaos
Divine Protection: Adaptive Venom Synthesis
Lightstep: 150% Speed Boost
Visionary Sight: Perfect Dark Vision
Notes
HP: 500/500
MP: 700/700
---------------
Perception buffed. Good. Visionary Sight? Even better. That's gonna be useful down here.
I tapped into the skill.
Instantly, the world shifted. What was once darkness now bloomed into deep greys and electric outlines. The walls were chiseled flesh—this was no ordinary cavern. This was a grotesque hive.
And we were at its lowest level.
The bottom of the abyss. Lucky us.
I stood fully upright, rolling my shoulders. My bones cracked, not from pain—just from tension. My fists clenched. Mana surged behind my ribs like a second heartbeat.
"System. You done?"
A sound pinged in my head.
「 Analysis Complete. 」
I raised an eyebrow.
"Well?"
「 Based on energy trace patterns, force signature left on your shoulder, and residual healing potion composition found on Celia's lips... I have no idea who saved you. 」
"…You're kidding."
「 Nope. The person somehow hid his heartbeat, magical pressence and even his appearance behind a magical barrier. 」
I glanced down at Celia again. The faint glint of the healing potion still shimmered on her lips.
Her skin wasn't as pale now, and her breathing had stabilized. Whoever it was—didn't just save us. They made sure we'd live.
That kind of precision? That wasn't mercy.
That was intent.
I let out a breath. "Then how'd they even manage to save us at all?"
「 That's the thing. My data's incomplete. I was focused on keeping you alive. That individual… stayed entirely outside of detection range. 」
Not even my system could track them. Not even a flicker of aura or mana left behind.
"Okay… but—" I rubbed the side of my temple, the real question bubbling up like a delayed panic attack. "How the hell did that person survive the Swarm Tyrant?"
System paused.
「 An excellent question. Based on your last memories before blackout, and my current surroundings, I have a hypothesis. 」
I straightened, cautiously interested.
「 The individual either fought off the Swarm Tyrant… or killed it. 」
Silence.
"...That's it? That's the answer?"
「 Statistically it's a 50/50, Lucas. You want me to lie to you? 」
My eyes darted around the cavern. Blackened walls were scorched and cracked, the earth still hummed with aftershocks. There were burn marks… claw trails… and ruptures in the stone that looked like someone dropped a god from orbit.
"What… kind of person just shows up in a grotesque hive and takes out a Swarm Tyrant—alone?"
I wasn't even sure I believed it myself.
「 That's what I'm trying to figure out. But… if my hypothesis is correct… 」
The system's tone shifted, slightly colder.
「 Then the person who saved you and Celia isn't just powerful. They're an anomaly. A variable outside of any calculated world trajectory. 」
I went quiet.
For the first time since I got dropped into this messed up world, I wasn't sure what scared me more—the monsters outside…
…or the man who could tear them apart without leaving a name behind.
"…Right. Keep digging. I want a name. A sign. Anything."
「 Copy that. Commencing silent research scan across previous mana pulse trails… Don't die while I'm doing it. Wouldn't be worth the power usage. 」
I let out a breath, pulled my cloak tighter around me, and looked up at the hollowed-out cavern roof above.
Whoever you are…
You didn't just save us. You wanted us to be at the deepest layer.
「 I couldn't identify the individual, but I've retrieved a partial dataset based on trace force dynamics and object displacement. Height approximately 186 centimeters, shoulder width 49.3 centimeters, lean muscle distribution—based on crater force patterns—optimal for high-speed closed-quarter combat. 97% probability… the individual is male. 」
"…You're telling me you don't know who he is, but you know his damn shoulder width?"
「 Precision matters, monkey. 」
I crossed my arms, staring at the cave's uneven walls like they held answers. "Fine. So how the hell did he fight off the grotesques? And the Swarm Tyrant? Alone?"
「 I've analyzed the residual blood spatters, mana fracturing in the air, and biological remnants. All signs point to one thing: he fought them in close-quarters… with either bare hands or twin daggers. 」
I blinked. "Daggers?"
I remembered using my own light blades during the Rinascita ambush.
"Daggers didn't work on them. I know. I tried."
「 Correct. It didn't work when you used your light daggers, but somehow worked for him. 」
"System…"
「 Calm down, I was complimenting you. 」
There was a short silence. Then:
「 I've been digging deeper. And now I may have the answer. A biological one. 」
"…Go on."
「 The grotesques evolved. That's obvious. They developed resistance to elemental magic, and thickened armor specifically around vital clusters: spinal nerves, brain-stem, core heart tissue. Traditional weapons and standard magical elements are mostly ineffective now. 」
"And yet," I muttered, looking around the dead hive, "he killed them."
「 Yes. That's where it gets… interesting. 」
The tone shifted. More clinical.
「 Every living problem is a cellular one. The man must've known that. I believe he captured a grotesque before this engagement—likely a base-level one—and studied it. Its cell structure. DNA replication. Adaptive responses. 」
"…What the hell is that supposed to help with?"
「 Evolution. 」
I stayed quiet.
「 Evolution doesn't create something from nothing. Every grotesque—no matter how advanced—originated from a common ancestral cell. That primitive cell, the originator, still exists within every evolved grotesque. It's just buried. Hidden. Dormant, maybe. But always there. 」
"So… what does that mean?"
「 It means he didn't fight them with power. He fought them with precision. 」
I felt my mouth dry out.
「 The grotesques don't use protein-based enzymes for biological catalysis like other organisms. Instead, their entire body functions are dependent on a rare crystalline lattice—a kind of molecular catalyst—embedded within a liquid cytoskeletal structure. 」
"…A crystal?"
「 A molecular organelle. An inorganic intelligence. It acts as both the replicator and the stabilizer of their body's cellular processes. You destroy the crystal—everything collapses. Think of it like a CPU running a body-wide machine. The man… must've found a way to target that. 」
I was silent. Trying to picture it.
「 From the chemical burns on the blades found near the exit… I'd say he infused his daggers with a negating field—either magical or biochemical—that directly disrupted that crystalline catalyst. In other words, he didn't just kill the grotesques. He killed the very thing keeping them alive. 」
"…Wow," I said.
「 At best guess… he quenched the metal not in water, but in distilled grotesque blood, mixed with mana-infused quartz powder calibrated to resonate with the frequency of their core crystal—the Null Catalyst. 」
My lips parted. "…You're saying he forged monster-killing daggers using grotesque blood and magic rock dust?"
「 More than that. He then used his own blood as the binding agent. Etched the grotesques' DNA sequence—base pair by base pair—into the blade's inner lattice. Not symbolically. Literally. A reverse helix, structurally mirrored to their genome. An antigen. A virus. A rejection of their existence. 」
I stood there stunned.
「 Most likely, he enhanced the edge with wind reinforcement and earth-aligned sharpening cores. That bypassed their natural armor plating and anatomical protections. Every part of that weapon was built to deny them. 」
"So how did it work?" I muttered.
「 Whenever the blade made contact… it did this: 」
「 1. Disabled grotesque molecular function—forced cellular collapse.
2. Bypassed outer armor, ignoring physical and elemental resistances.
3. Struck directly at their fundamental life catalyst. 」
「 That's how 'Catalyst Reversers' were born. Weapons that unmake grotesques. Even their final forms. 」
I didn't say anything.
I couldn't.
This guy wasn't just swinging shiny blades. He reverse-engineered extinction.
「 There's more. I still don't understand how he dissected a grotesque without a lab, without gene-scanners, cryo tools, or even basic biogear. Hell, those don't even exist in this world. 」
I took a deep breath.
That's when the reality started to sink in.
This world didn't have microscopes. Didn't even have a standard periodic table. We were barely out of enchanted bronze-age medicine.
He did all that here?
Without a system?
Without Earth-born knowledge like me?
He did all of that... while being native.
I ran a hand through my hair. "System… is it possible for me to infuse a version of that into my light magic? So I can fight grotesques like that?"
「 Already working on it. But don't hold your breath. This process is extremely complex—might take hour or two. You're dealing with alien biology, magic resonance tuning, and custom DNA inversion layering. 」
"Right… fair. Not exactly beginner spellbook material."
Still.
It was possible.
And that meant something.
That meant I could reach him one day.
Whoever that guy was—he wasn't just some strong fighter. He broke the grotesques at their root. He unlocked biochemistry without a glossary. He mapped a monster genome by hand. He carved anti-life weapons using living cells as data.
All without a single system line of code.
I wouldn't want him as an enemy… hell no. But something about him—it wasn't fear.
It was a spark.
A flare in my chest.
Not fear.
Ambition.
"...Just watch. I'll level up. I'll figure this out. I'll catch up."
A soft breath escaped beside me. I turned.
Celia stirred.
Her fingers twitched slightly, her breathing shifting from shallow to slow and steady.
She was waking up.
"…Finally," I muttered.
The next part was about to begin.
And this time… I wouldn't be the weak link.
Celia stirred again, and this time, her eyes fluttered open.
I watched silently as her gaze flickered, confused, scanning the shadows. Then she sat up with a soft wince, brushing her fingers across her shoulder—her skin still bearing faint marks, now mostly healed.
She looked at me. Still dazed, but sharp. Alert.
"You're awake," I said.
"…What happened?" she asked, her voice rough. Her eyes narrowed slightly, not out of weakness, but calculation. Like she was already piecing together the situation in her head.
"We're still in the grotesque hive," I replied. "Deepest layer, from what I can tell."
Her lips parted as if to respond, but she didn't. Her attention shifted again—scanning. Judging. She didn't trust her surroundings. Or me, yet.
I respected that.
"You were unconscious," I added. "So was I. Pretty sure we both should've been dead."
Her expression didn't shift, but her hands subtly flexed—feeling her limbs. Gauging her condition. No wasted movements. She was precise like that.
"I checked," I continued. "Someone saved us. He gave you a healing potion. Strong one, too—your wounds are almost gone."
That got her attention.
She frowned, fingers brushing her chest—her heart.
"…I don't remember," she murmured. "The last thing I saw was the swarm tyrant about to—" Her voice broke off for a second. "After that… nothing."
"You didn't see who it was?"
She shook her head slowly. "I… I lost consciousness before anyone appeared. I didn't hear a voice. I didn't feel mana. But..."
Her fingers pressed lightly over her heart.
"But?" I asked.
"I felt something," she whispered. "Like I was being held. Not roughly. Gently. Carefully. And… there was warmth."
I raised a brow. "So, mystery man is strong and emotionally available. Lucky us."
She gave me a sideways glance. "You joke too much."
"I bleed sarcasm when I'm stressed."
A pause.
Then I asked, "Do you know him?"
She was quiet. Too quiet. The silence stretched a second longer than comfort allowed.
Then she finally said, "No. I don't think so." But her hand was still over her chest.
"…But?"
"…It felt familiar," she admitted, almost reluctantly. "But not something I can remember. Just something my body… recognized."
I didn't press her. That look in her eyes—it wasn't fake. But it was complicated.
There was more. She just didn't know how to say it. Or maybe didn't trust herself enough to.
"Whoever it was," I said, "he didn't just fight off the grotesques. I think he might've taken out the entire swarm."
She blinked. "…Alone?"
"Yep."
"That's not possible."
"I know..."
"..."
"Yeah. I know. Makes me feel underqualified just standing here."
Celia didn't laugh. She just stared down at the cracked earth.
Then she stood.
"…We're in danger," she said.
"Duh."
"No, I mean real danger. If he saved us… then he was strong enough to go after the swarm tyrant. And that means…"
"…The real one might still be alive."
We locked eyes.
"…We need to move," she said.
I nodded. "Together?"
She tilted her head slightly, giving me that suspicious look again. "…I don't trust you."
"Fair."
"But I'll work with you. Just don't slow me down."
"Same to you."
She rolled her shoulder once, stretching, then reached into her dress, pulling out one of her thorn-chains and snapping it back into combat-ready form.
"…You good?" I asked.
"No."
I grinned. "Cool. Let's get out of here before another grotesque evolves."
Her eyes narrowed. "Lucas."
"…Yeah?"
"Stay close."
A flicker of something crossed her face—seriousness, or maybe fear—but it vanished as quickly as it came.
"I don't want to lose another person I've fought beside."
My grin faded.
"…You won't."
We turned, and together, we stepped into the deeper tunnels.
The real escape began now.
I cracked my neck once and checked my mana pulse. Still flowing steady. Celia and I had made it deeper into the tunnel systems—no grotesques yet, but that was the calm before the screamstorm. We both knew it.
「 Update complete. Analysis results ready. You finally want to stop being useless? 」
"Wow. Sweet talk me more, system."
「 Listen, peasant. Your Light Magic has now been retrofitted to attack grotesques biologically. 」
Wait, what?
"Run that back."
「 I reverse-calculated the grotesque catalyst structure and integrated it into your Light spells. They now target molecular lattice structures inside their cytoskeleton, not their surface defense. Translation: your magic will now bypass their armor and their magic resistance. Congrats. You're not totally worthless anymore. 」
…Damn. That's actually kind of fire.
Celia was walking beside me, sharp-eyed. I figured now was the time to flex a little.
I looked over at her.
"They evolved."
She raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"The grotesques. You noticed it too, right? Their resistance, their armor—it's not just physical anymore. Their structure mutated. Magic doesn't touch 'em. Weapons barely scratch them unless you hit that soft spot under the neck joint."
Celia nodded slowly. "I've been adjusting my aim. But even then... they heal too quickly."
"Yeah, well. That's because their entire biology doesn't run on normal life mechanics anymore. They don't even use protein-based enzymes. They're running on a sort of catalytic crystal lattice inside a liquid-matrix skeleton."
Celia blinked. "Wait, what?"
"They're not evolving like animals. More like corrupted algorithms. The base cell—the ancestral cell—is still there. Just hidden inside layers of mutated code. That's the weak point."
She stared at me for a moment, genuinely impressed. "How do you know all that?"
Oh no.
「 Say it, copy-paster. Say it's all your genius. I dare you. 」
"…I read a lot."
「 Bro just ctrl + v'd my entire explanation like it was his science project. 」
Celia smirked. "That's… actually brilliant."
She pulled one of her chain bracelets free, eyes narrowing as she examined the earth-element veins glowing within it.
She muttered a few incantations under her breath, and I watched the color of the enchantment flicker slightly—just a tiny shift in frequency, but I noticed it.
Then she swung the chain and shattered a nearby grotesque parasite nest. The reaction? Sharp. The magic sizzled right through it.
「 …What the hell? 」
"What?" I whispered.
「 She just weakened her earth enchantments using elemental decay theory, then artificially recreated a flawed version of the catalyst effect you're using. 60% efficiency. 」
"Wait—seriously?"
「 Yeah. Yours is about 75% effective. Hers is 60. 」
"That's insane."
Celia stood up straight, eyes flicking back to me. "That was experimental. Not sure if I got the ratio right, but…"
"You got it."
She blinked. "You understood it?"
"Of course," I said with a little grin. "I mean, molecular catalysts, reverse-helix replication, elemental frequency conversion—it's not that hard."
「 Bro. You said 'wait, what?' like 10 minutes ago. 」
"Sheesh," I whispered under my breath. "Let me have this."
「 Fine. But let the record show you are riding my calculations. 」
"Duly noted."
Celia stepped closer, looking at her chain again. "Do you think the man who saved us used the same method?"
"Probably."
「 Incorrect. His version was a perfected version. 100% effective catalyst negation. I can't replicate it because he used some unknown herbal components mixed in. I don't have the samples. 」
I looked at Celia. "He used something else. Something we don't have. But it's fine. What we've got will work. Mostly."
She nodded. "For now."
A moment passed. Her expression softened slightly.
"…Lucas."
"Yeah?"
She tilted her head a bit. "How are you this smart?"
"Oh that? Just a little genius," I said with a shrug.
「 …Says the guy who once asked me how many seconds are in a kilometer. 」
"Shut up."
Celia gave a faint smile, brushing her hair behind her ear. "I'm glad we teamed up."
"…Me too," I said.
She didn't say anything else, but she walked a little closer to me as we moved through the hive. Our pace was steady now.
Silent agreement.
----------------------------
Grotesque screech.
Grotesque collapse.
Grotesque pop—new stain on my boots.
I twirled my hand, light magic rotating between my fingers like it was born there. Beside me, Celia flicked her chain into the skull of the last crawler trying to jump us. It fell back twitching—half of its head missing.
We stood in silence for a second, surrounded by the corpses of another dozen grotesques.
"…Twelve," I said.
"Fourteen," she corrected, wiping blood off her arm.
"Come on, I definitely got—"
She gave me that look.
Fair.
Still, I wasn't going down without a cool line.
"We're making this look way too easy."
「 That's because they're brain-dead parasites and you're finally using the weapon I upgraded for you. 」
"Still counts," I muttered under my breath, cracking my neck.
We moved fast through the deeper tunnel veins, a blur of two lights—mine, glowing white-gold with infused molecular collapse, and hers, earthen green and laced with decay-chained resonance. Honestly, it looked good. Deadly good.
At one point, I jumped off a stalactite mid-air and launched a light burst straight through a grotesque's skull.
Celia followed up—her chain flying past me, wrapping around a grotesque's arms and crushing it inward.
We shared a look mid-fight.
She actually nodded.
Okay, respect.
It became a rhythm.
I'd tag three in a flash— pop-pop-zap. She'd clean the stragglers with her chain whirling in a deadly spiral. She'd bind one, I'd finish it. I'd blind them, she'd execute.
We started syncing.
"You're not bad," she said at one point, flipping a grotesque over her shoulder like it was made of feathers.
I blasted it mid-air before it hit the ground.
"Neither are you," I said casually. "For a walking death trap."
She snorted. "I'll take that as a compliment."
「 Wow. Look at that. Two psychopaths bonding over joint murder. How romantic. 」
"Don't ruin it."
We kept going—layer by layer, room by room. I lost count of how many grotesques we tore through. Probably fifty. Maybe a hundred.
It was brutal.
And it was clean.
At some point, Celia's breathing evened out. The usual cold edge in her voice… softened.
"Lucas," she said after a while. "You don't feel like someone from this world."
"…What makes you say that?"
"The way you fight. The way you speak. You always feel… disconnected. Like you're used to being alone."
"Guess we've got that in common."
She didn't argue.
And that meant a lot.
「 Would you like me to log this emotional breakthrough into your journal? Title: She Spoke to Me Like a Person 」
"Shut. Up."
We reached a circular hollow chamber, tucked between two collapsed stone bridges and covered in moss. Dead grotesques still surrounded us in a ring.
It was—surprisingly—quiet here.
Celia scanned the room with her chain spiraling slowly at her side. "This might be the best we'll get."
I nodded, brushing the dust off my cloak. "We camp here. No point pushing up blind."
She crouched near the corner, letting her chain retract into her gauntlet. Her expression was tired but calm.
I sat near her, letting my light pulses dim down to conserve energy.
"…We made a pretty good team, huh?" I said.
Celia didn't answer immediately.
But after a beat, she looked at me and nodded.
"Yeah. We did."
「 Oh my god. Is this trust? Character development? Someone get the camera. 」
I just smirked, leaning back against the stone.
Campfire would've been nice.
But we were alive.
And more than that…
We were ready.
From the corner of my eye, I saw her reach beneath her dress and pull something out—carefully wrapped in old parchment.
"What's that?" I asked, raising a brow.
Celia didn't answer immediately. Her movements slowed, more delicate. She peeled the wrapping back like it was sacred. Inside, nestled in a small worn box… was a red flower.
Her lips curled, just a bit.
The first real smile I'd seen from her.
My system immediately pinged.
「 Her heartbeat stabilized. That flower just mentally healed her more than your dumb face ever could. 」
…Rude.
There was a small folded paper tucked underneath the flower. Faint dots and dashes scratched into its surface.
"What's that?" I asked, leaning forward.
She gently lifted the flower to her nose, closing her eyes. "It's… nothing. Just something someone gave me once."
The way she said it, though. That pause.
Someone. "Ka—"
She caught herself.
Celia placed the flower in her lap, then picked up the note. "What does this say?"
I looked at the paper. I blinked. Then blinked again.
"…What the hell is this?"
「 That's morse code. You Neanderthal. 」
Morse code. Of course it is. Because normal people just pass cryptic death notes written in dots and dashes, right?
I handed the paper closer to my face and squinted.
It looked like:
.--. .-.. . .- ... . / -.- . . .--. / - .... .. ... / .. -. / -- .. -. -.. / .- -. -.. / -.. --- -. .----. - / -- . ... ... / .. - / ..- .--. / .- --. .- .. -.
I handed it to the system. "Alright genius. Decode."
「 Running code… …error. Re-analyzing. …Error. Wow. This guy layered the code. Who does that with Morse? Hold on. Multiplexing constellations… cross-referencing historic star charts… cross-mapping with temporal shift… recalculating for poetic syntax… 」
"…Bro are you decoding a love letter or summoning a demon?"
「 Quiet. Final result: 'Look up at the sky. The answer will be there. Follow the stars. Leave this place two days from now. Return to Rinascita. Good luck, Lucas. Celia.' 」
"…It knows my name."
I felt my mouth go dry.
Celia tilted her head. "Did you figure it out?"
System screamed in my head like a siren.
「 DO NOT SAY IT WAS DECODED. 」
I coughed. "Nah. Just a bunch of random dots."
She blinked, disappointed. "Oh."
She gently placed the flower in her hair.
That quiet moment… felt heavier than it should've.
「 That flower is real. The species doesn't even bloom in grotesque terrain. It must've been picked days ago. Carried. Protected. That man… knew her. Knew you. And somehow—he knew you'd be able to decode it. 」
I glanced down at the note again, lips tight.
"Who is this guy?" I muttered.
「 Not someone average. That code? Only someone who understands language structure, astronomy, and psychological timing could embed a time-locked instruction like that. 」
Yeah. No big deal. Just a god-tier polymath saving our lives and leaving cryptic notes while I'm over here trying to remember which spell slot Lightstep was in.
I gave up and collapsed backward onto the cold stone floor.
"We camp here tonight," I said, eyes closed.
Celia nodded silently, walking a bit away and leaning against the wall, her chain wrapped around her wrist. The flower still sat in her hair, catching the moonlight that bled through the cracks above.
I opened my status screen.
Status Menu:
Name: Lucas
Level: 11 → 15
HP: 500/500
MP: 700/700
Lightstep: Unlocked Speed II
Catalyst Infusion Sync Rate: 75%
Current Objective: Survive.
Smirked.
Level 20?
Yeah. I'll be there soon.
Just watch me.
------------------------------------------------------------------
In the dim silence of a shadowed chamber, the door creaked open. A towering figure stepped through—the Silent Executioner. Its expression, though often unreadable, held the faint trace of disappointment. Wordless, it advanced across the black marble floor, then dropped to one knee before the man seated upon the throne-like chair.
The master said nothing. He merely raised a hand, fingers motioning subtly for the creature to lift its head and speak.
"The raid," the Silent Executioner began, voice low and mechanical, "with the replicated Swarm Tyrant... descended into chaos."
The master's gaze did not waver. "Explain."
"The duplicate began flawlessly. It eliminated every Sword Saint in the perimeter. Even captured the white-haired demon girl and the boy said to be Heaven-sent."
A pause.
"Then what," the master asked, "turned success into failure?"
The Executioner hesitated. Its tone shifted, uncertain. "A single man appeared. He eradicated the grotesques. Alone. Then infiltrated the hive… and killed the duplicate."
Still, the master's expression remained unreadable—stoic, carved in stone. Yet his fingers tightened slightly against the armrest as he processed the words.
"One man changed the outcome entirely?" he asked, his voice calm, yet edged with something colder beneath.
"Yes, master," the Executioner replied. "What are your orders?"
The master reached to his side and retrieved an aged, black-bound notebook. Its pages were filled with writing that shifted constantly—ink bending into new futures. As he opened it, the symbols twisted again, refreshing as if defying interpretation.
The Executioner tilted its head. "Is something wrong…?"
The master's eyes narrowed faintly. "It's been like this for some time now," he murmured. "Someone is tampering with reality—rewriting the threads of fate and time itself. A hand that misdirects and deceives, even my foresight cannot see clearly."
The Executioner's voice dropped. "Who could do such a thing?"
"A mind that understands the foundations of existence," the master replied. "Someone capable of undermining fate… of directly challenging my authority over it."
He closed the notebook with a firm snap, and pointed.
"Prepare the original Swarm Tyrant. Reconstruct its genome. Strip away its limits. I want it to become the supreme disaster."
"But master…" the Executioner hesitated, "…doing so will destroy the last human cells within him."
The master's glare was swift—sharp as a blade. The Executioner immediately lowered its gaze.
"…He is no longer human. I apologize master Azrion," it said. "The Swarm Tyrant will be ready, modified and deployed within two days."
With that, the creature turned and left the chamber, leaving the master alone, seated in thought—his eyes fixed on the ever-changing pages of a future no longer entirely his to command.
The room falls still once more, cloaked in silence deeper than shadow.
The master sat unmoving, the throne beneath him cold and unyielding. Yet within, his thoughts churned—quietly, meticulously—like a labyrinth of ever-tightening knots.
One man...
The words echoed, not in surprise, but in calculation. How could a single anomaly tilt the scale of war so violently? Even chaos has patterns. Even miracles leave residue. But this—this felt like fiction invading structure.
His fingers brushed against the spine of his diary, the book of futures, as if seeking reassurance. But the pages… they no longer obeyed. They shimmered, trembled, refreshed—as if uncertain whether tomorrow even existed.
Someone is playing.
Not just resisting fate… but distorting it. Slipping through the lattice of causality like a ghost of rewritten history.
He exhaled softly through his nose, barely audible. There was no fear in him, only the pure necessity of comprehension.
Is it one man? Or a convergence of phenomena disguised as men?
He opened the notebook again. Names surfaced, ink etched by fate and now underlined in red deviation:
"Aldric," he murmured.
"Azrael."
"…Arius."
His voice held no emotion—but his thoughts snapped to clarity.
Aldric… the name throbbed louder than the others. He was the first ripple—subtle, but decisive. The man who shouldn't have mattered, and yet rerouted an entire sequence of geopolitical consequence. Every decision he touched bent away from my design.
Azrael, the fracture of logic. A being of sheer calculation—cold, merciless, deliberate. He isn't reacting to war; he's solving it.
Arius, chaos incarnate. No consistent trajectory. His will is a storm—frivolous, manipulative, sharp. He should have self-destructed long ago, yet somehow keeps bending others into his rhythm.
Three names. Three distortions. And of them, Aldric remains the deepest wound to fate itself.
"I suppose tomorrow he'll change Rinascita," he whispered, closing the book.
Aldric was currently in the Asura Empire. The patterns suggested it. Not because the pages told him outright—no, those had stopped doing that long ago. But because the war itself leaned toward him like a flower toward sunlight.
What can one man truly do to change war?
He leaned back into the throne, eyes half-lidded.
Perhaps that question is obsolete now. Perhaps… it was never just one man.
If they were even human, of course.
The thought lingered, not with bitterness, but with curiosity. It was a rare thing for the master to feel. But this… this enemy—whatever they were—was biological, yes. But also theoretical, strategic, spiritual. They wielded reality as a toolkit. Used others as variables. Bent perception to hide intentions.
Who are you, he wondered, that you would stand in my domain of foresight and reshape it like clay?
Not a ruler. Not a God. Something else.
But even so, he thought, eyes flickering with an icy light, I will endure. I will outlast. I will still… persevere.
Because no matter how many threads were cut, twisted, or spliced anew—He was still the one holding the loom.
Timeless Being Vs The String Sewing Puppetmaster.