Coming back from the mushroom noodle shop felt like returning from another world because of that extraordinary deliciousness. The night mist of Clockthon felt colder after the warmth of its broth, and the gaslight seemed dimmer tonight. My stomach was full, and some of that nostalgia had been satisfied with a somewhat familiar taste. But something changed as we approached the academy gates, something that felt familiar to me, from the life I had left behind.
Complete silence.
Not a peaceful silence. At this hour, you should still hear the sounds of cadets returning home, or faint laughter from the dormitories. Tonight, strangely, there was nothing. As if the entire academy had been held hostage by a terrorist organization, or worse yet, submerged in magic from an Evolver.
"Something's wrong," I whispered, more to myself.
"What do you mean wrong?" asked Finnian, his eyes moving restlessly in all directions. "It looks normal to me."
Of course it looked normal to him. He wasn't trained to sense differences in atmosphere, didn't know how to read the patterns around us.
Irene, who was walking a few steps behind us, also stopped. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "The air feels thinner than usual. The Essence pressure around us has dropped unnaturally."
She felt it too, though through different channels. Irene was a sensor, while I was an analyst. We reached the same conclusion through different paths.
"We'll take the garden route," I told them. "Don't go back to the dormitory yet."
"But why?" Finnian protested.
"Because I said so." I didn't have time to explain intuition I couldn't yet prove. I pushed them toward the darker path, heading to the academy's botanical garden.
That decision saved them, and destroyed me.
As we crossed the garden boundary, where old trees cast long shadows, I felt that presence much closer. Not like the Dust Aberrations I'd encountered before. I really couldn't see anything, the blind spot in my Essence perception was truly disturbing. Something, or someone, was near here, but without an energy trace. Could it be a high-order Evolver? If so, why was he near the academy? That was forbidden, except in emergencies.
"Who's there?" Irene's voice tensioned, her hand reflexively reaching for the small brooch on her collar, which I knew was a defensive artifact.
No answer. Only wind touching the leaves.
I pushed Finnian behind a large bush. "Stay here and don't make a sound." Then I turned to Irene. "Go, call the guards. Scream if you have to."
"I won't leave you," she said defiantly.
"This isn't a request. I've already calculated this, you and Finnian are burdens. You'll slow me down. Hurry, go."
She hesitated, the internal conflict clearly visible on her face. Her loyalty battled with her training. Finally, with a reluctant nod, she turned and ran, disappearing into the shadows.
Now I was alone. I stood still in the middle of the path, deliberately exposing myself. I expanded my awareness, trying to sense that strange source.
Then a voice sounded, right behind me.
"Quite an interesting calculation," it said. What made my hair stand on end was that it was my own voice, sounding perfect, including its characteristic monotone. "Sacrificing the weaker pawns to protect the king. Very rational indeed."
I slowly turned around. The figure stood about ten meters away, casually leaning against a tree. He wore simple traveler's clothes, his face hidden by the night's shadows. I couldn't see his features, but I could feel his gaze. It felt like someone watching an interesting performance. He emitted no Essence, no heat trace, even dust didn't move beneath his feet.
"Who are you?" I asked, my mind working quickly, analyzing all possibilities. A Fravikveidimadr agent? An assassin from one of my rivals? Or something entirely different?
"Me?" The figure chuckled softly, and even his laugh was mine. "I am a question. The same question that's in your head right now: 'How can something abnormal exist in a system that should be closed?'"
He knew. Somehow, he knew my true identity within me.
"You're, without a doubt… a fugitive," I said, making a quick deduction from his behavior. "Someone operating outside the Grand Consul government system and explicitly opposing the Eastern Clandestine Kingdom…"
"Good deduction. With limited data, you reached the most logically possible conclusion. Very impressive." His tone now mimicked Elias's voice.
This bastard's ability apparently could mimic and also copy speech patterns, ways of thinking.
"You're Forre," I said, the name emerging from my mental archives, pulled from the Fravikveidimadr classified reports I'd briefly accessed. "From Channel 'The Rebel,' nicknamed 'Kingdom Rebels.' Archetype 6 'Demon Servant.' Murderer of Count Vishken."
The figure clapped slowly. "Well, bingo! Your intelligence access is deeper than I expected. Yes, I'm Forre. And you, Welt Rothes, or whatever your real name is, are one of the most interesting things I've seen in a long time."
He stepped out of the shadows. His face was ordinary, forgettable, but his eyes were terrifying. It felt like he could see through ten of my plans at once. He clearly wasn't on my level, no, I actually felt like I was facing a master strategist while I was just a low-ranking commander in this role.
"I've been watching you. The way you move, the way you think. So structured and very logical, yet so easy to break." He paused, tilting his head. "Of course you're still unstable. No matter how hard you construct schemes, you won't advance further, Welt."
I prepared myself, shifting my body's center of gravity. I knew physical combat was a foolish last resort, but I had to be ready.
"Logic is the foundation of movement," I replied, trying to buy time, understanding the mechanism of his power that I slowly noted in my brain from the history of several Channels before. Channel: The Rebel. If I wasn't mistaken, mimicking abilities being used. That meant I couldn't use Essence directly.
"Wrong." Forre grinned wider. "Logic is a cage we build to feel safe from chaos. True reality doesn't care about your thinking rules."
Suddenly he attacked. His movements were fast, not superhuman, but truly skilled as expected from a national-level fugitive.
I activated my nadir circuits, but didn't release my Void Essence. Only used it internally, to sharpen perception and accelerate reflexes.
"See?" he said, unleashing a barrage of attacks I could barely deflect. "You're still thinking. Still analyzing angles, speed, momentum. Still trying to predict my movements from previous data you can't possibly know completely."
He stopped, standing just outside my reach. "But what if I have no pattern?"
Then he moved again. This time truly chaotic. Without technique and without a steady rhythm. One moment he punched like a boxer, the next he kicked like a capoeira user, then rolled like an armadillo. Unpredictable, because there was nothing to predict.
I began to be overwhelmed, and my defense that relied solely on logic became useless. Several of his strikes landed, not enough to knock me down, but enough to destroy my balance.
I made a mistake. I relied too much on rational framework. I thought every opponent, no matter how strange, would ultimately submit to cause and effect. Forre was a total rejection of that law. No wonder he used Channel "The Rebel." It suited him.
In a moment of desperation, I released a fragment of Void Essence, not aimed as an attack, just manifested as a light psychic shockwave, hoping to disturb his concentration.
A fatal mistake.
As soon as my Essence touched him, his eyes gleamed. "Aha, there it is," he whispered. Then I felt something else. A small black hole opened in the air in front of him, completely swallowing my shockwave. He mimicked it perfectly.
He had been waiting for me to use my power.
"Thanks for the demon," he said, and that small black hole shot toward me.
I couldn't dodge. I crossed my arms in front of my chest, strengthening my body with nadir circuits as best I could.
The impact didn't feel physical. It felt like something inside me had been erased. A cold sensation slowly crept up my arm, followed by extraordinary dizziness. Fragments of memory, like the taste of mushroom noodles, mist on my face, became blurred and I barely recognized them.
I stumbled backward, one knee touching the ground. My arm felt numb and cold.
Forre stood over me with what seemed like great disappointment.
"As I suspected. You depend too much on raw power, just as you depend too much on logic. You don't truly understand your power's potential yet."
He didn't kill me. He just looked at me once more, then his body shimmered, became translucent, and disappeared.
I remained kneeling on the wet ground, trying to understand what had just happened. I didn't lose because I was weaker, just that my basic assumptions were wrong. I tried to apply logic to something that was fundamentally at a level I hadn't calculated before.
Slowly, I stood up. My arm was still cold, and there was a small hole in my memory that felt disturbing.
I walked out of the garden, back to the main road. No sign of Irene or guards. Maybe Forre had created an illusion to isolate us, or maybe they were still running looking for help that would never come in time.
As I gazed toward the academy lights in the distance, the cold sensation stabbed my head again, much worse.
And with that awareness, I collapsed. In unconsciousness, I saw him again, clearly, I mean the green-robed creature covering his entire body, his gleaming eyes reflecting no light, the black star above his head rotating slowly as he turned pages of a book in absolute silence. Then a voice spoke again with a heavy tone.
"You should be grateful for that power, foolish child. That power cannot and will never be imitated by your world. Now, rise, or die here."
Welt, engulfed in confusion, felt an extraordinary wave of Void Essence flowing through his veins like water in a river. As the price, his hair turned completely white, and his eyes now glowed red.
"Is this me? But why?"
"You yourself chose that path. And we have been waiting for His descendant who has walked in this world. So, you must ███████████████" His voice became corrupted again like before.
Welt's head exploded with pain. Needle-like pain struck his skull. Then he awakened in the real world, his hair indeed as white as fresh snow, and his eyes burning red like blood. He saw his own reflection in a mirror that happened to be beside him. The face staring back was no longer entirely his.
He tried to stand, but his entire body felt painful.
Welt tried to understand who He was, but as soon as that thought formed, his head was filled with disturbing whispers. Voices speaking in languages he had never learned before.
He was truly lost and finally fainted at that very moment.