Chapter 246
Dread(2)
It was through this name that the Flame had decided to contact IAM, informing him that the woman mentioned in his predecessor's diary was, in fact, his stepsister, who had tragically died — yet again forming another connection.
While the Flame had insisted that blood relations meant nothing to him, the Flame still couldn't deny that the revelation had tied them closer together.
After a few more series of events, IAM eventually grew tired of spending all his time in the library. He felt like he was wasting his efforts — that he wasn't gaining enough information — and decided that during his next appointment, he would meet up with Thor immediately afterwards.
After the appointment, IAM met Thor outside a small café located just across from Haven, the hospital where he had once stayed and where his private nurse, Maye, still worked.
Upon entering the café, IAM was met with an unexpected guest — Kai, who had previously interrupted a conversation between him and Thor when they were discussing the Circle of the Accursed.
It was through her that they were able to discuss and potentially uncover a connection between the Accursed and Dunark — the nation where every citizen had mysteriously vanished to the point of extinction, leaving behind only a land overrun by deadline creatures.
Coincidentally, it was also the very same place the textbook had pointed IAM toward — a location marked by a building known as Sacrificium Sanctum, which, when translated, meant the Place of Sacrifice.
After learning even more information from Kai, Thor had offered to take IAM home. But fate, as always, had other plans — on their way back, they found themselves caught in the middle of a violent clash between two gangs, Las Blanca and Los Chloros.
IAM had even managed to take down and hand over a few members of Las Blanca to the authorities, unknowingly planting yet another seed of connection. Whether it would bloom into fortune or disaster, only time would tell.
Looking back, IAM realized just how many small threads of connection he had woven along the way. There was Marcus, who had been beaten by Henry twice; Babel, whom he and his friends had teased; Vanessa, one of his teachers he had sought advice from; Kevin, his training instructor; and even those he had defeated and turned over to the authorities. On top of that were all the connections that his connections had made. Each encounter, each small interaction, had built this tangled network of people, events, and obligations — all converging to this moment, and perhaps, shaping a future he could not yet predict.
It was all like a vast tangle of webs and connections, intricately and complicatedly intertwined, each thread leading into another. Every interaction, every choice, every seemingly insignificant event seemed to stretch out and link with something else, forming a pattern that was impossible to untangle at a glance. It was a formula of sorts—where if even a single piece had shifted, if one person had acted differently or one moment hadn't occurred, this present reality might never have come to be.
Every single person, no matter how small or seemingly inconsequential, seemed to be pushing him, gently or forcefully, toward a certain direction, shaping the path he was on without him ever noticing. And yet… perhaps he was overreacting. After all, this was how life worked for everyone. People's lives were full of intersecting choices and consequences, constantly influencing each other. It wasn't some grand revelation; it was merely the ordinary, inescapable flow of existence.
He could have ignored it, dismissed it as paranoia, and told himself he was seeing patterns where none existed. But he couldn't. Not entirely. Because there was something different about his own path — the strange and inexplicable events that had brought him here.
The fact that he had been inexplicably brought to this planet, waking up in a place he didn't recognize by forces he couldn't understand, was enough to make him pause. The fact that he had died and somehow returned to life, and that his level had surged from a low novice to a peak novice in the process, was even harder to ignore. Because of all of this, IAM couldn't simply write it off as coincidence — too many pieces of his life seemed to be moving according to some hidden design.
Then IAM's thoughts began to spiral in a darker direction. What if everything he was experiencing — every event, every coincidence — was being carefully manipulated and manufactured from the very beginning? What if all the people he had met, the friends he had made, the bonds he had come to value, were nothing more than tools being used to shape him into something he didn't yet understand?
The idea pressed against his mind like a gun waiting to blow his head off. Did that mean every emotion, every connection, every laugh and tear, were all fake? That none of it was real? The more he thought about it, the more suffocating the idea became. The notion that he had no control over his own future, that he was nothing more than a puppet moved by the unseen will of something far beyond him, made his chest tighten.
IAM felt the air around him grow heavier and the walls of the dorm seeming to close in. His breaths grew shallow and uneven. All his pain, all his suffering—had it all been nothing but carefully arranged pieces of a cruel design? And a terrifying thought followed: what if even this moment of revelation, this creeping dread clawing up his spine, was part of that same manipulation? What if he was meant to realize this now—what if Reuel's words, his laughter, his very presence were the blade used to make IAM bleed?
IAM looked up slowly at the faces around him. His friends—Reuel, Yohan, Henry—were staring back with worry and confusion. They had clearly noticed that something was wrong with him.
They began to speak all at once, voices overlapping—tones of concern, confusion, even alarm—but to IAM, they sounded distant, warped, almost mocking. The warmth in their voices twisted into something hollow and artificial in his ears, as if the worry itself was being acted out.
His vision blurred at the edges. A sharp, splitting pain tore through his skull, pulsing behind his eyes like his brain was trying to claw its way out. He clutched the side of his head, his breathing uneven and ragged. The sense of dread beneath his skin was no longer just a feeling—it was alive, thrumming through his veins, gnawing at his sanity with every beat of his heart.
His thoughts were fractured, spilling into chaos.
What... What am I?
Who... am I?
Each question echoed louder than the last, bouncing endlessly inside his skull until it became unbearable noise, and he wasn't sure anymore if the hands that reached for him were real—or just another part of the