I started by examining what I had on hand: the human form given to me by [Honest Man’s Deception], my manifestation of [Caller of What Must Be True], and the things I’d taken from my enemies.

The burner and incense were obviously no good. No point in knocking myself out. I didn’t see a need for the compass at the moment. The amulet with a net pattern, though, might be useful if it was an artifact. I hung it around my neck and examined my surroundings again, waiting for some revelation on how to use it, but to no avail. What I saw remained unchanged.

But that didn’t prove that it wasn’t an artifact. When I’d first started using ether and aura, I’d needed guidance to perceive what I hadn’t known before.

I summoned my Record of Existence and flipped through the pages, hoping for some inspiration from my titles.

[Poison Adept] was nearly useless to me because I didn’t have any knowledge of poisons. [Flower in the Garden of Sin] would boost my ability growth in the right conditions, except the conditions were bad and I didn’t exactly have time to improve right now. Then there were other titles, too: [Devotee to the Order of Signs], [Detached Performer on the Record’s Stage], [Keeper of Forgotten Wrongs], [Denier of the Prison of Mind]… Seriously, why couldn’t I have gotten some titles with direct combat utility? Was that too much to ask?

But that did remind me that I had, however temporarily, gained one more title in this Fantasm World.

Title: [Last Genesis of the Kaleidoscope]

Symbol: Butterfly with kaleidoscope patterned wings

Description: The carrier of the legacy of the Kaleidoscope. When you died, all possibility of reviving the Kaleidoscope died with you.

Passive Effect: The power of the Kaleidoscope is vested in you. That which is “seen” must surely become true.

It was time to bet on its effect.

I crept down towards the giant barrier, keeping watch for anyone suspicious, before crouching down behind an outcropping of rock, setting down my belongings, and dismissing [Honest Man’s Deception].

As I reverted back to the [Last Genesis]’s form, my vision winked out in favor of a dizzying stream of perspectives flashing through my mind’s eye.

It was hard to grasp them, but so what? It was overwhelming the first time I connected my senses to a rig, too. The stream of perspectives soon combed out into thin threads under my mental grasp, and I flipped through them like pages in a book.

I saw Nithemoore students circling up shoulder to shoulder, pointing their weapons out at black-robed enemies. Their identities were hidden behind blank white masks engraved with a golden mark curling between the eyebrows.

Then there was Verica, crouching over the injured who were protected within the encirclement, her face pale and drawn. She held glowing blue hands over Hanan, who lay there unconscious, face and hair sticky with blood. Behind her, Roxana stood with her hands clasped, emanating wave after wave of soft blue light that seemed to boost everyone within her range.

I saw Luka at the forefront, cleaving through enemies with his glowing black sword. His blood-red eyes shone through the miasma of darkness that enshrouded him.

And then—

I saw “my” hands outstretched towards the barrier of wind.

Shimmering ribbons flowed through the cavern in whirls and whorls. They floated through the wind in white lines that drew near to each other but never touched, rippling in the direction of the wind’s movement and outlining its many paths. A red dye spread across the ribbons from where “my” hands touched them, fading the further it got. The reddened ribbons were particularly static compared to the white ribbons around them.

As I watched, “my” hands sent sparks of red light down the ribbons that leaped from one ribbon to another, forming stained ropes that wove the white ribbons together like the shuttle of a loom. In “my” eyes, the wind barrier entrapping the students was a massive net that had been tied together by these sparking red lights.

I transformed back to human form and opened my eyes, picking up my belongings and hanging the amulet around my neck. I stared at the wind barrier and envisioned the ribbons that I’d seen.

Normally, I’d consider it a joke to be able to perceive and use a new power system just by watching someone else. But with the [Last Genesis], just maybe…

Slowly, ribbons emerged in my perception, tracing the flow of the wind and water currents around me. As they became visible, I began to feel the flow around me as well, as if the ribbons around me were extensions of my senses. The further out they were, the less I could feel them, and the less I could control them.

I grabbed the nearest ribbon and, following an emerging instinct, focused on its cool and textureless feeling. A glowing red spark pulsed down the ribbon, fading the further it went. I could nudge the spark up and down, side to side, as it traveled; the path of the ribbon changed accordingly. A gentle breeze blew along the path I’d drawn.

Next, I tried grabbing the ribbon with two hands and pulling. It snapped with surprising ease, disappearing into thin air, and the wind ceased. Soon, though, a set of ribbons split off from nearby airflows, converging to once again trace the same path.

I raised my eyes to the elegantly woven barrier and couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the clear skill involved in its creation.

Still, it was always easier to break something than to make it.

Whoever was manipulating the barrier, they weren’t in my current line of sight, so I openly approached, squinting against the wind cutting into my skin. I reached out and grabbed ahold of my net.

I felt the shape of someone else’s awareness touching mine, spread out through the next. Through that echo, I felt surprise, and then a bloody killing intent that surged out through the woven construct. A wave of red light rippled across the net.

Clearly it was a bad idea to let that touch me, but if I retreated, the enemy would gain momentum. With my ignorance, how would I get an advantage after that? This was a critical moment.

I grit my teeth and sent out a conflagration of red sparks. The ribbons they traversed darkened to a deep crimson. The sparks crashed against the barrier maker’s wave of red light, giving me just enough time to pull on the ribbons as hard as I could.

The barrier distorted wildly under my grasp. Razor-thin cuts opened on my skin as the wind around me bucked away from its previously ordered cycle. With an explosive howl, a hole blew through the barrier where I’d torn a gap.

The force sent me tumbling backwards. Catching myself against a rocky protrusion, I looked up and saw masked figures within the barrier blocking the gap in the net. The torn ribbons of the net were pulsing with light, weaving themselves back together.

However, the Nithemoore students trapped within didn’t just let this opportunity slide. They pressed forward, covered in a flickering blue light, and unleashed flashes of frenzied attacks. A bird’s prideful cry pierced through the din, and in a burst of light so blinding that my eyes watered, a golden phoenix made of light manifested above the students and surged forward to break through.

But even over all that, I heard a fierce command from the enemy’s group.

“Kill that mage first!”

The ribbons drifting around me sparked to life, veering towards me like a rain of crimson arrows.

Why me?! I dodged hastily and turned to run, but a simple barrier rose in front of me, blocking my escape. It would have been simple to tear it to pieces if not for the fact that a masked figure had come swinging his sword at my head.

I dodged to the side, only to see the barrier moving to narrow my movement range. Behind the sword-wielding fighter, there was another masked figure, sending red light pulsing down towards the ribbons around me.

When I tried to escape the sword-wielder, the wind barriers obstructed my movement; when I tried to deal with the barriers, that sword kept getting in my way. Damn, could my fellow students finish breaking out and lend me a hand already? They were moving way too slow!

Just as I was wracking my brains for a way to turn the situation around, a dark shadow appeared silently outside the vortex of wind around me. The ribbons within it began disintegrating as if they were being swallowed by an abyss.

“Hurry up!” the mage screamed. Red light pulsed down the ribbons in her hands.

“I’m trying!” the sword-wielder shouted back. Green light flickered on the edge of his sword.

Two glowing red eyes peered out of that black shadow, and a dark blade flashed.

The woman’s head fell to the ground before she could say another word.

The wind barrier harrassing me dispersed wildly with her death; the sword-wielder roared. In a flash of green light, he disappeared.

Metal screeched against metal. His sword stopped an inch away from my face.

Luka stood with his back to me, blocking the attack with narrowed eyes.

He flicked his wrist and drew his sword to the side, a movement that was so incomparably simple it felt like a joke. A dark line neatly opened the enemy’s throat.

Blood poured out and slid down the black sheen of his sword. I caught my breath as the body gurgled and fell.

“Luka,” I greeted. Should I say thank you? Was that too out of character?

Luka reached out and grabbed me by the back of my collar. I reflexively swung my knife. We both paused and looked at where the blade had hit his inner arm.

Instead of severing a major artery, my attack had been reduced to little more than a poke by the compressed darkness that was layered over his body like scale armor. Which was good, but weird.

I put my knife away expressionlessly instead of admitting that I’d accidentally tried to kill him.

“I don’t like being startled.”

Luka looked back at me, just as expressionlessly.

“Noted.”

Then he lifted me up anyways and hauled me away under his arm.

Fucking hell.

This time, I successfully restrained myself from any lethal moves as he leaped through the air. When Luka dumped me on the ground, though, I did make sure to kick his shin as I got back up. It was armored too. He didn’t even blink. I was pretty sure it hurt my foot more than it hurt him.

By this time, the students had completely broken out of the giant net barrier, the remnants of which were dispersing overhead. Luka had dumped me in the middle of their formation. Mehran stood in the center, issuing commands. Jules hovered in the air next to him, emanating a white field whose purpose I could only guess at. It overlapped with the blue waves that radiated out from Roxana and her prayers. Behind the frontline fighters, some students led by Verica were carrying and tending to wounded allies.

More relevantly, though, were the people Luka had brought me to: Nastaran, and Professor Raoul.

Nastaran clapped her hands. “Reliable as ever, Luka!” she said brightly over the sound of the surrounding battle. “We’ll take it from here!”

Luka, however, didn’t move to go. The darkness that enshrouded him pulled away into the shape of a wolf, leaping away to the frontlines where the shape of a new barrier was forming to trap us all. Unbelievable. Why did he get something so cool and helpful in battle? No, more importantly, he should have sent me to take care of the reforming barrier.

Completely lacking this bit of common sense, he said, “I’ll stay for a bit.”

Nastaran shrugged. “Your call. Acacius, congratulations on becoming our most important strategic asset. We’ll discuss how to break out of the barrier again in a second. For now, we need information. Have you seen any living members of the Broken Kaleidoscope?”

That wasn’t a promising statement to start with. “No.”

Nastaran pursed her lips. “Okay. Then we’ll move to plan B: finding a defensible location to survive in until the Fantasm World has run its course.”

What the heck. “We aren’t performing the exit ritual because…?”

Professor Raoul, bloody and covered in dirt, gave me a tired smile.

“Unfortunately, when the enemy made their move, they targeted the Broken Kaleidoscope staff first. As far as we know, all their adherents of the Scribe have been killed. The other professors are… no longer with us. And my titles seem to have been sealed. We have no one qualified to carry out the exit ritual anymore.”

Fuck my life.

“So!” Nastaran said. “How did you break apart the barrier? And what’s the best place to defend ourselves from?”

“Well,” I said. “Professor, did you get my message?”

He shook his head. “My lens malfunctioned shortly before everyone met up.”

Even if I accepted the convenient timing of that malfunction, it was strange that Professor Raoul hadn’t been more concerned about my initial request to meet up and my subsequent lack of response.

He didn’t look suspicious. His expressions and mannerisms, as much as I could tell from my short period of observing him, seemed accurate enough. If he was an inside agent or a saboteur, this would have been the perfect period of time to act; the fact that he hadn’t, in a way, could vouch for his innocence.

But…

The back of my neck prickled.

Something was still wrong.

“Are you really Professor Raoul?” I said.

Nastaran’s eyes sharpened. “What do you mean?”

I couldn’t explain anything because even I felt like this half-baked feeling of mine was crazy. I kept my eyes trained on him. “Tell us something only Professor Raoul would know. If you can’t think of anything, how about that secret conversation we had before my duel?”

Professor Raoul looked at me dryly. “Nothing came of that conversation but your refusal to back out,” he said. “Is that sufficient, or shall I give more detail?”

It was correct, but if it was really Professor Raoul in front of me, then… What did that mean?

“The professor has fought by our side already,” Luka spoke up. “He means well. We can trust him.”

“Yeah,” said Nastaran, placing her hands on her hips. “What has you so suspicious, Acacius? If you don’t drop the lone wolf act and spit it out, should we shake it out of you?”

Time was ticking. I didn’t think it was worth it to waste precious minutes explaining my vague suspicions. I’d just keep an eye out on my own.

“Nevermind. Just chalk it up to this lone wolf having a bad feeling.”

“Ah, this is why it’s so annoying to deal with you. Not an inch of trust to be seen anywhere…”

Luka, however, examined me a moment longer before turning his head and calling, “Veric.”

So he called her by that nickname, too.

Verica came over from where she’d been healing a student with a broken arm, her jaw tight with tension. Nastaran narrowed her eyes before quickly smoothing her expression away.

“We need your help,” Luka said.

Verica hesitated. “I think Roxana would be more helpful for healing…”

“No. We don’t need the Lady of Sorrow’s mercy, but the Blue Dragon’s authority. For Professor Raoul.”

“The professor?” Verica furrowed her eyebrows, glancing over at him. “Is that okay?”

A chill went down my spine. Luka didn’t trust Acacius at all, right? So he couldn’t be taking me seriously now, could he? Was there something wrong with his head?

“It’s okay,” Professor Raoul said, giving her a reassuring smile. “It’s best to resolve these issues early. I’ll wait for you.”

Verica nodded. She approached Professor Raoul and placed one hand over her sternum, bending her fingers into a strange seal, and put the other one over the professor’s forehead.

“Hierarch of meaning, ruler of sorrow, bless these foolish eyes and wash away all deceiving appearances…”

The blood coagulating on his clothes peeled away, turning into strips of white paper that fluttered to the ground.

Then it was Professor Raoul’s fingers and feet, unfolding into hundreds of strips of paper.

Professor Raoul looked down at his body, eyes wide.

“What? But I… How…”

“Professor!” Nastaran rushed forward, but in the end, she could only stand helplessly by Verica as Professor Raoul’s body came apart.

Professor Raoul turned his hands over, staring at the disintegrating paper with shaking eyes, but as the paper transformation reached his torso, his expression became firm.

“An imitative construct like this can’t be spun from nothing. I’m confident the real me is still alive,” he said. “It must be that I couldn’t use my titles because I wasn’t the true title holder. Find the real me quickly, and you might still…!”

His voice died away as his throat unfolded and fluttered into the wind. Moments later, Professor Raoul was gone. All that was left was a paper doll drifting to the ground.

So if Professor Raoul had all his titles working, he could conduct the exit ritual, right? Thank god! I thought we were screwed, but it turned out that there was still something I could do to get out of this shitty world and escape!

But the others looked grim.

“Veric,” Luka said.

She nodded. “I understand.”

Then, clasping her hands together, she began praying again. A blue crystal made of light appeared and shone over her head like a star; its glow washed the entire area blue.

“Hierarch of meaning, ruler of sorrow, have mercy on our souls! Strip away all false appearances, and show us the truth!”

Shit. “Wait!” I reached forward to grab her shoulder. “Let’s not make any hasty judgments—!”

The crystal of light shone and shattered into hundreds of tiny lights that fell upon everyone like a comet.

Some people experienced cosmetic changes, like changing hair colors or newly revealed scars. Someone even suddenly sprouted a pair of horns. But the real problem was when a spark of light hit me.

My World Proof’s reproduction of Isul’s amulet heated on my sternum, exploding in a burst of light. For a moment, I felt like my skin was burning off.

But my World Proof held.

Instead, the blue spark rose again and shook, transforming into a lengthy arrow. In a streak of light, it pierced through my chest and pinned me to the ground. There was no blood and no pain. But at the same time, I couldn’t get up either. When I tried to grab the shaft of the arrow, my hand passed right through.

Verica’s eyes widened.

“What? You’re not Acacius—?”

“Shut up!” I snapped. “What did I just say about jumping to conclusions? Everyone has their own secrets, alright? Get this thing out of me already!”

No one moved. “No offense,” said Nastaran, “but you’re a lot less trustworthy than Professor Raoul.”

“So if I was an infiltrator, I’d have to be an idiot to pick this identity.” Did I seriously have to dismiss [Honest Man’s Deception] to get free? This was the worst possible place to turn into a big, blind, delicate, easily-stepped-on bug, okay? “Or what, should I prove to you that I’m really Acacius? Because you know me even better than you know Professor Raoul, do you? You know me so well that you’d notice in a second if someone you saw nearly every day was replaced?”

I laughed meanly.

“Oh, wait. You wouldn’t.”

Nastaran’s smile had faded. “That was Professor Raoul, or at least, it might as well have been—!”

I jeered. “Because it fooled you into seeing exactly what you wanted to believe!”

“It was some kind of avatar, a clone! Of course we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference!”

“Really,” I said softly. “Come on then, Nastaran. What do you know about me?”

Nastaran clenched her teeth. “Acacius. Just give us something to work with, some guarantee. What if we really decide to deal with you here, huh? You asshole?”

“Just try it,” I said. “Just try me and see if I won’t drag you to hell with me.”

So it wasn’t the greatest idea to add more gunpowder to the barrel. But so what? Didn’t they need me more than I needed them?

And besides.

Acacius was famous for being a scumbag, anyways.

Verica glanced between Nastaran’s thunderous face and Luka’s expressionless self. She bit her lips, then stepped forward, reaching for the shaft of the arrow.

“Acacius, we’ll talk about this later,” she said. “For now—”

She didn’t get a chance to finish.

An indescribable malice gathered above us. The battlefield fell into a strange hush, and all the hairs on my neck stood on end.

I looked up.

A black and golden eye, pulsing in indescribable fractals, looked back at me.

Pain lit up every nerve in my body. My vision whited out; my ears rang. The entire world disappeared from my senses. All I could feel was a dark and endless evil pouring into me like a storm. My sense of self shredded like a leaf in the gale as I sank into the dark.

And then that malice hit a mysterious core hidden in the depths of my being.

The core spun rapidly. Its countless glittering facets lit up with refracted darkness, catching all the malice that had poured into me.

And that malice, bouncing against the inside of the core, bent back out and scattered.

For a moment, I felt myself looking down at a cavern and the people fighting among the blue flowers there. I saw Acacius’ body thrash like a butterfly on a pin, and then I saw misfortune burst out of him like a silent star. It pierced everyone and everything, striking the people, the plants, the water, the rocks. It flooded the air and painted everything red. We were going to die here, I was certain. No one would escape alive.

And then, Acacius’ body opened its eyes. “I” locked gazes with “me.”

The world fractured and multiplied. It shattered and turned upside down. In a dizzying rush, I found myself gasping on the ground again, choking on the taste of blood in my mouth.

A thought, more concept than word, spoke in my head.

[The Kaleidoscope can break a “gaze.” But you must be careful of what comes of it.]

The arrow in my chest burned. I looked down.

An ominous aura converged on the arrow; it glowed and melted into my skin. I hastily ripped open the top of my shirt. There, on my sternum, was a new marking: a purple eye whose pupil was struck through by an arrow.

Fuck me, what was happening to me now?

Before I could raise the question, the ground began to tremble. Gravel and dust started to rain from the cavern ceiling.

“Barriers!” someone shouted. “Grab a partner! Use all your life-saving measures now!”

Verica’s expression firmed, and she grabbed Roxana’s hand. In a pulse of blue, a watery barrier formed over the students’ formation. Different lights shone and flashed. My eyes watered. I couldn’t tell what was happening.

A rumbling sounded from above. But it didn’t sound right for an earthquake. It was more like a roar, a growing crescendo, shaking the air with its force.

The ceiling on the other side of the cavern caved in, letting in the sunlight, and through the dust I saw—

“Flood!” someone screamed.

“Hold on!”

“Run!”

A torrential flood of water, large enough to eclipse the sun, crashed into the cave.

The ground shook beneath us and crumbled.

Beneath it was the black surface of an underground river, stirred up into a raging froth by the debris raining down.

“O lady of sorrows!” Verica’s tremulous voice was nearly inaudible beneath the rumbling and the screams. “Grant your protection to the drowned and doomed—!”

A faint blue light pierced through the chaos, shining on everyone as we fell.

The torrent from above descended with a crash.

And everything was washed away.

Chapter 21 Back to Index