Ren Ashvale sat cross-legged on the cold floor of the Throne Room. The Scripture of Death rested beside him like a dead animal. Still, heavy, too quiet. He didn't look at it again.
The second book sat in front of him now. The one bound in cracked glass.
He stared at it like it might blink.
It didn't.
It just sat there. No aura. No glow. No death-rattle. Just a faint reflection of his face in the cracked surface. Or maybe not his face. Hard to tell these days.
"Well," Ren muttered, "you don't bleed. That's a start."
He reached forward and touched it. The glass felt warm. Not heat-warm. More like body-warm. Like it had just been held by something with a pulse.
The book opened.
Not with drama. No whispering winds or creaking hinges. Just a slow deliberate flip of its own cover. Like it had been waiting. Like it knew he'd come.
The first page stared back at him.
Law of Contradiction
Manifests truth out of nothing. Manifests lies out of things. Turns truth into lies and lies into truth. The embodiment of balance and unbalance.
Ren blinked once
"What the hell does that mean"
He reread it.
It still didn't make sense. And somehow that made it make sense. Like it wasn't meant to make sense until it decided to. It reminded him of patients who lied so well they started believing it. The kind of belief that could drown a whole personality.
He flipped the page.
The next section was titled plainly:
How to Make the Vow
He began reading.
Choose a lie about yourself. Something you know is false.
• Write this lie as if it were your truth onto a sheet of paper. Use your real name. Describe yourself fully in the lie. This becomes your Fractured Identity and swallow it.
• Carve off all the skin on your face and burn it.
• Live as your Fractured Identity for three days. Speak and act as if the lie is all you've ever known. Deny everything else.
• On the third day, stand before a mirror and say:
"I vow to walk the fracture where thought unravels and truth devours itself. Let no name remain intact, no belief unbroken. Where I step, logic weeps, and the Lie becomes Truth"
Ren stared at the page. He didn't move.
Then he closed the book.
Sat still.
Opened it again.
"Right," he said blankly. "Of course. Just. Peel off my face. Burn it. Live in delusion for three days. No big deal."
He ran a hand down his jaw. Skin. Intact. A little pale.
"And I have to eat the lie. Great. Because chewing paper is really how I wanted to spend my apocalypse."
His voice had the rhythm of someone trying to joke but not finding it funny anymore.
He flipped to the next section, half-expecting more lunacy.
He wasn't disappointed.
The page heading read:
Mystic 1st Stage – Psychiatrist
A foundation in emotional manipulation and identity analysis.
"Of course it is," Ren muttered. "Of all the job titles in the world."
He kept reading.
Thought Observation
The Realizer gains the ability to detect emotional micro-signals. Pupil twitches. Subtle muscle tension. Micro expressions. Not just observation, but supernatural intuition. The eye sees what the voice denies.
Ren raised a brow.
"So, basically my old job. Just with cheat codes."
He moved on.
Behavioral Reading
Identifies long-term psychological loops. Abandonment cycles. Guilt spirals. Self-sabotage patterns. Can predict collapse before it happens. The mind runs in loops. Learn the pattern, predict the fall.
"Again," Ren muttered, "did this thing stalk my resume or what."
Contradiction Sense
Allows the Realizer to feel internal contradictions in others. If someone lies to themselves, the split can be detected. Not just what they say, but what they pretend to believe.
"When belief splits, reality bleeds."
Ren rubbed the back of his neck.
"That's... uncomfortable."
Soothing Paradox (Support Skill)
Projects a false but comforting emotional state into another person (or oneself).
Creates a fake sense of peace that becomes temporarily real. Can stabilize panic, terror, or emotional breakdown.
Even if The target knows it's a lie — but it still works.
Mental Plague
The Realizer can implant a selected mental illness into the target's psyche. It grows gradually. Becomes more real over time. If left untreated, it becomes permanent. Emotional infection by identity collapse.
Ren let out a dry laugh. "So I'm a therapist with weaponized malpractice. That's great. That's just great."
He read on.
Mutation: Reflective Tear Ducts
The Realizer's eyes develop a glass-like sheen. If someone looks into them, they may see a warped reflection of their suppressed memories or truths.
Ren blinked. Then looked at his own reflection in a shard of broken blade on the floor.
He didn't see anything new. But the idea of others seeing what they refused to admit?
"That'll win me some new friends."
Guilt Reflex
If the Realizer maintains eye contact or reflects light into a target's vision, he can trigger a psychic flash of their own guilt. Freezes them for a moment. Not fear. Guilt. Enough to break a swing. Or stop a sentence.
Ren snorted.
"So I hit them with shame. Literally."
He sat back.
"This isn't a power set. It's a diagnosis. Of me."
And he wasn't wrong.
He flipped the page
Mystic 2nd Stage – Illusionist
Ren leaned back and stared at the title for a few seconds.
"Illusionist," he muttered. "What, am I pulling rabbits out of people's trauma now?"
He skimmed the short paragraph below, but it didn't say much. It didn't need to. The title was enough.
He knew the type. People who wore charm like armor. People who could smile and lie without flinching. He'd counseled them before. And if he was honest with himself, he'd been one of them more times than he'd like to admit.
This stage wasn't about magic. It was about manipulation. Subtle, careful, believable. The kind that made others question what was real.
"I've done this before," he said out loud. "Just never with a rulebook"
His fingers curled slightly at the edge of the page.
He didn't feel impressed. He felt seen.
Mystic 3rd Stage – Mentalist
The name alone made his eye twitch.
"Mentalist," he said, voice flat. "That's not ominous at all"
This one didn't feel hypothetical. It felt familiar. Too familiar.
He had spent years digging through people's thoughts organizing pain, rewording memories, reframing guilt. The difference was, he had tried to help people walk out stronger.
This felt like the same work, just flipped.
Instead of guiding people through their pain, this stage turned it into leverage.
"Twist a memory, plant a doubt, steer the outcome" he said under his breath. "Therapy with a scalpel"
He didn't like how naturally that sentence came to him.
He rubbed his jaw and looked away for a second.
"This is where it stops being about understanding people" he muttered. "And starts being about bending them"
He turned the page before the silence got too loud.
Mystic 4th Stage – Narrative Dissector
He paused again.
This one didn't try to hide what it was.
"Narrative Dissector," he read quietly. "Cut the story open and see what's inside"
He didn't even need to guess. He could feel what it meant. Find the weak points in someone's life their turning points, their lies, their contradictions and rip them apart.
Strip someone down to their rawest state. And then either rebuild them or walk away.
He'd seen what happened when people were pushed that far. He'd done it by accident once or twice. He still remembered the aftermath the silence, the blank stares, the calls from families.
"You think this is clever," he muttered. "But there's no fix button after this. People don't always come back from being broken"
He looked down at the page again, expression unreadable.
This wasn't therapy. It was demolition.
Mystic Final Stage High-Functioning Sociopath
The last one hit differently.
He didn't speak right away.
There was no surprise here. The name said everything.
He just stared at it.
"High-Functioning Sociopath" he said finally. "Subtle"
He let out a sharp, dry breath that might've been a laugh. Or not.
This wasn't an insult. It was a job description.
Emotionally detached. Results oriented. Efficient. No guilt. No hesitation. People as problems. Or puzzles.
He didn't need an explanation. He'd worked with people like this. They were calm, polite, perfectly rational until they weren't.
He looked at his hands. Perfectly still.
"I've walked this line before," he said, quietly.
Not all the way. But close.
There had been moments late nights, hard cases, ethical shortcuts. Moments when empathy got in the way. When results mattered more than comfort. When control felt cleaner than care.
He didn't like admitting that. But here it was.
Staring back at him in print.
He closed the book.
Not in shock. Not in anger. Just… deliberately.
He rested his hand on the cover, the pages pressed tight, like they might slip out and tell the truth anyway.
His voice came out low.
"I thought I was choosing a path," he said. "But maybe it already picked me."
He looked at his reflection in the cracked glass near the base of the throne.
Same eyes. Same mouth. But the expression felt different.
He was still himself.
But there was less distance now between who he was and what this book described.
And that was the part that unsettled him.