"How do I pay the installment? Should I hand it over to you directly?"
The questions out of his mouth because of one problem. Nyx didn't have confidence that he could enter this place again. He remembers that the door he used had disappeared.
'That must be a magical door,' he thought and there's no way he can conjure it.
"Hmm..." The woman hummed. Her expression shows that she's considering something. Few breaths later, she takes a lapis grass-like key out of the drawer in the reception desk. She put the key and a tarot size red card in front of Nyx. "The key will open the door to this library."
Nyx took the key, the fenomena when he touch the Flask of Vital Star appears once again. As the knowledge about the artifact settled in his mind, the lapis key disappear from his palm.
Massaging his brow, he asked, "once a week or month? Did I have time limit to pay my dept? And what about this red card?"
"It's a life time dept. You can pay it whenever you want. But... the sooner the better, don't you think so?"
"...Right," Nyx said as he took the red card. Surprise for him, nothing happened.
The Librarian smiled. "The red card, it's a Soul Card. How to use it or what it is, you need to learn it yourself. The business's done here so, of you go."
Then, with a snap of her fingers, the library lurched.
"Wait!" Nyx exclaimed at the sudden phenomenon but it's too late.
He stumbled, suddenly standing in the middle of a ruined street, the library nowhere in sight. The Night Realm's twisted city loomed around him, its shadows deeper, its silence heavier.
Alone again.
"Damn it!!"
His body ached. His mind reeled. But one truth burned clearer than ever.
His nightmare continues.
Gritting his teeth, Nyx clutched the Flask of Vital Star and began searching for shelter.
Somewhere to rest.
Somewhere to survive.
—§—
The silence of the ruined street in this ruined night city was uncomfortable, pressing in on Nyx from all sides. The air, cold and still, carried the faint, metallic tang of old blood and ozone.
He was alone. Utterly.
The Librarian and the grand library was gone, leaving no trace, not even a shimmer in the air. One moment he was standing before her desk, talking to her, the next he was here, abandoned in this concrete hell. He clutched the Flask of Vital Star in one hand, the warm of a small comfort. The hatchet, still flecked with the Phantasm's blackish residue, was gripped tightly in the other.
"I need to move, need shelter, don't need that monster again" he whispered.
The plan was a primal drumbeat in his skull. Standing in the open was a death sentence. He remembered the tapping, the screams, the thing with the cleaver-arm. There would be more. The Librarian had made that much clear.
His new vision, the "Treasure Eyes," offered no immediate help. He scanned the crumbling facades and wide open alleyways, but nothing glowed. The world was a canvas of muted grays, devoid of the shimmering outlines that marked a Phantasm's treasure. It was a passive ability, useless until something showed up to kill him.
He never felt more grateful when he didn't see any Phantasm's treasure around him.
With a deep breath, he started walking, his shoes splashing on puddle of water and clacking on debris. As he walked around that unusual city, he noticed, every shadow seemed to twitch at the edge of his vision. Every drip of water from roofs or anything sounded like a menacing footstep. His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs, a stark contrast to the oppressive stillness.
He turned a corner and froze.
The street ended abruptly in a chasm, a jagged tear in the earth that plunged deep into absolute darkness. On the other side, the city continued, its buildings leaning at impossible angles, connected by precarious-looking bridges of twisted rebar and unusual structure. There was no way across.
"F*ck! A dead end! Where should I go?"
Panic, cold and familiar, began to claw its way up his throat. He was trapped and lost. In daze, he turned back, to retreat the way he came. Few buildings later and his blood ran cold.
"What the—"
A figure stood at the entrance of an abandoned hotel he passed by earlier.
It was tall and emaciated, its skin a pallid, rubbery gray. It wore the tattered remnants of a brown long coat, and its head was entirely encased in a cracked porcelain mask, featureless except for a single, weeping crack running down its left eye socket. In its hand, it held a long, wicked-looking needle, thin as a rapier.
It didn't move. It didn't breathe. It just stood there, "watching" him.
Nyx's grip on the hatchet tightened until his knuckles were white. His Treasure Eyes activated without conscious thought, the world shifting. The figure itself didn't glow, but he saw it now—a small, pulsating locket hovering near its chest, and around it, the treasures. Three Vital Tears and eight Shards of Memories.
And deep within its chest, he saw the Primal Essence. This one was different from the cleaver-arm monster's. It was a tangled knot of black threads, constantly writhing and twisting around a dark marble.
The Masked Figure took a single, silent step forward, toward him.
"F*ck!"
Nyx didn't wait for a second. He bolted, not towards the figure, but into a nearby building whose doorway had been blasted open. He stumbled into a vast, derelict space what might have once been a department store. Mannequins lay broken and scattered, their limbs arranged in agonized poses. Dust lay thick over everything, and the air smelled of rot and decay.
He heard no pursuit. No footsteps. Just that same, heavy silence.
"I know that Phantasm doesn't give up, it's still after me, " Nyx whispered as he moved deeper into the store, using the hollowed-out display counters and overturned racks for cover.
His breath fogged in the cold air. The first Phantasm had nearly killed him, and he manage to kill it thanks to the Librarian's help. Drained and weak, he didn't think he could survive another fight.
He choose to run away, to hide but it seems it'll not getting him out of the new danger.
A soft, scraping sound came from the front of the store.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Like a needle gently tapping against glass.
Nyx crouched lower, peering through a crack in a counter. The Masked Figure was inside now, standing just beyond the doorway, its head slowly panning from side to side. It hadn't seen him yet.
It's hunting me, he thought as he clenched his teeth.
He needed a plan. A new, big weapon. The hatchet felt pathetic against that long needle. His eyes darted around the gloom, his Treasure Eyes scanning instinctively, and then he saw it.
A faint, golden glow, coming from behind a collapsed set of shelves in the far corner of the store.
A treasure. Unclaimed.
Nyx never thought he could find a treasure outside the Phantasm's body.
Hope flared in his chest. He didn't know what it was, but it was something. A tool. An advantage.
He began to crawl, keeping low, moving from cover to cover. The tick-tick-tick of the needle continued, like a slow, metronome of dread. The Phantasm was moving deeper into the store, its path taking it on a diagonal course away from him.
He reached the collapsed shelves, his heart in his throat. The glow was coming from underneath a heavy metal beam. With a grunt of effort, he shoved the beam aside, the screech of metal against the floor horribly loud in the silence.
The ticking stopped.
Nyx didn't look. He reached into the debris and his fingers closed around something cold and metallic. He pulled it out.
It was a handbell. Tarnished brass, its handle intricately carved with symbols that made his head ache to look at. As he touched it, knowledge flooded his mind.
• Bell of the Lost One •
[A single chime reveals the unseen. Three chimes call the Lost One. Use with caution. Chimes: 3/3 - Feed it with a treasure to restore the chimes.]
The unseen? What did that mean? Ghosts? Traps?
And what is the Lost—
A shadow fell over him.
He looked up.
The Masked Figure stood there, its featureless face staring down at him. It raised its needle-thin blade, poised to strike.
Acting on pure instinct, Nyx scrambled backward and shook the bell.
Chime.
The sound was not loud, but it was… profound. It seemed to ripple through the air, through reality itself.
The Masked Figure flinched, its head jerking back as if struck. For a moment, its form flickered, and Nyx saw through it—saw the crumbling wall behind it. And he saw something else. Dozens of faint, shimmering silver threads, like puppet strings, leading from its limbs up into the darkness of the ceiling.
Its weak point. It wasn't just the Primal Essence. It was the strings.
The Phantasm recovered, its anger clear in the sudden tension of its body. It lunged, the needle thrusting forward with blinding speed.
Nyx rolled, the point grazing his upper arm, drawing a line of fire. He came up swinging the hatchet, not at the Phantasm, but at the cluster of silver threads above its shoulder.
The hatchet passed through them.
They didn't break, but they shivered. The Phantasm staggered, its movements suddenly jerky and uncoordinated, a gasp of static hissing from behind its mask.
"It works!" Nyx exclaimed in pleasant surprise.