Sweat streamed down his body like a living river, tracing uneven paths along his temples and cheeks, clinging to his skin as though reluctant to let go. It was cold sweat, not born of heat or exertion, but of contact with something far more merciless. The coldness of reality itself poured over him, heavy and solemn, as if existence had leaned close and pressed its weight upon his head in quiet reverence.
His eyes dimmed, then settled, returning to their void-black depths. Within that darkness, the formless hue of purple reawakened, a faint, unstable spark blooming inside his pupils, subtle yet unmistakable, lending his gaze a depth that seemed to stand apart from the world observing it. Vision returned slowly, not all at once, but in layers, as though sight itself had to remember how to exist.
His senses followed, unevenly. Smell returned first, grounding him in the faint, familiar scent of wood, paper, and something older, something sacred. Vision followed fully, sharp and unforgiving. Touch returned with clarity, the texture of fabric, the pressure of air against his skin, the ache in his limbs. Taste lingered faintly, unremarkable but present. Yet his mind remained incomplete, thoughts arriving sluggishly, connections misaligned, cognition fractured as though parts of his consciousness had yet to find their way back home.
The room corrected itself.
The book lay once more in its quiet, unassuming state, blank and innocent. The pen slipped gently back onto its cover, as if guided by an unseen hand. The lantern resumed its steady illumination, pouring sacred light over the glitched, formless, distorted desk, whose shifting nature calmed into familiar instability. The chair returned to what it had always been. The room followed. And so did Lucien.
All of it returned.
All except Veldra.
He exhaled slowly, one hand pressed against his chest. Air filled his lungs with proper weight, yet escaped without resistance, as though his body had not fully remembered the rhythm of breathing. The sensation of restraint was gone. The formless tendrils that had bound him no longer lingered. The distortions that had clawed at his perception had receded. The false realities, the illusions, the warped vortex that had consumed his room dissolved into something incomplete, something almost imaginary.
Even the dreadful sensation of Lucien's erasure faded, cast away like a bad dream.
Relief came, but it was thin.
The worry had left him sane, yet the trauma clung to him like a veil, disrupting thought, mind, and body alike. It was subtle, invasive, persistent. He felt… unsteady. A little bit insane.
Still, Veldra forced his focus outward.
Lucien was there, seated gently on the bed, his golden eyes quietly absorbing the grace of the house, still mesmerised, still calm. The sight steadied Veldra more than he cared to admit.
Slowly, carefully, he rose from the chair, movements deliberate, wary of collapse. One hand rested against the desk to steady himself, fingers brushing its surface as though confirming it was real. He straightened, breath controlled, posture reclaimed.
Lucien noticed but said nothing.
He merely stood, moved to Veldra's side, and escorted him through the door. Words were unnecessary. Soon, the house fell behind them, and their footsteps carried them into the forest, into a silence broken only by leaves, wind, and distant life.
After some time, Veldra spoke.
"Lucien," he managed, his voice steady but faintly strained. "I think it's time I finally visited the outside world."
Lucien did not answer immediately.
Then, calmly, "As you wish, My Lord. But I am certain you already wish to visit the outside world now, do you not?"
"Indeed," Veldra replied.
Lucien nodded slightly. "Then it is simple. The outside world lies at the end of the forest. But the forest is ever-expanding, endlessly unfolding. For most, it is practically impossible to reach the outside… unless they were you."
Veldra frowned faintly. "So how do I visit the outside world?"
Silence stretched between them.
"That," Lucien said at last, "is for you to figure out. Either we run… or we use an alternative."
Veldra slowed his steps, mind straining. Thought was difficult, fragmented, heavy. Even so, he searched. The voice lingered in the back of his awareness, uninvited, unwelcome. Even if I do not know what the voice is, I wish it could give a hint.
Then, suddenly, an idea surfaced.
Not gently. Not logically.
It flashed.
"System," Veldra muttered.
== <<[|STATUS|]>> ==
True Name: Veldra ????
Age: 23
Titles: ???? | Ruler of the Forest | Reincarnator | The First One | Murderer | Mandate of Stability
Class: ???
Talent: ????
Existence Classification: Human
Origin: ????
Physique: ????
Realm: Mortal | Rank: EE | Level: 3
== <<[|STATS|]>> ==
Strength: 91 | Agility: 91
Durability: 101 | Endurance: 91
Perception: 91 | Intelligence: 91
== <<[|ATTRIBUTES|]>> ==
Affinity: ??? | Prismora | Aura: ??? -> [un-awakened]
Perks: ??? | Art: ?? -> [un-awakened]Body: ???? |
State: ???? | Aspects: Control | Definer | Covenant | Equilibrium
Facets: Lucien | Fragments: ????? -> [Prismora] | Flaw: ???
== <<[|FUNCTIONS|]>> ==
Shop | Achievements | Inventory | Codex | Quests
== <<[|--------------|]>> ==
Veldra's eyes scrolled through the status window with calm deliberation. He examined his aspects, his affinities, absorbing each piece of information as if it were a layer of reality itself. Then, his gaze settled on the functions. Shop. That word made him pause. He had seen this feature countless times before, usually a tool for the protagonist to acquire strange items, system points, or cliches of destiny.
He tapped the icon.
== <<[|SHOP|]>> ==
| Currency |
Ether: infinite
Holy Aethers: -
???: -
== <<|SEARCH:_______|>> ==
Veldra exhaled, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Infinite Ether. That simplified things. He typed in his query, searching for a teleportation aspect, something that would let him traverse the world instantly, unhindered, to anywhere his mind could conceive, even places unknown.
== <<|Search: Teleportation Aspect|>> ==
The screen erupted with possibilities, countless aspects filling his vision, each more tempting than the last. He scrolled methodically, ignoring the distractions of irrelevant powers, until one aspect finally drew his attention.
== <<[|Aspect|]>> ==
Name: Astral Shift
Rank: Ascendant
Classification: Discretion | Imagination
Cost: One Trillion Ether
Description: The ability to teleport to anywhere the user imagines, knows, or does not know.
== <<[|---|]>> ==
== <<[|Would you like to purchase this aspect?|]>> ==
"Yes," Veldra muttered.
A soft, resonant chime echoed through the air, like a bell struck by unseen hands.
== <<[|Aspect|]>> ==
Name: Astral Shift
Rank: Ascendant
Classification: Discretion | Imagination
Description: The ability to teleport to anywhere the user imagines, knows, or does not know.
== <<[|---|]>> ==
Veldra allowed himself a rare smile of satisfaction.
"Lucien," he said, his voice calm yet carrying the weight of command, "I have found what I need."
"You have-"
In that instant, the world fractured. Space itself splintered into jagged shards of luminous fracture, sharp and dazzling, yet impossibly cold, the edges slicing at perception. The air grew impossibly dense, thick with the weight of expectation and unseen gravity, pressing on time, on wind, on distance, until all three trembled in subtle, indistinct rhythm. Reality, or the semblance of it, quivered.
And then, they vanished.
They appeared atop a cliff, the wind clawing at robes and hair with sharp insistence. Their forms were still lean, almost ethereal, glimpses of shadows that had yet to solidify fully, as though the universe itself were previewing the permanence of their presence. Below and before them sprawled mountains, ridges and valleys dotted with houses of every era: the sleek lines of modernity colliding with the stubborn angles of forgotten architectures, the past and present tangled together like threads of fate. People moved among them, tiny and unaware, lost in their own trivial purposes, lives unfolding without knowing the silent storm above.
Veldra let a thin, almost playful smile escape his lips as he gazed down upon the outside world, observing it with the detached curiosity of a god, both tender and amused.
But the stillness shattered again. Space fractured anew. Sharp, blinding cracks etched themselves across the sky, across the air, across perception itself, and time, wind, and distance quivered violently once more.
In the blink of a thought, they landed in a bustling crowd, the noise of human life washing over them like a tidal wave of chaos: murmurs, laughter, the rhythm of footsteps, the banal pulse of a world unaware it teetered on the edge of ruin. The humans were everywhere; strangers and fleeting lives, nothing more, nothing less.
Then it began.
Veldra's head spun. His thoughts collapsed inward like collapsing stars, each synapse folding over the next. Fractures formed in his mind, jagged and invisible, slivers of reason crumbling into a void. The illusions of normalcy; the casual chatter, the movement, the innocence, twisted under the weight of his perception. His sanity strained at its boundaries, his calm surface cracking to reveal the pearl of his consciousness, trembling beneath the pressure of the unknown.
Oh, what pain.
He held onto himself, every fibre of his will screaming against the encroaching dissolution. Each passing breath, every tick of seconds, each word muttered by the unknowing mortals pressed against him with an unbearable, reverent weight, as if the world itself sought to extract the essence of his being.
"Gahhhhh-"
Veldra's roar was swallowed by the crowd. Lucien attempted to reach him, but his existence was forcibly excised, pulled into some distant, intangible elsewhere; not death, not absence, merely displacement from the plane where Veldra now walked.
The humans, ignorant and fleeting, turned slowly, observing the spectacle of a man contorting with pain, and dismissed him as an eccentric, a madman, a curiosity unworthy of their concern. They could not know, could never know, the weight of what had been unleashed, the slow, inexorable unravelling of existence they were witnessing.
After a while of futile resistance and the painful feeling of burdened distortions that made reality seem fake, with the sense that everything that mattered was pressing upon him with an unyielding weight, with the reverence of an absolute, breaking-free mind and soul, after a while of constant pain in both mind and body alike, the painful sensation of burdened worms infiltrated his head, sucking his sanity dry and injecting their malicious venom into him.
He stood upright; carefully, detachedly, differently, almost unknowingly.
With a flick of his hand, the unseen forces of insanity leapt outward. Invisible, undeniable, they descended upon the first fool who had dared meet his eyes with sneers, the cruel laughter now a banquet. Venerable, reverent, irreversible, benevolent, insanity feasted on the mortals, devouring mind, spirit, body, and soul in a symphony of quiet annihilation.
The madness dissipated into the crowd, unseen but palpably lethal. The humans became illusions, transient and fragile. Every step Veldra took was unknowable even to himself, yet every motion left death in its wake. Three seconds. That was all it took for a soul to flicker in false joy, grasping at hope and dreams it would never fulfil. And then, gone. Snatched into oblivion, guided by purposeless fate into the void of nothingness.
Each step a judgment. Each breath is a sentence. Every glance is a silent pronouncement.
Veldra moved through them passively, dispassionately, unknowingly. And with every unknowable step, every blink, every pulse of the world, every person died.