“You’ll be good, won’t you?” Cyriel asked as she tied my silver locks in a tight topknot. Her expression kept shifting from worried mother to proud parent so fast it was almost comical.

“Of course,” I said, a slight grin forming on my lips. Admittedly spellbound by Cyriel’s motherly charms. After ten years of pampering, I couldn’t help but reciprocate some level of warmth she showed me.

“Enough of your mindless doting, I have a schedule to keep,” Syra said, pinching the bridge of her nose.

The Elderly Elf began shooing Cyriel out of her ‘Green House’. A meticulously structured tower that pierced through the dense layers of cloud and basked in the golden glow of the twin stars inhabiting the sky.

Slowly prying my angst-filled gaze from the rune-inscribed, transparent ceiling, I admired the picturesque beauty of the garden laid out in front of me. The golden dew hanging from the numerous blades of grass and flower petals was enough to wash away the anxiety caused by being hundreds of meters in the air.

Watching this enormous garden, I couldn’t help but compare my current life to this peaceful scenery. Just like this garden, my second life has been extremely serene and without fault. And although I still had to deal with the annoyances of the Status Screen and minor breakdowns; there was no doubt about it, I was satisfied.

‘…I. I’m content with my current lifestyle. Therefore, I’ll have to keep it this way…’ I gently manipulated a dozen droplets of water from a violet flower petal to my hand. ‘…Even if I have to go against the flow of fate.’

“Hey, brat. What are you ogling around for? Get over here,” Syra said, annoyance-tinging each one of her words. Sighing, she muttered something about ‘it being a pain in the arse’ under her breath, and let out a sharp click of her tongue. “Though I understand your dilemma, it’s honestly annoying that I, Lady Syra, have to babysit an accursed brat like you.”

I held back the urge to roll my eyes and blankly listened to her ramblings. Then, as if a fuse had shorted out in that bloated head of hers, she stood and stared at me for a moment with an expression that matched mine.

“Cheeky brat”—Syra spat on the ground—“better open those ears, although you’re here only to fool the outside world, there are a few things you must blend into that brain of yours,” she said, walking deeper into the heart of her garden.

“That was quite unladylike, Lady Syra,” I said just loud enough for her ears to catch it as I buried her globule of mucus under a tiny hill of the rich dirt. “Mm...Indeed. One might even consider it boorish.”

“Heh. Brats these days, what would you know about being a Lady, boy?” Syra asked. Closing the distance between us, she painfully rubbed my head with her knuckles. “Brats like you ought to be lectured with a rubber baton!”

“…What do I know about Ladies? Hmph. I’ll have you know my mother is the exact model of nobility!” I said, wriggling around in her iron grip. “As for the anatomy of a maiden, I have studied it all! Where to caress the intrinsic body of a lady in heat. How to invoke a lady’s infatuation for me! If you want to understand the pleasures of the flesh then—”

Syra threw me limp on the ground and stared at me in disbelief. “Dear God. Stop, you vulgar brat,” she said hugging a palm around her face, she skillfully hid the amused smirk on her lips. “This is the opposite of how Cyriel described you… How very amusing. But this isn’t the time for this nonsense, you have a lot to learn…” the elf began her stride to the small hut visible in the distance again. “Come along, Imp...do well to entertain this old lady further.”

Snickering at how easy she was, I skipped my way to Syra’s side. We walk side by side in comfortable silence until we reached a brown modern hut. Contrary to the small exterior of the lone building; the interior was big enough to contain a large hybrid of a laboratory and library.

I slowly took in the building's splendor as we sat on ourselves around a round wooden table. Syra coughed audibly, flustering the young gray head that was fully immersed in her studies.

“O-oh, Master, forgive me I didn’t notice you enter…” she muttered, getting up to a deep bow.

“No need. I should be the one apologizing for disturbing you,” Syra said, smiling gently. She pointed at me. “I just wanted to acquaint you with Taryl, your new assistant.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Taryl, I’m called Resiah…”

Met with the timid greeting older-looking Elf. I recalled the suggestive tone of Cyriel’s voice as she brought me here.

‘Make sure you get along with Syra’s disciple, okay?’

A smile lifted my lips as I held the nervous gaze of Resiah, her irises matched the dull gray color of her curly hair, and the edges of her eyes fell to a slight slack giving her a somewhat tired expression; complemented by the tiny blemish beneath her right eye, Resiah definitely held a unique beauty even among the absurd standards I set for Elves.

‘Had I not been Tia, I would’ve picked up what you put down Mother… Well. Sucking up to a boss should be right up Tia’s alley, though.’ I thought, shaking Resiah’s slender hand. “The pleasure is all mine, Boss. I’ll be in your care.”

“…I’ll do my best,” Resiah said, sitting back down.

“Just keep your vulgarity away from Resiah’s nobility,” Syra added, dragging her fingers across a nearby bookshelf. “In the meantime… This should do”—she handed me an old-looking leather-covered book—“Read up brat; these are the basics of horticulture. In case someone ever asks you what it is you do here.”

I dipped my head in thanks.

“You should be done with that volume within three hours… I have to circle the Green House a few times. Then we’ll head off to the Labyrinth.”

“Um? Labyrinth? Mother said I’ll be here all day…” I hurriedly said, an ominous foreboding twisting my insides.

The Labyrinth or Salvation II was a seemingly endless dungeon complex; spanning hundreds of floors. It was teeming with various magic beasts and death traps. I read about it briefly in one of the later books on Elven history. It was referred to as a Gift from God numerous times—and rightfully so—but I did not want to enter a place like that given the nature of my existence.

“What would she know of my work?” Syra asked. “Resiah and I have to tend to the plants bathing in mana within the Labyrinth, as we do with the plants which are currently bathing in heavenly qi outside.”

“But—”

“Enough blabbering! You better start reading, brat!” Syra cut in. “So bothersome…”

I let out a breath. It was fine. I would just pretend to be sick and ask Syra to call Cyriel to come and pick me up if push came to shove.

Content with this plan, I flipped through the book handed to me. It took a single glance to memorize an entire page thanks to my intelligence stat which sat at 8942; giving me the ability to completely master the thick book in about twenty minutes.

Bored, I let my gaze wander the library before finally resting on the studious Resiah. I took some time to memorize her aura and eventually delved into my mind to organize my thoughts. ‘Stats.’

+

Class: —

Level: 1

Mana: 1

Mana Regeneration: 0.0005 per minute

Orgone: 63/3900

Intelligence: 9842 [+17]

Agility: 697 [+9]

Vitality: 5789 [+33]

+

Observing my stats, I felt a peculiar sense of satisfaction surge throughout my body. It was mostly due to the staggering number of my intelligence. Getting the stat to that number was painful but worth it; given the innate purity of my Elven lineage; the vitality stat rose by the hundreds at a steady pace.

And because of my high vitality, I maimed my hands and or feet while keeping Reversed Meditation active; waited for them to regenerate and repeated the action. Granted, over the course of months—and the clashing of Cold Mind and Reversed Meditation—I was now completely unaffected by that level of pain.

Nevertheless, the good outweighed the bad as the sheer versatility of the stat was mind-boggling.

Next was my mana stat, which had increased to one. I couldn’t feel any mana within me, however, looking inwardly; I sensed a disturbance within my Essence. The miasma now took on a navy-blue hue and was through devouring mana—as though it had reached a level cap.

Still, if I forced mana into my Essence, the miasma would absorb it all, the drawback of doing this being jagged jolts of pain spreading throughout my body. ‘Given I almost lost my mind because of the miasma, should I say a little pain isn’t bad?’ I thought, gripping my forearms as I recalled my near-death experience.

It was supposed to be a simple experiment with orgone. I went against Adon’s advice and absorbed orgone into my Essence. The result was orgone recognizing the miasma as ‘negative energy’ and trying to convert it into ‘positive energy’. However, the amount of orgone created as an end product was too much for my body to contain; resulting in a hellish cycle of bodily destruction and regeneration.

Luckily, Cyriel dispersed the orgone in my body before my cells completely evaporated into the air.

‘Had Cyriel not been there…’ I shook my head to melt the ghoulish chill coiling around my spine. ‘But I guess it wasn’t for naught? Now I know not even 30000+ of orgone can equate to 1% miasma… And’—I willed the status to show me my new skill—‘I gained an impressive skill to boot.’

+

Skill: Pseudo Immortality

Skill Type: Active

Level: 43

Effects:

Once the body contains more than 25000+ orgone, it can achieve a level of near-invulnerability.

Additional info: To activate the skill forcefully increase orgone stat to 25000+

+

One thing that irked me was the levels of skills and alike. I simply had no idea on how levels were dictated, especially in the suspicious case of the skill; Cold Mind as the damned thing kept on evolving rapidly, suppressing more and more of my emotions. ‘Though…it seems levels are evolved and dictated on how often I use them and how powerful, or useful they are…?’ I suggested to myself. ‘Ha. But I can’t help but be wary of the skill…’ I concluded, rising to my feet.

“May I be excused to roam around the library?”

“Feel free to do as you please,” Resiah replied without averting her gaze from the book in front of her. “However, do be careful not to break anything, Master tends to be cranky over the smallest of things.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, noting the fact that Resiah was rather different when she was focused entirely on reading.

A few trudges between the narrow pathways of the large bookshelves and I couldn’t stop the glee from leaking onto my lips. I loved reading for one simple reason: The more detailed and fleshed out the literary works in this world were; the more certain I was this wasn’t a vivid dream or hallucination.

Opening a glass cabinet that stood out in the layers of wooden shelves, I scanned the titles written on the spines of the books. ‘The Effects of Priiga Nectar on the Cerebral Network of Demons Vol I?’ I read, opening the book to the first page.

It was blank.

“Huh?”

Not a single splotch of ink was visible on the white pages. Panic-stricken, I reached for the scrolls neatly packed on the lowest section of the upper shelves of the glass cabinet and unceremoniously unrolled them.

“B-blank?” I muttered past the warm lump clogging my throat. “N-no perhaps this is a spell…” I ran over to Resiah with heavy steps, fear etched into my very soul. “B-oss! Why’re these books and scrolls empty?!”

Resiah recoiled in surprise at my sudden screech, but when she met my crazed gaze; she let out a terrified yelp of her own. “Wh-what in the world has gotten into you…?”

“These books…!”—I took a sudden deep breath and caressed my forearms—“Why’re they empty?” I finished off calmly.

Resiah slowly reached for the books in my hand, “…Th-these?” she chuckled, presumably in an attempt to fight back the tears glistening her eyes. “These are books Master has written herself… You found them near the lab, did you not?”

“Truthfully…I-I do not remember…”

I really didn’t, my mind was completely preoccupied with my thoughts, but looking back now… It must’ve been.

“Hmm? U-uh? Well, these indeed are Master’s research catalogs,” Resiah infused mana into the book and soon the pages were filled with rough scribbles. “She uses an illume-quill for all her writings. The only way to actually see the written passages after the ink has been left to sit; is to infuse light attribute mana into the magic-paper.”

“I-I see,” I said, finally calming down. “Thank you, and I’m sorry for the rough disturbance. I don’t know what got into me…”

“N-no. It’s quite alright. You may be my assistant, but I hope we can always converse as equals,” Resiah said, shaking her head softly. “Though I advice you to put Master’s works bac—”

“Brat! Did you touch my cabinet?! And to leave it this disheveled?! You’re asking for a beating!”

“Oh my, seems she returned earlier than usual,” Resiah said with a smile that seemed to coldly suggest the words, you’re on your own.

I felt a tight grip on my shoulder.

“Well? Answer me, brat. Why were you in my cabinet?”

The grip tightened.

“I—”

Suddenly, as I tried to talk my way out of this, a wave of exhaustion dragged me to the floor.

“—what’s wrong, you bra—”

“Taryl?”

“—breathi—”

I could only make out the muffled snippets of their voices as I slumped to the ground, my consciousness becoming less pronounced by the second.

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Pain.

The frightening sensation of feeling my blood freely flow in between the interweaving muscle tissue in my neck and wrists.

I didn’t open my eyes, but I could still tell I was dangling upside down.

Aside from the sound of my blood dripping onto a stony surface, I could hear a voice below me.

“This is stupid. That devilish brat keeps regenerating soon after we cut him… Syra make your way up there and make sure the gashes stay open,” a raspy voice I didn’t recognize ordered, followed by the metallic clacks of footsteps making an ascent in my direction. “While you’re up there, make sure to maintain his life. Resiah can’t seem to stomach this morbid scene; I’ll send her out.”

“As you wish, Lady Kandera,” Syra replied obediently, slashing my neck with a cool blade. “Heh? How are you already conscious?”

I groaned and rapidly darted my eyes around the cave-like vicinity. There wasn’t much in the damp, rocky expanse; except for the deep-red circular carvings inscribed on the floor and the silhouette of a person crossing a portal.

“Don’t worry, brat. By the time you wake up again this’ll be a fleeting nightmare,” Syra said simply from the platform she stood, slowly reaching a hand to my face. “…Now, off to sleep.”

‘Eve.’

[—edged.]

Gently, my consciousness scattered into white again, I could feel ounces of my recent memories disappear as I glimpsed Syra pulling her hand away from me while spewing out chunky, green liquid from her nose and mouth.

***

Sections of my brain throbbed at different intervals forcing me to clutch my head as soon as I woke from a seemingly deep, endless sleep. I gasped for air in an instinctive attempt to get oxygen to my brain, which seemed to split and spiral in every direction. A pain so severely unimaginable, it made me want to dig out my palpating eyeballs and massage the gray matter within my skull.

I moaned in relief as the pain was slowly suppressed and whisked away by Cold Mind.

“…The hell is going on?” I wondered aloud, surveying the small, dim room. ‘This isn’t home,’ I sunk my back into the cloud-like bed, a scrutinizing crease carved into my forehead.

[Restoring lost memories.]

The frown etched deeper when I heard Eve’s voice echo throughout my mind; filling the cracks and gaps plaguing my thoughts. It seemed my memories were erased and manipulated a bit, in addition, there were conversations and sensations from the time I was unconscious stitched together with the brief memory of when I regained consciousness.

Patiently, I let the newly attained information sink and stir into my cesspool before thoroughly digging through it.

After Syra knocked me out, she took me to a facility she referred to once as Itchla; where they drained my blood. Then, as per the orders of a woman named Kandera, they healed me and transferred my corpse-like body to a ‘Summoning Cave’ where I was sliced up to summon an ‘archdemon’.

In her words the reason they didn’t use the blood they had already drained was because: ‘It would be a waste of valuable resources’.

‘I’m not going to be held captive and drained daily basis, am I?’ I thought, agitated. ‘No. That would be absurd…why would they bother to manipulate my memory, then? Right. The most probable outcome is, I’ll be sent home after this.’

I closed my eyes choosing to ignore the sudden visitor making her way to my bed.

“I know y-you’re awake,” Resiah said meekly. “My masters are going to grow impatient if you keep pretending…”

Jolted by a sudden pulse of rage, I bit my lip; stopping myself from lunging at the girl.

“L-listen…y-you fell unconscious suddenly. But my master took good c-care of you…” Resiah said in between bated breathes; she squeezed out the last words. “Y-you’re all right now, aren’t you?”

I got up and heaved a long sigh. Getting mad at this traumatized little girl wasn’t going to make my situation any better. “Yes, I am. I’d like to thank your master for helping me, Boss,” I managed to utter out smoothly. “Ah, by the way, could you tell me where my garments are?”

Resiah’s face suddenly took on a ghastly pale color, “H-here. I’ll be waiting outside, in the meantime,” she said, passing neatly folded pieces of clothes before leaving the room.

“What kind of training is she being put through?” I whispered to myself after once she left. But after recalling the few ‘spars’ I had with Adon, I simply shrugged it off as nothing. ‘I shouldn’t concern myself with nonsense… I need to get out of here.’

***

After dressing myself in the heavy outfit Cyriel picked out for me, I followed Resiah out of the building. I glanced around once we were outside and caught the figure of Syra tending to a plant a few meters ahead.

Gazing upwards at the lone blue star beaming down the lush vegetation, I tore into the back of my hand. ‘I need to get out of here.’

“W-where are you going?” Resiah asked, grabbing my wrist. “We…I need to take care of the Emperor’s Heart.”

“I’m sorry, but I need to go home, my head still throbs,” I said, gently shaking off her hand while putting on a strained smile.

“…I see…”

I quickened my steps to Syra, barely registering Resiah’s pathetic attempt at a reply. When I reached her, the elderly Elf stared at me for a few seconds before returning her gaze to the green pod growing from a large vine.

“How are you feeling, brat?”

“Better,” I said weakly. “But if it isn’t too much to ask can you send me home?”

“It is, you annoying little pest. But don’t worry, we’ll be done here in about forty minutes,” Syra said, waving me away. “Go help Resiah with her duties or take a nap. Just stop bothering me.”

“Can’t you just teleport me home? Or call Mother?”

“Merciful… Kid, listen carefully. When you passed out. I wasted a large amount of mana and time to heal you,” Syra explained. “And thanks to that, I have even less time and energy to deal with my duties. Understand? So please, for the love of Manas, listen to me when I say we’ll leave after forty minutes.”

Met with the unruly response, I ran off in the direction Resiah disappeared into. Before long, I could make out the small figure of an Elf silently observing an enormous, deep red flower bud.

“This…thing is amazing,” I said, nauseated by the volume of mana encasing the plant. “B-boss, I’m sorry to bother you but…I’d like to leave. Could you make that possible?”

Resiah carefully rested her hands and face on the rough exterior of the flower bud, “No. we’re currently within the Labyrinth,” she said, gently rubbing her right cheek against the bud. “…And only Master has been registered as a Delver, thus, she’s the only one that can teleport between floors.”

“…Is that so?” I murmured, falling flatly to the ground. “…If you need me, I’ll be right here; counting down the seconds to our departure.” I gently shut my eyes and slowly drifted into a half-sleep-half-alert state. “…No. Don’t sleep. You gotta stay vigilant…”

As I joked around to keep my nerves relaxed; the residual bits of orgone clinging to my cells resonated deeply with a strange energy in the air. I glanced up, mesmerized by the holy swirl of golden light pouring out of Resiah’s body into the flower bud.

“…What is that?”

“It’s my fifth element: divine light…” Resiah said, leaning against bud. “My masters usually refer to it as ‘brilliance’, though. They keep saying, I’ll be the light that guides us to an eternity of peace… Honestly, it weighs heavily on my shoulders…but still…”

“You enjoy being praised like that?” I said, finishing her sentence.

At that, the young Elf gaped at me with a rosy expression. Seemingly just realizing the fact that she suddenly began confiding in a complete stranger. ‘She must have formed a subconscious bond between us because of her guilt,’ I speculated, smiling softly. ‘…They’re just children after all.’

“N-no th-that’s not t-true,” Resiah said, coming out of her reverie.

“Really?” I mocked, gripping my abdomen as I tried to untie the knot in my stomach. The heavy bombardments of mana pouring out of the flower bud took a large toll on my body. “Are you done here? I’m having a hard time just standing here… Could we move somewhere else?”

“A-ah. Lets.”

Finally, taking notice of my condition, Resiah helped stabilize my footing and guided me to the middle of a section of the garden that seemed to be filled with short green weed-like grass.

“Careful not to damage them. T-these are…precious to me,” Resiah warned in her version of a stern tone. Slowly digging out the grass that had a lighter pigmentation, she showered them in a gentle beam of divine light and stored the grass in her waist pouch.

“You’re really proficient at healing magic…But you don’t seem to be older than sixteen,” I said, vividly remembering the lecture Syra gave Cyriel when she couldn’t heal my burn scars. “Is it because of divine light, no, brilliance?”

“…It’s a little complicated to explain…but, in essence, that is correct,”—under her breath, she added: “It’s divine light; not brilliance,” stared at me with a serious expression and lifted my arms. “Are you interested in divine light because of this?”

“I-I guess so… They are pretty unsightly, no?”

Resiah gently poked my scars, her irises dyeing yellow with a pale glow. “Yes… I noticed before; when healing, your skin regenerates to this disfigured form…because what caused this wasn’t only a physical wound, right?”—an obscure smile twisted her lips—“This is indeed interesting… Us healers can only contribute, hasten, and reinforce to the body's natural healing process…so it’s understandable why master couldn’t heal you…”

“…So?”

“…So…” Resiah mumbled, a metallic case warping from her pouch. When the case fully materialized she infused mana into the rune on its side, click, a portable lab filled with small tubes and elixirs was visible when the case unfolded all five of its compartment. “…Instead of forcefully reverting your skin to its original state with divine light, I’d like to run a few tests first… Mind handing over a specimen?”

I hesitated for a moment. Even though she seems to be an innocent child; her masters definitely weren’t. ‘…They already have, god knows how many, liters of my blood… Does it matter if I give her a skin sample?’ I thought, rolling up my sleeves. “No. That much should be alright,”

“Good,” Resiah said, positioning the pincer and surgical razor in her gloved hands directly above my forearm. She took a few breaths before slicing a precise sheet of my skin and storing it in a sealed beaker. “Try not to move, I’m not done,” she quickly said, cutting and storing more flesh at different phases of regeneration.

Shaken by a sudden tremor, Resiah sliced a large gash along my arms. “I-I’m sorry!” she yelled, desperately trying to stop bleeding with divine light. “Are… y-you okay?”

It didn’t take long for my wound to close, but my still nerves were strained because of the sudden waves of tremors. I shot a distressed glance at Resiah. “Is this normal?”

“Y-yes…” she said, storing the case in her waist pouch.

Clicking my tongue, I grabbed Resiah by the wrist. “We’re leaving. Now,” I said, sieving the surroundings with Mana Sense in a search for Syra’s aura. After a long while, I noticed a familiar aura masked almost completely by a dense singularity. She was near the Emperor’s Heart.

My sprint to Syra’s location perfectly matched the rapid rhythm of my heartbeat. The tremors were getting louder, so were the voices in my head warning me something bad was going to happen. “Syra! Are you done?!”

“Hm? Yes. I just need to record today’s measurements,” Syra said, leisurely scribbling down something on a notepad. “It’s almost ready to bloom…” she glanced at me with a worried face. “You don’t look so well, is it your hea—”

Earth shattered. Cracked apart by a gigantic, scaly appendage that grabbed the Emperor’s Heart and ripped Syra’s body into pieces along. I tuned out Resiah’s terrified shriek as I gazed at the mangled remains of my way to safety.

Another ear-numbing rumble resounded beneath our feet; sending us flying and crashing into the ground. I coughed violently, struggling to stand on my broken legs. “I-is there another, way out? …Resiah answ—!” Realizing I was clutching onto a disfigured limb, I held back the urge to vomit and tried shaking Resiah back to consciousness.

“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered repeatedly, peeling my gaze away from the limp Elf and onto the dust-shrouded scene of chaos that decimated the once vibrant surroundings. Madness engulfed the plains; black-horned beasts large enough to crush me under their thumbs clashed in colossal battles. The sky broke off into shard-like pieces as the bloody outcries of the beasts rang out.

In this chaos, I stood there on maimed legs, a single question rising to mind. ‘How am I able to withstand the shock waves and monstrous mana ensuing this collapsing space?’ I glanced back at Resiah. Instead of her body falling apart; it was regenerating. That’s when I noticed the nearly imperceivable layers of mana wrapped around us.

The thought of calling out to the mysterious stranger helping us was thrown to the back of my head as I braced for the large rock descending in my direction. The piece of land was far too big to outrun, but that didn’t stop me from grabbing Resiah and speeding through the dust to an imaginary safe haven.

I rubbed my stinging eyes and collapsed to the ground after a few steps. “Fuck…I should’ve left her,” I said, coughing out a throat-grating paste of mucus and dust. ‘But…how would that look in the eyes of someone protecting both of us…shit…How long?’

With my vision completely impaired and my throat clogged, all I could do was pray. Pray for Moon to save me. Pray for a sudden bond between me and the demon summoned from my blood. Pray for a blissful third life.

As I slowly watched my second life flash before my eyes, I heard a sound similar to a small splash of water followed by the sound of earth exploding. The layers of mana around me tripled and condensed into a thick, tangible cloak of armor.

“Lord Taryl, try to relax and open your mouth. I’ll force the grains of dust out of your lungs,” a masculine voice ordered, wringing the dust out of my lungs with mana. “Now…the girl…” The person added as they wrapped an arm around my waist.

Painfully blinking away my temporary blindness, I slowly regained my sight. However, a pitch-black shroud greeted me as soon as I cried out all the dust particles biting into my eyes. I could hear the large-scaled battles out of in distance and feel a mysterious person grabbing onto me tightly but that was it.

“H-hello… Sir? Can you get us out of here?”

There was no response except for shallow, haggard breathes. I could also feel the layers of mana peel away at a steady rate. ‘He's running out of fuel. And…this place…’

Was a pressurized field of raging mana.

I was sure of the fact that I would die immediately without this man’s protection. It was already starting; a heavy pressure was creaking my bones and tearing my muscle fibers through the weakened armor.

Feeling the sickly chill of death creeping around my body, I let out a melancholy chortle. ‘…Go against the flow of fate? Was my resolve, wasn’t it?’

What a joke.

This was fate. Predictable yet irrepressible.

The very idea of going against something so incomprehensible to the mortal mind was laughable. After all, no matter how intelligent a denizen of the first dimension was; it could never understand or perceive the complexities of a cube.

The same way I couldn’t possibly fathom how grand something like fate truly is.

Still.

‘I want to live.’

I forcefully regurgitated all the contents of my stomach; including the piece of orgonite I broke off from the Orgonite Crystal Adon had banned me from using. Clenching the orgonite between my molars, I spat out the acidic mixture filling my mouth.

I took a labored breath. “…I will live.”