A horizontal crease appeared in the middle of that star of nothingness, and the seam widened as an even darker pupil stared back from within. A shudder went down his spine as he stood there—frozen stiff.
It was a Sun—the fucking Sun! Maybe not the one he was used to, but a star of planetary proportions had parted itself in half, peering through the endless void to gaze at him.
What had he done to warrant this?
But then he shook his head frantically, No. I am giving myself too much credit. That pupil was so ginormous that even if it was looking at anything within thousands of kilometers around this area, it would still seem like it was staring at him.
"Right. Right," he muttered as he tore his gaze away from that thing. This rationalization, even if flimsy—gave him some hope, and he soon found wits enough to survey his surroundings and gather his belongings.
The air around him had taken on a quality of stillness that felt unnatural as if the very atmosphere was holding its breath. The usual sounds of this place—the quaking of the ground, crumbling of the structures, the disintegration of that pyramid—had all but vanished, replaced by a silence so complete it buzzed in his ears.
His own breaths seemed loud, ragged intrusions in the quiet, and he found himself holding them, afraid to make any noise. Because sound wasn't the only thing that had disappeared, the structures and that pyramid in the sky were missing, too.
And when he noticed what had appeared in their place, his blood ran cold. Eyes. Hundreds—no, thousands of eyes.
It seemed like the world was closing in around him—those pebble-sized eyes enlarging, impossibly fixating on him with unsettling precision. The vast eye that had replaced the soaring pyramid loomed, eclipsing his vision in its entirety.
From tracking his every minute shiver with a disturbing oscillation to trailing his shaking head—some of which elicited the pupils to escape out of the iris, they observed him with an apathetic distaste.
Yeah, this wasn't going to work. He had to get the fuck out of here.
It was all in his head. He knew it. Obviously, he knew it. Still, it didn't do scrapshit to calm down his wobbling knees or the heart that hammered against his ribcage in a maddening frenzy.
For his sanity, he had chosen to believe that the eye up there wasn't focused on him, but what rationalization could he conjure up for these? They were everywhere.
These were the circles he had noticed in the grays of his perception, and beyond any shadow of a doubt, each and every one of them was staring at him with an unflinching and indifferent gaze.
The oppressive atmosphere was like nothing he had ever faced. Maybe that shadow of the entity he had seen during the Enlightenment could compare, but his memory of that event was quite faded—and he was only happy for the fact.
He would rather not have these beings show up in his dreams and destroy his scarce moments of relaxation. Though he was sure this sight had the potential to keep him awake for more than a couple nights.
He had to get the hell out of here.
That link within his mind was the only thing keeping him from breaking down right here, right now. He just had to stop the channeling of thoughts into the rune, and this nightmare would stop.
HUFF
Somehow, that thought gave him some measure of control, and he managed a deep breath as he looked at the surroundings one final time. He wasn't going to stick around. He had some reservations about going back, but he still had to go. Because otherwise, this land would ruin his mind, if not his body.
There was a risk in returning to Elmhurst, but more than an hour and a half had passed. So, he would have to hope that the dangerous elements had left the scene and he wasn't being hasty in getting out of here.
If that priest or whatever was still waiting for him, Vern might as well go down in a last-ditch effort with his newfound Visions and sights. At least there was a chance of survival out there.
Here? It was hopeless.
That thing beyond the horizon was a star greater than his whole planet for fuck's sake, and who knew if something even more profound was at play here? Where did all these eyes come from? Was some central entity controlling them? He didn't want to know.
However, now that he had managed to calm down a little, he noticed something peculiar about his environment. Other than the eyes, obviously.
There was a pattern. A spiral. And when he followed it to its ends, he realized that he was in the center of that spiral. Its one end was quite a distance away—ceasing at the tip of that pyramid’s peak, which was now half-disintegrated.
What does this mean? He felt like there should be a simple explanation for this, but that gaze from the sky was always in the back of his mind. He had a hard time thinking with such a—
Wait. He had an idea. A good one, too. Maybe he was not that scared after all. Those notions that poured into my Thought Space—where did they come from?
Surely, they had a source, right? Then, was this the aftermath of that? Had he assimilated all those buildings and the pyramid into his Thought Space? Maybe not their physical aspect, but their Representation? Is that how one shaded their perception?
It was actually quite a logical assumption. How could one evolve and surpass their human selves—gaining extraordinary command over the world without consuming some sort of resource? Surely, Observation worked on some kind of law of conservation.
If everyone could shade their perception without a cost to the world, it would imply infinite energy. That was never the case. Never. At least he hadn't seen it happen.
Could this be the reason this eye had awakened? To punish him for his transgressions in consuming this land's resource? But he disregarded that thought very next moment. He really wasn't important enough in the grand scheme of things. Something else—
And then, in his peripheral vision—he saw it. The horrifying scene. The sun blinked. Just once, a slow, deliberate motion that sent a fresh wave of terror crashing over him. It was a confirmation of his worst fears—that this was no illusion, no trick of the mind, but a sentient being of immeasurable power and inscrutable intent.
The blink shattered the fragile veneer of calm he had clung to. It was not just the sight of that cosmic eye but the feeling that came with it—a sense of insignificance so profound that it threatened to erase his very sense of self.
He was an ant under the magnifying glass of a child, an infinitesimal speck about to be burned into nothingness by a curiosity without empathy.
Not wanting to push his luck anymore, he did it. He ceased the trickle of thoughts that consciously connected him to the rune in his mind. He would deal with whatever was in Elmhurst as it came. This was so far beyond him it wasn't even a joke.
.
.
.
Why is it taking so long? He was definitely exiting this realm, maybe even turning immaterial this very second.
But it wasn't fast enough!
Then, the eye in the sky blinked again, and a pulse of unseen energy radiated outward. It was not a dramatic flare, no thunderous declaration of its might—it was subtle, almost a whisper, yet it carried the force to unmake worlds.
The ground beneath him didn't just shake—it disintegrated, grains of reality coming undone like sand against an unrelenting tide. The plethora of eyes around him bent, their shapes warping as if reality itself was a reflection in a funhouse mirror.
It wasn't destruction with intent. It was destruction as a consequence. The eye's gaze, indifferent and sweeping, was like a laser passing over the delicate film, leaving only a void in its wake. The world didn't scream—it simply ceased to be, piece by piece, an unmaking of existence that paid no heed to what was caught in its view.
As his consciousness finally slipped away, the last thing he saw was the horizon itself peeling back, the sky and earth curling away like the pages of a burning book, consumed by knowledge too vast to be contained.
HUFF
PUFF
HUFF
PUFF
The moment he felt sensible enough to breathe, he inhaled large mouthfuls of air, his heart still ramming against his chest—almost seeming to want to escape it. What the hell happened there…?
In a couple more breaths, his body keeled over on its own, and he shivered intensely, trying his best to get his faculties under control.
But it didn't listen to him.
Vern had felt that destructive energy pass by him. One second. If he had hesitated for even one more second, he would've been nothing more than ash swept up in unfelt winds in that desolate world. His very existence would've been wiped clean.
He had long since accepted that he was nothing but a speck of dust in this unfeeling cosmos, but a reminder like that didn't feel good. It—
"What the fuck, newbie!? Where'd you come from—nah, never mind, just RUN! Forget the chicks and get out of there. Captain can't contain this one completely. You'll be buried alive."
The words sent another jolt through him, and his mind reeled. That…? Is he not dead? That was Ambrose's voice, wasn't it? But that can't be right.
Nevertheless, the content of those words was too significant for him to pass up as a hallucination. Gritting his teeth hard, he stabilized himself and stood back up. No rest for the wicked.
And when he looked up, that sentiment was only further solidified. Back to square one, huh? he chuckled, almost with a dark amusement.
When he escaped, an impossible attack was looming over them like a reaper. Now that he was back expecting safety, another, even more destructive attack was hurling towards him.
A gigantic spiral bursting with golden radiance drilled towards them from the heavens above with a ferocious momentum. It was like one of those depictions of dragons, but very real and very lethal. It distorted the air wherever it passed through—its destructive might clear for all to see. But in its path stood a man on a...cloth. Isn't that…
But now wasn't the time to question what that shaggy swordsman was doing here. Ambrose had insinuated that Cera and Esther were alive. A simple look at his surroundings confirmed the fact—Cera was lying unconscious next to some rubble, whereas Esther held her head curled into a ball.
His brain almost failed to process it. How could this be? There's no way they survived this onslaught for over an hour. Did the fight shift to another battlefield before the radiant man managed to pull it back here?
Many conjectures clashed with each other in his mind, but he ruthlessly quashed all the unnecessary questions. Cera and Esther weren't dead right now, but they would be in a few seconds if he didn't do something about it.
Carrying them out of the building wasn't an option, given how that golden spiral was closing in at an alarming pace. Maybe Ambrose could have done it with his dashes, but a look at him told Vern that he was busy in his own battle—chasing a white-robed man out of the building.
This only firmed Vern's resolve. He would have to take charge this time. He was done escaping this fight—no one was going to be buried in this damned station. He had just Shaded his Perception with a Vision related to Stability, for fuck's sake. It'd weigh down his conscience too much if he didn't give it his best shot.
So, he rapidly analyzed the attack and its possible effects. Ambrose said the swordsman would try to contain ‘this one’ but might be unable to do so thoroughly. The phrasing suggested that the previous attack, which had elicited Vern to flee into the Third Rune, was thwarted by the swordsman, too.
And given how the station was mostly unharmed except for some of the holes from before, he must have had a formidable defense. Compared to the previous attack, it shouldn't be a stretch to assume that the swordsman could handle the brunt of this attack.
Because if that spiral came for them, there was nothing he could do about it. He didn't understand what that spiral was, much less its structure or weakness to induce instability in it. So, countering it outright was out of the question.
His new sight might help, but he didn't think it was a great idea to pit himself against someone who probably had far more Representation than himself. There was also the problem of it being hard to Observe when something was already being manipulated by another Observer.
Left with only one option of holding his ground, he peered into his perception with nothing in particular as the keyword.
.
.
.
That was a mistake, and he shut it back down right away.
Because in that short instant, his blindingly bright Thought Space dimmed a little, and he managed to glean almost nothing from the mess of grays—wasting the sight. But this made him wonder, Could the brightness of my Thought Space be a measure of my Representation?
It sure looked like it. But then he shook his head and instead worked out the specifics of what had to be done.
A plan soon took shape in his mind, factoring in all the extraordinary Visions and sights at his disposal. He had long imagined the possible uses of Stability Inducement, and now was the time to be creative.
Once he filled in the gaps in his plan with all the details, he felt ready to exploit the heck out of his perception. And it was about damn time, too.
Harmony and Disharmony
His surroundings fractured into a tapestry of greys and silvers—the harmony and disharmony of the structure around him becoming as clear as day and night. Intact sections of the ceiling glowed with a resolute silver sheen, indicative of their unyielding strength, while the cracked pillars bled with darker shades, signaling their desperate need for stability.
So, his conjectures were indeed right. His Thought Space was a tool of permanence, immortalizing the insights he had gleaned in the past. He didn't need to assign the gray to each and everything by himself anymore—though he felt like he could still do it if he wanted to. Just how it should be.
Mentally noting the current state of the building, he moved on.
Fulcrums
His focus narrowed, and the world seemed to lose shape. Each beam, each stone, now sported a directional gradient that pointed towards the sections that held the building aloft. The fulcrums, the critical points that bore the weight of architecture, shone brightly like stars in a dark space. These were the key points that needed to be protected when push came to shove. Because if they broke, the collapse would be imminent.
What else? He wondered as the intense beating of his heart resounded in his ears alongside the shrieks generated by the traversal of that golden spiral. It was almost upon them. The swordsman's silhouette cut a lean figure against the chaos, hand poised on the hilt of his blade, ready to draw from its sheath in a swift, defining move.
Time to maintain balance. He had deduced the critical points that had to be stabilized to maintain an equilibrium. He still had to extrapolate the balance in the rest of the building, but he would wait till the last moment to do that—making optimal use of his Representation.
So, this was all he could do to prepare in the limited time available to him, and hopefully, it would be enough.
"Newbie…no, Vern! Get out of there, man! Don't be stupid."
Unfazed, Vern focused harder, eyes narrowing on the advancing threat. "Trust me," he thundered, voice steady as an oak tree, "I have a plan."
A horizontal crease appeared in the middle of that star of nothingness, and the seam widened as an even darker pupil stared back from within. A shudder went down his spine as he stood there—frozen stiff.
It was a Sun—the fucking Sun! Maybe not the one he was used to, but a star of planetary proportions had parted itself in half, peering through the endless void to gaze at him.
What had he done to warrant this?
But then he shook his head frantically, No. I am giving myself too much credit. That pupil was so ginormous that even if it was looking at anything within thousands of kilometers around this area, it would still seem like it was staring at him.
"Right. Right," he muttered as he tore his gaze away from that thing. This rationalization, even if flimsy—gave him some hope, and he soon found wits enough to survey his surroundings and gather his belongings.
The air around him had taken on a quality of stillness that felt unnatural as if the very atmosphere was holding its breath. The usual sounds of this place—the quaking of the ground, crumbling of the structures, the disintegration of that pyramid—had all but vanished, replaced by a silence so complete it buzzed in his ears.
His own breaths seemed loud, ragged intrusions in the quiet, and he found himself holding them, afraid to make any noise. Because sound wasn't the only thing that had disappeared, the structures and that pyramid in the sky were missing, too.
And when he noticed what had appeared in their place, his blood ran cold. Eyes. Hundreds—no, thousands of eyes.
It seemed like the world was closing in around him—those pebble-sized eyes enlarging, impossibly fixating on him with unsettling precision. The vast eye that had replaced the soaring pyramid loomed, eclipsing his vision in its entirety.
From tracking his every minute shiver with a disturbing oscillation to trailing his shaking head—some of which elicited the pupils to escape out of the iris, they observed him with an apathetic distaste.
Yeah, this wasn't going to work. He had to get the fuck out of here.
It was all in his head. He knew it. Obviously, he knew it. Still, it didn't do scrapshit to calm down his wobbling knees or the heart that hammered against his ribcage in a maddening frenzy.
For his sanity, he had chosen to believe that the eye up there wasn't focused on him, but what rationalization could he conjure up for these? They were everywhere.
These were the circles he had noticed in the grays of his perception, and beyond any shadow of a doubt, each and every one of them was staring at him with an unflinching and indifferent gaze.
The oppressive atmosphere was like nothing he had ever faced. Maybe that shadow of the entity he had seen during the Enlightenment could compare, but his memory of that event was quite faded—and he was only happy for the fact.
He would rather not have these beings show up in his dreams and destroy his scarce moments of relaxation. Though he was sure this sight had the potential to keep him awake for more than a couple nights.
He had to get the hell out of here.
That link within his mind was the only thing keeping him from breaking down right here, right now. He just had to stop the channeling of thoughts into the rune, and this nightmare would stop.
HUFF
Somehow, that thought gave him some measure of control, and he managed a deep breath as he looked at the surroundings one final time. He wasn't going to stick around. He had some reservations about going back, but he still had to go. Because otherwise, this land would ruin his mind, if not his body.
There was a risk in returning to Elmhurst, but more than an hour and a half had passed. So, he would have to hope that the dangerous elements had left the scene and he wasn't being hasty in getting out of here.
If that priest or whatever was still waiting for him, Vern might as well go down in a last-ditch effort with his newfound Visions and sights. At least there was a chance of survival out there.
Here? It was hopeless.
That thing beyond the horizon was a star greater than his whole planet for fuck's sake, and who knew if something even more profound was at play here? Where did all these eyes come from? Was some central entity controlling them? He didn't want to know.
However, now that he had managed to calm down a little, he noticed something peculiar about his environment. Other than the eyes, obviously.
There was a pattern. A spiral. And when he followed it to its ends, he realized that he was in the center of that spiral. Its one end was quite a distance away—ceasing at the tip of that pyramid’s peak, which was now half-disintegrated.
What does this mean? He felt like there should be a simple explanation for this, but that gaze from the sky was always in the back of his mind. He had a hard time thinking with such a—
Wait. He had an idea. A good one, too. Maybe he was not that scared after all. Those notions that poured into my Thought Space—where did they come from?
Surely, they had a source, right? Then, was this the aftermath of that? Had he assimilated all those buildings and the pyramid into his Thought Space? Maybe not their physical aspect, but their Representation? Is that how one shaded their perception?
It was actually quite a logical assumption. How could one evolve and surpass their human selves—gaining extraordinary command over the world without consuming some sort of resource? Surely, Observation worked on some kind of law of conservation.
If everyone could shade their perception without a cost to the world, it would imply infinite energy. That was never the case. Never. At least he hadn't seen it happen.
Could this be the reason this eye had awakened? To punish him for his transgressions in consuming this land's resource? But he disregarded that thought very next moment. He really wasn't important enough in the grand scheme of things. Something else—
And then, in his peripheral vision—he saw it. The horrifying scene. The sun blinked. Just once, a slow, deliberate motion that sent a fresh wave of terror crashing over him. It was a confirmation of his worst fears—that this was no illusion, no trick of the mind, but a sentient being of immeasurable power and inscrutable intent.
The blink shattered the fragile veneer of calm he had clung to. It was not just the sight of that cosmic eye but the feeling that came with it—a sense of insignificance so profound that it threatened to erase his very sense of self.
He was an ant under the magnifying glass of a child, an infinitesimal speck about to be burned into nothingness by a curiosity without empathy.
Not wanting to push his luck anymore, he did it. He ceased the trickle of thoughts that consciously connected him to the rune in his mind. He would deal with whatever was in Elmhurst as it came. This was so far beyond him it wasn't even a joke.
.
.
.
Why is it taking so long? He was definitely exiting this realm, maybe even turning immaterial this very second.
But it wasn't fast enough!
Then, the eye in the sky blinked again, and a pulse of unseen energy radiated outward. It was not a dramatic flare, no thunderous declaration of its might—it was subtle, almost a whisper, yet it carried the force to unmake worlds.
The ground beneath him didn't just shake—it disintegrated, grains of reality coming undone like sand against an unrelenting tide. The plethora of eyes around him bent, their shapes warping as if reality itself was a reflection in a funhouse mirror.
It wasn't destruction with intent. It was destruction as a consequence. The eye's gaze, indifferent and sweeping, was like a laser passing over the delicate film, leaving only a void in its wake. The world didn't scream—it simply ceased to be, piece by piece, an unmaking of existence that paid no heed to what was caught in its view.
As his consciousness finally slipped away, the last thing he saw was the horizon itself peeling back, the sky and earth curling away like the pages of a burning book, consumed by knowledge too vast to be contained.
HUFF
PUFF
HUFF
PUFF
The moment he felt sensible enough to breathe, he inhaled large mouthfuls of air, his heart still ramming against his chest—almost seeming to want to escape it. What the hell happened there…?
In a couple more breaths, his body keeled over on its own, and he shivered intensely, trying his best to get his faculties under control.
But it didn't listen to him.
Vern had felt that destructive energy pass by him. One second. If he had hesitated for even one more second, he would've been nothing more than ash swept up in unfelt winds in that desolate world. His very existence would've been wiped clean.
He had long since accepted that he was nothing but a speck of dust in this unfeeling cosmos, but a reminder like that didn't feel good. It—
"What the fuck, newbie!? Where'd you come from—nah, never mind, just RUN! Forget the chicks and get out of there. Captain can't contain this one completely. You'll be buried alive."
The words sent another jolt through him, and his mind reeled. That…? Is he not dead? That was Ambrose's voice, wasn't it? But that can't be right.
Nevertheless, the content of those words was too significant for him to pass up as a hallucination. Gritting his teeth hard, he stabilized himself and stood back up. No rest for the wicked.
And when he looked up, that sentiment was only further solidified. Back to square one, huh? he chuckled, almost with a dark amusement.
When he escaped, an impossible attack was looming over them like a reaper. Now that he was back expecting safety, another, even more destructive attack was hurling towards him.
A gigantic spiral bursting with golden radiance drilled towards them from the heavens above with a ferocious momentum. It was like one of those depictions of dragons, but very real and very lethal. It distorted the air wherever it passed through—its destructive might clear for all to see. But in its path stood a man on a...cloth. Isn't that…
But now wasn't the time to question what that shaggy swordsman was doing here. Ambrose had insinuated that Cera and Esther were alive. A simple look at his surroundings confirmed the fact—Cera was lying unconscious next to some rubble, whereas Esther held her head curled into a ball.
His brain almost failed to process it. How could this be? There's no way they survived this onslaught for over an hour. Did the fight shift to another battlefield before the radiant man managed to pull it back here?
Many conjectures clashed with each other in his mind, but he ruthlessly quashed all the unnecessary questions. Cera and Esther weren't dead right now, but they would be in a few seconds if he didn't do something about it.
Carrying them out of the building wasn't an option, given how that golden spiral was closing in at an alarming pace. Maybe Ambrose could have done it with his dashes, but a look at him told Vern that he was busy in his own battle—chasing a white-robed man out of the building.
This only firmed Vern's resolve. He would have to take charge this time. He was done escaping this fight—no one was going to be buried in this damned station. He had just Shaded his Perception with a Vision related to Stability, for fuck's sake. It'd weigh down his conscience too much if he didn't give it his best shot.
So, he rapidly analyzed the attack and its possible effects. Ambrose said the swordsman would try to contain ‘this one’ but might be unable to do so thoroughly. The phrasing suggested that the previous attack, which had elicited Vern to flee into the Third Rune, was thwarted by the swordsman, too.
And given how the station was mostly unharmed except for some of the holes from before, he must have had a formidable defense. Compared to the previous attack, it shouldn't be a stretch to assume that the swordsman could handle the brunt of this attack.
Because if that spiral came for them, there was nothing he could do about it. He didn't understand what that spiral was, much less its structure or weakness to induce instability in it. So, countering it outright was out of the question.
His new sight might help, but he didn't think it was a great idea to pit himself against someone who probably had far more Representation than himself. There was also the problem of it being hard to Observe when something was already being manipulated by another Observer.
Left with only one option of holding his ground, he peered into his perception with nothing in particular as the keyword.
.
.
.
That was a mistake, and he shut it back down right away.
Because in that short instant, his blindingly bright Thought Space dimmed a little, and he managed to glean almost nothing from the mess of grays—wasting the sight. But this made him wonder, Could the brightness of my Thought Space be a measure of my Representation?
It sure looked like it. But then he shook his head and instead worked out the specifics of what had to be done.
A plan soon took shape in his mind, factoring in all the extraordinary Visions and sights at his disposal. He had long imagined the possible uses of Stability Inducement, and now was the time to be creative.
Once he filled in the gaps in his plan with all the details, he felt ready to exploit the heck out of his perception. And it was about damn time, too.
Harmony and Disharmony
His surroundings fractured into a tapestry of greys and silvers—the harmony and disharmony of the structure around him becoming as clear as day and night. Intact sections of the ceiling glowed with a resolute silver sheen, indicative of their unyielding strength, while the cracked pillars bled with darker shades, signaling their desperate need for stability.
So, his conjectures were indeed right. His Thought Space was a tool of permanence, immortalizing the insights he had gleaned in the past. He didn't need to assign the gray to each and everything by himself anymore—though he felt like he could still do it if he wanted to. Just how it should be.
Mentally noting the current state of the building, he moved on.
Fulcrums
His focus narrowed, and the world seemed to lose shape. Each beam, each stone, now sported a directional gradient that pointed towards the sections that held the building aloft. The fulcrums, the critical points that bore the weight of architecture, shone brightly like stars in a dark space. These were the key points that needed to be protected when push came to shove. Because if they broke, the collapse would be imminent.
What else? He wondered as the intense beating of his heart resounded in his ears alongside the shrieks generated by the traversal of that golden spiral. It was almost upon them. The swordsman's silhouette cut a lean figure against the chaos, hand poised on the hilt of his blade, ready to draw from its sheath in a swift, defining move.
Time to maintain balance. He had deduced the critical points that had to be stabilized to maintain an equilibrium. He still had to extrapolate the balance in the rest of the building, but he would wait till the last moment to do that—making optimal use of his Representation.
So, this was all he could do to prepare in the limited time available to him, and hopefully, it would be enough.
"Newbie…no, Vern! Get out of there, man! Don't be stupid."
Unfazed, Vern focused harder, eyes narrowing on the advancing threat. "Trust me," he thundered, voice steady as an oak tree, "I have a plan."
