Chapter 263: Nightmares [I]

After Lily finished reading the final inscription out loud, none of us moved.

The silence that followed was so heavy I could almost physically feel it pressing down on us.

We just stood there, rooted in place.

A few long and mournful moments, and Ray finally spoke up.

"Well... that was depressing," he exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. Then he glanced around. "But hey, uh— what’s this

’Supreme One’

? The record said a

’Supreme One’

came after the war, killed their weakened protectors, and bled their world into his realm. What the hell’s that supposed to mean?"

Lily looked thoughtful for a second. "You know how researchers believe all the regions of the Spirit Realm are fragments of other worlds, right? When too many Portals open in a world, the phenomenon destabilizes its reality. Eventually, that world collapses and gets absorbed into this realm."

Ray bobbed his head quickly. "Right, the famous Patchwork World Theory. I skimmed a few books about it in high school."

"So," Lily continued, "it could be that this

’Supreme One’

was some kind of Spirit Beast from this realm who led the invasion of the Triviscaris’ world. Since Triviscaris were already weakened after their defeat at the hands of the gods, he killed their protectors and claimed everything — their lands, their skies... even their dead. He tore their world apart and stitched it into his own."

"Sounds... terrifying," Vince said, his voice wary. "But it also sounds like a myth. No

Unholy

beast could be

that

powerful."

"...Maybe it wasn’t an

Unholy

beast," Lily said quietly. "Maybe it was

Demonic

."

Silence once again returned to the temple’s inner sanctum. But this silence was not the mournful kind like earlier.

This silence was restless and uneasy.

Someone shuffled on their feet. Someone else turned their head.

And then, one by one, they all looked at me.

I met their gazes and shrugged. "I don’t know. Could be."

That was obviously a lie.

Because I

did

know.

I knew exactly what the

’Supreme One’

was.

Only one being I knew could devour whole worlds and stitch them into his own like Lily theorized.

And he wasn’t

Unholy

. He wasn’t

Demonic

.

He was a

God

-rank creature.

A being powerful enough to bend entire realities to his will.

A being ruthless enough to make even the heavens fear him.

He was, of course... the Spirit King.

"Oh, whatever. At least he’s dead," Alexia said lazily, waving her hand as if brushing the thought away. Then she froze mid-gesture. "...He is dead, right? The records didn’t mention his death, but he has to be, right?"

Nobody rushed to answer her.

"...Right?!"

Vince adjusted his collar. "Well, these records are eons old. He

has

to be dead by now. We’d definitely have heard of a creature

that

strong if it was still alive and kicking."

He paused, then gave a helpless shrug. "But Monarchs are known for hiding things from the world. So, who knows? Maybe this

’Supreme One’

is still lurking somewhere out there, waiting for us to fall. Or maybe he’s just taking a nap."

...Wow.

I doubted even Vince knew how close to the truth he was.

Ray groaned. "Fantastic. So it’s basically a Schrödinger’s Apocalypse."

"Comforting," Kang muttered from somewhere in the background.

And pretty soon, they were all murmuring among themselves.

Only Michael stayed unusually quiet.

His arms were crossed and his expression unreadable.

Outwardly, he looked calm. But I caught the flicker in his eyes that told me he knew much more than he’d ever admit here.

Hmm. I wondered if I had the same look on my face as him right now.

Did I look worried? Or did I look fearful yet cautious — like someone who already knew exactly how this story would end?

...Eh. I doubted it.

Because unlike Michael, I had a

great

poker face.

I knew how to keep my emotions neat and hidden. I knew how to bury the things I felt.

My thoughts were a mystery, sometimes even to me.

No one in the world could tell how I was feeling.

How anxious I was at the mention of the Spirit King’s name.

No one at all.

Because I had never let anyone get close enough to understand me.

My path was a lonely one. And I had to walk it alone.

"Why do you look so anxious?" Juliana’s voice slid in from my left, flat and passive.

I turned to see her staring at me with those sharp, dissecting eyes.

Of course.

Of course she, of all people, could tell.

And she couldn’t even let me brood in peace like an edgelord protagonist.

I coughed into my fist, forcing my tone flat. "I just don’t feel good staying in here. This place reeks of bad vibes."

Ray perked up instantly, nodding like I’d just said something very profound. "Thank you! I thought I was the only one. Creepy temple ambiance is fun for, like, ten minutes. After that, it’s just... moldy depression. I don’t want to sleep here and have nightmares."

"Seconded," Kang grunted.

A few others murmured in agreement.

And just like that, it was decided that we’d camp near the entrance.

Far enough from the unsettling murals of men turning into harrowing abominations, but still under a solid roof.

Naturally, though, before leaving, everyone started scavenging the place like vultures.

Michael nearly started hyperventilating as chaos ensued around him.

Every one of these so-called geniuses — Cadets with exemplary academic records and sharp wits — immediately devolved into doing the kind of reckless, stupid things you most definitely

shouldn’t

do in a possibly cursed temple.

Juliana ran over to an alcove and buried her hands elbow-deep.

When she pulled them back out, she was holding a cracked skull. She brushed the dust off it and smiled that psychotic little smile of hers. "I’ll mount this over my bed."

"...What the actual fuck," I muttered.

She wasn’t serious, was she?!

She wasn’t actually going to use a skull for decoration, right?!

Then again, knowing her, she absolutely was.

Vince crouched near a stone tablet, pried it out of the wall, and laughed a laugh so greedy that it could’ve put most capitalists to shame. "Collectors pay millions for artifacts like this!"

Alexia, of course, had reclaimed the altar as her personal mattress. She lounged across it with her hands tucked beneath her head.

No, really!

She was using a fucking altar as her bed!

"Wake me up if you find anything shiny," she yawned.

Meanwhile, Ray was everywhere at once. He was snapping photos, running his hands over carvings, and whispering to himself. "Oh my god, this vlog is going to be a hit!"

In short, it was utter bedlam.

Now remember earlier when I said to

never touch anything in a shady temple

? And that

you’d understand why later

?

Well... this wasn’t it. Not yet.

Poor Michael was darting from corner to corner, desperately trying to stop our dumb teammates from triggering some kind of ancient death-traps.

His voice cracked as he flailed his arms. "Stop touching things! Don’t pull that! Put that back! That could be cursed! That’s

definitely

cursed!"

I shook my head, disappointed. "Michael’s right, you guys. This is exactly how you die in a temple horror movie. Touching everything. Looting everything. I thought you all were smarter than— than..."

My voice trailed off.

Because my eye caught something interesting.

In one alcove, half-hidden under a curtain of vines, was a... lever.

My curiosity perked.

So, naturally, I walked over to flip it.

Michael’s horrified shriek echoed through the sanctum. "Samael, no—!"

But he was too late.

—Click!!

I pulled the lever.

...And nothing happened.

"Aww," I dusted off my hands, dissatisfied. "It did nothing—"

That’s when Michael, in his rush to stop me, tripped onto a sunken stone tile.

—Click!!

He did the very thing he’d been trying to stop everyone else from doing.

He triggered an ancient death-trap.

And this... was it.

The walls hissed.

A volley of arrows rained down on us from small cracks hidden in the ceiling.

However, thanks to our Awakened physique and reflexes, most of us dodged easily.

Most of us except Vince, who was still half-limping from nearly yeeting himself off the cliff earlier.

Thwaak—!!

"Fuck—!" Vince gasped as an arrow grazed his shoulder, carving open a thin red line.

He staggered, clutching his wound as a single drop of blood splattered onto the temple floor.

Immediately, chains of glowing runes flared up all around us like strings of fairy lights, drowning the whole inner sanctum in a bright glow.

Light pushed back the darkness, illuminating the entire temple.

And then we saw... eyes.

Hundreds of thousands of tiny purple eyes blinked open across the walls.

On every mural.

On every carving.

On the cracked altar Alexia had just jumped down from.

On the skull Juliana was still cradling like it was her favorite art piece.

Even on the tablet Vince had greedily pried out of the wall.

Everywhere.

And all of them blinked in unison.

The sanctum itself was staring at us.

Ray reacted with pure eloquence. "...Nope. Nope nope nope. This is too much! I’m blowing this whole place to smithereens!"

Michael’s face had gone the color of curdled milk. "Nobody move! Don’t breathe too hard! Don’t even blink!"

"Why?" Kang rumbled. "They’re already blinking for us."

"Oh my god," Vince groaned, clutching his shoulder, "I knew it. This place wants me dead! First I almost fall off a cliff, now I’m the blood sacrifice!"

Alexia’s brows furrowed in confusion. "I’m sorry, what’s going on and why is everyone panicking?"

Nobody answered her.

"Listen," Juliana said while calmly tossing her skull aside. "If they eat Vince, I call dibs on his shoes."

"...What the actual fuck is wrong with you, Juli?!" I snapped, then turned to Lily. "Activate your innate power!"

"Already on it," Lily said quickly, summoning her Origin Card.

A river of light particles poured out from her body, converging above her head into the shape of a rectangular Card—

—Cling!

But the moment it finished materializing, a high-pitched metallic sound rang out.

The Card dissolved back into light particles and retreated into her soul.

"What the—?" Lily exclaimed, fumbling as she tried to resummon her Origin Card. But again, the attempt fizzled into nothing. "I–I can’t draw my Cards! Any of them!"

Ray’s panicked voice resounded from our right. "I can’t draw any of mine either!"

And then the real horror hit.

The Cards we already had drawn were dismissed as well.

One by one, our weapons disintegrated into light sparks and went into our Soul Arsenals — my axe, Michael’s longsword, Juliana’s rapier... everything.

The wave of panic spread through our group faster than fire across dry kindling.

Juliana tilted her head, narrowing her eyes at her now-empty hand. "How interesting. Our connection to the Soul Arsenal isn’t severed. We can still call our Cards, but they won’t stay materialized. So the question is — how are our powers being suppressed?"

"Interesting?!" Michael shouted, his voice cracking with the kind of hysteria that only impending death could inspire. "We’re defenseless! Defenseless in a place where everything has eyes!"

Kang just cracked his knuckles, completely unfazed. "Then let’s just fight without Cards."

"Yeah, sure, big guy!" Ray spat, gesturing wildly at the blinking walls. "You gonna punch the architecture? Maybe suplex the floorboards into submission?"

"Okay, seriously, what the hell is going on?!" Alexia yelled again.

I clenched my jaw. "Guys, don’t panic! These things are not attacking us! They’re simply watching! If they could harm us, they would’ve already done it!"

"What things?!" Alexia was practically pulling her hair out by now. "Did you guys forget I can’t see?! I can’t see what’s happening! What things?!"

And that’s when the eyes... smiled.

Not with mouths. Not really. They didn’t have mouths.

But the stone warped just enough that the carvings seemed to twist into grotesque grins, stretching from mural to mural, like the entire sanctum was delighted to see us squirm.

Then came the sound.

It wasn’t

exactly

laughter, but something very close.

It was a scraping, guttural resonance that vibrated from the walls, from the floor, from the air itself.

It sounded like the temple was hungry.

"Oh, fuck it!" I shouted. "Let’s just run!"

No one argued.

We readied ourselves to bolt for the entrance—

...But the moment I turned around, the sanctum was gone.

Instead, I was standing alone in the middle of a burning street.

Flames roared from collapsing buildings. Smoke choked the air. Sirens wailed in the distance.

People were running around fearfully.

Many of them were crying, but most of them were screaming while getting mauled by vicious beasts.

I felt my throat dry up as recognition struck me like a hammer to the chest.

A broken whisper slipped from my lips. "...Ishtara?"

Yes.

I was back in Ishtara.