[The reward 'Level up [Exorcist's Gaze]' is being applied...]
Oh, automatically?
Ding!
━━━━━━━━◆━━━━━━━━
[Exorcist's Gaze – Lv2 (Active)]
You've stared into the abyss. Now it sees you too.
◈ Passive Effects:
— Mental Interference Detection
Detects hostile mental influence within 25m.
— Illusion Recognition
Grants 50% resistance to low to mid-tier illusions.
— Spectral Perception (New)
Reveals phantoms, spirits, incorporeal beings, and entities cloaked in illusion.
Spectral entities appear in reverse-color outlines or ethereal glow based on alignment.
◈ Active Effect:
— Exorcist's Eye
You channel pure spiritual flame through your gaze, igniting a spectral enemy's spirit from within. Works especially well against evil and spectral entities.
‣ Effect: Focus on a target to set their spiritual essence ablaze for 5 seconds.
‣ Visual: The target's spirit erupts in silver-blue fire which deals continious damage.
‣ Cooldown: 1 day
━━━━━━━━◆━━━━━━━━
[Exorcist's Gaze has reached Lv2!]
The system message burned into my retinas just as white-hot agony exploded behind my eyes. My scream tore through the ballroom before I could choke it back.
It felt like someone had shoved red-hot needles through my optic nerves, twisting them as they went. My hands flew to my face, fingers clawing at my eyelids as if I could rip the pain out but I managed to restraint myself.
"Ghh—!"
Through the torment, fractured understanding came - this wasn't just pain. Something was rewiring my vision at the fundamental level.
I could feel the changes happening behind my clenched eyelids - muscles spasming, capillaries bursting, pupils dilating beyond human limits. Honestly, it felt really uncomfortable, like watching doctors doing operations.
No pain, no gain. This was just the price for—
"!"
The pain started to gradually vanish.
Huff... Huff...
I gasped, trembling fingers peeling back from my face.
Then the world shifted.
When I opened my eyes again, the ballroom had transformed.
The air was alive with phantoms.
Flickering afterimages of students' nightmares danced in the corners of my vision—a girl's spectral double sobbing over an invisible corpse, a boy's shadow-self screaming soundlessly as phantom flames consumed him.
Most terrifying of all was obviously Aeron.
A translucent second body hovered half-inside his unconscious form, its hands wrapped around his throat in a lover's embrace. The entity's somehow stunning but ghastly face turned toward me, lips stretching into a grin far too wide for any human mouth.
[Entity Identified: Vespera (Fragmentary Manifestation)]
"!"
My breath caught.
What the hell is th—
PAIN.
My eyes screamed in protest after just three seconds of this vision. I instinctively deactivated the ability, the knowledge of how to toggle it coming as naturally as breathing.
Blinking rapidly, I wiped the blood from my face with a trembling hand. My normal vision returned along with almost pitch-black darkness. No more Virion's blessing. No night-vision glasses - I left it beside princess.
Shit.
But despite the pain, my lips curled into a grin as I quickly read the new window's contents.
Will my eyes become like Mangekyo Sharingan if I level up it more?
Or even more powerful?!
I immediately mentally facepalmed.
Dumbass, that's copyrighted.
But, a brief moment of imagination couldn't help but flash in my head—me lounging on a shadow throne, trapping enemies in illusions while calmly sipping tea—
"Keke—ghhk!"
My laugh turned into a wheeze as the sword wound on my waist flared.
Right, priorities.
Ripping my already tattered shirt, I fashioned a crude bandage around the injury, tying it tight enough to sting.
Damn, I haven't wore it for even a day.
Just then—
Ding.
━━━━━━━━◆━━━━━━━━
[Hidden Scenario - "Shadow Waltz" - Completed!]
"You danced with a devil in pale moonlight and lived to hear the last note."
Rewards:
+50,000 Aura Coins
- [Combat Mastery: White Lotus Style] (Ultimate beginner-to-advanced close combat package)
- [Vespera's Mark] (Cursed) - The sword now recognizes you.
- [Emergency Recovery] All active injuries stabilized (Does not cure blood loss or exhaustion)
Special Note: "The sword remembers. It always does."
━━━━━━━━◆━━━━━━━━
Immediately followed by:
━━━━━━━━◆━━━━━━━━
[Title Earned: Demon's Sword Waltz Partner]
You matched steps with a cursed blade in the heart of chaos. Few survive the tempo. Fewer leave their mark.
➤ +10% resistance to possession-type effects
[Achievement Unlocked: Broken Halo Duelist]
Defeated a possessed protagonist far stronger than yourself. A moment stolen from fate, carved by defiance.
➤ Slightly increases damage and resistance against possessed individuals.
━━━━━━━━◆━━━━━━━━
Oh right, there were three scenarios, then this must be obviously from Aeron's story.
And seeing those rewards really helps me stabalize my mind.
Hm...
Should I use it now? Or save it for a real emergency?
[Emergency Recovery] - a part of me wanted to stash it away.
From my little experience in this world, I have already reached a conclusion - you never knew when the next blade would find your back, or the next monster would crawl from beneath the skin of someone you trust. Keeping a trump card/saving grace hidden was usually smart.
But then I remembered the earlier message:
— ??? (Complete the hidden objective)
And the illusion field was still intact.
The invisible violet threads of the Phantom Prison still pulsed along the walls but I could only sense them with Echo of Life, and at least a dozen students remained twitching in nightmare thrall.
That could only mean one thing.
If Zephyr had succeeded in destroying the heart, this would've ended already.
So, he either hadn't completed his part of the mission yet, or worse something had gone wrong.
I exhaled sharply, glancing down at my bloodied waist. The wound throbbed with each heartbeat. My legs trembled, arms like wet cloth. Even thinking was difficult, thoughts scattering like birds at a sudden noise.
"Tch… no choice."
I focused on the recovery reward and triggered it.
[Emergency Recovery Activated.]
For a moment, there was silence.
Then, heat surged through my body—not burning, but revitalizing, like warm liquid light flooding every nerve and tendon.
The ache in my limbs vanished. My ragged breath calmed. The bleeding on my side stopped in an instant, the torn flesh stitching itself beneath the crust of drying blood. My head cleared, the fog of exhaustion slowly burning off.
But the discomfort remained. A raw, restless feeling beneath my skin. Like I was out of sync with something.
Maybe the remnants of cursed sword's touch… or something else.
I then stood up, my limbs responded without hesitation now, no longer shaky or stiff. Glancing around the ballroom one last time, I noted the cursed sword was gone—no trace of it or the ghastly figure that my ability idetified as someone called Vespera.
Did it go back... inside Aeron?
Thought lingered in my mind, because that was the only plausible conlusion - it appeared out of nowhere - so it was inside Aeron to begin with, it is usually like this in similar stories too.
"Arhh!" A student's loud cry disturbed my thoughts.
Ok, standing here wasn't going to fix anything.
Turning away, I headed toward the back door, slipping out of the ballroom and into the courtyard behind. The moment the wooden door closed behind me, silence fell—heavy, humid, and still.
Don't worry Zephyr, this student of yours is coming to save you.
I chuckled inwardly as I scanned my surroundings illuminated by the faint moonlight and swept by my Echo of Life and Observant Eye.
I squinted into the darkness.
Nothing.
The courtyard lay empty save for a few unconscious students slumped against the hedges. My Echo of Life registered only the faint pulses of nesting birds and scurrying rodents. No Zephyr. No phantom/prison heart.
"..."
Do I have no other choice?
I asked myself and sighed.
I hope it doesn't hurt again...
[Exorcist's Gaze]