Caius’ POV
"Damn."
My perception, which had reached a range of 350 meters, expanded to cover a radius of a full kilometer.
This sudden development drowned me in information that had become vivid and far more detailed.
But that wasn’t the reason I cursed... no, it was something else.
With my advancement to Rank Three, I felt the Mind Anchor react within my body, revealing the truth that had been before my eyes all along.
I thought that as long as I possessed the Mind Anchor, I would be safe from any mental influence within Rank 5... and I wasn’t wrong.
But what if that influence exceeded Rank 5?
It wasn’t as if I had tested this Relic before. Everything I relied on was information I knew from the game.
And now, I was paying the price for that.
What if the mental influence exceeded Rank 5?
The anchor of the mind would try to resist and lessen the effect... but what if the user was too weak?
Simply put, the Mind Anchor wouldn’t be able to perform its function, and the user would fall victim to the mental attack.
And unfortunately, I was that user.
Now I remembered that sharp wave of headache I felt before we met Arthania... it had never been due to fatigue.
And now, after I had become strong enough for the anchor of the mind to function... at least partially,
I could see what had been before my eyes all along... and even feel it.
Through my perception, which had reached the distant city, I felt thousands of ether threads descending from the sky, bypassing all obstacles to connect to everyone’s bodies.
Everyone without exception.
In front of me, I saw Leona staring at me with her mouth open, countless threads running through her body... and more than that... her soul.
If that wasn’t bad enough, right before my eyes, another thread was slowly forming and rising into the sky.
The sky, where that thing was.
I couldn’t sense it, as if it was hiding even from my awareness.
But I could feel the way essence behaved there.
"Caius, we need to leave as soon as possible."
Leona’s tense voice slipped into my ears.
Slowly, I took a deep breath, my heartbeat slowing as it returned to normal.
Panic and fear wouldn’t get us out of this.
From what I could understand, this city had fallen under the control of a high-ranked entity... and that seemed to be the reason behind their long lifespans and those strange behaviors.
And now I understood why no one remembered what had happened to them in the past. It seemed that thing had washed everyone’s minds... but at the same time, it hadn’t fully succeeded, leaving people like Arthania and the old man.
But what mattered now was us.
Slowly, its control was seeping into our bodies, minds... and even our souls.
Fortunately, it was slow... perhaps because it was controlling everyone in the city at once.
And that alone sent a chill down my spine.
Tens of thousands of humans, in addition to thousands of powerful Awakened.
What the hell is that damned thing in the sky?
"Caius... Caius..."
I raised my head to find Leona in front of me, calling my name insistently.
I looked at her calmly before asking,
"Why are you saying we need to leave the city now?"
Leona hesitated at my question, but I pressed further.
"Leona, just tell me everything."
She bit her lower lip nervously, holding her arm before answering,
"Before we entered the maze, I had a dream... a dream where a thread wrapped around me, and slowly I lost myself and became something else."
I listened carefully to every word she said.
"I thought it was just a bad dream because of all the pressure this place is putting on my mind... but the deeper we went into the maze, the worse the feeling became, and I couldn’t get it out of my head."
She raised her hand to the left side of her chest, clutching her shirt tightly.
"Now... all I feel is fear... a deep fear as if I’m about to lose myself at any moment."
"I don’t know if you understand this, but please believe me, we need to leave as soon as possible."
I stared into her clear blue eyes as the words left my mouth.
"It wasn’t a dream... it was a vision of the future."
I knew Leona would awaken something like this... a branch of her ability.
But this was supposed to happen a year from now.
"A vision..." Leona murmured.
I nodded.
"And unfortunately, you realized it too late, because those threads have already started wrapping around us, making us part of this place."
Now I understood why the residents of the city were so focused on making us stay.
"I..."
"But it’s not too late." I cut her off.
"It’s still too early for panic and despair."
I extended my hand toward Leona and held hers.
I felt her hand tremble the moment I touched it.
"W-what are you doing?"
She spoke with tension in her voice, but I didn’t care, because all my focus was on the thread rising from her arm toward the sky.
"Just don’t move."
With that, I extended my other hand to touch the ethereal Thread, but as expected, my hand passed through it as if it didn’t exist.
I stared at it, sensing the essence that formed it.
Before, my perception wasn’t sharp enough to do this, but now I could sense extremely fine things that the eye couldn’t see.
With a simple thought, essence flowed through my body and reached my hand, forming a layer over my skin.
Before, this required a lot of focus to execute, but now it had become second nature.
Slowly, I enclosed the thread within my grasp, and my essence, now stronger and purer, began flowing into it.
...This thread doesn’t exist on the physical level... just like essence.
So the only way to affect it is by going beyond the physical level. This can be done through many abilities.
But in this case, essence alone seems sufficient.
With proper control, my essence wrapped around the thread and began to interfere with it.
In this way, I was compressing the essence forming the thread, breaking and dismantling it.
And it seemed to work.
In front of me, the thread connected to Leona’s body began to break apart until it disappeared completely.
"Looks like it worked."
Still holding her hand, I looked at her, seeing dozens of other threads in her body.
"Umm... I don’t know what worked, but can you let go of my hand if you’re done?"
She spoke with a hint of embarrassment in her voice.
Without holding on any longer, I released her hand... was this really the time to feel embarrassed?
I pushed myself up from the bed, and at the same time, a blade of pure essence formed in my hand.
Unlike before, when forming such things was difficult, it was now simple.
I stared at the long blade as I muttered,
"I think this will work too."
With those words, my hand moved, cutting through the air above Leona’s right side.
The moment she realized I was aiming my blade toward her; it was already too late.
Another thread snapped and vanished into the air.
Well, once you understand how it works, repeating it becomes easier and faster.
Startled by my actions, Leona stepped back.
"What are you doing now... at least warn me first!"
Without paying much attention to her words, my hand moved again, cutting more threads around her while she froze like a tree trunk.
I cut the threads one after another. Well, it wasn’t just a matter of passing the blade and the thread would break.
Instead, the moment the blade and the thread made contact, my essence interfered with the essence forming the thread and dismantled it.
It wasn’t very difficult... as if the thing that created these threads wasn’t putting much focus into them.
Whatever the reason, it worked in my favor.
After some time, I finished cutting the threads around Leona, who remained frozen in place.
"So, are you going to tell me what you’re doing now?"
Annoyance was clear in her voice, so I replied while cutting the threads wrapping around me,
"Like what you saw in your vision, there are many invisible threads wrapping around you... and I just cut them."
After some time, I finished removing every thread around myself.
But at the same time, new threads were forming again.
I looked at Leona, who was watching me silently, focusing entirely on what I was doing without asking anything.
"Where are the others?"
At that, she bit her lower lip.
"They’re at a banquet held in the center of the city."
The center of the city... this would be troublesome.
I turned my head toward the window to look at the view outside.
Before, all I could see were the white buildings stretching forward.
But now...
Tens of thousands of ethereal threads descended over the city.
As if all of this was nothing more than a play.
A puppet show.