Jamie planned to return to his private booth in the Amphitheatre and instruct the teenagers he had left there to regroup with Lapis before heading to the location he had prepared to absorb the power from the Replica.
John’s appearance had totally thrown things off the tangent Jamie had planned.
The other Hybrid had assud that Jamie was simply after the power contained within the Replica, but he couldn’t have been any more mistaken.
Jamie wasn’t just after his own power—he was after EVERYTHING within the Level 6 Archives.
Unfortunately, John’s misunderstanding had now ruined Jamie’s chances of claiming the powers of the other Replicas hidden there, and worse, he’d revealed the existence of the Level 6 Archives to the Creator Society.
Had Jamie been at full strength, he would’ve already beaten John to the farthest reaches of the Universe and back. That’s how annoyed he felt right now.
With a frustrated click of his tongue, Jamie entered the spatial gate, glancing down at the swirling orb in his hand, roughly the size of a basketball. The energy within humd with familiarity, yet sothing faintly off lingered at its edges.
Any other person would have thought it was just the lingering imprint of the Replica’s ti in the Amphitheatre’s archives, but not Jamie.
’There shouldn’t be any imp-?!’
His thoughts were abruptly cut off as he felt a ripple caused by a spatial distortion tearing through the spatial tunnel around him.
It was a subtle sensation, but Jamie’s senses picked it up.
The distortion wasn’t anchored at his starting point or into the Amphitheatre’s spatial frawork; it was anchored at his destination. A deceptive spatial anchoring overlapped the booth’s coordinates, creating a dinsional anomaly.
But unlike the Gate in Estea that had sent him to the Frozen Dinsion with the Ice Elves, Jamie had no intention of being caught up in so diversion or soone else’s machinations.
Without hesitation, he activated his Authority, ready to destroy the deceptive spatial anchoring. But Jamie’s eyes widened in shock as he realised sothing off about this anomaly.
Activating his Authority allowed him to trace the source of the anomaly, and to his surprise, he realized it was coming from the orb of power in his palm!
The realisation dawned too late.
The interference wasn’t a simple spatial trap—it was a carefully calibrated redirection, exploiting the lingering connection between the Replica’s energy and the Amphitheatre.
The destination it was trying to pull him toward wasn’t foreign; it overlapped with the Amphitheatre itself, hidden within its spatial frawork.
And because the Replica’s energy levels exceeded Jamie’s current power reserves, he didn’t have the ability to instantly counteract it.
He wouldn’t be able to deal with the trap fast enough.
[Imperial Privileges! Second Privilege!]
The Privilege of Space activated, but it was already too late. The distortion had locked onto him, and unless Jamie was willing to abandon the power he ca to retrieve, he couldn’t resist being dragged toward the target destination.
Jamie muttered a curse under his breath as the realization hit him: soone had been waiting for this exact mont.
The only question was who.
That unanswered question echoed in his mind as the spatial gate collapsed, and with a jarring lurch, he was pulled into the unknown.
◇ ◇ ◇
It was a vast endless expanse of white.
In the centre of this boundless void sat a humanoid figure, formless and featureless.
Like a vicious liquid had been poured into a mould that forced them to take on a humanoid shape.
It was completely restrained in a straitjacket that wrapped its body from its neck down to the tips of its toes.
The straitjacket wasn’t just fabric and belts—it was woven with layers upon layers of magic seals, runes and universal law energies.
Each layer was infused with dozens of law Authorities, binding this entity in a prison of cosmic complexity.
The figure remained motionless, as though dormant, until a line tore across its blank face, splitting it into a mouth.
The edges curled unnaturally, and a voice—an ear grating fusion of dozens of tones and cadences—echoed in the emptiness.
"Oh. So, he’s coming."
It tilted its head to the side, then inclined its head down and continued.
"Well, it would be a problem if he were to et like this."
The figure fell silent, as though lost in thought. Then, in a voice touched with playful curiosity, it mused aloud.
"Considering that he’s a man, a woman’s appearance would be more appealing to the eyes, would it not? The question now is—"
It paused, the blankness where its eyes should be tilting upward in contemplation.
"—which appearance would he fancy the most?"
The formless being began to shift.
Its outline warped, moulding itself into a proper human shape.
After several seconds, the transformation stabilized, revealing the image of a young woman with shoulder-length white hair. Her bangs extended just far enough to cover the centre of her forehead.
Her royal blue eyes were frad by a pair of half-frad glasses, completing the familiar face that Jamie would imdiately recognize as Lapis.
The entity examined itself, tilting its head in mild dissatisfaction before shaking it. The features lted away, returning to its formless state.
"No, too familiar. That would be rather... inconvenient."
The figure morphed again, its shape fluid and ever-changing until it reford into the image of a beautiful woman with extrely long black hair tied into a neat French braid.
Her eyes were heterochromatic: the left iris shimred in a captivating shade of red, almost like blood but not quite, while the right iris glead with a clear blue, mirroring the serene hue of the sky.
This too was a figure equally recognizable to Jamie—Olivia’s.
After a mont of scrutiny, the entity let out a faint sigh, shaking its head.
"Too... predictable."
The next transformation reshaped the being into yet another woman, this one with purple-silver hair cascading down her shoulders. Her heterochromatic eyes mirrored the pattern from before, but now the left was a deep purple, the sa shade as that of her hair.
This ti, it had taken on Miranda’s appearance.
Once again, the figure shook its head, and the features dissolved back into the shifting, liquid state.
"If I use any of these appearances, it’s probably going to end up pissing him off."
The voice carried a note of exasperation, though the being sounded more amused than frustrated. It paused, thinking for a mont, before speaking again.
"If that’s the case..."
The figure’s body began to reshape.
It crafted a feminine form, blending traits from countless sources.
With trillions of individuals nearby, it had an abundance of data to draw from, rging the most beautiful features into a single, flawless masterpiece.
Long black hair cascaded down its back, the ends splitting into an array of colours that shifted and shimred with each passing mont.
Her face was stunning, impossibly symtrical in its beauty.
The eyes, however, were the centrepiece—both irises and pupils were a constantly shifting array of polygons.
From triangles to squares, then pentagons and hexagons, continuing all the way down to a decagon. It cycled through the shapes until that point, before restarting the sequence at a triangle.
Despite their srizing geotric patterns, the irises themselves remained a simple brown, with ordinary black pupils.
"Good."
’It’, now a ’Her’, said, admiring her new form.
Her voice had shifted, now a lodic, soothing tone that was disarmingly gentle.
"Now all I have to do is wait... or, better yet, ensure he doesn’t beco suspicious."
With that, she tilted her head sharply to the side, a loud crack echoing as her neck snapped. The broken bone poked out of her flesh as her body slumped forward lifelessly for a few seconds, before her neck jerked back into place.
Then, her eyes snapped open, the light within them dimd and replaced by a vacant, glassy stare.
She glanced around with a dazed expression, her voice uncertain and tinged with innocence.
"Huh? Soone’s coming?"
She murmured as though struggling to piece together her thoughts.
"I know I’m waiting for soone... but who? Why am I waiting for that person?"
Blinking slowly, her expression shifted into one of casual indifference. She shrugged lightly.
"Oh well. When they co, I’ll find out then."
With that, she closed her eyes, her breathing evening out within monts, slipping into a peaceful slumber, as though nothing unusual had happened.
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