Emotions are strange. They control us more than we control them.
A single feeling can shape the course of our entire life.
Fear makes people hesitate.
Anger makes them reckless.
Love blinds them, and despair crushes them.
Yet, without emotions, humans are nothing but empty shells.
People believe they understand their own emotions, but do they really? If they did, they wouldn’t be controlled by them. Instead, they would use them.
Happiness fades. Sadness lingers. Hope can be shattered in an instant. No matter how strong a person is, emotions will always find a way to break them.
But emotions aren’t the enemy. They are a weapon—one that can be sharpened and wielded. A person who can control their emotions can control themselves. And a person who can control themselves… can control everything.
Perhaps that’s why emotions are feared. Because once soone understands how to manipulate them—their own and others’—they beco sothing terrifying.
A man driven by madness is dangerous. But a man who controls his madness? That’s unstoppable.
’Alright,’ Sera whispered, ’Brace yourself.’
’Alright, no ti to turn back.’
I feel it the mont Sera activates her skill.
A powerful force surges inside like a huge tornado crashing into a building. And I can feel it within .
It was not fear, it was not even rage—it was power.
My heart pounded in my chest, not from anxiety, but from excitent.
The rush of dopamine flooded my mind, making everything sharper, clearer, faster. Every doubt, every hesitation— all gone.
Confidence fills every fiber of my body. Every movent, every decision, every calculation— they were perfect. My instincts too aligned with my logic, creating a flawless blend of intuition and intellect inside .
With my Ruler’s Skill still active, I could feel the effects amplifying.
The mont Sera’s [Madness Manipulation] skill took effect.
I am no longer just thinking— I’m processing every possible outcos of it, as if my mind has beco a supercomputer running at infinite speed.
I narrowed my eyes, before shifting my focus to a purple screen which appeared in front of my eyes.
Fate’s Interface.
———「Child of Ylthea」———
★ntal Barrier: 67 [↑ 18% temporary]
★Intelligence: 99 [↑ 32% temporary]
★Essence Capacity: 87
★Stamina: 78
★Agility: 88
–––––––––––––––––––––
My intelligence had risen up way too high, it’s almost touching the threshold.
I could feel it—the clarity, the sheer speed at which my mind processed information now. It’s was as if, my brain was reconstructed into sothing else.
Sera’s skill was extraordinary.
[Madness Manipulation]— The major skill of Authority Holder of Emotions, a power that could distort minds, overwhelm emotions, and push soone to the very edge of sanity.
But instead of making lose control, she had refined it, focusing all that raw ntal instability into sothing precise.
It was all thanks to Sera that this skill didn’t turn into a madman, otherwise in the midst of this battle, you would find laughing like crazy.
She had boosted my intelligence, temporarily enhancing my ability to analyze and predict.
I took a deep breath.
Sighhhh…
Slowly opening my eyes, I could now visualizing everything, in front of my eyes everything beca a series of moving equations. Every movent, every attack, every flicker of energy—all variables in a vast, ever-changing calculation.
But I wasn’t interested in Hope or the Faceless Nathalia’s fight.
I had a different goal.
The Real Nathalia.
The Faceless Nathalia wasn’t the true enemy. She was just a construction of soone’s dream into reality, an extension of the real body. The original Nathalia, who was sowhere nearby, dreaming all this nightmare into existence.
I needed to find her.
I still rembered what Goddess Ylthea had told .
You are very weak, considering the other Authority Holders.
It’s a painful truth.
Even with my skills, I couldn’t hope to overpower an opponent like Nathalia.
Well… Not directly. That was Hope’s job. And from the looks of it, he was almost done.
His relentless assault continued. Again and again, his katana carved wound after wound throughout her body.
Each cut tore the Faceless Nathalia apart.
One ti her squishy insides floated out, another ti her she simply dodged all the attack.
Hope’s strategy was taking shape. Despite being standing in a still position and accepting all the attacks— she snow started dodging them.
She was getting nervous now.
Her form should have collapsed long ago, yet she kept on regenerating. Her faceless, featureless body showed no signs of pain.
No screams.
No fear.
No hesitation.
Nothing.
Maybe because she had no mouth to cry out. No eyes to show her despair.
But it didn’t matter.
Hope knew exactly what he was doing.
He didn’t need to kill her.
He needed to destroy the very concept of her existence.
Let the creator feels the fear through her own creation.
Cut. Tear. Shatter.
A Drear’s Perfection… Destroyed.
I could see it now.
Every ti she regenerated, she ca back slightly weaker, slightly less defined than before.
The perfect image in Nathalia’s mind was beginning to crack.
This realization sent a small, cryptic smile onto my face.
’Even dreams can be tainted.’ Sera spoke.
Correct.
And Hope was proving that.
Still, I couldn’t afford to watch this shit forever.
I already had plans A through plan H lined up in my mind. If one failed, I’d move on to the next.
Because if Hope couldn’t finish this… and nothing seed to work—then with this, I would do it by myself, whose probability seems to be almost zero.
Now, I needed to find her.
I activated another one of my skill.
[Elental View]
This skill once allowed to sense everything in the radius of 50 K.Ms, but. Now, after Ylthea’s blessing, its effects seed to have evolved entirely.
_______________________
★〘Elental View〙 [A-rank]
«Omniscient Perception: Can see, hear, and sll everything within a 100 km radius»
«Spatial Projection: Generates a 3D projection of a selected area, displaying real-ti movents»
«Absolute Tracking: Pinpoints the exact location of one or multiple targets, regardless of obstacles or concealnt»
«Foe & Ally Differentiation: Instantly mark between enemies, and allies»
«Elental Resonance: Detects and analyzes elental energies, revealing barriers, or illusions»
__________________________
After reading my skills ability, both my eyes went wide open.
"T-This is insane…" My voice was both quiet and surprised.
Just a short while ago, this skill only allowed to sense my surroundings within a 50 km radius. But now, after receiving Goddess Ylthea’s blessing, its effects had evolved into sothing entirely new.
Now, not only could I sense and track enemies, but I could also distinguish them from allies with absolute certainty.
I clenched my fist, feeling the rush of power flow through .
"Just from a single blessing… this is the result?" I whispered.
For a mont, I felt excited.
All my skills got trendous growth, and on top of that it didn’t even have a side effect.
But then, a nagging thought crept into my mind—
’Was this truly a gift without consequences?’
Every power ca at a price. Nothing in this world was free.
As if responding to my doubts, Sera’s voice echoed in my mind.
’It’s what you get as a reward for taking the responsibilities of gods.’
"..."
Responsibilities, huh?
For what?
Recreating Olympus?
’Yeah, sure… Not happening.’
I sighed deeply, pushing that thoughts away for now.
I turned my focus back to my newly enhanced skill—[Elental View].
The mont I activated it, my vision distorted for a brief second before rapidly expanding.
A flood of information surged into my head as an intricate pattern of web of energy signatures, movents, and even faint scents appeared before .
’T-This is insane!’
I was awestruck.
The forest around was no longer just trees and shadows—it was a map, a detailed projection of every living and non-living thing within a 100 km radius.
Thousands of trees, various animals, and monsters appeared in my vision, each outlined with their unique energy. The clarity was rather insane.
I could hear the faint rustling of leaves, the distant howling of goblins, and even the heartbeat of a deer hiding behind a bush. The skill had truly evolved beyond my expectations.
But I didn’t have ti to be amazed. I had a task to finish.
I shifted my focus to sowhere else, filtering through out the overwhelming amount of information.
Nathalia’s real body—had to be sowhere.
I narrowed my search to less crowded, more concealed locations.
Not here.
Not this one either.
No… not this.
Then, after a few minutes of scanning, I found it.
A fortress.
Unlike anything else in the Demon Continent, this structure was pristine white, standing in stark contrast to the darkness surrounding it. A large garden spread vastly around it, filled with blood-red roses and vines with green thorns. It was beautiful…
A place like this…
This had to be it.
I had finally found her.
I began Plan A.
It was rather simple—
Our main objective was to get out of this continent.
If I sohow got my hands on the teleportation artifact they used to mass teleport us here, then…
We could all escape the Demon Continent without having to fight an Authority Holder directly.
But there was a huge problem.
I didn’t know what the artifact was or where it was located.
End of Chapter.
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