The next day, the sun rose again, illuminating the rare and unique black city with its golden rays. The light pierced through the clouds, which shifted and changed shape as the breeze slowly carried them across the sky.
Little by little, the city began to fill with movent. Commoners, rchants, farrs, and other residents took to the streets to go about their business. Footsteps echoed on the dark stones, the murmur of everyday life could be heard once again, and at first glance, everything seed perfectly normal.
Too normal.
No rumors were circulating about the deaths the night before. No one whispered anything on street corners, not a single voice ntioned the chaos that had taken place. It was as if the entire city had agreed to absolute silence... or as if they had chosen to ignore what had happened with deliberate calm.
Last night had been noisy, bloody, and yet, not a single commoner was seen on the streets. Not even a dog barked amid the commotion. It was unnatural, unsettling, an imposed silence that weighed heavier than the cries of battle.
The whole situation in the city felt strange. A perfect facade of normality covered what was hidden beneath.
And it was well known that the more normal sothing seed... the more dangerous it was.
In the luxurious inn, Kael sat near the window. Footsteps and murmurs began to reach his ears, growing louder and louder, but his gaze remained fixed on the city; with each passing mont, it felt more alive and noisy.
He slowly inhaled the gentle morning breeze that blew against his face. His thoughts wandered to what he had learned the day before about "The Major": now he knew one of the people behind everything that was happening on Mount Vigerth.
With that information, Kael knew he could act with precision... or simply do nothing and just watch everything unfold on its own.
However, what he was going to do now was exactly that: observe. He wasn’t going to be so active, because he wasn’t yet clear about the benefits he could gain from getting involved too soon.
Because the smartest thing to do was to wait and not show too much of his strength.
What he was going to do was his initial plan, to continue strengthening himself before leaving, to reach at least rank 6, or at least rank 7, Peak level.
"Hmm..." Kael turned his face toward the source of the sound and saw Audrey, who was rising heavily from the bed.
"Good morning," he said in a neutral tone.
"Hmm... Good morning," Audrey replied in the middle of a yawn.
Kael stepped away from the window and walked steadily toward the door. He opened it without looking back and left the room, ready to go to breakfast.
In the hallway, he closed the door behind him. Instantly, he was t with all kinds of looks: confusion, a hint of fear... none of the looks were natural; they all seed laden with silent judgnt.
Unfazed, Kael went down to the first floor. He headed straight for the food court and chose an empty table, sitting down calmly.
Not long after, a waitress approached to take his order.
"What would you like to eat for breakfast today?" she asked with a professional smile.
"Scrambled eggs with vegetables, bread, and wine, with a little vanilla ice cream," Kael ordered in a calm voice. It was a simple breakfast, nothing too heavy.
The waitress took note of everything, though she couldn’t help but be surprised. It seed strange to her that this young man would order vanilla ice cream with every al.
He must really like it... she thought with a wry smile. With that indifferent expression all the ti, you’d expect him to prefer a stronger flavor, like chocolate or coffee ice cream.
What she didn’t know was that Kael, despite all the experiences he had had throughout his existence... or rather, his three lives, had always had the sa preference: vanilla ice cream. That little taste was the only thing that had never changed.
Kael watched as the waitress slowly walked away, and when she disappeared from view, he felt it again: the stares. This ti, they were much more intense, and they weren’t coming from a specific place, but surrounded him from all angles, like needles digging into his back.
He decided to ignore them for the mont. He wanted to see how far this would go.
A few minutes passed. The waitress returned with his breakfast, placing it in front of him just as he had requested. But before she could leave, Kael spoke.
"Waitress, taste the food and tell if it’s perfectly seasoned." His voice remained as neutral and firm as ever, leaving no room for reply.
The young woman raised an eyebrow, puzzled. However, she knew that nobles often had strange whims and quirks. She hesitated for just a mont and then, with a restrained gesture, took a spoonful from each dish. She tasted everything, again and again, checking that the flavor was just right.
"Young nobleman, everything is perfect," she finally said, wiping her mouth with a napkin, her voice calm, though a spark of confusion still glinted in her eyes.
"..." Kael stared at the food for a few seconds, his eyes silently scanning every detail of the plate. Suddenly, he calmly stood up from his seat, pushed his chair back, and without saying a word began to walk toward the exit of the luxurious inn.
"Young nobleman?" The waitress hurried over to him, her voice full of confusion. "Is sothing wrong? Why don’t you want to eat? Is there sothing strange about the food? Can you tell what’s going on?"
The questions ca out in rapid succession as she tried to understand the young man’s reaction. To her, it made no sense: first, he insisted that she try the food, and now, for no apparent reason, he was getting up to leave.
Is this young master crazy? Or is he under the influence of so strange substance? She thought with a frown, unable to find an explanation.
But Kael did not respond. Not a single word ca from his lips.
The waitress, with no other option, stood frozen in the doorway, watching uncertainly. From there, she saw the young man with black hair walk away step by step, his figure slipping through the crowd until he was lost in it, like a shadow fading into the night.
He made his way through the dark streets. Kael still had that persistent feeling: that he was being watched. It was strange... and bizarre at the sa ti, as if thousands of invisible eyes were opening and closing around him, but none could be pinpointed.
As he continued, his steps took him past several establishnts and street stalls. Everything seed normal at first glance, but there was an absurd edge to the normality that stuck in his mind.
In the central square, next to the black fountain, he ca across the statue.
An impossible figure: the body of an angel, but with the elongated face of a dog, a neck as sturdy as a lion’s, and mbranous bat wings. The stone glowed with an opaque sheen, as if the sacred had been hamred out in a blasphemous whim.
It was grotesque, it was ridiculous... and yet it exuded an aura of unshakeable solemnity, as if one should bow one’s head before it.
Kael watched it for a while. The more he looked at it, the more real and absurd it seed.
And yet, even after walking all over the city, that feeling of being watched hadn’t disappeared one bit. The faces in the crowd smiled, haggled, lived their lives as if nothing had happened.
Everything was too normal. Too perfect.
Kael stopped after long hours of moving back and forth, looking for a crack, a trace, any sign of abnormality. But he found nothing.
"Normal..." he murmured, his voice neutral.
The normalcy there was what was truly disturbing. Everything was too real to be reduced to an illusion.
Kael, without changing his expression in the slightest, thought about one possibility: if it wasn’t magic, there was only one thing that could do this, a Zu Master. In the book, he had read about the Zu; it said that the path of the Zu, even though the higher their rank, the greater their price, was bizarre and unknown.
It made the supernatural blend with reality and the real blend with the bizarre. It was strange but fascinating at the sa ti.
At that mont, sothing began to happen.
Houses began to stretch and shrink, stretching like gum and then shrinking to the size of toy boxes, deforming as if they were cartoons.
The sa thing happened to people: their arms stretched out until they touched the ground and then shrank until they looked like rag dolls.
Amid hollow laughter, everyone held hands, spinning in circles as their figures continued to deform absurdly, stretching and shrinking, stretching and shrinking...
Even the sky seed like a joke. The clouds stretched out like cotton snakes, the sun bent as if it were a fresh painting, dripping liquid yellow light.
The horizon undulated, the houses tilting sideways as if dancing in a comical carnival.
Everything was absurd, comical... and at the sa ti deeply disturbing.
But despite that scene, Kael’s expression did not change in the slightest. Anyone else would have fallen to their knees, terrified, or fled in panic.
He, on the other hand, remained motionless, watching calmly, as if that grotesque spectacle were nothing more than a passing detail.
He gathered the essence of mana in his fingers. With a simple gesture...
Snap.
The snap of his fingers was like thunder that shattered the illusion. Energy scattered throughout the place, and reality began to crumple as if it were a sheet of old paper.
The absurd scene folded in on itself, tearing and falling apart in shreds until it revealed what was hidden beneath.
The paint faded, the caricature crumbled.
Kael remained in the sa place... but everything had changed.
Throughout the streets, impaled on tall poles, were the heads of the inhabitants. Their eyes, wide open and empty, stared at him from every angle. The ground was covered in thick, dark blood and scattered organs, as if they had been thrown there at random. Entrails were mixed with the dirt.
The stench of decay perated the air.
The city was not alive. It was just a corpse moving around disguised as normality.
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