All around them was black, its Eclipse still active, making every wave except its own incapable of propagation.
Alas, those waves were no longer his… but hers.
She commanded all the Dark Stars—its vast number and her own—drawing them into a thick black mantle as her gaze lingered on the prompt before her.
Cognitive Mirage – 16.581%
So The Tower had recognized that as a skill? Why?
She had merely tampered with each of the Overseer’s senses—feeding its eyes a different sight, tuning its hearing to another frequency, altering touch, smell, and above all its EM perception of the world. She had forged false connections, transmissions that never existed, while studying its mental responses inside an induced illusion of her own design. Yet this felt more nuanced than the skills she had encountered so far. After all, she had to manage countless processes at once, and the outcome could be shaped in near-infinite ways—sight alone, sound alone, or any layered combination.
Her inspiration for it reached back to the white rooms, where she had first tampered with her own signals. Back then it had been against a static copy of herself, with all the time in the world, and her SP barely at 1%.
Later, in the Island, she refined it, and after countless trials developed a technique capable of affecting others in motion—a technique that had once made her strong enough to lead a faction in the Oasis. Yet… after that, her mental state had been far from stable, shaken by too many things that had spiralled since Siddharth’s death.
When she saw how the creatures of the second stage possessed strong mental defenses, she abandoned subtle manipulation and shifted to crude, targeted pulses—just enough to delay their perception for a moment. She kept to that method until… her Awakening. The beginning of her mind–body imbalance, and the turn toward a logical route that favoured proven, practical paths over creativity and risk.
And so, at its core, the technique had been lost. Dormant. Until now. Until she regained her full clarity, her humanity—that willingness to follow uncertain paths, to take risks for rewards. The Extreme Pillar Path, fused with her Awakening, had given her the tools to bring it back in a far more powerful form. No longer a mere distraction, but a force capable of breaking through strong mental defenses, corrupting all senses at once, and layering a false reality over the truth.
The skill’s progress spoke for itself. It had surpassed every other she possessed by more than 3% the moment it appeared. Was she… truly that good at it? Perhaps. She had created its foundations herself, way back then. And it felt aligned to her strengths in a way that was almost unsettling. As if it had always belonged to her.
Was this what Alonso felt when he carved his own path?
Was this… her path?
Perhaps the Tower’s intent was not for its gifts to be taken as absolutes, but as building blocks—for each to forge their own, in unpredictable ways. An analogy, perhaps, to letting nature take its course—the intrinsic randomness that birthed life and evolution.
It was worth discussing with Lukas and the others.
For now…
She stared at the Fourth Overseer, its mind fully lost in the mirage. The disconnection from its kind had cascaded into a fracture of its own mind, leaving it vulnerable. But… it was still alive—or at least its body was.
The question was, what to do with the Xok’al under its control?
She understood from the Overseer’s attempted transmissions that it was linked to another six—well… now five. It seemed Alonso had finished one of them off.
So those original seven were the main nodes in the Xok’al’s neural network, each with a set of subnodes under it—the Wardens. Beneath them came the Commanders, and so on. That meant each Overseer had absolute control over its own cluster, but not much influence over the others. What linked the Overseers together was different: not hierarchy, but a non-linear biological connection. A communication of equals, not command.
Which meant that, by hijacking the Fourth Overseer’s signature, she now had the ability to transmit to all the Xok’al under it. More than a hundred thousand directly, and millions if the nests were counted.
So… what to do?
She could try to control them, bend them against the other clusters. But the risk of failure was high. Eclipse kept them hidden for now, but once lifted, she could not perfectly mimic the Overseer’s nature of communication. She could copy its wave signature, yes, but not its underlying behaviour or thought-pattern. The others would easily notice. They would wrestle control back. And the chance would be wasted.
That left the direct option.
Every entity carried an intrinsic wave profile, a living frequency signature. Most ran far beyond what she had ever been able to reach. Higher bands, like light, had always been closed to her unless she forced the range with Eclipse. Only then had interference been possible.
Now, though—after the Third Extreme Pillar State—she could reach them unaided. But not without strain.
Chiara stilled herself. One mind traced the threads of resonance she had sensed. Another rebuilt the Overseer’s wave-signature in precise layers. The third stabilised the lattice, holding the pattern against background noise.
And then, finally, the signature held.
She mapped each subnode. She overlaid the Overseer’s imprint upon her own waves. She drew the three streams of thought into one blazing, omnidirectional Sun Pulse and drove it outward, a command encoded in their own ways.
Not a request. Not a suggestion.
A Decree.
“I—The Fourth Overseer—command you…”
Her wave crashed across the capital, rolling into the far edges of Azcoyatl territory.
“Die.”
And then… there was silence.
Every link to the Overseer vanished.
Every single Xok’al under its command… was dead.
Chiara steadied her breath. She had told herself they were constructs, no more than tools for this stage. Yet the truth remained—over a hundred thousand lives ended at her word.
For a moment she held the weight of it. Then she let it go.
This was war. Humanity’s survival. Her world’s survival. Hers, Lukas’, everyone’s. If they were to climb this Tower, nothing could be spared. She would do anything—absolutely anything—to see them through.
Her gaze returned to the body before her, vacant and unmoving.
She summoned her Dark Stars, shaped them into a jagged blade, and brought the edge down in a single, decisive stroke.
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The Fourth Overseer’s life ended without a sound.
Yet contrary to her expectations, the body dissolved into nothingness, leaving behind a single red orb.
Just one?
Curious, she lifted it with her Dark Stars. As it hovered into her palm and her fingers closed around it, the orb melted into her skin, vanishing as if it had always belonged there.
Stage 1 – 23.983% ? 25.983%
She felt two threads of light unfurl within her, weaving outward through her veins. One blazed golden, searing with heat. The other shimmered silver, cool and soundless. They wound around her arms and legs, twining tighter until light thickened into form.
The first took the shape of a circlet that shimmered like molten dawn. Its threads glowed with cracks of living fire, humming with radiant frequency.
The second solidified at her feet as her leather boots dissolved, replaced by shoes wrought of blackened chitin with pale silver etchings.
Aurora Halo
- Physical aptitude +2%
- Pillar aptitude +2%
Noctis Step
- Physical aptitude +2%
- Pillar aptitude +2%
Two more items?
Like the Wyvern’s Mark?
Her hand rose to the earring still hanging from her left ear. It was there, cool against her skin, just as it had always been.
She blinked at the new additions, genuinely surprised by their sudden appearance and—
Wait.
She focused on the circlet, channelling her waves through it. A subtle shift answered her call. Her pulses tightened, their focus sharper, their peaks higher.
This… it did more than simple amplification?
At once, her three minds fell into step.
One mind recalled the Overseer’s Sun Pulse, tracing every angle, every resonance. Another translated the pattern into her own framework, testing, correcting. The third stabilised the entire construct, keeping the threads from tearing apart under pressure. Together they refined, synchronised, and rebuilt the shape of the beam.
Light flared at her brow.
A lance of condensed energy burst outward, carving a molten line into the silver floor. Smoke curled from the groove, the metal hissing as it cooled.
Chiara smiled.
Sun Pulse – 14.396%
Well, thanks for that.
Then her gaze drifted downward, to the other new arrival… the shoes.
She probed them with her waves but found little beyond their high conductivity—and even that fell short of the Dark Stars. She took a few steps, however, and noticed the silence. Each vibration was swallowed, the texture itself absorbing the sound completely.
Soundless steps and a touch of conductivity?
She wasn’t sure that was worth… well… the awful look of them. How was she supposed to walk around in these things? Lukas would laugh himself sick.
Her cheeks warmed at the thought, and for a moment she considered throwing them away altogether. Yet the Pillar aptitude boost mattered. That 2% was more than enough to outweigh aesthetics. Perhaps.
After some thought, she called on her Dark Stars, wrapping the shoes until they reshaped into sleek black boots that rose nearly to her knees.
She conjured a mirror of Dark Stars and examined herself. The boots now worked. But the golden circlet? That wasn’t her style. At all!
With another sigh, she darkened it until it blended seamlessly into her ensemble, matching the rest of her fit.
She turned, checked herself from several angles, and at last allowed a small smile.
Will he like it?
The thought made her blush, and the memory of her last words to him turned her even redder. Her pulse spiked higher than it ever had during the fight, if it was fair to even call it that.
Without another moment wasted, she cloaked herself in Dark Stars. Her form blurred, streaking upward through the hole in the inverted pyramid before vanishing toward the horizon—back to the Marshes.
Behind her, the great Azcoyatl capital lay silent. A graveyard of the race that had ruled it from the shadows—now reduced to husks, their corpses heaped in blood and ashes.
Ayu felt the breeze drape itself across the plains as she stood facing the rising sun.
Every blade of grass pressed its texture against her skin, sharp yet soft, countless strands bending beneath the weight of the dawn. She could sense the grains of soil under her toes—their edges, their weight, their quiet shift as she balanced. Beads of dew slid down to the roots, cool threads of water soaking into the earth, each droplet carrying the taste of morning.
She felt it all—the breath of the world, clear and whole.
It was as if a veil had lifted. What had once been driven only by instinct now returned to her as something fuller, steadier. The rhythm of her heartbeat matched the sway of the grass, the hush of the wind, the roll of light across the wide horizon.
And so she waited. Until even the breeze lingered longer than it should have, pausing as though the world itself drew in a breath.
She turned her face slowly and saw him.
The White Wolf of the West.
Her master. Makoh.
Their eyes met, and nothing else was needed.
For all the times she had pictured this moment, she had expected her chest to tighten, her hands to tremble. Instead, calm flowed through her. Peace, deep and quiet, as though the moment belonged not to chance but to the order of the world itself.
She observed the esteemed grandmaster, his gentle eyes, the gray hair that was topped by wolf like ears. His stance was straight and his presence seemed to blend into his surroundings as if he was not there at all.
Seconds passed in silence, their gaze speaking more than words.
Then, softly, he asked:
“Tell me, Ayu. What is heavier—the body, or the self?”
She blinked once, the question falling into her mind like a stone into still water. A long breath escaped her lips before she answered.
“The body feels weight,” she said slowly, as if tasting each word. “The self decides if it is burden or strength. Without the self, the body is only flesh. Without the body, the self is only wind. Together… they carry each other.”
A hint of a smile crossed Makoh’s weathered face, not pride, not correction, only acknowledgement—as though her answer was another ripple in the stream, neither right nor wrong, only part of its flow.
He asked again, voice quiet but cutting deep:
“And when the stream floods, Ayu… will you swim, or will you sink?”
Her chest rose, steadied. She lowered her eyes to the ground for a moment, then back to his, the clarity of the plains alive in her tone.
“I will breathe with it,” she replied. “If it drags me down, I will feel the pull. If it lifts me, I will rise. The water moves, but I will remain.”
The silence stretched once more, broken only by the breath of the plains.
Makoh’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
“Strength… what is it?”
Ayu’s toes brushed the grass at her side. She felt the blades bend, yield, then rise again. Her voice followed.
“Strength is not to crush. It is to endure. To bend, and return.”
He inclined his head, as though the wind itself had answered.
“Then… weakness?”
Her lips pressed into a line before parting.
“Weakness is not falling,” she said. “It is refusing to stand again.”
The grandmaster shifted a step closer, his bare feet silent on the damp earth.
“And fear, child. What of fear?”
Ayu’s chest rose as the morning air filled her lungs. She exhaled slowly, steady.
“Fear is the teacher. If I listen, it sharpens me. If I turn away, it blinds me.”
For the first time, Makoh’s hand moved. He uncurled his fingers and let them fall to his side, like the settling of a leaf.
“Alright.”
The word was no louder than a whisper, but the air thickened around them, charged with something unseen.
“Then show me,” he said at last. “Show me if the body and the self have truly met.”
Ayu’s heartbeat quickened, not with dread but with clarity. She lowered her stance, one foot sliding across the soil, the other bracing behind. Her fingers flexed, and her breath slowed until it matched the rhythm of the wind itself.
Makoh mirrored no stance at all. He simply stood—still, weightless, eyes steady.
The breeze swelled, rustling the grass into a soft roar.
And in that quiet space between two heartbeats, master and student moved.
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