Luke was pulled out of his body.
It was a strange yet familiar sensation.
He had been through such a sensation before… in dreams.
Luke couldn't sense his body anymore, because he was looking at it.
He was all around his body; everywhere at once. He could see himself from all angles if he so wished. He could sense the extraordinary changes his body was going through. And that was much more than he had ever seen or sensed in dreams, making him realize that it wasn't one.
Miss Justice had predicted it.
Advancing to Sequence 6 was a qualitative change.
It was especially so for Luke, who was a Sequence 7 of three different Pathways.
Even Miss Justice had no idea of Luke's chances of safe advancement, calling it an impossibility even in Mr. Fool's world.
But, where most Beyonders would have ended up losing control on the spot, Luke had a cheat to force his way through the initial hurdle.
Unintentionally and coincidentally, Luke, being a Beyonder of three different but closely related pathways, was working in his favor.
As the Cryptologist's abilities never stopped working even as he was like this, Luke instantly figured out his situation.
Of course, without the System's help, he must rely on himself now, treading the path of advancement carefully.
The weird feeling of being outside his body abating was but a start.
Luke saw himself melting in the next moment, a horrifying, nauseous feeling bubbling in his mind. Not only his body, but also his face was melting. It was like cold wax, dripping off his face, but taking away his face along with it.
The dreadful sight was the least of Luke's problems, though.
Because along with the melting, he was sensing… different people within him.
At one time, Luke could swear he saw a boy with a wax face. An orphan boy with no one to talk to. A beaten, bruised boy with no one to complain to. An unloved, unwanted, and undesired boy…
At another time, Luke saw a happy man, smiling at someone in gratitude.
Then, he saw a cold, black, clownish-masked man. Coldness seeped out from behind that mask, his every single thought decrypting a way to defy fate. Even the very breath of this masked man reeked of nothing but revenge…
The fourth waxy face belonged to a 16-year-old boy, lost among lies.
No.
No… No…
Luke decrypted that if this continued, this outsider's point of view would become permanent, with his body mutating right in front of him as he lost control.
He must pull back his stray thoughts and try to go back to his body.
However, knowing this changed absolutely nothing, as Luke couldn't help but… enjoy those faces more and more.
Involuntarily, the thoughts of the happy man kept returning to him.
And, luckily, one of those thoughts just did the trick.
It was the thought, containing a memory.
In this memory, there was a photo.
The newly wed Luke and Momo, and Nyx… smiling.
The moment this image formed in Luke's psyche, filling the room, everything calmed down. The body that had half melted, and the face that had become a waxy mush, paused. When Luke's psyche cogitated, latching onto the photo of his marriage ceremony, it felt like the entire room was breathing in and out… more solidly with every breath.
Soon, Luke's psyche began guiding itself toward his body.
The melted body also began showing signs of healing.
To Luke, it felt like he was using his psyche as a thread to stitch back his body into one piece, little by little.
Soon, the entire psyche that the potion had cast out returned to Luke's body.
However, an enormous chunk of his body was in an abnormal state; the feeling that he would melt into a monster never left his mind. Even his face hadn't gained a mouth, eyes, a nose, and ears, looking like a weird, skin-colored potion with dozens of large boils.
The danger of losing control had never been so clear, Luke felt.
But that realization failed to unnerve him, as Cogitating brought him to a happy-sad-calm state.
In this terrifying moment, Luke suddenly smiled within, thanking himself for choosing the right Cogitation cue.
The matter of his psyche leaving his body hadn't lasted more than a few moments, Luke believed. It did take him at least five minutes to get a good hold of his body, fully feeling every part of his muscles, bones, and skin.
And just when it felt like it was over, just when Luke thought of bringing back his sight and other senses, something happened that had never, ever happened before.
A strange murmur filled his head out of nowhere.
At first, it had been very, very far away, but it was closing in, like the coming of a tide.
In only a few imperceivable moments, those murmurings finally gained a discernible meaning.
"Celestial… Worthy… Celestial… Worthy… Celestial… Worthy…"
Luke felt as if someone was ramming his head with a hammer from within.
If he hadn't been cogitating already, and if the murmurs had arrived even a few minutes earlier, then nothing could have stopped him from losing control.
Gritting his non-existent teeth, Luke pushed past the murmurs with sheer will.
And, finally, it was over.
With a sane thought, Luke took a deep breath, and his boil-covered, half-mutated body began regaining its original shape.
By the time Luke opened his eyes and gained his ears, he found Nyx loudly praying to Mr. Fool in one corner with a proper ritual set up in front of her.
That brought out a smile from Luke.
"It's time…" He said, a gray fog churning in his surroundings. "… I will be back…"
The flash appeared in Luke's eyes faster than the thought.
With a CRACK, the bolt of lightning hit him and sent him flying, his body crashing against the room's wall with a boom.
The rumble echoed far and wide, cracks originating all over the room and going beyond.
And, slowly, Luke slid off the wall, leaving behind a huge, sunken area.
As he lay on the floor, with Nyx's loud curses echoing in his ears, his eyes fell on the thing that had also slid off the wall with him.
It was a tiny worm, with many rings on its body.
That was the last thing Luke noticed before the gray fog returned and took him to the gray castle… for real this time.
********************
Note: Up to 60 more chapters are available in advance across three Tiers. [Use the link in my webnovel profile to access all options]
You can even subscribe Trial Tier for just 1.99 dollar to have an experience of exclusive chapters for an entire month, along with all the Exclusive Images. I hope a few of you will consider supporting the work.
100 Power Stones/day: +1 Bonus Chapter next day