The smoke rising from the twin glass craters of the Golden Valley smelled of melted gold and vaporized ozone. Ren Hanshin remained on one knee, his left hand pressing into the scorched earth. His Divine Vitality was working overtime, repairing the micro tears in his muscles caused by concentrating the concept of severance twice in succession. His breathing was heavy, the air burning his lungs.
He had some Divine Mana left. Half his tank was gone.
[The God of Fate is nervously watching your chest heave.]
[God of Fate]: My poor, beautiful Executioner. You pushed yourself too hard. You should have let me take the wheel.
[God of Fate]: But it is over now. The zealots are ash. The merchants are dust. Only the rats remain, and they will scatter when they see you.
"Not all of them," Ren said softly, his voice rasping against the quiet of the ruined valley.
CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!
The sound of slow, rhythmic applause echoed through the drifting smoke. Ren didn't immediately jump to his feet. He slowly raised his head, his crimson eyes darting through the haze. Walking down the steep, glassy slope of the northern crater was a young man. He wasn't wearing glowing platinum armor or carried an SSS-Rank relic or a massive, blood-soaked greatsword. He was dressed in a tailored, dark purple suit, his collar unbuttoned, a silver chain catching the light of the golden sky.
He was shuffling a deck of cards, ignoring the fact that he was strolling through a mass grave of elite avatars.
[Name: Loki Vance]
[Class: The Grand Illusionist / The Fool (Legendary)]
[Level: 81]
[Sponsor: The God of Mischief]
"Bravo," Loki said, stopping twenty yards away. He offered a polite, theatrical bow. "A truly breathtaking performance. The way you cut that Seraph's Judgment? Absolute cinema. I'd give it a nine out of ten. I deduct one point only because Valerius' screaming ruined the acoustic ambiance."
Ren slowly stood up. The air around him plummeted below freezing, the Embrace of the Weaver changing to accommodate the sudden drop in temperature. He reached out his hand, and the massive, red form of the Severance of Destiny formed, humming with a low, dangerous vibration.
The crimson chat box in Ren's vision rigidly spiked, turning a dark shade of red. It was gagging with pure cosmic disgust.
[WARNING: CONSTELLATION 'GOD OF FATE' DETECTS ABSOLUTE FILTH.]
[God of Fate]: Eugh. The parasite. The anomaly within the anomaly.
[God of Fate]: Ren, do not listen to a word he says. The God of Mischief is a disease on the Tapestry. He spins threads that go nowhere! He unties the knots of destiny just to watch the fabric fray!]
[God of Fate]: Erase him. Erase him right now. Cut his tongue out.
Ren stared at the man in the purple suit. Loki didn't possess the suffocating aura. To Ren's Divine Perception, Loki felt like... static. Like looking at a television screen with no signal.
"Loki Vance," Ren said coldly. "The Avatar of Mischief."
Loki smiled, a sharp, fox-like grin that reached his bright emerald eyes. He stopped shuffling the deck, spreading the cards in a fan across his hand.
"At your service, Executioner," Loki replied cheerfully. "Though I prefer 'The Fool'. It sets lower expectations, which makes the inevitable betrayals so much sweeter."
Ren was exhausted, his mana was halved, and he had a 37% soul synchronization ticking like a time bomb in the back of his mind. He just wanted to sever the final avatar and claim the Crown of the Zenith.
Ren activated his Divine Agility. He vanished from his spot, moving at Mach 2. He evaded the twenty yards in a fraction of a second, appearing behind Loki. He simply swung the scythe horizontally, aiming to cleanly decapitate the Grand Illusionist before the man could blink.
SWISH!
The crimson blade passed seamlessly through Loki's neck, but there was no resistance. No spray of blood. No satisfying thud of a body hitting the ground. The moment the blade made contact, Loki's body burst into a chaotic flock of cawing black ravens. The birds scattered in every direction, their feathers drifting down onto the scorched earth.
"A little aggressive, don't you think?" Loki's voice echoed from thirty yards away, standing a jagged pillar of glass on the edge of the crater. He was holding a green apple, taking a loud, crisp bite.
Ren spun around, his crimson eyes flashing.
[Passive Skill Activated: Arcane Nullification.]
Ren tried to read the spell matrix. He tried to see the magical formula that Loki had used to teleport and cast the illusion. If he could see the formula, he could inject his mana and shatter the trick. But as Ren stared at Loki, the world didn't shift into complex patterns. There was no formula. There were no arcane runes hovering around the purple-suited man.
The system returned a chaotic, scrambling mess of characters.
[Error 404: Spell Matrix not found.]
[Target is not utilizing structured mana.]
Ren frowned, his grip tightening on his scythe. "You aren't casting magic."
"Oh, ten points to Gryffindor!" Loki cheered, tossing the half-eaten apple over his shoulder. He hopped down from the glass pillar, landing on his feet. "Magic is a science, Executioner. Aurelius loved his science. A + B = Fireball. It's boring. It's predictable, and as you so beautifully demonstrated, science can be destroyed by anyone who knows how to cut the equation."
Loki walked slowly to his left, pacing around the edge of the crater, keeping his distance. He pulled a silver coin from his pocket, walking it across his knuckles with mesmerizing dexterity.
"But mischief isn't a science," Loki continued, his emerald eyes watching Ren's glowing crimson ones. "Mischief is an art. It is a lie told so perfectly that the universe temporarily forgets the truth. I don't cast illusions by manipulating the light around me, Ren. I cast them by convincing your brain that I'm standing over there, when I'm actually..."
WHISPER!
Ren felt a breath against his left ear. He instantly spun, swinging the scythe, but he only cleaved empty air. Loki was still standing thirty yards away, flipping the silver coin.
"It's annoying, isn't it?" Loki laughed softly. "You have the power to sever concepts. You can cut gravity, space, the light, and the debt, but tell me, Ren Hanshin... how do you cut a joke?"
Ren's expression remained blank, but internally, his mind was racing. Jubei had taught him to strike intent, but Loki had no intent. Aurelius' Domain had failed because Ren stopped thinking. Loki was the inverse, feeding Ren so much sensory data that it was impossible to lock onto a target.
"I don't need to cut the joke," Ren said. "I just need to cut the clown."
Ren gathered a burst of Divine Mana, expanding his aura outward. He flared his killing intent so vehemently that the physical space around him began to warp and crack. If he couldn't pinpoint Loki with his eyes, he would use his Divine Perception to track the man's heartbeat.
He pushed his senses outward, sweeping the crater. Ren froze. He found five hundred and twelve heartbeats, all emitting the same chaotic, static like mana signs, surrounding him in a circle.
From the smoke and ash of the ruined valley, figures began to step forward. Hundreds of them. Every single one of them was an identical copy of Loki Vance, wearing the same purple suit, holding the same deck of cards, smiling the same sharp grin.
"You see, Executioner," all five hundred Lokis spoke in overlapping unison, their voices echoing off the glass walls of the crater like a chaotic choir. "The other avatars thought of you as a raid boss. They threw their numbers and their holy swords at you, but I know what you really are."
The copies began to slowly walk in a circle around Ren, their footsteps synchronized.
"You are a hostage," the five hundred Lokis smiled, their emerald eyes flashing. "You are walking around with a loaded shotgun pointed at your own soul, wearing a leash woven by a goddess who won't let you breathe."
Ren's breath hitched. He knows. Loki knew about the synchronization. He knew about the Weaver's brand.
[God of Fate]: HE LIES! HE IS FILTH! SHUT HIS MOUTHS! KILL THEM ALL!
[God of Fate]: Do not let him speak to you! He is trying to infect your beautiful mind!
"She's screaming at you right now, isn't she?" The Lokis chuckled, tossing their silver coins into the air. "Telling you to kill me. Telling you to use her Tapestry, but you won't, because you're smart. You know that if you use her power, you lose another piece of yourself."
Ren gripped his scythe, his knuckles turning white. He couldn't wipe out the 500 clones with a massive AoE spell without risking the 50% ego death. He had to find the real one, and he had to do it using his own mortal combat skills.
"I don't need her power to kill a coward hiding behind mirrors," Ren said, dropping into Jubei's fluid stance.
"Then prove it," Loki smiled.
Suddenly, the five hundred purple copies didn't cast spells. They didn't summon weapons. They all reached into their jackets, pulled out mundane steel combat knives, and lunged toward Ren.
It was an absurd sight. A swarm of smiling, well-dressed men rushing a demigod with simple kitchen knives. Ren didn't hesitate. He became a whirlwind of crimson and black. He sliced through the first wave. The Severance of Destiny cleaved through three Lokis at once, but when they died, they didn't bleed. They exploded into confetti, playing cards, and white doves.
He pivoted, parrying a knife strike from behind, and kicked a Loki in the chest, shattering the clone into a cloud of purple smoke.
SWISH! SLICE! SEVER!
Ren was moving, his Divine Agility allowing him to dismantle the swarm, but the sheer volume was overwhelming. Every time he destroyed a clone, the system glitched, throwing sparks and Error 404 messages into his peripheral vision, blinding him with static.
"Is this it?" Ren snarled, ducking under a slash and launching the blunt end of his scythe through Loki's skull, turning him into a burst of rose petals. "You think you can exhaust me with party tricks?"
"Oh, these aren't tricks to exhaust you," Loki's voice whispered, but it didn't come from the clones. It came from above. Ren looked up.
High in the golden sky of the Savage Lands, hovering over the crater, was the true Loki. He held his hands out, his emerald eyes shining with a chaotic brilliance that rivaled the true constellations.
"They are distractions," Loki said, his voice cutting through the noise of the battle. "So you wouldn't notice what I was actually doing."
Ren's eyes widened. He looked down at the ground. Every time a clone had exploded into confetti, playing cards, or smoke, they hadn't just disappeared. The debris had settled into the scorched earth, forming a massive complex, chaotic sigil that spanned the crater. It was a conceptual trap.
[System Warning: Legendary Avatar 'Loki Vance' is forcing a Domain Manifestation!]
[Hostile Domain Detected: 'The Madhouse'.]
[Conceptual Law Enforced: Absolute Reversal.]
The sigil on the ground flared with blinding, neon-purple light. Ren felt the world tilt on its axis. He immediately attempted to summon The Executioner's Block to create a Paradox Zone and protect himself from the new law, but the moment he pushed his Divine Mana outward, the law of The Madhouse took effect.
Absolute Reversal. Instead of expanding outward, Ren's gravity Domain inverted, crushing inward onto his own body. Ren let out a choked gasp as the weight of thirty times gravity slammed into his own chest, driving him to his knees. The Severance of Destiny became slipping from his fingers and embedding itself into the glassy earth. The purple domain enveloped the crater. The sky turned into a swirling mix of chaotic colors.
Loki descended, landing gently in front of the paralyzed, kneeling Ren Hanshin. The illusionist dusted off his suit, a look of profound curiosity on his face.
"You see, Ren," Loki whispered, crouching down so they were eye to eye. "In the Madhouse, everything is backward. Your strengths are your weaknesses. Your gravity crushes you, and your severance? It only cuts the wielder."
Loki reached out and gently tapped the crimson brand on Ren's chest. "Let's see how long the Executioner can survive his own guillotine."