The pressure was unimaginable. Ren Hanshin had used The Executioner's Block to crush SSS-Rank monsters into paste. He knew how much force thirty times normal gravity exerted on a physical body. But feeling it turned inward, feeling his own law weaponized against his own organs was a different kind of agony. He was on his hands and knees, pinned to the glassy, neon purple sigil that coated the crater floor. Every breath felt like inhaling liquid lead. His ribs groaned, pushed to the absolute limit of his Divine Vitality.
[System Warning: Hostile Conceptual Law 'Absolute Reversal' is overriding Host's Domain!]
[Warning: Self-inflicted crushing damage detected. Internal hemorrhaging imminent.]
Loki Vance crouched casually a few feet away, unaffected by the gravity. In The Madhouse, Loki was the author of the rules. The Grand Illusionist rested his chin in his hand, his emerald eyes tracing the jagged crimson lines of the Weaver's brand that were burning furiously through Ren's torn shirt.
"It's a fascinating paradox you find yourself in, Executioner," Loki murmured, his voice echoing from every direction in the swirling sky. "Your domain is trying to expand. My domain is telling your domain that 'outward' means 'inward'. You are literally suffocating under the weight of your own superiority."
Ren gritted his teeth, tasting copper. He tried to grip the handle of the scythe embedded in the glass next to him.
"Ah, ah, ah," Loki tutted, wagging a finger. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. Your scythe embodies the concept of cutting, correct? In The Madhouse, intent is mirrored. If you swing that blade with the intent to sever my neck... your own head will fall off your shoulders."
The crimson chat box violently tore through Ren's vision. It looked like physical blood smearing across a screen.
[WARNING: CONSTELLATION 'GOD OF FATE' IS LOSING HER MIND!]
[God of Fate]: HE IS HURTING YOU! HE IS BREAKING YOUR BEAUTIFUL BONES!
[God of Fate]: REN, PLEASE! I BEG YOU! OPEN THE DOOR! LET ME OUT!
[God of Fate]: If I summon the Tapestry, his pathetic little reversal law will shatter! My threads do not obey the logic of fools! LET ME SAVE YOU!
The brand on Ren's chest flared with a blinding, searing heat. The synchronization rate ticked in his peripheral vision. 37%... 37.5%... 38%...
She was pushing. The God of Fate was trying to break down his mental barriers, terrified by the sight of him bleeding. If she broke through, she would annihilate Loki in a fraction of a second, but Ren would lose another chunk of his humanity.
"Shut... up..." Ren gasped, his voice a ragged wheeze. He slammed his conscious walls shut, pouring every ounce of his remaining willpower into suppressing the Goddess's invasion. The red brand sizzled, receding slightly back down his collarbone.
Loki watched the internal struggle with rapt fascination.
"Incredible," Loki whispered, standing up and dusting off his purple suit. "You are fighting a war on two fronts. You are letting your physical body be crushed just to keep her out of your head. That is the tragedy of your existence, Ren Hanshin. You are the strongest mortal in the universe, but you are terrified of your own power."
Loki began to pace around Ren in a circle. He pulled a silver coin from his pocket, walking it across his knuckles.
"You have a nuclear bomb in your back pocket," Loki said, gesturing to the golden sky. "The Weaver's Loom. The Tapestry of Genesis. I know what it is. I saw what you did to Gideon's army. If you use it now, my Madhouse breaks. I die. You win the draft."
Loki stopped in front of Ren, leaning down, his emerald eyes watching Ren's pained crimson irises. "So why don't you do it, Ren? Why suffer the joke when you can just burn down the comedy club?"
Ren slowly raised his head. Blood dripped from his chin, staining the neon-purple glass beneath him.
"Because..." Ren grunted, his muscles bulging as he fought the 30x gravity just to speak. "...if I burn down the club... I burn along with it."
Loki smiled, a genuine grin. "Ego death. The Weaver demands all of you. You are a man balancing on a wire, trying not to fall into a Goddess's open arms. That is the most beautiful, hilarious punchline I have ever heard."
"I'm glad... you find it funny," Ren rasped.
Ren closed his eyes. He stopped fighting the gravity. He stopped pushing his Divine Mana outward to maintain The Executioner's Block.
[System Notice: Host has deactivated Active Domain.]
The crushing, thirty-fold inward pressure vanished. Ren collapsed flat against the glassy earth, gasping for air as his lungs reinflated. His Divine Vitality surged, knitting his fractured ribs back together in seconds.
Loki clapped slowly. "A smart move. Turning off your own Domain removes the inverted gravity, but you're still in my house, Executioner, and here, the joke is always on you."
Loki flicked his wrist. A simple, mundane throwing knife formed in his hand. He didn't coat it in mana. He simply threw the knife at Ren's face. Ren's eyes snapped open. He rolled to the left to dodge.
SQUELCH!!
Ren let out a sharp hiss of pain. His body had rigidly thrown itself to the right, moving into the path of the knife. The blade embedded itself into his right shoulder.
"Oops," Loki laughed, leaning against his floating silver cane. "Absolute Reversal, remember? You wanted to go left, so your body went right. Your nervous system is inverted. Your fight response is backward."
Ren gripped the handle of the knife and ripped it out of his shoulder. The Divine Vitality healed the wound, but the blood still stained the midnight black fabric of his coat. He slowly pushed himself up to his feet. It was an awkward, jagged movement. To stand up, Ren had to consciously force his brain to imagine sitting down. Every muscle impulse had to be reverse engineered in real-time.
He stood there, swaying slightly, staring at the Avatar of Mischief.
"You're a fast learner," Loki noted, genuinely impressed. "Most people just flail on the ground until I get bored and end them. But standing up is easy. How do you plan to fight me? If you want to punch me, your arm will pull back. If you want to step forward, you will walk away from me."
Loki raised his hand. A swirling orb of dark, necrotic energy, a stolen S-Rank spell, manifested in his palm, "and while you're trying to solve the riddle of your own anatomy, I am going to bombard you."
Loki hurled the necrotic orb. Ren's mind raced. Arcane Nullification was a passive skill. If he looked at the spell with the intent to nullify it, the Madhouse would invert the concept, likely amplifying the spell instead. He couldn't use his scythe without severing his own limbs.
He was stripped of his laws. He was stripped of his divine magic. He only had one thing left. The one thing that didn't rely on logic, magic, or the system. Jubei's teachings.
"The mind is a mirror," the blind Sword Saint had told him under the waterfall. "If you stare at the reflection, you miss the water. Do not fight the current. Become the current."
Loki's domain inverted intent. If Ren wanted to attack, he retreated. If he wanted to defend, he exposed himself. Therefore, the only way to move forward... was to genuinely, let go of the desire to move at all.
Ren closed his eyes. The necrotic orb was inches from his face. Ren didn't try to dodge. He emptied his mind, entering a state of profound nothingness. He severed his own conscious connection to his nervous system, letting the muscle memory of three years of brutal martial arts training take over.
The Flow. Because there was no conscious intent to avoid the spell, there was nothing for The Madhouse to reverse. Ren's body acted on pure, thoughtless instinct. He casually tilted his head a fraction of an inch to the left. The S-Rank necrotic orb grazed his dark hair, sailing past him and detonating against the crater wall behind him.
Loki's smile vanished. His emerald eyes widened in genuine shock. "What?"
Ren opened his eyes. The crimson irises were blank, devoid of malice, anger, or strategy. He didn't step toward Loki. His body simply flowed forward, gliding across the neon purple glass like a phantom. He made no sound, because his mind was empty, the domain's reversal law slid off him like water off polished stone.
"Fascinating!" Loki yelled, recovering his composure. The Grand Illusionist summoned a dozen flaming daggers and hurled them in a wide arc.
Ren walked through them. His torso twisted, his shoulders dipped, and his feet pivoted with perfection. It looked like a choreographed dance. He was simply existing in the spaces where the daggers were not. He closed the thirty-yard gap in two seconds. Loki tried to teleport backward, but Ren was already inside his guard.
Ren threw a punch. Deep in the recesses of his subconscious, Ren artificially created an intense, overwhelming desire to pull Loki toward him and heal the man. The Madhouse caught the intent. Absolute Reversal engaged. The desire to "pull and heal" was inverted by the Domain into a devastating "push and destroy."
Ren's fist, backed by the sheer weight of his Divine Strength, slammed into Loki's chest.
CRACK!!
The sound of shattering ribs echoed through the chaotic sky. Loki's eyes bulged as the air was forced from his lungs. The Avatar of Mischief was launched off his feet, skipping across the glassy crater like a stone on water before crashing into a jagged pillar of melted gold.
[The God of Fate is screaming in ecstasy!]
[God of Fate]: YES! BEAT THE RAT TO DEATH! BREAK HIS SMILING FACE!
Loki coughed up a splatter of blood, slumping against the golden pillar. His purple suit was ruined, torn across the chest. He looked up at Ren, who was slowly walking toward him, navigating the physics of the domain through sheer martial nothingness. Loki started laughing. It was a wet, breathless laugh, but it was filled with pure joy.
"You hacked my domain with zen meditation," Loki wheezed, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. "You artificially fabricated a desire to heal me, just so the domain would force you to punch me. That is... that is the funniest thing I have ever seen."
Ren stood over him, looking down with blank, crimson eyes.
"The joke is over, Loki," Ren said. He simply raised his bare fist, intending to heal the man's skull, knowing the domain would turn it into a lethal execution strike.
"Oh, Executioner," Loki smiled, his emerald eyes flashing with a bright, dangerous light. "You solved the punchline. You proved you can walk backward and punch backward."
Loki reached into his torn jacket and pulled out a single golden card. The Joker.
"But did you solve the conceptual one?" Loki whispered.
Loki snapped his fingers. The neon sigil covering the crater exploded with huge energy. The rules of The Madhouse changed.
[System Warning: Conceptual Law 'Absolute Reversal' has evolved!]
[New Conceptual Law Enforced: 'The Paradox of the Fool'.]
Suddenly, the physical reversal stopped. Ren felt his normal functions return, but something worse replaced it. Ren felt his Divine Vitality drop to zero. His Divine Strength vanished. His muscles felt weak, and frail. Ren gasped, stumbling backward. He looked at his hands. The divine muscle mass was shrinking. The faint, godly aura that surrounded him had disappeared.
[Warning: Host's Stats have been inverted with the Target!]
Loki slowly stood up. The Grand Illusionist stretched his neck, his broken ribs snapping back into place. A suffocating aura of physical dominance erupted from Loki's body. He was no longer a squishy illusionist. He radiated the physical prowess of a Demigod.
Loki looked at his own hands, flexing fingers that now possessed Ren's Divine Strength.
"You see, Ren," Loki smiled warmly. "If everything in my house is backward... then the strongest man in the room... must be the weakest."
Loki vanished. He used Ren's stolen Divine Agility. Before Ren could even blink, a fist carrying the force of a falling meteor slammed into his stomach. Ren's vision went white. The impact shattered his mortal ribs, launching him hundreds of feet into the air. He crashed into the high wall of the crater, embedding into the rock, coughing up a geyser of blood. He was mortal again. He was weak, and the Avatar of Mischief was now a demigod.