The descent into the third floor was like plunging into the throat of a starving beast. As Soren followed Vesper's rhythmic, silk-clad stride, the air grew thick—not just with the coppery tang of blood, but with a suffocating miasma of raw, unbridled emotion.
Physically, Soren was blind. Behind the blood-stained white silk ribbon, his world was a void. But through the Sight of the Star-Dead, the material architecture of the Sanctum dissolved into a spectacular, haunting vision. The Crucible was a vertical hive of souls, a spiraling arena where hundreds of young lives were packed so tightly they seemed to bleed into one another.
To a normal person, this was a deathmatch. To Soren, it was a mining field.
These souls weren't the deep purple of the power-hungry elite, nor the cheap, flickering yellow of common greed. They were a violent, swirling nebula of deep crimson and jagged black—the colors of youth on the edge of extinction. Burning ambition fueled by the terror of a grave that was always open.
Soren stood motionless beside Vesper, his expression a mask of fragile, porcelain-like obedience. Inside, however, he was quietly pricing the goods. He calculated the yield of every scream, the purity of the Star-Dust released at the exact moment a heart stopped beating, and the efficiency of a soul's collapse. This wasn't a tragedy to him; it was an audit.
In the center of this cosmic chaos, three distinct charts burned with a terrifying clarity.
First was Elara. Vesper's most lethal student.
〘 Star Chart Analysis — Elara 〙
〘 Tier: Apprentice (unrated) 〙
〘 Dominant Color: Cold Silver [Absolute Focus] 〙
〘 Structure: Taut harp strings — no fractures detected 〙
〘 Assessment: Not driven by fear. Driven by necessity. Extremely dangerous. 〙
Then, his gaze drifted upward, toward the shadows of the high-tier VIP boxes. There sat The Overseer.
〘 Star Chart Analysis — The Overseer 〙
〘 Tier: 4 〙
〘 Dominant Color: Glacier Silver-White 〙
〘 Structure: Massive, stable, near-impenetrable 〙
〘 Fatal Fracture: Twelfth House [Hidden/Subconscious] — Hairline 〙
〘 WARNING: Do not gaze directly. Detection risk: CRITICAL. 〙
His birth chart was a monstrosity of power—the largest Soren had ever seen. Soren felt the weight of it pressing against his consciousness and immediately averted his "gaze." To look too long was to be noticed, and to be noticed by a Tier-4 was death. Yet, in that split-second flicker, his eyes caught it: a microscopic, hairline fracture on the outer rim of the Overseer's twelfth house. A silent, hidden death-point.
I'll remember that, he filed it away in the cold archives of his mind.
Finally, there was the Overseer's "Masterpiece"—Titan.
〘 Star Chart Analysis — Titan (The Overseer's Weapon) 〙
〘 Tier: Apprentice (combat-specialized) 〙
〘 Dominant Color: Jagged Crimson-Black 〙
〘 Structure: Over-forged heavy sword — Stress Fractures throughout 〙
〘 Fatal Flaw: Nervous system pathologically sensitive to sudden physical disruption 〙
〘 Harvest Potential: LOW (too unstable, impure yield) 〙
On the arena floor, Titan's soul looked like a jagged, over-forged heavy sword, riddled with cracks from the very magic that had empowered it. It was powerful, yes, but fundamentally broken. The magical modifications had left a gaping Stress Fracture in its chart, making its entire nervous system pathologically sensitive to sudden physical disruptions. It was a weapon that traded stability for raw destruction.
The duel exploded into motion.
Titan moved like a landslide of meat and enchanted steel. Elara was a streak of silver, dancing on the edge of a grave. Soren ignored the physical choreography; he had more important work to do. He expanded his "net," allowing the Sight of the Star-Dead to encompass the entire screaming crowd.
As the spectators reached the peak of their bloodlust, their Star-Dust began to leak, drifting through the air like invisible pollen. Soren became a silent black hole. He systematically harvested the scattered energy, guiding the violent, red-black Star-Dust into the Abyss Bone Tarot hidden within his marrow.
〘 The Hermit IX — Passive Harvest 〙
〘 3% → 4% → 5% 〙
〘 Source: Crowd Bloodlust [Low Quality, High Volume] 〙
〘 THRESHOLD BREACHED: 5% 〙
〘 Ability Unlocked: Mental Anchor — Resist low-tier psychic attacks 〙
〘 Next Threshold: 10% 〙
Down in the pit, Elara was reaching her limit. Her rhythm was breaking under Titan's relentless pressure. Vesper's manicured nails dug painfully into Soren's sleeve, her own soul flickering with a bruised, anxious purple.
She is going to die, Soren judged impassively. Unless a variable is introduced.
He needed Elara alive. A lucid tool was a rare commodity in this den of madness.
He waited. He waited for the exact micro-second when Titan reared back for a killing blow—the moment when the Masterpiece's focus was narrowed to a single, obsessive point of impact.
Soren didn't use a single spell. He didn't activate a single bone-card ability.
His pale, slender fingers quietly hooked onto a loose decorative iron bar on the balcony railing. With a trivial application of force, he snapped it.
CLANG.
The iron bar struck the stone tier below with a sharp, piercing metallic ring.
For a normal warrior, it was a mere distraction. But for Titan—whose soul was a lattice of stress fractures—that specific frequency was a psychic spike driven straight into his brain. His massive frame froze for exactly zero point two seconds as his nervous system buckled under the dissonance.
Elara didn't need a second chance. Her cold silver blade slid into Titan's throat with the precision of a poet.
The Crucible fell into a stunned, breathless silence. Then, a shockwave of sound erupted from the stands, loud enough to shake the very foundations of the Sanctum.
Minimum cost. Maximum result, Soren noted. The true value of the Sight wasn't just seeing the world—it was knowing where a single finger could tip the scales of fate.
Vesper gasped, her soul exploding in a pyrotechnic display of pure, triumphant purple. A deluge of high-quality Star-Dust flooded into Soren.
〘 The Hermit IX — Fusion Update 〙
〘 5% → 6% 〙
〘 Source: Vesper's Triumphant Relief + Arena Death Shockwave [Medium-High Quality] 〙
But Soren wasn't looking at Vesper.
He felt it. A gaze like a frozen needle, pinning him to the spot.
Up in the VIP box, the Overseer didn't show anger at the loss of his weapon. His silver-white birth chart remained as calm as a mirror. He wasn't looking at the victor. He wasn't looking at Vesper.
He was staring directly at the blind, fragile boy standing in the shadows.
The Overseer's voice cut through the roar of the crowd with an unnatural, chilling clarity.
"Bring the blind one to me."
The entire arena heard it.
Three hundred heads turned. The whispers started before the echo of the Overseer's voice had even faded—racing through the stands like wildfire through dry grass.
The blind one? The one from B1?
The Overseer personally summoned him?
Who is that boy?
Vesper's entire body went rigid. In Soren's vision, her soul instantly turned a bruised, pitch-black color—the color of absolute, paralyzing terror. She knew she couldn't refuse.
Behind the white silk blindfold, the corners of Soren's mouth twitched into a ghostly, almost imperceptible curve.
Good.
This is exactly when I needed you to notice me.
〘 Passive Effect: Reputation Impact 〙
〘 Event: Tier-4 Overseer publicly summons B1-level blind illusionist 〙
〘 Result: All 300+ witnesses now associate "the blind one" with anomaly status 〙
〘 Secondary Effect: Vesper's terror spike — additional Star-Dust harvested 〙
〘 Note: You are no longer invisible. Use this. 〙