"I know her," Bridge hissed. Her hair, shifting from a soft cascade, began to writhe and coil,
the ends snapping at the air like agitated vipers. "Maeve Ceo. She scammed me once.
Thinking back on it now, the bargain was so obviously a trap... ugh!"
Rosalind watched Bridge sulk, her sentient hair moving to pat her shoulder as if to console
her. "A trickster, then?" Rosalind asked.
"Not just any trickster," Viera chimed in, snatching the participation list from Mord's hands.
She didn't walk; she simply swam through the air in a lazy, handless backstroke, looking
down at the paper. "And I know Bom Soo Ahn. We were actually good friends, we used,
burning weeds, incense, and medicines. She isn't much of a fighter, so she'll likely be on
support. I imagine Raina picked her hoping I'd participate.".
Viera says mockingly disappointment echoing through her words "Woe to her though."
Rosalind let out a small, satisfied breath. "Interesting. So Raina was planning on
complicating our setup based on who she thought would be here. Well, woe to her. Viera
isn't participating."
"Yippee," Viera said with a dry, sarcastic drawl.
Suddenly, the paper in Viera's hand vanished, teleporting instantly into Jocelyn's grip. Viera
let out a haunting, ghostly hiss of anger, but Jocelyn didn't even look at her.
"Don't let me put you out, Viera," Jocelyn smirked, her emerald eyes sparking. "Besides,
Vesper and I know quite a lot about everyone on this list. We've worked with them before.
Though Shin has challenged me quite a few times to duels... I always turned him down."
Rosalind turned to Vesper, eyebrows raised in expectation. Vesper shrugged, her expression
unreadable.
"I was going to say something anyway," Vesper muttered. "All of them were my classmates in
the final year of middle school. They're members of Raina's 'Practical Fight' team at Vraj."
"So they're her friends?" Rosalind asked.
Vesper and Jocelyn exchanged a glance. Jocelyn twisted her left arm in a slight, swaying
motion—the universal sign for 'somewhat.'
"More like accomplices," Vesper corrected. "They were mostly just interested in fighting
Jocelyn. She's... a bit of a celebrity in the Vraj circuits."
Jocelyn placed a hand on her chest, basking in the mention of her own fame. "I'm a
renowned Prism in my story Cadence, Rosalind. And I have Anthem proficiency in one of my
Ikos!" She suddenly leaned in, stretching her body like a cat to get uncomfortably close to
Rosalind's face. "ANTHEM!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, before collapsing into a fit Rosalind jumped back, her hands flying up to silence the girl, but Mord stepped in, shaking
his head.
"Let her be," Viera sighed, swooping in to snatch the paper back from a distracted Jocelyn.
"She's already popular. It doesn't matter if she screams it to the rafters."
"I see you all have been having a blast."
The voice rang out from nowhere. The group spun around, but the hallway was empty.
"I'm right here!"
A section of the stone wall suddenly ripped away—or rather, a sheet of perfectly painted
canvas was pulled down. Raina stood there, floating on a small, fluffy cloud, her massive
paintbrush dragging on the floor behind her. She had been perfectly camouflaged, invisible
to the naked eye.
"I just went through the participation list," Raina complained, waving a paper of her own.
"Why am I seeing Rosalind and Vesper as participants? I drew up my roster assuming
Bridge and Viera were the ones fighting!"
Vesper let out a loud, mocking laugh that was laced with venom. "Oh, I see that your
'know-it-all' attitude is still well and alive" Vesper mocks in air quotes.
" What kind of idiot doesn't read the paper handed to them before making a decision? Is your
head filled with paint, Raina?"
Raina's face flushed. She hissed something in Chinese that sounded like a curse. "I was
painting when Jocelyn handed it to me!
She scowled, folding her arms, but her face suddenly brightened like she just got a bright
idea: "I'm changing my group's participants."
Mord stepped forward, his expression like stone. "That is not viable. I have already
submitted the list to the referee. It is official."
Raina's eyes narrowed. "Well, though but that won't be a problem."
She moved with hare speed. With a few strokes of her brush, she painted a six-sided
wooden die in the air. Beside it, she began a canvas of the referee, bringing his image to life
with eerie detail.
"Stop her!" Vesper screamed, recognizing the technique.
She threw her hand forward. "Luminous Prison!"
White light shot from Vesper's palm, but as the spell reached Raina, it simply faded into
nothing. Raina had unleashed her Vim—a dense, clump of mesh, shifting colors like wet oil paint; purple, brown, green, and grey swirled in a squished circle around her, creating a
barrier that swallowed Vesper's magic whole.
"Faith as I wish, heed my prayers as I try my luck at your roots with these dice," Raina
chanted, her voice echoing with a strange, metallic distortion. "Faith as I wish, I rewrite these
Murals."
She rolled the dice. It landed on a six.
"What is going on?" Mord shrieked, his voice filled more with scientific curiosity than fear.
The referee he had been speaking to earlier suddenly re-approached him, his eyes glazed.
"Emmerich Orion Wilhelm? There seems to have been a mistake with the list. Is this the final
roster?"
Mord stared, shocked, as a new paper formed out of thin air in Raina's hand. She handed it
to the official. The man nodded and signaled for the match to begin.
"What did you do?" Bridge shouted, her hair forming snake-heads that hissed in unison.
Mord reached for his wand, his eyes flashing.
"It's one of her Ikos," Vesper growled, her teeth clenched. "Mural's Gamble. It's
reality-warping. It allows her to change an event that just happened, provided she wasn't
present for it and it affects her negatively. By rolling that dice, she turns all unknown odds in
her favor."
"What a Godlike Ikos," Mord whispered, genuinely intrigued. "No wonder they call you the
Immanent Sovereign."
"Quite distasteful," Jocelyn commented. "I guess some people really can have their cake and
eat it."
Raina laughed, looking at Vesper. "Don't worry, Vesper. I didn't change everything. But you
and Rosalind won't be fighting my friends. You'll be fighting two of my masterpieces: Kubo
and Akane."
Raina raised her brush to paint again, but Rosalind stepped between them. The air in the
room suddenly plummeted in temperature. The floor beneath Rosalind's boots began to
crackle with frost, her dense blue Vim radiating outward in waves of cold determination.
"I've never seen anyone do what you just did," Rosalind said, her height making her look
down at the floating Raina. Her blue eyes were frozen fire. "But that doesn't give you the
right to ridicule us. Watch closely, Raina. We are going to take out your creations and smash
them like the display armors they are ."
"Yeah," Vesper added, standing beside Rosalind. "We'll leave you with such an artistic block
you'll never pick up a brush again." Raina scoffed. "I doubt it. Your friends should get into the arena. Shin is losing his patience."
The group turned to the stages. On the Red stage, the boy with half-white,half-blue hair
wearing a Japanese kimono with grey and gold eyes stood perfectly still, his hand on his
sword. Below him, on the ground, Bom Soo Ahn a girl with brown hair and streaks of pink
and blue hair at the front, she wore oversized shirt and a socks and skirt that barely reached
her knees,she was non-chalantly scrolling on her phone while sitting on the shoulder of
Bora—a giant, two-footed shrub with glowing red eyes and no neck.
When they turned back, Raina was gone.
"She camouflaged! The cu.. "Vesper yelled in annoyance
Mord grabbed Jocelyn's arm. "Vesper, you will explain that Mural's Gamble to me in detail
later. But first, I believe it's time to show these fellows a beating resembling heaven's wrath.
Right, Jocelyn?"
"I... I..." Jocelyn's voice went high-pitched. "I don't know about heaven's wrath, but I can do
'brutal.' Watch me, Rosalind! Your doubts about me are going to be washed away!"
With a flash, Jocelyn teleported herself and Mord—him to the Pawn stage, and her to the
Knight stage.
"So," Rosalind said, watching them go. "That confirms it. She can certainly read minds."
Vesper let out a dry chuckle. "No. She can't. I promise."
"Then how? She knew exactly what I was thinking in the theater."
"Rosalind," Vesper said, pointing at the Princess's face. "Your 'perfect' expression is slipping.
You've been slipping a lot lately. You're becoming easy to read."
Rosalind sighed, a small smile tugging at her lips. "I'll just have to improve then. That's why
I'm at the Atheneum, right?" Her smile faded as she looked at the arena. "I just hope Raina
doesn't change the results of the fight with those dice."
"She can't," Vesper explained, showing Rosalind a snippet of Raina's Codex on her phone.
"The Ikos doesn't work like that, thus is a summary of her codex for public view to students.
She can't warp something that she is seeing with her own eye or participates in." Vesper
clarifies.
And As the King, in this Pawn and Knights Duel she can't leave this audience section or
enter the arena during a match., it's an automatic surrender. The duel even forces her to
play by the rules." Vesper pets back her phone.
Rosalind breathed out, her eyes fixed on the stage. I really hope they win, she thought. That's a really nasty Ikos the Male narrator chimes in. Being able to change reality is really
overpowered and at such a young age too.
Yeah, it makes me shiver. I don't know how when I have no 'body' to shiver with the Female
Narrator chuckles, but it does seem to have its limits.
And the boy that Jocelyn and Mord are about to fight is giving me some weird vibes and he
has two different eye colours The Male Narrator drones.
Well no use thinking about that now the fight is about to Start, the Female Narrator cuts in.