Shin managed to deflect the first volley of iron spikes, but a split second later, Bom Soo
Ahn's spirit form vanished—teleported forcefully away by Jocelyn. Without his healer, the
barrage became impossibly fast and furious. Jocelyn was no longer just throwing heavy
objects; she was teleporting tiny, razor-sharp shrapnel that was incredibly hard to track.
But Shin could see it all. Through the yin-yang symbol of his Grey eye, the world shifted into
a slowed, 360-degree, third-person perspective. The environment turned entirely black and
white, mapped out in linear gradient hues. The incoming projectiles glowed a violent,
threatening red. Faint, blue outlines mapped out the physical trajectories of his possible
movements, with the absolute optimal path glowing a brilliant, bright blue.
His body moved automatically, following the bright blue ghosts of his own future.
Jocelyn teleported him directly into a cloud of razor-sharp knives Mord had just conjured.
Shin spun, his blade tracking the blue lines, deflecting them flawlessly. But the moment his
sword made contact with the steel, he was teleported again—this time straight into a wall of
falling spears. The sudden spatial jump threw off his blue prediction lines, but his raw
reflexes allowed him to parry them away.
Is she able to see the world at a slowed-down pace too? Shin thought, his blade working
overtime. She teleports and attacks simultaneously. This is becoming ridiculous.
Jocelyn teleported him again, dropping him in the thickest part of the swamp. Mid-swing,
Shin's sword buried itself deep into the bark of an ironwood tree. Before he could yank it
free, a volley of knives and stones materialized inches from his face. One blade was aimed
directly at his eye.
A green hexagonal shield flared to life just in time. The projectiles bounced harmlessly off
Soo's remote barrier.
Shin roared, releasing a shockwave of Grey Vim that pulverized the tree and everything in a
ten-meter radius. He yanked his sword free and retook his Silver Realm stance. He planted
his foot to dash forward, but stopped cold. Jocelyn had teleported him directly in front of a
massive, swinging log. He didn't move. The log grazed the flat of his blade, barely missing
his nose. If he had followed his instinct to dodge, it would have crushed his ribs.
He didn't look concerned. "Silver Realm!" he yelled again, resuming his impossible dance of
deflecting the relentless, teleporting projectiles.
High above the arena, in the audience stands, excitement soared with every beat of attack,
"beat that sissy" someone yelled from the crowd.
Rosalind fanned her face, her eyes wide with shock. "Wow, this is really intense! I can't even
tell what is going on down there. Why does that boy have two different kinds of Vim? Is it a
race thing? Or some kind of spell?"
Vesper leaned against the railing, her face grim. She didn't reply.
Rosalind looked over at Bridge, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Shin is... a Charred,"
Bridge mumbled.
"What is a Charred?" Rosalind asked, confused at Vesper's and Bridge's demeanor. Viera floated off the top of Rosalind's head, crossing her tiny arms. "They are abominations."
She screeches "They weren't born with a single, complete Vim signature like everyone else.
Instead, they have two distinct, incomplete ones that constantly fight each other, slowly
killing them."
"Abominations?" Rosalind gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Isn't that a bit harsh?"
"Not really," Vesper replied coldly. "There are far worse things you could call them."
Sensing the heavy, uncomfortable tension in the room, Rosalind quickly pointed back down
at the screens. "Well, what about Jocelyn? She is teleporting projectiles at such high speeds!
Shouldn't they lose their momentum when they change position? And how did she teleport
those pieces of the tree at him?"
"It's her skill," Vesper explained, a hint of deep irritation bleeding into her voice. "Space
Delirium; It allows her to completely control the speed, strength, and durability of anything
her Vim touches, anything her body touches, and anything she teleports. And her Vorpaljolt
skill... it allows her to teleport parts of things. Not just objects." Vesper gripped the railing, her
knuckles turning white. "She can do it to a person, too. I'm just wondering why she hasn't
done it yet." She yelled, spooking the people around her.
Vesper leaned over the edge, her voice rising into a rare, panicked yell. "End this match! End
it now!" Her voice echoed creating a new chorus that the audience sang loudly, " end it, end
it end it….."
Down in the swamp, Shin smiled. He had finally found his rhythm within the chaotic barrage.
He shifted his weight, preparing to finally go on the offensive and approach Jocelyn.
THWACK! A solid block of wood slammed into his back. Before he could stumble, another
struck his ribs. A spear materialized aimed squarely at his spine, attempting to impale him,
though the wood snapped uselessly against his armored back.
"Hey!" Jocelyn's voice echoed from everywhere at once, bouncing off the trees. "You're a
Charred, aren't you? That Grey Vim seems to give you intense durability. Why don't you
switch it back to the gold one so I can really mess you up?! That one is for your attacks, isn't
it?!"
"Oh, you can't hurt him like this!" Bom Soo Ahn screamed, her voice ringing out in defense of
her Shin.
"Oh, I will," Jocelyn whispered.
The world turned into a nauseating blur. Jocelyn began teleporting Shin relentlessly. Once.
Thrice. A dozen times. A gross of times in a matter of seconds.
Shin's yin-yang vision couldn't keep up. The blue prediction lines shattered into useless
static. He grew violently dizzy, his balance slipping as gravity changed direction a hundred
times a minute.
He managed to keep a white-knuckled grip on his sword, but he couldn't predict the strikes. A knee smashed into his chin. Bash. Another teleport. Boom. A heavy slice across his
shoulder.Teleport. Blam. A kick to his ribs. Another kick to the back of his head.
In Shin's eyes, the monochrome world dissolved into a flashing, agonizing red hue.
Staggered, nauseous, and entirely unable to catch his balance, he fell hard onto his knees.
A massive barrage of weapons materialized in the air around him. As usual, Bom Soo Ahn
managed to cast a green shield over him. But this time, it proved utterly futile.
The weapons didn't fly at him. Jocelyn bypassed the shield entirely, teleporting the spears,
swords, stakes, and pipes directly inside the perimeter of the shield.
Several of the blades embedded themselves directly into Shin's body.
Shin let out an agonizing scream. A massive gust of raw, violent Vim erupted from his core,
slicing every tree, projectile, and shadow in the environment into dust. He looked up, his
chest heaving, expecting to see a sliced-up Jocelyn.
Instead, he saw her hovering safely in the air, her arms still clasped together inside a heavy
purple shield where she stood before.
A single, glowing pink petal drifted down and landed softly on Shin's head. Jocelyn was
directly above him, her boot raised, no arms, preparing to stomp his skull straight into the
mud.
Before her foot could connect, Bom Soo Ahn appeared physically over Shin, shielding him
with her own body. Jocelyn was forced to abort the attack mid-air, teleporting hastily away. A
Knight striking a Pawn was a foul. She would lose the match instantly. As she reappeared a
dozen meters away, the emerald projection over her eye glitched violently, glowing a fierce,
hateful orange. The raw anger on her face was palpable.
Bom wrapped her hands around Shin, her green light pouring over his puncture wounds. "I
think you need to get rid of Mord," she whispered frantically. "That will stop the projectiles."
Shin grunted, forcing himself back to his feet.
"Priscor," Mord's voice echoed tiredly. "This is taking longer than I expected." The leather
book in his hands began rapidly regrowing the pages he had torn out.
Jocelyn finally unclasped her hands. Her severed arm and the heavy wounds across her
torso stitched themselves back together in a spatial blur. "Hmm. I'm sure he's out of that
Grey Vim," she said, her voice dripping with anticipation. "Whatever he is going to do next
will be quite drastic."
"How do you know?" Mord asked.
"Oh. I know," Jocelyn grinned.
A blinding, terrifying pillar of Golden Vim burst from Shin's body. The dull grey aura was
entirely consumed. The wind in the swamp turned violent, an invisible, crushing force
pushing the mud, the trees, and the air itself outward. Jocelyn lost her balance, her arms
flailing as she was pushed back by the sheer atmospheric pressure.
Shin planted his feet, his eyes glowing like twin suns. He began to chant. "Empire promised to me, above the skies..." The Golden Vim spiraled out of him, painting the
artificial sky in brilliant, burning light."Please descend onto this forsaken land, and cast out
those who pray against my prosperity!"
Shin raised his free arm high into the sky. His silver sword suddenly dissolved into dust.
"Bear witness, my companions, as my empire descends!" Shin screamed at the top of his
lungs. "Hollow Anthem: Golden Dynasty... Descend!"
Instantly, the entire world turned pitch black. The swamp, the artificial sun, the audience
stands beyond the pocket dimension—everything was swallowed by an absolute, suffocating
void.
"Teleport out of this!" Mord yelled in panic.
"I can't move! Can you?!" Jocelyn yelled back.
From the black mud below, towering, golden misty outlines of ancient Japanese palaces and
shrines began to erupt from the ground, building an ethereal, majestic city around them.
"No, I can't," Mord replied, his voice tight. "We're f…" Before Mord could finish, his smoky
blue silhouette was violently snuffed out, banished from the domain.
As the ghostly golden buildings finished
rising, a magnificent, glowing golden katana materialized in Shin's waiting hand. Beside him,
Bom Soo Ahn was grinning from ear to ear.
"It's a two-on-one now, Jocelyn," Soo mocked, her confidence entirely restored. "How does it
feel?"
Shin lowered his golden blade, his muscles coiling like springs. "Now, this is the end. In here,
nobody can interrupt us. Nobody can save you. And nobody can see you."
He paused, letting the weight of the domain settle. "Not even the screens in the arena." He
chuckles, confident of his victory, anticipating a white flag.
Jocelyn stood in the center of the golden courtyard, her head lowered.
"I don't need to repeat myself!" Shin roared. He lunged forward with terrifying speed. "Sun
Steps! Golden Eclipse!"
He crossed the courtyard in a literal flash of light. His golden blade swept cleanly toward
Jocelyn's exposed neck, primed to decapitate her and end the match.
But as the blade swung, the metal tip of his sword simply... vanished.
Shin completed the slash, but the steel that was meant to cleave her neck was gone. A
microsecond later, a blinding, searing pain ripped across Shin's own back. The parts of his
blade had been teleported. The very edge of his own sword emerged from thin air behind
him, slicing deeply through his flesh. Shin gasped, stumbling forward. He squeezed his Grey eye shut in agony, looking up at
Jocelyn solely through his Golden eye.
Jocelyn's emerald projection was completely gone.
The mask had fallen. She stood before him with two distinct, violently pink eyes, roaring with
absolute, unrestrained murder.
Before Shin could raise his blade again, Jocelyn teleported. She appeared instantly inside
his guard, her fist buried knuckle-deep into his gut.
BOOM.
The shockwave rang like a thunderclap across the Black-Gold void. Shin was launched
backward, crashing into the ethereal steps of a shrine. Bom Soo Ahn screamed, immediately
rushing to his side, her hands glowing green as she tried to heal his shattered ribs.
"We don't need you here anymore," Jocelyn declared.
She clapped her hands together. Clap. Bom Soo Ahn was instantly teleported away, violently
ejected from the domain.
Shin coughed up a mouthful of blood, looking up in sheer terror. Jocelyn's pink eyes were
glowing with a sickening intensity. The Vim radiating from her body was no longer just an
aura—it was shaping itself into a massive, monstrous, laughing face that loomed over her, its
motion loudly mocking him.
Clutching his ruined stomach, Shin reached out, his trembling fingers wrapping around the
hilt of his golden sword.
Clap. His sword vanished into thin air.
Clap. Jocelyn appeared directly in front of him. She bent down and grabbed a fistful of his
half-white, half-blue hair, hoisting his head up like she was pulling a weed from the dirt.
She no longer looked like the fun, theatrical Jester of Hearts. Her dual pink eyes were wide
and manic. A terrifying, ear-to-ear grin split her face. The violent pink Vim surrounding her
glitched and sparked, the monstrous laughing face distorting reality around them.
Shin tried to thrash, tried to summon his strength to fight back. But he couldn't move.
Jocelyn's oppressive, terrifying Vim bore down on him with physical weight. He had
completely lost control of his own body.
The Golden Dynasty was supposed to be his domain. His space. His absolute victory card.
But a pink devil had stepped inside, hijacked the coding of reality, and claimed it for herself.
"If you had done your research on me," Jocelyn whispered, her voice as soft and chilling as
a winter breeze, "you should know that I always win when everything becomes unclear to the
audience." Suddenly, she threw her head back and let out a piercing, unearthly screech. The golden
buildings of his domain glitched, turning a static, corrupted pink.
"Are you there?" Jocelyn asked, her tone suddenly conversational. "I want to ask you a few
things. Don't faint on me. Firstly... are you part of tonight's operation?"
Shin gritted his teeth, refusing to answer.
Jocelyn simply pulled harder. Shin felt the muscles in his neck begin to tear. The skin
stretched agonizingly, turning a furious red as she nearly separated his spine from his skull.
"No!" Shin yelled, the pain breaking his resolve. "I don't know what operation you are talking
about!"
"Oh," Jocelyn sighed, her voice dripping with profound relief. "That means I can traumatize
you as much as I want."
"What?!" Shin yelled.
"Shh. Shhhh. Calm down," Jocelyn cooed, patting his cheek. "You have Vim Ki, right? Why
don't you use it? And how are you able to manage using two distinct Vim signatures like
that?"
"Why do you want to know?!"
Jocelyn casually placed her heavy boot squarely on the open wound on his back and
pressed down. She grabbed more of his hair, pulling his scalp tight.
"Wait! Wait!" Shin screamed. "I trained! I practiced it on my own! I can't use Vim Ki, it will
throw out the balance I have with the two Vims currently!"
"Hmm. Okay," Jocelyn chirped.
She let go of his head. Shin dropped face-first onto the ethereal golden steps, gasping for
air. He let out a pathetic, shaking sigh of relief, thinking the interrogation was over.
Then, Jocelyn began to hum.
It was a slow, haunting rendition of a nursery rhyme.
"My head..." Jocelyn sang softly. "My shoulders, my knees, and toes..."
She clapped her hands. The sound echoed like a gunshot.
"My legs," Jocelyn sang.
Clap. Shin's legs vanished. There was no blood. No severing of bone. The space below his
hips simply ceased to exist, teleported away painlessly. Shin stared at his stumps in
absolute, mind-breaking shock.
"My ears," Jocelyn sang. Clap. His ears didn't teleport. They began to violently tear themselves from the sides of his
head, ripping through cartilage and skin, slowly picking up speed as invisible hands pulled
them away.
"AHHHHH!" Shin screamed, thrashing wildly on the ground.
"My tongue," Jocelyn sang, her voice sweet and melodic.bClap. Shin's jaw was forced open.
His tongue was brutally ripped from the root of his mouth. His screams mutated into a
ghastly, wet, hollow gurgle—like the sound of a beast that had just been gutted.
"My hands," Jocelyn hummed.Clap. Shin's hands disappeared from his wrists. Painlessly,
but utterly horrifying.
"Shch... schachh..." Shin tried to plead through his ruined mouth, blood pooling on the
golden steps.
"My head," Jocelyn whispered.Clap. Shin's perspective shifted violently. He was no longer
looking up at Jocelyn from the ground. He was looking at her chest.
His severed head was resting gently in Jocelyn's hands. Her face was flushed, blushing with
twisted, euphoric glee.
Through one of her pink eyes, the monstrous laughing face of her Vim stared directly into his
fading consciousness. It's motion still mocking with a huge obnoxious laugh.
Shin tried to scream again, but without lungs, all that escaped his lips was a hollow, haunting
wheeze. A sound like a ram bleeding out from a slit throat, echoing endlessly across the
Black-Gold void.
"Shhhh. Look," Jocelyn whispered affectionately.
She turned his head, forcing his dying eyes to look at her other hand.
Resting in her palm, still weakly beating, was his own heart.
"And the curtains close on this battle," Jocelyn whispered into his torn ear.
She crushed his heart like a melon.
Laughing gleefully as everything fades to black.