World: Origin

To find it, he finally mustered the courage to step onto land.

"Return—"

Tap.

The instant his toes touched earth, a vast chill flooded him.

Baseless terror swallowed his body. His pupils pinholed. Reflex screamed: turn and run.

He forced it down. He felt it—inside this continent. He believed it felt him too. But something here had seized it, holding it fast, struggling yet unmoving.

The pressure mounted. Thud—he dropped to his knees. His fists clenched. Teeth ground. He shook. Cold sweat poured like rain.

But he endured.

"Return—"

Kneeling, his knees scraped the pebbled riverbank, fine and hard. He crawled, hands and feet, inch by inch.

"—Return it!"

A low, unyielding cry tore from deep in his throat.

Sharp stones shredded cloth, then skin. Blood flowed fast.

Red pulled a crooked trail behind him. His eyes never blinked. His pallid face carved with resolve and anger, he growled at the unknown, the terrible.

"Give—it—back—to me!"

...

"Shlick—"

The clean sound of silver blade leaving flesh.

Like a hot knife sliding free of buttered cheese—Aerin had no idea why that image burst into her mind.

And when that cheese-slick splashed her face and spilled into her mouth, a foreign, nauseating taste slammed straight into her brain.

Childhood pain—bleeding gums—flashed up. She knew at once—this was blood mixed with spit, swallowed down.

In the next heartbeat, the mind packed tight with 【Fear】, once a blur, split open along a thin seam.

She "opened" her eyes—truly opened them.

First to strike her gaze were flying severed limbs and red arterial spray; in that spray, a cold glint lanced at her right eye.

Dreamlike, she froze. Her body moved on its own.

She slipped aside, offered her blade, and while avoiding that ghostly glint, her sword slid perfect into the intruder’s heart.

Vmm—

The speed was so vicious that only when she drew the blade and blood fanned out did the sword-hum arrive, late, brushing her ear. Her pupils tightened. "What—"

No words came. An unseen force piloted everything—except her eyes.

She could only watch as her steps flashed like lightning, her form rolled like thunder, her draw glittered like light. In one leap and one descent, she dodged one strike and killed two more.

Blood scattered in air, spilling wide, riding the wind, weaving itself into a fog.

It looked unreal—her sudden strength, the carpet of corpses and limbs. Her vision shook. She felt trapped in a dream she couldn’t wake from.

But when her breathing steadied and dragged that fog into her nose, the iron sting burned so hard her eyes watered. She understood—

This wasn’t a dream. This—was her.

Strange, she felt no terror for it.

She didn’t know her mind’s 【Fear】 was already brimming, with no room left to rise. It didn’t stop Aerin from feeling the body’s wrongness. Her breath quickened.

"No—"

Gold hair spun. She moved like a startled swan. The longsword whirled out and curved back to hand.

She killed three. Clean. Crisp.

"Don’t—"

She had dreamed this kind of power a thousand times. Now it came. Yet a cold spread through her. None of the hope or joy she had imagined arrived.

"Don’t come any closer!"

A knight, an arm already cut away, charged. She screamed inside. The body kept dancing.

She offered the blade lightly, like she’d rehearsed it forever. The sword speared his throat with precision.

"Don’t!" His despairing eyes mirrored perfectly in Aerin’s golden irises. Her inner howl seemed to tug something. The flawless motion hiccuped for a breath.

Sanctum Knights were razor-sharp and iron-tough. Even with half the unit erased, they didn’t yield. They seized the opening at once.

The knight with the pierced throat jerked up a hand, clamped her sword. At her flank, a bright blade chopped down. In the dark, the patient assassin finally struck.

From every angle. All three hundred sixty degrees. Seen and unseen. Killing intent bristled.

A checkmate. Straight at the "opening." Every escape cut. It would kill the blonde girl—if that truly was an opening.

"No—!"

Her lip curled, just a touch. A hint of a smile on that blank face—there, then gone.

The knights felt it turn. Too late.

Her right hand rolled the hilt. Ten fingers snapped from his grip, spinning into air.

She never stopped. She flowed with the motion. The tip leapt and turned through the Void, traced a chilling silver path. The path faded. A red stream followed—blood pulled long into viscous threads.

Vmm—

The knights fell as one.

Scuff.

Footsteps faltered.

The ones left finally felt—no, saw—Fear.

For no reason at all, they sensed their enemy wasn’t human, but 【Fear】 itself—a human-shaped 【Fear】.

They could stare down the cruelest dragon without a twitch. They could burn in fire without a sound. Yet here, they wavered.

Because the former was belief and childhood indoctrination—no fear to feel. Here, they were facing 【Fear】.

No one can look at 【Fear】 and keep a calm heart.

So they turned to run.

They ran so panicked they forgot—never show your back to the enemy.

...

"Witch."

Deep in the woods, a black iron cross choked by dark-green vines held a girl with black hair and a white dress, sitting lazy. Her dress had slipped; bare legs hung into the open air, soft and fine, set against the cross’s black steel. She didn’t seem to care. At Ye Weibai’s voice, she tilted her head, a single deep-blue pupil slid his way, checked something, then said, lightly,

"You’ve got the wrong person."

"No." Ye Weibai shook his head. "I didn’t."

"Suit yourself."

Her voice was light, like a moon in the Void. Even that one line sounded like it drained her. She turned back, eyes to the sky, weary. "Either way, I’m not."

"Of course you’re not." The black-haired boy smiled. A gentle curve at his mouth. "I’m talking to the cross beneath you—"

Boom—!

Before the words finished, thunder split and roared.

...