Chapter 196
The pleasure he had felt at the crest of the earlier wave suddenly vanished, replaced by the bitter sensation of being belittled by someone who, socially speaking, should have stood beneath him.
His irritation peaked, overflowing into a pressure sharper and more forceful than before.
He hurled words meant to shake Ilux out of his so-called "acting," an order wrapped in cold sarcasm, demanding that the loner immediately stop his "ridiculous behavior" and face the reality before them all.
His voice sliced through the air already heavy with tense silence, demanding a response, demanding acknowledgment, or at the very least a reaction that proved Ilux still existed within the same plane of reality as the rest of them.
But to Ilux, those demands never reached him.
He was fighting a war far more ancient and far more terrifying.
All of his attention was devoted to not collapsing, to keeping himself intact amid an unrelenting assault from within.
The intention to explain—or even to respond—never once crossed his mind.
There was no space in his thoughts for social diplomacy or self-defense.
His sole task now was survival: gripping tightly to the fraying edges of his consciousness while hoping that the storm of condemning voices would eventually subside on its own.
He was isolated not only by choice, but now also by his unspoken suffering—which, to others, appeared to be nothing more than an irritating silent performance.
'Not pulsing, but pressing. As if there's another hand inside my head.'
Thud!
"Still not enough, Ilux? Do you think this is a joke—making all of us wait?"
Fhhh!
"What are you going to say now? Or have you just been playing around this whole time?!"
The pain and the voices fused into an endless cycle, erasing the boundary between mind and body.
Ilux no longer fully controlled his physical movements.
His head moved up and down in a steady, empty rhythm—a mechanical motion born from the spasming tension in his neck muscles, as though he were nodding in agreement with a horrific dialogue only he could hear.
Each hollow nod further reinforced the impression in the eyes of others.
That he had detached from reality, that the increasingly rigid, restrained expression on his face was proof of a performance—or even madness—he was staging.
The tension in the room reached its boiling point.
The patience of several students, poisoned by curiosity that had turned into irritation and then anger, finally ran out.
The one who had mocked him earlier, driven by fury at feeling toyed with and ignored, rose from his seat.
His steps were firm as he approached the corner of the room where Ilux was confined.
There was no question, no courtesy.
A strong hand seized Ilux's limp body, yanking him up from the chair with a rough, domineering motion.
Ilux staggered, his weakened legs barely able to support his own weight.
His collar tightened around his neck, pulled forward until his pale, sweat-soaked face was forced to confront the student's face—flushed with anger and a desire to assert control.
Hot breath hissed near his ear, yet it failed to penetrate the wall of sound inside Ilux's head.
A question was hurled at him, a harsh and threatening demand, asking whether his "act" was finally over, whether he was satisfied with mocking them all.
Those words carried collective emotional weight—a group's frustration seeking release at the weakest and strangest point.
The student insisted this was no longer a joke, that patience had run out, and he demanded—or rather commanded—an answer, a confession, a sign that Ilux still existed within the logic of their world.
'Please… stop calling me that.'
Haaaaah!!
'I can't take it.'
The rough handling and the rain of shouting utterly failed to breach the fortress of suffering he had erected within the boundaries of his own body.
The grip on his collar only added a vague physical burden, meaningless compared to the devastating pressure tearing through the inside of his skull.
In response, the hand pressed to his forehead tightened even more, his fingers digging in so fiercely that his nails bit into the skin, leaving deep, reddened grooves.
It was his only way to fight—a desperate attempt to balance the pain within with pain without, as though he could crush the source of those voices until it shattered.
His eyes remained tightly shut, utterly rejecting the visual world that now offered nothing but anger, judgment, and ignorance.
Behind those closed lids, the darkness was not emptiness, but a canvas upon which horrifying shadows danced.
That voice—the voice of Aldraya, filled with pure hatred—had evolved.
It was no longer merely words.
It had become a living sensation, a wave of energy twisting his consciousness, making every nerve scream in a primitive language of pain.
Each utterance of "Ilux Rediona" struck like a sledgehammer against the stone of his awareness, cracking it little by little.
His entire existence narrowed into a long, dark, ringing corridor.
At the end of that corridor, there was only the voice.
Around him, there was only pain.
The unconscious nodding of his body and the deepening pinch at his forehead became small rituals—gestures of a soul being torn apart.
They were wordless prayers, silent pleas for all of this to end, whether by the disappearance of the voice or by his own destruction.
Booom!!
The tightening grip on his collar, intended as a shock to jolt him back to awareness, instead functioned like a key unlocking the final door of his mental cage.
That sudden physical pressure tore through the veil of isolation that had shielded him from visual perception.
With a violent jolt, Ilux's eyes flew open.
But what reflected in his pupils was not the furious student standing directly before him.
Nor was it the shapes of chairs, tables, or the tense faces of the onlookers.
His gaze shot past the student's shoulder, fixing on a single empty spot on the wall at the back of the room.
There, at a point that held nothing but paint and wood, he saw something else.
Something he had only felt and heard before now seemed to take form at the edge of his perception.
His face, which had previously only condensed pain, now transformed completely into a mask of pure terror.
Every muscle tightened, pulling his skin pale and taut.
His violently trembling lips tried to form words, trying to release the terror that froze his blood into a warning.
What emerged was a broken whimper, choked by fear so profound it shattered the structure of language itself.
"I-It… it has come…" he murmured, his voice hoarse and barely audible, like wind seeping through the cracks of a grave.
Then, with greater effort, he forced out the final two syllables.
"Him…"
But the sentence never reached completion.
It broke off, trapped within a loop of horror.
"I-It has come… him…"
He repeated it again, with the same broken, terrified rhythm.
Each repetition was not clarification, but a mantra of fear—a confirmation of something dreadful only his inner eye could see.
"Can you hear me, Ilux? This is your last chance—before I really make you come to your senses."
Huuuuffh!
"Evacuate immediately! An attack is approaching. Follow emergency protection procedures now."
To be continued…