Chapter 225
A strange sensation seized him, as if the letters composing his identity were being torn apart one by one, leaving his consciousness drifting without support, becoming a detached spectator separated from the body he had abandoned.
Then, his perception collapsed.
His vision split, forcing him to witness himself from impossible angles in space.
Time ceased to be linear.
He felt piercing pain before he felt the impact, witnessing the effect before the cause.
His thoughts were severed midstream, unfinished ideas forcibly erased.
Only after the foundation of his self wavered did his physical body begin to suffer.
His skin cracked not from tearing, but as if it had forgotten how to remain a single, unified whole.
His chest felt ripped open from within by invisible hands that did not target his heart, but the "intent" behind every heartbeat.
His bones shifted slightly from their axes, a subtle violation of bodily architecture that was more torturous than an ordinary fracture.
What was most devastating was the sensation beyond all of this.
The feeling that somewhere out there, behind the screen of this reality, an existence was erasing, crossing out, and tearing the pages of his life.
Every possible future, every alternative storyline he had yet to walk, went dark one by one like candles blown out.
A pure and unfamiliar fear seeped in.
The fear that this story would continue without his presence, that he could be erased not from life, but from the very pages of the universe's history.
At this point, Ilux was truly torn apart not as an enemy, not as a disciple, but as a character.
"Still able to breathe."
From within the nearly complete vortex of his own deconstruction, a will to survive older than any dogma ignited.
Ilux, whose very core of existence was being questioned, instead embraced the deepest paradox.
To remain a "self," he first had to reject every rigid definition of himself.
With a decision born from the abyss of despair, he did not attempt to repair or reassemble the fragments of himself that had been torn apart.
Instead, he let them shatter, then poured into each shard an essence more fluid and boundless.
The five primordial elemental forces—bleaching ice, devouring fire, fate-whispering wind, obsidian pulsing with geothermal heat, and crimson pulsar flares—flowed not as external tools, but as new bloodstreams.
They were no longer separated, but fused into a single, nameless brilliance, a liquid of pure light that was the raw material of reality before it was boxed in by perception.
Into this flow he mixed his core ability, the Alteration of Perception.
Not as a blade, but as a universal solvent.
This mandate he spread throughout his fractured body and soul.
The effect was instant and paradoxical.
His wounded body, his severed memories, and his extinguished future were not "healed" in the sense of being restored to their original state.
They were surpassed.
Every wound, every loss, instantly lost its context and meaning.
The pain vanished not because it ceased to exist, but because the foundation for experiencing "Ilux's pain" had been dissolved.
Even beings standing at the threshold of the antithesis of existence and nonexistence, entities observing the battle from paradoxical dimensions, could not comprehend where the horrific consequences of Aldraya's assault had been cast.
As if all that suffering had been written in ink soluble in water, disappearing without a trace within the new radiance enveloping Ilux.
He stood once more, his body refreshed, his eyes clear, yet something felt different.
He had become a vessel that was emptier, lighter, and more ready to be redefined.
And as that fragile new balance took shape, Aldraya moved.
"Doubt only delays."
With a motion no longer belonging to a human or a teacher, but to a walking engine of law, Aldraya released his first Authority.
This was not an attack in the sense of an energy blast or a material strike.
It was the Assignment of Fault, an Initial Legal Declaration released through the unified vision of the eighteen Eyes of the Overseer.
That mandate condensed into a single ruling that echoed through every layer of reality within the domain: Ilux was a deviant subject.
Yet with the cruelty of absolute logic, the ruling was not accompanied by a verdict of erasure.
It merely established a status, an existential category that could not be contested.
Mechanically, all reality around Ilux hardened, locking every interpretation of him into that single narrative alone.
Every other possibility—self-defense, hidden good intentions, the potential for future redemption—was not destroyed, but pressed into nonexistence, pushed aside from the awareness of this miniature universe.
The effect on Ilux was immense existential pressure.
His body felt pulled and compressed into the mold of that narrow definition.
His mind, once agile enough to leap between countless possibilities, suddenly felt constrained and linear.
Every wound that appeared—cracks in his skin, tightness in his chest, confusion of identity—still followed a chain of cause and effect he could understand, yet all pointed toward the same conclusion.
He was the deviant.
Yet Ilux's rebellious soul would not simply stand idle and accept this narrative prison.
With a reflex born from the purest survival instinct, he did not attempt to break that Authority head-on.
That was impossible.
Instead, he softened himself and accepted the pressure, and from within that acceptance, he gave birth to a slippery response.
The five-element chain fused with the core of his Alteration of Perception reappeared, but not to attack Aldraya or bind the eyes.
With swift movement, he wrapped the chain around his own body.
This act was not an attempt to build a shield, but a clever conceptual strategy.
The five elements, glowing with their vivid brilliance, created a spectrum of alternative meanings around him, while the Alteration of Perception woven within them worked not to reject Aldraya's ruling, but to blur its certainty.
The chain did not block the judging gaze.
It deflected it, splitting the single beam into fragments of differing interpretations.
The second strike came without pause, without dramatic escalation, merely as the inevitable logical continuation of the first.
This was no longer the Assignment of Fault, but the Revocation of Narrative Rights—an intervention deeper and more cruel, which Aldraya might call the "Removal of the Name."
Its essence shifted fundamentally.
Aldraya no longer targeted Ilux as an "opponent" or a "deviant subject."
He targeted the most basic premise of all.
That Ilux deserved to have a story, that his existence possessed narrative weight worth preserving.
The principle was simple and terrifying.
Anything no longer acknowledged by dogma was not obligated to be maintained by reality.
Aldraya, as the medium of that dogma, merely needed to withdraw his acknowledgment.
The mechanism of this attack was subtle yet fatal.
Aldraya "touched" the outermost layer of Ilux's existence.
Not skin, not soul, but the most fundamental script of his being.
Namely, his name.
In that conceptual touch, "Ilux Rediona" was no longer treated as an attached and sacred identity, but as a variable, a temporary label that could be detached from its subject.
The consequence was felt immediately, like a lethal cold wind from the void.
The five-element chain still wrapped and cracking around Ilux's body suddenly lost its context.
What was it wrapping for?
Whom was it protecting?
The elements within it—fire, ice, wind, obsidian, pulsar—still existed physically, but they ceased to resonate with Ilux.
Fire no longer recognized him as a source of rage, and the wind no longer whispered fate to him.
They became nothing more than detached natural phenomena, floating around him in perfect indifference.
To be continued…