The warehouse was quiet, but Rayon felt it alive. Every beam of wood, every shaft of light, every thread of air vibrated beneath his senses.
He crouched in the center, eyes closed, fingers twitching slightly. Hollow Strings weren't just tools—they were extensions of his perception, of reality itself. And now, after weeks of experimentation, he understood a terrifying truth:
Altered perception could evolve.
What had begun as instinctive nudges—making a punch miss, a man stumble, a guard hesitate—was evolving into perfect hypnosis. Every thread could be tuned, stretched, and synchronized with a person's six senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, and intuition.
With enough practice, he realized, he could:
•Control perception completely, rewriting reality for one individual or dozens at once.
•Induce sensations of pleasure, pain, or fear that were indistinguishable from reality.
•Manipulate instinct and reflexes to make a person obey without question.
•Bend multiple people simultaneously into a choreography of his design.
The implications were intoxicating.
Rayon stood, loosening his shoulders. Hunger gnawed at him, but he pushed it aside. Combat was a thread as much as perception was. He experimented with hand-to-hand:
•One punch launched a man into a wall, but with a subtle tug at the string connecting muscle to balance, the landing became a trap. Bones snapped with a sickening precision.
•A spinning kick disrupted two enemies at once, manipulating the strings of their perception so they collided with each other mid-motion.
•He ducked under a thrown dagger and guided it into a crate behind him with a flick of his fingers, ricocheting into another attacker.
Every strike, every movement, was choreographed. A deadly dance. Rayon smiled, hollow and cold. The strings obeyed perfectly, translating his intent into physical reality.
Expanding the Organization
Power alone didn't make influence. Rayon needed people—loyal, capable, expendable, and manipulable. Over the next week, he recruited more from the slums:
•Thalric "Snap" Voren – a lockpick and trap expert, agile and sly.
•Kira Nyx – a stealth operative, silent as a shadow, with a sharp blade and sharper mind.
•Dren Lokar – a brute, street fighter with reckless strength, loyal to fear and reward.
•Lysa Corven – a tactician, observant and calculating, excellent at anticipating enemy moves.
•Jaro Fen – an assassin-in-training, fast, vicious, loyal to Rayon's vision.
Each member was hand-picked, each string of loyalty manipulated subtly. They believed in Rayon, even as they didn't know why.
The First Palace Attempt
Rayon's target was ambitious: the royal palace. A man ruled by greed, cruelty, and past sins against Rayon's people in the slums. The perfect test for perfect hypnosis.
He approached the gates at night. Guards passed; threads stretched to him like a spiderweb. He smiled. With a slight tug here, a shift there, perception bent:
•Guards imagined he was a shadow at the far end of the corridor.
•Torches appeared to flicker randomly, masking his movements.
•Senses confused, instinct misled, the palace became a stage for his design.
He reached the throne room. Alone. Cold. Hollow-eyed. Perfect control over his perception threads.
But then… the air shifted.
Not just any force—someone strong. Someone whose threads pushed back, whose presence distorted his control. A guardian of power, far stronger than anything Rayon had faced.
Rayon smiled. Not a grin of fear. One of calculation.
He tested his perfect hypnosis: multiple threads, overlapping, pushing his opponent's perception, tweaking instinct, bending sight and sound. But the strength of the adversary's own threads was too much. His illusions faltered, his nudges resisted.
A clash of wills—silent, invisible, deadly. Rayon realized retreat was necessary. Not failure, not surrender, but strategic withdrawal. He pulled himself back through shadows, leaving illusions of chaos behind him. The palace thought it had defended itself—but Rayon had learned everything he needed.
Lessons in the Dark
That night, back in the warehouse with his recruits, Rayon's hollow eyes gleamed.
•Hollow Strings were more than tools—they were laws of manipulation.
•Perfect hypnosis could control reality itself, but even the strongest force could resist if unprepared.
•Hand-to-hand mastery plus strings allowed him to fight multiple opponents flawlessly.
•Planning, observation, and retreat were not weaknesses—they were strands in a larger web.
His followers watched, inspired and fearful. They saw a boy from the gutter, manipulating men stronger than him, surviving the palace, orchestrating chaos with invisible threads.
Rayon spoke softly:
"Power is nothing without understanding. Fear is nothing without control. And the world… the world is just a web. And I intend to pull every string."