The journey to the Prison of Dead Light required not traversing sufficient distances, but rather a "slip" in consciousness. According to what the fool whispered in his mind, the prison was not underground, but rather in the "void" that people leave when they forget something.
Celine used a bone key. He placed it in the empty air and turned it slowly. A heavy metallic "click" sounded, and the space before him split open to reveal a spiral staircase descending into total darkness, where light was not reflected, but absorbed as if drowning.
As he entered, Celine felt the power of the "collector of secrets" disturbed. In this place, there were no secrets to collect, for everything here was "dead."
Celine reached the bottom, where a solitary cell was constructed of spiritual lead alloys. There were no guards, for the place itself was enough to kill any living being with its profound silence.
Behind the bars sat a being that could notHis features were discernible; he was a mass of overlapping shadows that sometimes took the form of a human, sometimes the form of smoke. This was Prisoner Zero.
Celine stepped forward and felt the broken mask tattoo behind his ear heat intensely, as if protecting him from the nothingness surrounding him.
"I've brought the theater owner's key," the prisoner's voice came out like the scraping of rocks on the ocean floor. "What does the fool want with a forgotten remnant like me?"
Celine bent down, approached the cold bars, and whispered the secret he carried:
"The play has begun... and the audience are the victims."
As soon as the words were spoken, something terrifying happened. The prison didn't explode; it began to melt.
The shadows that had formed the prisoner began to flow through the bars and toward Celine, not to attack him, but to enter his ears!
"Ah!" Celine cried and fell to his kneesThey were not shadows, but "the world's lost memory." In that moment, Selene saw a history unwritten by historians. He saw that the gods worshipped by the churches now were merely actors who had stolen their roles from ancient entities, and that "the Fool" was not just a madman, but the original director banished from his stage.
When Selene awoke, he was no longer in prison. He was standing in the great city square of Arkanum, but the world looked different. He could see the "transparent threads" that bound every citizen to the church, threads of energy that slowly ripped their will from them.
He looked at his hand; the bone key was gone.
Instead, his skin was covered with mysterious writing in an ancient language, a language not read with the eye but understood with the spirit.
The transformation was complete. He was no longer just a "collector of secrets."
He had become the seventh rank: "The Narrator
.)The Possessed Narrator"
Now, Celine could not only hear secrets but also rewrite them. If he whispered a false secret in someone's ear, reality would believe it and it would become the truth.
But the price was high: Celine no longer had a shadow. He had lost it in prison, and with his shadow gone, he lost the ability to feel fear or remorse. He had become part of the play, and now it was time for the first act of "Chaos."
As he stood in the crowd, he saw Inspector Vargas approaching with a band of Purifiers. Vargas looked pale, his eyes bloodshot.
Celine smiled coldly and said in a low voice that everyone in the square could hear,
"Inspector... do you know that the god you serve... is no longer in his house?"
Rank 7 Abilities (Possessed Narrator)
Reality Tweaking (Distorting reality: Convincing lies become temporary truths in his surroundings.)Shadowless Presence: Undetectable by prophecy or traditional spiritual means.
Crowd Control: The ability to implant collective thoughts in the minds of ordinary people through "tone of voice."
The arena stopped moving. It wasn't a mere pause, but a moment of "freezing" imposed by Selene's new aura. Inspector Vargas, who had represented the pinnacle of authority and justice in the city of Arkanum, now seemed like a mere wooden puppet before an otherworldly being.
"What... what did you say?" Vargas stammered.
"That's blasphemy! I'll burn your tongue for heresy!"
Vargas raised his sword, engraved with the symbols of "Light of Truth," a Rank 6 weapon capable of vaporizing any lower-ranking transgressor.
A beam of brilliant white light shot from the blade, heading straight for Selene's chest.
But Selene didn't budge.
As a "possessed storyteller," Selene could no longer seeLight as a destructive force, he saw it not as a "paragraph in a dialogue." He reached out and scattered the air before him as if turning a page in a book, and whispered the false secret:
"Light does not burn... Light is merely a reflection of cowardice."
At that moment, the inexplicable happened.
The beam of light that was supposed to pierce Selene suddenly transformed into black flower petals that withered upon contact with Selene's clothing. It was no illusion; Selene had "convinced" Reality that this light was worthless, and Reality obeyed.
"Impossible!" cried one of the Purifiers behind Vargas, and terror began to creep into their hearts.
"The impossible thing is that you still think you are serving me, Vargas," said Selene, his voice now echoing in the minds of everyone present in the arena. "Look behind you... Look at your companions."
Selene used the power of crowd control. He did not change their thoughts by force, but gave them a "secret."Youngster: "Inspector Vargas is the traitor who stole the widows' budget."
This was a complete lie, but thanks to the powers of the Seventh Rank, it became an undeniable truth for the Purifiers. Vargas's comrades saw in their own eyes phantom memories of the Inspector stealing the money, and they heard phantom voices of his victims.
"Pig!" shouted one of Vargas's soldiers, pointing his pistol at his commander. "We trusted you!" The arena erupted in chaos. The Purifiers turned on each other, while Selene stood in the center, calm, shadowless, watching the play he had just written.
Selene approached Vargas, who was on his knees, trying to comprehend how the world had turned against him in seconds. Selene leaned close to his ear and whispered:
"That's the difference between us, Vargas. You follow a truth others have laid out for you... I make the truth that suits me. Now go to your prison... not the prison of the Dead Light, butYour prison... is not the prison of dead light, but the prison of your mind, which will forever replay this moment.
With a single touch of Céline's finger on the Inspector's forehead, Céline "captured" Vargas's consciousness within a time loop of conflicting secrets, leaving the Inspector a spiritual corpse, though his heart still beat.
Céline left the arena amidst the smoke and shouts. As he walked down the dark alley, the Fool appeared to him again, but this time not on a stage, but painted as graffiti on a crumbling wall.
The graffiti on the wall said: "A spectacular performance! But remember, storyteller... the real audience has yet to appear. The Seven Churches have sent the high-ranking enforcers. They are coming to retrieve the threads you cut."
Céline smiled and wiped the tattoo behind his ear. Let them come. I'm tired of telling short stories... it's time to write an epicThe Fall of the Gods."
Plot Development:
Distortion of Reality: Selene began using his combat abilities by altering the characteristics of enemies' attacks.
Direct Hostility: Selene was no longer an infiltrator; he had officially declared war on the religious system of Arknum