Chapter 3: Spatial Cleave
Fractures.
They were rifts forcibly torn from the fabric of reality. To the terrified retinas of mortals, they appeared as incomprehensible silver lightning; but in my sight, they were the "Dimensional Judgments" of Absolute Logic passed upon inferior matter.
[Residual Warmth Activity: 85%... 92%... ERUPTION.]
[Authority Status: Localized Correction (Spatial Cleave).]
Leo remained frozen in his mocking stance, but his sneer had turned into a mask of paralyzed horror. He discovered, to his immense dread, a clean, hopeless black line separating his outstretched right hand from his torso. It wasn't a wound—it was a severance in the very spatial coordinates of that spot, "drawn" into existence by Xu Shangxi's sheer willpower.
"AAAAAAGH!"
The delayed scream tore through the deathly silence, but as the sound waves rippled outward, they hit the warped gravitational field and shattered into distorted echoes.
"What... what is this?!" Xu Shangxi stared at his hands in abject terror.
He felt like a child clutching a bolt of lightning. The grey energy surging from the webbing of his thumb was no longer under his control. Instead, it followed the trajectory of his fingertips, slicing through classroom desks, chairs, walls, and even the midday sunlight as if they were nothing more than thin parchment.
"Do not look away, Xu Shangxi," my consciousness thundered within his mind. "This is the 'dissonance' you've always sensed. Look closely—this world was always just a collection of these fragile lines stitched together."
At the end of the hallway, reality began to curl and peel away like scorched film. The once-rowdy students stood frozen like de-powered puppets, their "existence weight" plummeting to near-zero, becoming mere background static in this spatial storm.
Suddenly, a cold, unyielding force pierced through my sensory field. It was an organized, precise pressure—heavy with the scent of cold metal.
[External Interference Detected: Vayer Logic Node.]
[Target Identified: Ada Vayer.]
"Enough. This level of noise has exceeded the threshold of tolerance."
The voice emerged from the center of the spatial rift. Accompanied by the rhythmic click of high heels, a woman in a dark trench coat stepped slowly across the shards of shattered logic. Behind her monocle, her eyes held no warmth. She swept a cold gaze over the collapsed Xu Shangxi before her vision pierced through the boy's mortal shell, locking onto my consciousness hidden deep within the brand.
"Shilii," she whispered my name, her tone laced with cruel irony. "You've degraded yourself to the point of nesting in such a defective vessel? Is this what you call 'Truth'?"
She raised a gloved hand and snapped her fingers.
A flash of blue light surged forward. The violent silver fractures seemed to meet their nemesis, emitting a hissing sound like red-hot iron plunged into water before rapidly shrinking and smoothing over. The severed desks and chairs reassembled; Leo's nearly detached hand fused back onto his wrist—though it was offset by a fraction of a millimeter, leaving his fingers twisted like the legs of an insect.
Xu Shangxi clutched his hand in agony as the brand seared his skin, reacting violently to the forced suppression of external logic.
"Who he is doesn't matter," I spoke through Xu's mouth, my voice a layered, inhuman resonance. "What matters, Ada, is that you are still acting as a patch for a leaking bucket."
Ada's brow furrowed. She sensed the divine pressure radiating from the boy. She reached into her coat and pulled out a silver instrument—a [Logic Weight Meter].
Beep. The device shrieked with a sharp, piercing alarm.
"Weight Overflow... How is this possible?" The icy mask on Ada's face finally cracked. "A mere mortal... carrying over 30% of a Divine Fragment?"
When she looked at Xu Shangxi again, her gaze had shifted. He was no longer a mere glitch to be erased. He was a "Weapon of Mass Destruction."
"Secure him," she commanded coldly.
Mist swirled outside the classroom. Several "Correctors" in deep grey uniforms, their faces blurred into featureless masks, emerged from the shadows clutching logic chains designed to freeze one's will.
"Run, Xu Shangxi," I roared in the boy's mind. "Unless you want to be turned into a specimen in a jar of formaldehyde, run back to the bookstore! It's the only blind spot left!"
Xu Shangxi snapped awake. He grabbed his broken pencil, smashed through the fractured window, and lunged into the mist-shrouded streets just as the Correctors closed in.
He sprinted through the fog, the wind howling in his ears. And I, sitting in the attic of No. 404, slowly opened my eyes.
The board is set. Ada has entered the game. And my medium has finally learned how to tear this false reality apart.