Unholy Player

The lie came effortlessly. He didn't care if they believed it; he didn't need them to. Their faces said enough. His entrance had already achieved its purpose.

He had waited for this, waited for the perfect moment to intervene. To step into their despair not as another fighter, but as the one they would cling to.

He had allowed them to break, to crumble, to lose hope completely, so that when he appeared, he would seem like salvation itself.

He had almost revealed himself earlier, but one among them, Thalira, had resisted, her will too strong to be broken. She fought against despair until the very end, refusing to be crushed by the chaos around her.

In the end, even she fell, her emotions turning dark, her control slipping away.

Now, beneath Adyr's light, she felt that darkness dissolve. The despair that had consumed her heart turned fragile, able to feel warmth again.

The calming pull of Presence, together with Grace's healing, easing light, wrapped around their minds, mending what was broken and lifting what had collapsed.

For Adyr, watching their faces soften and their faith shift toward him in silence, it was perfect.

It was exactly the entrance he had planned, exactly the moment he had been waiting for.

And he was already in a position to seize the moment and draw out every benefit.

"I was pulled into this strange place while coming here. Is it some kind of pocket dimension?" he asked, raising one eyebrow as if oblivious to what it was.

Hearing his words, Thalira's brows lifted, a flash of surprise touching her features. "You came here without knowing what it is?"

Her question made the others look at him even more intently.

Adyr kept his reassuring smile, shrugging his shoulders. "When I realized you were in trouble, I rushed in. I didn't have time to watch or understand the details."

His lie… his seemingly heartfelt words made all of them feel warmth. How could Astra Path Practitioners be so kind and righteous even when the one in question was an Elder Race?

"This is the skill of a Rank 4 Spark," Brakhtar answered from where he floated at the front.

His two faces now looked completely at ease, already gaining clarity under Adyr's Grace.

"It's a spatial skill. Its effect is the creation of a sub-dimension. If we want to escape, we need to break it by force," he explained, his face dropping a little as he added, "To break it, we need a force equal to a Rank 4 Practitioner, and even then, it's not a complete escape. The Spark is already using it for the second time, and I don't know if it can use it again after we manage to break this one."

For a moment after the explanation, every face fell again, depression threatening to seep in. Yet under the light of two bloodline talents, their morale rose again as if they were under a strange illusion.

"Power of a Rank 4 Practitioner, huh?" Adyr didn't seem to feel any drop in spirit, looking instead as if he were thinking about what meal he would have at dinner.

Seeing him, Thalira spoke in a tone uncharacteristically soft and hopeful. "Do you have anything to break it?"

Adyr appeared to think for a while, and only then did his face shift into something serious, his brows knitting before he relaxed again and exhaled deeply, as if weighing a life-and-death decision.

"Indeed, I have something, but…" As he spoke, he withdrew his Grace and Presence, plunging everything around them into eerie darkness once again.

For the next stage of his play, he didn't need them to feel uplifted and spirited. On the contrary, they needed to feel the weight and gravity of the situation.

Exactly as he intended, the warmth suddenly drained from their bodies, leaving only Adyr's grave gaze. All their hearts skipped a beat as they braced for his next words, sensing that their weight would be no less than what they were already facing.

Satisfied with the reaction they were showing, Adyr slowly looked at every face, as if scanning each one of them, and finally, his voice came out heavy.

"I have another bloodline talent that would allow me to break this dimension, but it's also a curse that I shouldn't reveal to anyone. Can I trust you to keep it secret?"

Now his main aim was in play.

He didn't know what the outcome would be, but he had to try if he wanted something greater for his future standing in the Outer Region.

At worst, I can kill them all, he thought silently and coldly, waiting for their reaction.

"Brother." Maruun, who had been waiting at the back, stepped forward. His fishlike fins beat the air like a slow, measured drum. His face was as serious as ever.

"I came here knowing my limits, and I have accepted death as a possibility," he said, every word steady. "Whatever you decide, I will accept it without protest, even if it costs my life." He did not press Adyr for a different choice. There was a quiet resolve in him, the kind of calm that comes from someone who has weighed the price and chosen to stand by a friend.

They all knew Adyr carried an unusual background. They understood, without needing to be told, that some truths in the world were too large to be shared freely. The fact that Adyr would even ask them to hold a secret, that he would reveal something of himself to save their lives, moved most of them in a way nothing else could.

"Adyr Hellcraft." Brakhtar's voice filled the small space around him. Weight hung in the words. "Is this secret something we can bear?"

As someone who carried Elder Race blood in his veins, Brakhtar knew the world held many secrets, some as heavy as the sky and capable of crushing someone as small as he was. His question was careful, almost reverent.

Adyr let the serious expression fall away and a thin smile return to his face. "It is only the knowledge I want you to carry. Let me keep the weight of it." The smile did not soften him. If anything, it made the offer colder, more deliberate.

Seeing him so resolved, the Practitioners tightened like drawn strings. Their faces hardened into a shared decision. They would be witnesses to his choice. They would accept whatever came with it.

Only Thalira remained silent. Her face held nothing the others could read. She looked as if she bore a heavy secret of her own, an invisible burden pressed against her ribs. Adyr noticed the way her jaw set and found the detail oddly interesting rather than troubling.

"All right. Let's get out of here." Adyr's voice carried the authority of someone who had already decided.

He summoned the Tower of Worth into his hand to use as a weapon for what would come next, and readied himself to break the dimension.

And finally, beneath the hush of a hundred eyes, he let the secret loose. Black smoke poured from his skin and breath, from bone and cloth, rising in a single column that uncoiled like night.

In that instant, silence snapped across the crowd; they were not being shown a secret but forced to behold Fear incarnate.