The entire ordeal had truly lived up to its name as a Nightmare.
However, the cracks that had spread through the entity’s body, the crown that had shattered above its head, and the scream that had shaken the Nightmare World told Ravian that his escape was not the only thing that had happened there.
’So you were a Calamity,’ Ravian thought, still unable to believe what he had survived.
’But why would a being with that kind of power and might need to do all of this to a handful of Ninth-Rank insects like us?’
The question had no answer, and even Ravian could not begin to guess at one.
’I mean, come on... that was a being this world classified as a Calamity!!’
The word carried far more weight now that he had escaped a world that stripped everyone of their power and placed them inside equal bodies. Bran had not known that he was swinging his axes inside a world owned by an existence capable of crushing them all without any need for a game, while Mirai and Aldric had never realized that the rules they struggled to survive under were part of the ascension attempt of a being standing near the summit of soul power and the Laws themselves.
Nevertheless... it had lost. Not in battle or on a battlefield, but that still counted as a defeat, didn’t it?
The corner of Ravian’s mouth rose slightly.
At that exact moment, a faint sound came from within his soul.
Click.
His ears did not hear it, but he felt it clearly.
Crimson light gathered above his head and condensed within something that had been present ever since his return without him noticing. Ravian looked upward as far as he could, then instinctively extended the spiritual perception he had acquired upon entering the Ninth Rank.
There, floating majestically above his head, was a crown.
Or something bearing the shape of one.
It hovered a palm’s breadth above his white hair without touching it. It was not made of metal, possessed no weight, and cast no shadow upon the floor. Gray and semitransparent, it had simple, sharp protrusions around its edges but none of the ornamentation expected of a royal crown.
Several gemstone settings were embedded along its surface.
The first gemstone was already complete. Crimson in color, it glowed with a calm light resembling Ravian’s eyes.
The second gemstone was forming before him.
Crimson threads flowed into the setting beside the first gem and wound around one another until they assumed the shape of a small, multifaceted stone. A tiny gap remained at its center for several moments before sealing completely with the sound Ravian had felt inside his soul.
The second gemstone was complete.
Ravian waited for the crown to disappear.
One second passed, then another, yet the crown remained floating above his head.
Ravian raised an eyebrow and asked, "What is this annoying crown?"
The white window responded immediately.
[Name: Soul Crown.]
[Classification: Nonphysical spiritual manifestation.]
[Every Soul Refiner possesses a Soul Crown representing their path of ascension, whether or not they can perceive it clearly.]
Ravian’s gaze moved between the crown and the words.
[Each completed gemstone within the crown represents a rank the Soul Refiner has successfully reached and stabilized.]
[First Gemstone: Tenth Rank—Awakened.]
[Second Gemstone: Ninth Rank—Walker.]
[A new gemstone will form with every successful ascension to a higher rank.]
Ravian observed the two crimson gemstones set within the gray crown.
He had never seen a crown above anyone else, but that no longer seemed strange after the System explained that it was a spiritual manifestation. Perhaps most Soul Refiners only became aware of its existence during ascension, or perhaps they could only manifest it externally under certain conditions.
Ravian swept his hand above his head.
His fingers passed through the crown as though it did not exist, but his soul felt a faint ripple at the point of contact.
"If the ascension is complete, why hasn’t it disappeared?"
The System’s answer was delayed this time.
The second gemstone stopped glowing for a moment, then its light returned weaker than before.
[Under normal circumstances, the Soul Crown’s manifestation ends once the ascension process has stabilized.]
[The host’s soul has not fully stabilized.]
[Examining the cause of the continued manifestation...]
All the other windows disappeared, leaving only one before Ravian.
White light passed through his body from his head to his feet.
He felt nothing at first, but when the light reached his soul, a purple thread stirred within its depths.
It was so small that Ravian could not pinpoint its exact location, but he felt it coil away from the examination and sink into a deeper layer whenever the white light approached it.
An image of his mother appeared before him for an instant. This time, she was not sitting on a bed but standing directly in front of him inside the room.
Ravian shifted his eyes toward her without moving his head, and the image shattered under the force of Absolute Focus before she could even smile at him.
The thread, however, remained where it was.
Then the messages appeared.
[A foreign spiritual trace has been detected within the host’s soul.]
[Probable source: Creator of the Soul Mirage.]
[Source Rank: Third Rank—Calamity.]
[Classification: Permanent spiritual contamination.]
[The contamination has settled within a deep layer of the host’s soul.]
[Full effects: Unknown.]
Silence descended over the room.
The gray crown remained floating above Ravian’s head, while its two crimson gemstones glowed in alternating pulses as though responding to something moving within his soul.
Ravian read the messages a second time, then a third.
His expression did not change, but his fingers slowly curled into a tight fist.
He could shatter the images produced by the contamination.
His concentration, reinforced by Absolute Focus, could detect inconsistencies and separate genuine memories from the copies the Mirage attempted to create. However, recognizing an illusion was not the same as uprooting its source, and identifying a single image as false did not mean that thousands more in succession could never affect him.
The Calamity had left something inside his soul.
Something whose full effects, whether present or future, he did not yet understand.
"Even as you were perishing..." Ravian muttered. "You still found a way to bite me?"
His mother appeared once more at the edge of his vision.
This time, he did not even look at her.
This one was false.
Absolute Focus shattered the image, and it disappeared without a sound, but a whisper remained behind him.
"Ryan."
Ravian’s jaw tightened.
No one in this world knew that name.
A moment passed, and then someone knocked three times on the door.
"Mr. Rayan?" came the voice of one of the manor’s servants from outside. "Dinner has been ready for a while... Is everything all right?"
Ravian’s gaze shifted from the door to the crown floating above his head, then to the window still displaying the warning about permanent contamination.
Only moments had passed inside Viola Manor.
Ravian, however, had lived through four days in another world, killed people—albeit indirectly—ruined the scheme of a Calamity, drawn the attention of an existence whose voice he could not even comprehend, and returned carrying a piece of the Nightmare within his soul.
He closed his eyes for a moment and forced his Aura and mana into complete stillness.
’Fuck you, Taboo of Fate.’
When Ravian opened his eyes again, his crimson gaze had returned to its usual calm.
"I’m fine," he answered the servant.
Then he looked toward the empty space where his mother had appeared.
’But it seems I returned from the Nightmare with another one inside me.’
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