For one frozen second, nobody moved.
Researchers. Security personnel. Hollows. Wraiths.
Every eye turned toward the silhouette rising from the ruined platform.
Gold-black flames crackled across a lean yet powerful frame. Stylized white smoke curled around his body like living muscle, giving him the appearance of an adult warrior far larger than he truly was.
He was a vision of impossible power—a tall, muscular, athletic warrior, his body encased in a fitted black polymer bodysuit that gleamed with vibrant orange-gold circuit lines tracing his chest, abdomen, and limbs. A thick red belt with a circular metallic buckle cinched his waist. Dark grey segmented pauldrons protected his shoulders, and armbands adorned each bicep.
His face was hidden behind a striking white kitsune mask with glowing yellow eyes, sharp red markings around the sockets, and a nine-petal red lotus emblem etched onto the forehead. Dark blue hair was gathered into a disconnected undercut with a messy topknot, with loose strands framing the jawline.
In each hand, he gripped a large, circular chakram—silver metal, with damascus detailing.
Silence. Then—
"STOP STARING!" a security captain roared.
The spell shattered.
"THAT'S THE INTRUDER!"
"GET HIM!"
Artifacts and Traits lit up instantly. Dozens of projectiles erupted from every direction. Bolts of condensed Flow, chains of light, sound bursts, explosive spheres.
Elias looked up.
"That's a lot."
He moved.
The chakrams spun in his hands, deflecting the energy blasts with effortless precision. Each shot ricocheted off the silver rings, scattering into the walls and ceiling. Researchers screamed and dove for cover. Elias burst through the formation, his movements fluid, almost dancing. He was faster now. Stronger. Everything felt right.
The Yako transformation felt strange. His thoughts felt lighter. Looser.
'This feels weird.'
He felt giddy, almost drunk with power. He could feel the ancient energy surging through his veins, the golden-black flames licking at his fingertips. The mask amplified his senses—he could hear heartbeats, feel air currents, sense the Flow in every living thing around him.
He cut through a group of Hollows with a single sweep of his chakram, their forms dissolving into ash.
More projectiles reached him. His body moved before he consciously decided to. One chakram spun. Then the second. Metal rang. Sparks exploded. Every attack was knocked away.
The spinning rings traced silver arcs through the air. Some attacks bounced into walls. Others struck ceilings. One unfortunate researcher screamed as a ricocheting wind blade shaved off half his mustache.
"MY MUSTACHE!"
Elias laughed and leapt. It was a high, melodic sound, devoid of his usual dry, calculated cynicism. It was playful, unhinged—the laughter of the fox. The platform beneath him exploded from the force.
'This is fun. Why didn't I do this sooner?'
The thought startled him. Normally he would never think that. Instead, he felt excited. The sensation was horrifying... and oddly enjoyable. He landed atop a floating staircase hanging upside down in open space.
More guards rushed him. Wraiths and Hollows accompanied them, shrieking.
Elias stepped forward.
The first Hollow lunged. A chakram flashed and its head vanished. He ricocheted the second flame-infused chakram on the ground, burning away a wraith, and with a diagonal slash relieved a third hollow of its torso. He then swatted the guards and went on his way. As he did, he looked at his pauldron where a guard had struck him before being sent flying over the edge of the staircase.
The armor helped.
Most of it had been assembled from Quin's warehouse—like the Damascus thread he used to make the two chakrams. A few came from the Iron Forest. Like the Diredeer horn which made up his right armband and the Ibex horn that made up the left. Everything had been woven together into a single system. Not perfect, but functional.
Another guard appeared beside him and her sword struck. The blade passed directly through his shoulder. The guard froze.
"...What?" she muttered in disbelief.
Smoke dispersed from the wound.
Elias glanced down.
'Oh, right.'
Most of his new body wasn't actually physical. Even if he turned into a Yako, his physical form—that of a young boy—wouldn't drastically change. To bypass that, Tamamo's smoke filled the empty spaces to give him the appearance of an adult. Nearly seventy percent of his apparent mass was illusion.
The real danger lay in protecting the portions that were him and not smoke.
Another attack came, a spear this time. He tilted slightly, causing the attacker to miss and stumble. Once he was close enough, Elias punched him in the gut, causing the man to crash through three shelves and disappear.
Elias didn't wait for the man to fully crash and turned to run away. More guards poured in from side corridors. This time, however, they carried Forbidden Artifacts to use as weapons. Elias could feel the energy coming off the artifacts from where he stood.
"FA-1843, active!"
"FA-2097, active!"
"FA-3120, active!"
"FA-4005, active!"
"FA-4895, active!"
"FA-5730, active!"
"FA-"
"I get it, I get it. Sheesh." Elias said with a sigh.
Reality warped.
One artifact transformed sound into physical force. Another turned shadows into restraints. The third caused nearby objects to forget momentum. Entire chunks of the room became an unpredictable battlefield.
It was bad enough that this group of crazy people brought crazy toys to the fight, but worse still, they formed a defensive formation—a perfect shield wall that allowed no blind spots. Elias recognized their stances instantly.
A black chain erupted from nowhere. He ducked.
The chain passed overhead and struck a floating staircase. The staircase instantly aged a century. It collapsed into dust. Elias jumped backward.
Another artifact activated. The concept of distance twisted. Suddenly, a guard standing twenty meters away appeared directly beside him. He blocked a blow with his chakram and suddenly dropped it, catching the man off guard and throwing him at another guard who fired some kind of beam. The thrown guard instantly broke apart into symmetrical blocks, his body twitching but no sound heard. The other guards ignored him and moved toward Elias again.
All of them were Votaries so they could fully control the first layer of reality being concepts unlike Elias who could merely influence it as an Acolyte. Not that he could at this time since he currently no Flow.
Elias also recognized the formation from the sword styles. Stellar Aegis style practitioners occupied the front. Perfect defensive positions with minimal movement and absolute coverage. Behind them stood Phantom Blade style practitioners, the deceptive strikers. Further back, the Devouring Edge style practitioners acted as the heavy attackers. Finally—Sunbreaker style practitioners, living artillery that would prevent all passage.
Each covered the weaknesses of the others. No blind spots. No openings.
That's annoying.
One of the guards, a tall woman with a scar across her cheek, stepped forward.
"Who are you? "
Elias paused, tapping a finger against his chin in an exaggerated gesture of contemplation.
"Good question," he said.
Who was he? The Maker of Discord? No. Someone already used that title. Spreader of Anarchy?
"Is spreader even a word?" he asked. The guards exchanged confused glances.
'Hmmm, even they aren't sure if it's correct grammar.' he thought, scratching the back of his head.
Then inspiration struck.
"Oh!"
The guards flinched, their grips tightening on their weapons.
"I am an Agent of Chaos. And chaos, my dear friends, is orange. So you may call me... Agent Orange." He gestured to the glowing circuits on his suit.
"Has a nice, citrusy ring to it, don't you think?"
Silence.
"...What?"
"Agent Orange."
More silence.
"You're insane," the scarred guard muttered.
"Probably! But that doesn't make me wrong."
Despite what it seemed like, his deranged blabbering was calculated—a dissonance intended to scramble their focus. In the three seconds they were trying to process the madness, he hurled a chakram. The guards reacted instantly and dodged, but they weren't his target.
The weapon sailed past them and struck a containment chamber. Glass shattered and everyone froze. Mechanical birds—the same ones that had been chasing Elias minutes previous—poured out.
They immediately attacked everyone in sight.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" the scarred guard screamed.
"We just got them contained!" Another complained.
Elias pointed dramatically.
"See? Chaos."
Elias rushed forward, his feet barely touching the gravity-defying path that spiraled upward in every direction. He threw the chakrams on the ground and stood on them. The silver rings burst into gold-black flames and spun beneath his feet, propelling him forward at impossible speed, leaving a trail of flames in his wake.
"WHAT IS HAPPENING?!"
"HE'S SKATING AWAY!"
Elias flew through the corridor. A grin stretched beneath his mask.
This is so fun!
The path ahead opened. Blackwave—he could finally see him. The pirate stood restrained near a spatial gateway.
Almost there.
And then—
He dropped instinctively. A beam of pure light sliced through the air where his head had been, and the pillar behind him vanished in a blast of blocks and dust.
He skidded to a halt, the chakrams grinding against the stone. He looked up.
An Inquisitor stood atop a distant platform. A massive artifact crossbow rested in his hands, FA-5567. The weapon glowed with concentrated radiance.
"You have got to be kidding me," Elias muttered.
"They actually have lasers. I was joking."
Elias immediately hid behind another pillar. A second beam struck and half the pillar disappeared.
"That's cheating."
He peeked out. Bad idea.
Another beam followed. Elias pulled back as the ground in front of him exploded.
"I can't dodge light," Elias muttered. "If I didn't sense the charge-up, I'd be cheese by now."
He pushed the thought aside. He was trapped. The Inquisitor had him pinned. He risked a peek around the pillar.
The gateway was opening. The other Inquisitors were preparing to send Blackwave through. Layl supervised, her arms folded in front of her. He had seconds.
The world suddenly flashed black.
A massive impact, and the pillar exploded.
Elias was thrown backward, tumbling across the ground. The concussive force knocked him several meters back. He shook his head, ears ringing. His body—or what was left of it—reformed slowly, the mist calescing.
'What the bloody hell was that?'
He could hear Layl's voice, sharp and furious.
"I told you not to cause damage!"
"Apologies, ma'am," the man with the crossbow apologized.
That flash. It was familiar. The familiarity hit him immediately.
'Wait...'
It was the same warped spatial shift that heralded movement from... Ortis.
"So that's it," Elias laughed, coughing up a bit of smoke.
"All this time, Ortis was moving faster than light. No wonder I couldn't get a single hit on him in the forest. But where did that black flash come from when he moved?"
He pushed the thought aside and rolled out of the way as another beam sliced through the air, taking cover behind a different pillar.
"So, how do I get past him?"
He looked up. More security personnel were descending from staircases that moved in impossible directions. They had him surrounded.
Or so it seemed.
Elias slowly stood.
"Well, this is unfortunate..."
He smiled behind his mask. He wore the chakrams on his wrists and they spun at impossible speed. They burst into dozens of glowing threads—silver, luminous strands that attached themselves to everyone and everything in sight. Security guards. Researchers. Artifacts. Even a few of the mechanical birds and random furniture.
"For you guys," Elias finished.
"What is this?!" someone yelled.
"Get it off me!" yelled another.
"I can't move!" a guard strained.
Elias leaped forward, using the threads to pull everything toward the Inquisitor.
People screamed. The man raised his crossbow, but he couldn't fire without hitting civilians.
"GET BACK!" he shouted.
But it was too late.
Elias used his right armband—forged from the horn of the Diredeer—to alter gravity, causing the floating mass of people and objects to drift forward, blocking the Inquisitor's view.
Then Elias turned to mist.
He flowed through the chaos, a ghost in the storm, and reformed behind the Inquisitor. His fist connected with the man's skull. The Inquisitor crumpled and the crossbow clattered away.
Cheers erupted from nobody. Elias mentally celebrated anyway.
Then Layl stepped forward and his celebration ended. Behind her stood several Inquisitors. Each one terrifying and far stronger than him.
"Surrender," she said. "You cannot escape."
Elias feigned contemplation, tapping his masked chin.
"Hmm."
She narrowed her eyes.
"Hmm?"
"Hmmmm."
He suddenly threw a chakram. They dodged, nobody paying extra attention to it—but it wasn't aimed at them. It struck the cuffs holding Blackwave, shattering them.
Silence.
Then confusion exploded—all that Elias needed.
Elias dropped a flower bomb—not an ordinary one, but a flower bomb that released spores causing vivid hallucinations. Hallucinogenic pollen.
Purple smoke erupted. Researchers blinked then started laughing. One security officer hugged a floating mechanical bird. Another challenged a levitating chair to a duel. A third burst into tears after realizing her boots were beautiful.
Effective.
Elias rushed forward, grabbed Blackwave's arm, and sprinted toward the gateway. He dove through, pulling the pirate with him.
The sensation was wrong. It was like being pulled apart and disassembled simultaneously.
They've closed it off. We're not coming out at the museum.
He thought quickly. The talismans.
He'd prepared a checkpoint outside the wall. He could only send one person at a time. Luckily, he had placed another one on a passing dog.
He pressed the first talisman into Blackwave's hand. In a flash of cold light, the pirate vanished, pulled toward the coordinates of the dog. Then Elias activated his own talisman.
He felt the pull of the anchor—a violent, bone-rattling yank that ripped him out of the severed space and spat him out into the cold, uncaring night.
He hit the wet pavement hard.
The transformation, no longer supported by the concentration of the Yako state, dissolved. His adult size evaporated. The mask dissolved. The armor receded. The chakrams vanished. He was just a boy again, shivering and bruised.
He was just Elias again. Weak. Human. Exhausted. He curled into a ball on the alley floor, his lungs burning from the backlash of the transformation.
I... didn't think this through.
Security personnel were already pouring out of the museum. He couldn't move. His body was spent.
It was raining.
A woman stood over him, her umbrella shielding him from the downpour. She sighed, her expression unreadable.
Then she reached down toward him.
He didn't see it though. His vision had already gone dark.