Chapter 17
"God!!" I exclaimed.
My face met the ground—no, not the ground. Cold. Wet.
Splash!
Water?
I face-planted into what felt like a small lake.
I coughed, flailed, and spat a stream of brine from my mouth like some dying fish.
My whole body screamed in pain, still reeling from the fight against the Necrozi boy.
My limbs were sore, my head was ringing, and I was pretty sure my left rib was developing its own rhythm section.
The terrain had shifted again.
I could barely swim to a nearby rocky platform—the only high ground I could see that wasn't submerged.
Seriously, with the kind of luck I had, I wouldn't be surprised if the next terrain shift was lava.
No—scratch that. Lava with flaming piranhas and death sharks. Because of course it would be.
I slumped onto the platform, panting like I'd just run a marathon while being hunted by tax collectors.
I was shivering, drenched to the bone.
My clothes clung to me like a second skin—torn at the sleeves, soaked through, and ripped in three places I could see and two I could definitely feel.
My pants weren't doing any better. Frayed edges. Mud. Scorch marks.
One knee was exposed entirely, scraped raw from when I'd slid across stone during that earlier fight with the Wulfgarn.
I looked like a survivor. Or a very badly dressed corpse.
Despite my ruined outfit and pounding headache, I felt a surprising flicker of satisfaction.
I'd eliminated that Necrozi boy.
Sure, it had cost me every last drop of mana I had left—but I'd done it.
I'd taken down that Necrozi freak.
Even if it drained every last drop of mana from my system and nearly knocked me unconscious, it was worth it.
I leaned back against the jagged rock, eyes half-lidded.
My MP was zero. I was cold, wet, borderline concussed—but satisfied.
That guy had it coming.
Now though? I was completely drained.
Not just physically—but mentally. Spiritually.
My soul felt like it had been rung out and hung to dry.
And the reason?
The Eyes of Horus.
Ever since I figured out how to activate the skill, things had changed.
It wasn't just about gritting my teeth and yelling commands like some discount anime protagonist.
No—this world ran on intent.
On will.
On something far older and more dangerous than programming.
And when I activated the Eyes of Horus… I didn't just cast a skill or a spell.
I connected to something ancient. Something deeper.
It wasn't Echo showing me a menu or lighting up icons.
The screen I saw appeared inside me.
Translucent. Eternal.
A ghostly shimmer embedded into the folds of my own consciousness.
Like a message written on the back of my mind in a language I shouldn't understand… but somehow did.
Not a system.
A vision.
When the screen appeared, it was never static.
It breathed. Shifted. Symbols pulsed and twisted like living veins of meaning, offering choices.
Not in words—but in feelings, impressions, echoes. I couldn't explain it.
I knew which effect I was choosing—but I could never describe how I knew.
And I always picked the second one.
"Beyond the Veil of Reality."
Teleportation.
Because let's be honest: I wasn't mentally ready to see into the future yet.
Who knows what horrors waited there?
Besides, the aftermath of even teleporting once was already a migraine-inducing disaster.
The side effects were no joke.
My mind would blur, the world would twist, and sometimes I'd feel like I was hearing voices—low, ancient whispers calling from beneath the fabric of existence.
But… it worked.
And for now, that was enough.
And ever since I arrived in this insane world, if there was one thing I was thankful for, it was that I didn't have to start from scratch.
I didn't need to train for years to learn how to punch or dodge or move.
Didn't wake up with a bald monk telling me to "feel the chi of the mountain."
Nope.
The real Eden—the previous occupant of this body—had already done the hard work.
He was many things. Arrogant, reckless, unstable? Probably.
But the guy was was no doubt a genuine prodigy.
Even if his soul had left the building, the body still remembered how to fight.
If it wasn't for the memory-etched instincts, the fighting techniques carved into this body and bones, I'd have been eliminated ten minutes into the match.
"God bless his soul," I muttered with a tired grin.
Then I added, "Even if he was a complete bastard."
I checked my smartwatch. Eleven minutes left.
My final orb flickerd like a dying star—thin, trembling cracks spiderwebbed across its surface, pulsing with a faint, flickering glow.
It was holding out... barely.
I could still put up a fight.
A small one. A desperate one.
I didn't know where my twin was—but wherever she was, I knew she was okay. From the few days I have been with her, she was strong, even stronger than me in ways I couldn't admit aloud.
Fierce, fast, stubborn to the bone when she needed to.
As an Aeromancer, she could ride the wind like it was part of her own blood.
I trusted her. I had to.
But then my thoughts circled back—like a cold hand dragging me to the edge.
Valois.
That bastard.
I hadn't seen or heard any mention of him in the game. No runscreen, no mention of him in the gaming community, no whispers about the game dev bringing in a new character.
It didn't make sense.
Maybe he was an NPC?
But no, no way. Not with that level of strength.
No NPC in the game had ever been that powerful—not without being introduced first in some grand cinematic or storyline reveal.
Valois had presence. Lore.
Weight.
He moved like a king among children, like he'd existed long before the code that built this world.
And yet... I couldn't recall him from the game.
But I knew the real vampire prince. Every player did.
He was introduced near the final chapters of the campaign.
You never got to fight him—just see him arrive in a cinematic that dropped jaws across the fanbase.
Cold. Ancient. Radiant. The only vampire prince officially recorded in Eternal Realms:
> Lucien Drayven Aetherhart.
Third Son of the Crimson Cathedral.
Last Blood of the Moonlit Concord.
Heir to the Eternal Night.
That was the name etched into the codex.
That was the face every endgame player feared.
And Valois? He wasn't in that story.
At least... not in mine.
But then again, I never finished the game.
Did he show up later? Was he a hidden route?
A secret character? Or something—someone—added after I left?
My head throbbed violently, like memories were trying to claw their way out of my skull, only to find the door locked from the inside.
Something about all this didn't line up.
There were cracks in the script.
Lines out of place.
The kind of thing that made your brain itch, like you were remembering a dream you never had, but knew by heart.
I shook it off.
"Ahh... my head hurts," I muttered, dragging a hand down my face.
"I'll figure this shit out later."
I had to move. And that fucking system was still offline.
God.
Still lying half-drenched on the soaked stone, every bone screaming in protest, that's when I heard it.
Laughter.
Not the fun kind.
Not the hopeful kind.
Not the sort of laugh you hear and think, Hey, that sounds like someone I want to be friends with.
No, this was the kind of laughter that made your spine curl.
Chaotic. Cracked.
Whimsical in the most terrifying way.
The same laughter I heard earlier.
The one that danced across the battlefield like a violin played by a drunk god.
The one that didn't belong in any realm of sanity.
Now that I was closer... I could tell. It was feminine.
A girl's voice.
I forced myself upright, groaning, and looked toward the source.
What I saw made my heart skip.
Cassia.
Cassia Virelle Duskmoor.
My breath caught.
I knew that name.
I remembered her.
I skipped most of the cutscenes in the game, but her's I couldn't.
I remembered everything.
From the game.
From the forums.
From the horror stories whispered between players who thought they'd discovered something they weren't supposed to.
She wasn't just some random background vampire or cosmetic skin DLC.
No, she was part of the upper echelon—an elite name whispered in blood-drenched threads on long-dead forums, always preceded by the words:
Don't approach.
Don't romance.
Don't. You. Dare.
Her family—House Duskmoor—was one of the oldest bloodlines in the vampire hierarchy, a relic of the Pre-Concord Era.
They were aristocrats of the grotesque.
Patrons of cursed art.
Warlocks in lace gloves.
They didn't drink blood—
they extracted it through enchanted instruments crafted from hollowed bone and ancient thorns.
A house so old it was rumored even the Vampire King himself left them alone.
And Cassia?
She was their youngest daughter. Their prodigy. Their crown jewel.
And possibly, the most unstable creature the game's devs ever coded.
In Eternal Realms, Cassia wasn't just an NPC.
She wasn't just a boss.
She was the Schrödinger's cat of the dating system.
Depending on how you played the game—your choices, your alliances, how often you flirted or fought—
she could either become a main heroine…
…or the final villain of the second arc.
There was no in-between.
She wasn't difficult to approach.
No, she was impossible to survive.
She toyed with your character.
One minute she'd be holding your hand, walking through moonlit gardens and talking about cursed constellations.
The next?
She'd be dipping your soul in molten silver while giggling through a glass of crimson tea.
She could mock your trauma and then comfort you.
Laugh with you as she burned enemies alive.
She might slit your throat and then cry over your corpse.
Trying to romance her was like proposing to a live grenade.
If chaos could take the form of a girl, it would have her smile.
And now here she was.
Alive.
Real.
And beautiful.
Painfully so.
She wore a deep crimson gown, soaked with rain but clinging to her like a second skin.
Yes, rain.
Even though we were under a dome—a sealed sky meant to simulate ideal conditions—it was still raining.
Heavy, cold, and unrelenting.
The dress was sleeveless, backless, and shimmered faintly with some strange arcane thread.
Torn at the bottom from battle, yet still elegant—still haunting.
It hugged her body in all the right ways, every curve defined like a sculpture, made for poetry or peril.
Her waist was narrow,
hips smooth and sculpted. The neckline of her gown swept down just enough to stir danger and temptation, revealing the pale skin of her collarbone and a sliver of cleavage, accented by a black choker that pulsed with a subtle red glow—likely cursed.
Her long, platinum-blonde hair was darkened by the water, clinging to her cheeks and neck in tangled waves.
Everything about her was feminine—not delicate, but sharp-edged, like glass wrapped in silk.
Beautiful in a way that was made to ruin people.
But don't let that fool you.
Don't let the curves, or the gown, or the bedroom eyes deceive you.
Because Cassia Virelle Duskmoor was ruthless.
Cruelty came to her as easily as breathing.
And now, Not far from me, on a shallow stretch of water near a crumbled platform,
four students were sprawled across the wet stone, twitching and whimpering like broken toys.
And floating above them, drenched in moonlight and madness, was her.
One of the boys below her tried to crawl away—bless his soul—but she crouched in a flash and gently traced a bloody line down his cheek with one finger.
"Oh, don't be shy," she purred, voice velvety and venom-laced.
"You were all roaring so bravely few minutes ago.
What happened? Cat got your tongues?"
Her eyes gleamed crimson as she tilted her head. "Or was it me?"
One of the girls screamed. That was her first & last mistake.
Cassia laughed, a pure, echoing sound that bounced off the flooded terrain like a songbird on acid.
"Too loud,"
she said sweetly.
And then, with a delicate hum, she vanished in a burst of motion and reappeared behind the girl.
She whispered something in the girl's ear.
Whatever it was, the poor thing collapsed into the water like a puppet with its strings cut.
A boy clutched his broken leg and backed away slowly, whispering a prayer to a god who wasn't listening.
Another student had already fainted, legs twitching in the water.
And then there was the last guy. Poor bastard.
He still had two full orbs.
Plenty of time.
Plenty of chances.
Instead?
He looked at Cassia.
Looked at the dagger lying near his feet.
And then?
He picked the dagger up, stared at Cassia's back for half a second, let out a very polite sigh, and stabbed himself right through the core orb on his belt.
Pop.
Gone.
Eliminated.
Just like that.
I blinked.
"…Did… did he just—?"
He did.
He actually did.
He looked at this vampire girl in a red dress and said:
Nah, elimination sounds better than whatever that is.
Guy hit the instant exit button.
Straight-up logged himself out of the exam.
And again—I couldn't blame him.
Cassia paused in her spinning and cocked her head, the way a cat does when it hears something rustle in the bushes.
"Hmm?"
She turned halfway.
Her hair clung to her cheek like silk spiderwebs.
Then she shrugged, forgot about the self-eliminated person like it was a misplaced chess piece.
God.
This girl was still insane.
The remaining student?
He started to crawl away.
Cassia let him.
She wasn't in a rush.
Because this wasn't a fight to her.
This was art.
And me?
I was watching her from a fractured platform.
And my last orb was cracked, pulsing.
Any sound, any move… and I could become her next toy.
I swallowed hard, pressing myself lower into the ruined platform as the rain came down harder, misting over the fractured ground.
I a fought werewolf, a necromancer, even Valois.
But Cassia?
Cassia was something else.
She was a game-breaking bug made flesh and fangs.
And if she saw me now?
I'd need more than luck.
I'd need a save point.