Chapter 19: Training Before the Labyrinth
The sooner they left, the better.
Caelus hadn’t expected the timeline to start drifting this quickly. Eve’s appearance alone was enough to prove that whatever advantage his knowledge gave him, it was becoming less reliable by the day.
The Temple of the Moon had just become considerably more urgent.
A shadow moved beside him.
Eve emerged from it with the same quiet precision she’d shown earlier. Without saying a word, she placed a bracelet in his palm.
Caelus looked at her.
She looked back.
That was apparently the entire interaction.
Then she slipped back into Veyra’s shadow and disappeared.
Caelus stared at the spot where she’d been.
I was apparently beneath the effort of a full sentence.
Caelus almost took it personally.
Then he remembered that he was the one who had written her this way.
She had never been talkative. She had never cared much for people outside a very small circle.
He couldn’t exactly complain because one of his own characters was behaving exactly as designed.
Still.
Being ignored by your own creation was a little insulting.
Unfortunately, she also wasn’t known for having much patience with weakness.
Caelus glanced at himself.
D-rank.
D-potential.
Wonderful.
He activated his innate Appraisal ability(every aweakened have one), focusing on the bracelet in his palm.
---
Name: Veiled Form Bracelet
Rank: A
Type: Active
Tier: II
Effects:
[Veiled Form] [A]
Changes the user’s facial structure, hair, and eye color.
[Perceptual Blur] [A]
Subtly distorts the observer’s perception of the user’s identifying features, making recognition difficult unless the observer deliberately focuses on them.
---
A-rank.
Better than he’d expected.
More importantly, the second effect was useful. It didn’t make him invisible. It made people overlook him.
That was exactly what he needed.
He had no desire to arrive at the Temple of the Moon looking like the bastard son of House Vespera.
He slipped the bracelet onto his wrist. The metal adjusted to fit his skin, warm against his pulse. He focused on the Veiled Form effect, imagining the changes he wanted.
His black hair lightened into a deep brown, close enough to black that the difference only became obvious under direct light. His blue eyes changed next, darkening into a deep red that looked almost unnatural against his pale skin.
His jaw shifted slightly. His cheekbones changed. Nothing dramatic, but enough to make the face staring back at him in the polished surface of a nearby table no longer feel entirely familiar.
Caelus stared at himself.
"...That works."
Veyra watched the entire process with an expression of mild amusement.
"You look like a bloodsucker."
Caelus examined his reflection in a nearby surface. "That’s the point."
"You’re attracting more attention than you’re avoiding."
"That’s fine." He turned to face her. "You’re with me anyway."
Technically, she had a point.
He also wasn’t particularly interested in changing it.
Looking forgettable was useful.
Looking dangerous was sometimes useful too.
She raised an eyebrow. "Is that supposed to reassure me?"
"I’m not sure anything reassures you."
She almost smiled.
The change in appearance reminded him of another part of the world he’d almost forgotten to account for.
Vampires. Elves. Demi-humans. Entire races he’d written into the setting and then barely touched because they weren’t relevant to the early story.
They had always existed.
The Corrupt Fractures weren’t confined to Earth, either. They could connect distant worlds and dimensions, which meant the worlds Caelus had once treated as background material were real places inhabited by real people.
Some races had remained on their own worlds.
Others hadn’t been given that luxury.
Caelus adjusted the bracelet.
Apparently, even the side characters had planets now.
Who exactly am I explaining this to, anyway?
He shook his head. The thought had come unbidden, reflexive. He was so used to being the author, explaining the world to readers who didn’t know, that he kept forgetting he was no longer that person.
He wasn’t sitting outside the story anymore.
He was inside it.
And unlike before, he couldn’t edit the parts he didn’t like.
---
"So when are we leaving?" Veyra asked.
Caelus blinked. "Tomorrow."
"Why wait?"
"The labyrinth activates at night. We need enough time to reach the Temple, prepare, and still be there when it opens."
Veyra nodded. "Fine."
"I’ll stay here until then."
She raised an eyebrow.
"I assume you have rooms that meet my standards." He gave her a faintly smug smile. "I am a Vespera, after all."
"Who said you’re sleeping?"
He paused.
"What?"
Veyra’s expression was almost pleasant. "You’re training with Eve today."
"I don’t need training."
Veyra gave him a flat look.
"Everyone needs training."
"My Potential is D. I already know where the ceiling is." Caelus gestured vaguely toward himself. "Strength, stamina, mana, all of it. I can spend the entire day exhausting myself and I’ll still hit the same wall."
"You’re assuming the only thing training gives you is raw power."
"What else would it give me?"
"Experience."
She stepped closer.
"You already know your body is weak," Veyra said. "I don’t need to tell you that."
Her eyes settled on the sword at his waist.
"What you don’t understand is that weakness doesn’t mean inefficiency."
"Meaning?"
"You have limited strength. Limited mana. Limited Potential."
She paused.
"Then learn how to waste less of it."
He had spent so much time looking for ways around his Potential that he hadn’t really considered learning how to make the most of what he already had.
"I beat the Hero."
Veyra’s expression didn’t change.
"You survived the Hero."
Caelus frowned.
He had no immediate answer to that.
"That’s a rather selective interpretation."
"The Hero didn’t use his Affinity. He followed a pattern you already knew. He was effectively fighting inside your area of knowledge."
Caelus noticed something in her expression.
She had clearly remembered the duel.
She didn’t question him about it.
Not yet.
"Knowing what someone will do is useful," Veyra continued. "But only when you actually know them."
"People have habits. Monsters don’t owe you any."
"Neither do Corrupts."
Caelus’s grip on the sword tightened.
He hated that she was right.
Against Lucian, he’d possessed something close to a cheat sheet.
The labyrinth wouldn’t give him one.
Whatever waited inside would be meeting him for the first time.
And he’d be meeting it for the first time too.
"Fine," he said.
---
The training room was larger than he’d expected. Reinforced walls surrounded a floor scarred by years of combat, while weapon racks lined the edges with everything from swords and spears to weapons Caelus couldn’t immediately identify.
Whatever happened in this room, the walls had apparently learned to tolerate it.
Caelus looked around.
"Where’s the dummy?"
Veyra looked at him. "What dummy?"
Then she called Eve.
Eve stepped out of the shadow beside Veyra.
Her gaze settled on Caelus.
He suddenly understood why Veyra had no intention of letting him sleep.
Veyra gestured toward him. "Eve. Fight him."
Eve’s gaze didn’t waver. "Should I hold back, Master?"
"Yes," Caelus said.
"No," Veyra said.
Does this woman actually want me dead?
Caelus let out a sigh that was dangerously close to a groan. "C-rank hybrid?"
Eve nodded once.
"Should I have specified the number of cores?" Veyra’s smile was almost pleasant. "Dual-core. Mage and Martial Artist."
His stomach tightened.
Dual-core.
C-rank.
Mage and Martial Artist.
Caelus was beginning to suspect Veyra had a personal grudge against the concept of rest.
He knew about her.
He had written her fighting style.
He knew the theory behind what she could do.
But knowing how someone fought on paper and standing in front of them were two very different things.
He reached for his sword.
"Let’s see how you handle a dual-core C-rank," Veyra said.
That was considerably less reassuring than she’d intended it to be.
He considered running, retreating, or negotiating his way out of it.
None seemed particularly promising.
So he drew his blade and faced Eve.
They were leaving for the labyrinth tomorrow, and if he couldn’t survive a training session against Eve, then whatever waited beneath the Temple of the Moon was going to tear through him.
So this is what Veyra meant by experience.
Eve’s hand moved.
He tensed.
He’d spent the last few days looking for something that could make him stronger overnight.
Maybe the answer had been annoyingly simple.
He just had to become harder to kill.
"Begin," Veyra said.