As he moved, something clicked into place.

I didn't understand it. Not fully.

But suddenly, every motion, every possible variation of his attack unfolded before me—a thousand routes, a thousand different ways he could strike, all playing out at once like a script I had already read.

And he was slow. So unbearably slow.

No—I was just seeing too much.

Then, the moment he hit my aura, something even stranger happened.

The world stopped.

Not just him. Everything. The shifting of fabric, the distant calls of merchants, the rustling banners overhead—all of it frozen. I couldn't move, but I could think.

What is happening?

Then, a voice. Her voice.

From the void of stillness, she appeared.

Barbatos—no, Barbra, I reminded myself.

She stepped forward with the casual elegance of someone who had seen this all before. Her form wavered like a mirage, half-there, half-not, her beastly features flickering with a regal sharpness.

"I didn't expect you to use my Sigil like this," she mused. No concern. No shock. Just acceptance. "The expectation was that your first variation would enhance your origami creations—make them more autonomous, more lifelike. A pseudo-Machina, as your world calls it."

She paused, tilting her head slightly, observing me.

"But you've tapped into something…deeper."

She extended a hand, tracing a shape in the air—a perfect, mathematical spiral.

"I am the Queen of Beasts," she continued, "but that was not the only gift I gave my people. Geometry is the language of nature. Every fauna, flora, and fungus follows the principles of form. Every living thing shapes itself to survive and thrive within the constraints of structure."

I listened, but my focus wasn't entirely on her words. It was on the knowledge flooding into me.

This had to be influenced by my first shell.

Barbra's voice softened. "Welcome to the gift I gave my people once they discovered and solved the Gerefferetti Equation."

And then—

[You have awoken the Sigil Skill: Laplace Function.]

Laplace Function Skill Type: Active

FORBIDDEN: Warning. Warning. An Administrator is observing the situation. Administrator has agreed to the ability. Forbidden tag removed.

Effect: Understand the movement and possible movement between all points, and all routes that are possible between two points. Each level of this skill increases the parameters, depth of understanding, visualization clarity, and the number of observable outcomes.

While active, this skill is visibly marked by a glow in your left eye. If your left eye is ever destroyed, the glow will remain in the empty socket.

I inhaled sharply.

"Administrators?" I asked aloud.

Barbra shook her head, crossing her arms. "Simply Dominus who agreed to neither ascend nor tether their worlds. In return, Axioma—King of Laws—"

She stopped.

Her lips parted slightly, then shut.

She couldn't say more.

"…Can't say more, apparently."

The world felt heavy, like time itself had turned into thick syrup, each second stretching longer than the last. I was frozen in place, the weight of knowledge pressing against my mind, and yet, I couldn't escape the stillness. It wasn't until Barbra's form wavered—the air itself rippling around her—that I realized I wasn't simply caught in the pause of the moment. I was seeing beyond it.

This wasn't just some ordinary skill or trick. The Laplace Function—whatever it truly was—opened my mind to an overwhelming number of possible outcomes, all of them replaying before me like a hundred films at once.

It was terrifying.

Barbra's voice echoed in my mind once again, clear and unwavering despite the frozen state of time.

"Remember, Alexander," she said. "Geometry is the language of existence. Every point in time, every moment, is bound by the shapes of their possibilities."

Then, as if the world needed to remind me that no answers were simple, she vanished, her form slipping away like a shadow into a fog that hadn't even been there.

Just as she disappeared, everything resumed.

The moment shifted like a snap of a bowstring, and the world rushed back into motion at full speed. But the shift wasn't just physical—it was mental, too. Suddenly, I could see it all. The possible paths of movement. Every angle. Every strike. Every possibility of the outcome.

And the wind—sharp as a blade—was already whipping toward me.

I knew it was coming for me.

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My opponent's form had barely moved, but I knew his intent. The wind was already forming in his hands—a blade of sharpened air, coiling and twisting as though it had a mind of its own, slashing through the air toward me. I could feel the pull of it, a cold breeze curling around the edges of my body.

But instead of moving, I stood still. Frozen.

The thought of avoiding it—dodging it, or even parrying it—seemed futile. I knew the trajectory. I understood the angles. The force of the wind was moving faster than I could ever react to. But if I just stood still, if I didn't move at all—

It would miss.

I felt my heart racing, my breath held tight in my chest, but I didn't flinch. The blade of wind swished past me, so close I could feel the faint pull of its edge in the air, but it never touched me.

I was still.

I could see it now—the empty space where the blade would have hit if I had reacted. I was alive, and I had won.

But it felt… wrong.

The air around me was still, unnaturally calm now, as though the very forces of nature had stopped to witness my choice. Time had resumed its course, yet the world felt… off. I was still, my body anchored to the ground in a position that shouldn't have been so perfect. The wind was gone, dissipating into the air as though it had never been there at all, and my opponent's blade vanished with it.

And still, I didn't move.

Everything was so clear now. The possibilities danced before me—each one in its own space, a thousand threads of futures unfolding, none of them the same, but all connected in a way I couldn't fully understand. There was something about the way time had halted that made me realize how fragile all of this was. How easy it would have been to slip up and let a single choice, a single move, change everything.

The air around me was crisp, sharp with the cold of realization. But there was also something warmer. A burning desire to know more. To understand this Laplace Function better.

I glanced around, the sharp clarity of the world around me making me realize just how much I had overlooked before. Every step I took, every decision I made from now on—would be weighed against the possibilities before me. There was a sense of power in that, but also a feeling of dread.

What did this all mean for me?

I slowly let my breath out, my feet shifting slightly. I could feel the tension in my muscles, the stiffness of standing perfectly still for too long. And that was when I realized just how much time I had wasted standing there.

No. I couldn't afford to be lost in this.

I couldn't let myself get caught in the loop of seeing all the possible outcomes and forgetting that there was one future that needed to be seized now.

I turned, stepping forward, the world seeming to return to normal, just a little slower than before. I didn't need to see everything. I didn't need to understand it all. Not yet.

But I did need to move.

Another blade of wind screamed through the air, aimed directly at me. It came from the armored man of House Vermillion, his form practically radiating intensity as he conjured another strike from thin air. I barely shifted, moving just slightly to the left, enough to let the blade whiz past my shoulder.

He was getting frustrated now, I could tell. His face contorted into a grimace, his eyes narrowing as if he were focusing all of his energy into the wind around him. He was trying to anticipate my movements, but every time, every single time, I moved just enough to avoid him. His attempts were becoming more erratic, more desperate.

I could see it in his stance—his concentration faltering, like a tightrope walker starting to lose balance. And yet, it wasn't just frustration that marked his demeanor. There was genuine confusion, a growing disbelief that someone could dodge so many of his attacks with so little effort.

He gritted his teeth, his hands flicking through motions I could barely track, but Laplace Function was already working overtime, making those tiny adjustments in my movements—calculations I didn't even consciously register. A micrometer to the left, a sudden duck to avoid a blade, a little nudge to the right as another one arced toward me.

Each adjustment, no matter how small, was enough to evade his onslaught. It was almost… predictable now. The wind was sharp, vicious, and yet, for all his skill, it couldn't touch me.

He screamed then.

"WINDS OF BLOOD!" His voice cracked through the tension in the air, and the environment around him shifted violently. The air turned a deep, unsettling scarlet, a mist of blood intertwining with the gusts. It was his own blood, swirling around him as he manipulated it to fuel his deadly winds. His attack intensified, each blade moving faster than the last.

Still, Laplace Function didn't fail me. I saw every angle. I saw every strike as if it were unfolding in slow motion. The math of the movement was clear to me, almost as if the world was broken down into simple geometric lines. I shifted just slightly. A fraction of a second, barely noticeable. One blade passed. Then another.

Then they multiplied.

One blade became three. Three became six. Six became twelve.

The wind slashed at me from all directions, relentless, unyielding. His frustration mounted as he pushed more of his power into the attack, and I just kept dodging—every blade narrowly missing. Each movement felt more effortless than the last, but with each dodge, I could see the toll it was taking on him. His skin paled, a ghostly hue overtaking his features as the sheer energy he was expending began to drain him.

"Enough, Crullo," came a voice from behind him, sharp and clear. It was a boy—young, no older than me—who approached, a calm yet forceful presence in the chaos. He gently placed a hand on Crullo's shoulder and eased him aside.

The man of House Vermillion stumbled back, still breathing heavily, his gaze filled with a mixture of admiration and annoyance.

The boy, now standing in front of me, gave a small, polite bow, his posture crisp and formal. "Do forgive my retainer," he began, his voice smooth, the kind of tone that demanded attention without effort. "I am Adevn Abeyrey Hepnetvem. This one deeply apologizes for one of the lesser houses of Blood. The Sanguine Spear hopes for your forgiveness."

Sanguine Spear.

The name rang a bell in the back of my mind, but the connection remained elusive. I couldn't pull anything concrete from it. A noble house, perhaps? But I couldn't afford to look ignorant, not in front of him. So instead of asking, I nodded respectfully and said nothing.

"Am I right in assuming that the test was to see if I'd meet violence with violence?" I asked, the tension in my chest still palpable, though I'd managed to control my own breathing.

Adevn's lips curled into a smile that was both sharp and civil. "No, the test was to see if you'd be able to notice which attacks to dodge and which to allow yourself to be hit by. Considering you dodged every single one, you clearly didn't need that lesson."

I exhaled a soft sigh, though I wasn't entirely relieved. Of course, nothing was ever simple. Everything had to be wrapped in layers, and I was still far from understanding the full extent of what had just happened. The violent tension in the air had faded, but the questions kept growing in my mind.

As if on cue, an update appeared in my Status.

[Status Updated]

Sigils:

Barbatos - Queen of Beasts

Sigil Skills:

???

Beast Speak

Laplace Function

Beast Speak. Of course, that one was there. It was Barbatos's gift, her first offering to her disciples. It made sense that it would show up. But Laplace Function—the skill I'd just awoken—was the one that had truly changed the way I moved, the way I saw the world.

But it wasn't just that.

There was another skill listed, still locked.

What was it?

I couldn't help but feel a surge of curiosity. I'd only just unlocked Laplace Function, and now there was something else, something still out of reach. I had to know.

As I stood there, the weight of the battle's aftermath settling in, my eyes flicked to Adevn, his composed demeanor giving no indication of the true complexity of the test I had just endured. The silent hum of energy in my left eye reminded me of Laplace Function, the raw potential it held, and the locked skill teasing me from my Status screen. My mind raced, pondering what that unknown skill could be, what more I might unlock. Before I could even begin to formulate an answer, I heard a soft, almost inaudible crack behind me. I turned just in time to see a figure emerge from the shadows, a familiar but unexpected presence—someone who shouldn't have been here at all.

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