It worked, It worked one more energy looking at the sword card in my hand. I just got the class and I’m already not doing anything I told the others I would.

[ System Prompt]

[ 45 seconds left until the error can be removed. Warning: When the error is removed

Consistent use of cards significantly over your tier will result in strain on your body. The results could be similar to or even worse than an extreme mana surge of mages. ]

Firstly, I know some skills classes like berserkers have their berserker's fury which grants them increased strength proportional to their anger, but strains their body. I don't know any skills that replicate mages' last resorts. Wait a second does that mean I’ll die if I don't cancel the summon of Jorm?

Jalen exhaled slowly, steadying his pulse as he took stock of his situation. His heart was hammering against his ribs, but not from exhaustion—more from the sheer absurdity of what he was dealing with.

Looking around my body I don't feel any strain. I’m not seeing any injuries besides a few cuts and scrapes from dodging the puppet either. Does That mean when I unsummon the deck I’ll face backlash?

His fingers flexed, testing his control. His body felt fine. No burning veins, no ruptured mana pathways, no creeping exhaustion. Yet.

Well, it doesn't really matter currently. I'll think about it when the puppet who is still preoccupied with the earth spirit who has receded into its shell. This has been the wildest awakening ever.

It was still hunting them, still moving, still twisting its body in unnatural, erratic motions. The Earth Turtle Spirit had withdrawn into its shell, serving as a temporary distraction, but that wouldn’t last forever.

Jalen swallowed hard. I don’t have time to figure this out.

[ System Prompt ]

[ Error in Error has been removed sorry for the inconvenience caused by the error. The Nyx Puppet can now see you. The earlier prompt applies if the Serpent card Jorm is still in your possession when the countdown ends. Would you like to return the serpent card Jorm? ]

Jalen’s blood ran cold.

The error in the error?

The system had glitched, and now it had just… fixed itself? Like that?

Is that the reason the time was extended instead of getting this thing out of here it was working on helping it.

The Nyx Puppet’s head snapped toward him, its eyes locking onto his own with eerie precision. Its limbs, once erratic and twitching, suddenly fell unnervingly still. And then—

That smile returned.

Jalen’s heart lurched into his throat.

[ The Nyx Puppet can now see you. ]

The message burned into his vision, but he barely had time to process it. The puppet’s body twisted, coiling like a spring—

Jalen barely had time to react. His body moved on instinct, mana flooding his veins as he pushed himself into a desperate backward roll. A split second later, the puppet’s elongated arm crashed into the floor where he had just stood, shattering the tiles into a crater of dust and debris.

Jalen’s lungs burned as he scrambled upright. Too fast. Too precise. The moment the system corrected itself, the puppet’s movements had changed entirely—it had gone from erratic to targeted. There was no lag, no hesitation, no delay.

And now… it wanted him.

[ Would you like to return the Serpent card Jorm? ]

Jalen’s eyes darted toward the system prompt, the glowing words hovering at the edges of his vision like a cruel joke.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

If he returned Jorm now, he’d avoid the backlash. He could escape the potential consequences that the system had warned him about.

But—

Jorm was the only thing keeping him alive.

The Nyx Puppet twisted its head, eyes unblinking, and took another step forward. Its fingers flexed, stretching unnaturally long, as if eager to carve into flesh.

Jalen clenched his teeth.

Returning Jorm now would mean leaving himself completely vulnerable. He had no other summons strong enough to take this thing on.

[ System Prompt]

Again normally people don't experience a fourth of these prompts from the system.

[ If you return the card the intervention can be sped up. ]

The system is bribing me now. What is wrong with it?

Jalen stared at the message, his pulse pounding in his ears.

The system is bribing me.

It wasn’t just offering a safe out—it was practically begging him to return Jorm.

That wasn’t normal. That wasn’t right.

The system never acted like this. It didn’t bargain. It didn’t negotiate. It was a rigid force, a framework that dictated the rules of the world. And yet, here it was, practically trying to cut a deal.

His fingers twitched.

Returning Jorm would make the puppet go away faster. That was what it was saying, right? The ‘intervention’—whatever that meant—would be sped up.

But…

Why?

Jalen’s eyes flickered toward the Nyx Puppet, its frame barely shifting, its too-wide grin stretching across its face as if it already knew how this was going to end.

It was waiting.

For him? For the system? For Jorm to disappear?

Jalen’s jaw clenched. It wants me to do it.

Everything about this screamed trap. The Nyx Puppet, the system’s sudden shift in behavior, the fact that this all started with an error in an error.

He exhaled sharply. No. I’m not playing along.

“I refuse.”

The words left his lips before he could second-guess himself.

[ Refusal acknowledged. ]

The system’s prompt flickered for a fraction of a second—just long enough for Jalen to catch something in its code, a strange distortion in the letters, a brief overlap in the text—before it disappeared entirely.

The Nyx Puppet tilted its head.

Then, for the first time since the battle began—

It laughed.

A low, glitching chuckle, as if its voice had been distorted and played backward through a broken speaker.

Jalen felt his breath hitch.

That… wasn’t a system-made response.

That was something else.

And whatever it was—

It had just been waiting for him to refuse.

Jalen’s breath hitched as the pain lanced through his body, a fire burning through his veins that wasn’t just physical—it was something deeper, something primal. His legs buckled, vision warping as the world around him fractured.

The floor beneath him blurred. No— not blurred. Shifted.

One moment, he was in the present, standing before the Nyx Puppet. The next—

He was watching himself die.

Jalen barely had time to register the change before the first vision played out before him in excruciating clarity.

Jorm moved—fast, faster than anything should. The serpent’s massive body crashed forward, its maw splitting open in a gaping abyss, fangs crackling with an eldritch energy. It lunged at the puppet—

And phased straight through it.

Jalen saw himself freeze, just for a second. A second too long.

The Nyx Puppet moved, its fingers stretching out like claws, its expression never shifting from that eerie, too-wide grin.

Then—

Pain.

Jalen watched as his own limbs were severed in an instant. A clean, precise dismemberment. No hesitation. No struggle. Just inevitability.

The vision was so clear, so real, that he felt the ghost of the pain ripple through his very soul. The sharp sensation of flesh parting, bones snapping—

And then, just as quickly as it came—

The vision shifted.

A new death.

Jalen saw himself dodge this time. He didn’t freeze. He threw himself out of the way—only for the puppet to predict it. A delayed reaction wasn’t even needed. The thing had known exactly where he would move.

One elongated arm sliced through the air, catching him mid-roll—

And Jalen watched as his own head rolled across the floor, eyes wide open, mouth frozen in a silent scream.

The scene shattered again.

Another death.

Then another.

Then another.

Each time, the puppet killed him in a different way. Each time, Jorm was useless.

Each time, the realization hit harder—

This thing couldn’t be beaten.

The visions weren’t just hypothetical possibilities. They weren’t wild guesses.

They were warnings.

They were predetermined outcomes.

Jalen’s breathing turned ragged. He could feel his body in the real world shaking, his mind struggling to pull itself free, but the visions wouldn’t let go.

He was being forced to watch every possible way he could die.

The system—no, something else—was showing him that no matter what he did…

The Nyx Puppet would always win.

And then—just as the hundredth death played before his eyes—

A voice.

Not the system’s voice.

Not the puppet’s.

Something older. Something watching.

“Still struggling?”

The visions stopped.

Jalen gasped as the world around him snapped back into place. He was back in his body, but the pain still lingered like phantom wounds. His hands trembled, his heart slamming against his ribs as if trying to escape.

His ears were still ringing with that voice.

That voice.

It wasn’t the system. It wasn’t the puppet.

It was something else entirely.

And whoever—or whatever—it was, they had been watching the entire time.

Looking up he was faced with a horrifying scene: the Earth spirit was directly split down the middle. Ember was laid out no visible injuries but his body was no longer a flaming red.