Chapter 13 - Hensen Vehen

Something is wrong with the stairs.

However, this was okay. Vern didn’t panic. He wasn’t just an ordinary fundamentalist anymore. It wasn’t his first instinct, but the idea of observing the balance came to him quite naturally after realizing the problem.

He looked at the stairs and considered the Balance of the height.

As expected, something had gone more than just wrong. One would predict that a balance of height would start with black on top, with every step getting lighter depending on how close it was to the ground. It didn’t.

What he saw instead was that each step was actually a short shaded cylinder, with the whole staircase being a tunnel made of these small pieces. What was worse, however, was that when he ‘stepped down,’ all he actually did was walk along the inner surface of these cylinders.

Vern ignored the grand anomaly around him and tried to wrap his head around this mind-bending vision of cylindrical grayscale.

Instead of stepping down to the next stair, he tried walking side to side. This did give him some modicum of progress within the vision toward white, but there wasn't nearly enough space. So he charted a route within the gradient that went from black to white in a linear fashion. But it would be a stretch to call it a route.

When contrasted with his general sight, the path looked like it wanted him to go headfirst into the railing and then just walk in the air. It didn’t make sense at all. Still, he knew something was amiss with his general perception of space, and this path in the air was very likely the real way down.

Not hesitating or double-guessing too much, he jumped the railing and found solid footing in the air. He wasn’t keen on giving his perception more contradictory feedback, so he closed his fleshly eyes and trudged on.

It would be a lie to say that he wasn’t confounded by the whole experience. But this particular scenario of trusting logic instead of his own senses was somewhat of a staple as a Lennian fundamentalist.

Just a few months ago, he had to muddle his way through incomplete depictions when he delved too deep into the upper projection of the northeastern octant of Insight Sphere. Most of the memories of experiences within fizzled away as soon as he roused back from the projection, but he remembered that his sight was more than just wrong in extrapolating the fundamentals. Any progress he made in there, came from following the previous logic of that depiction. It was quite an unnatural encounter, much like this one.

Vern’s unicolor vision guided him to travel in a spiral through the strange tunnel, and he trudged on without any challenges. The laws of gravity not acting as they should in the spiral. But again, what was acting normal today, anyway? In just a few seconds, he was already at the mouth of the tunnel.

He opened his fleshly eyes and stepped outside the tunnel. In his real vision, he was halfway inside a pillar, rotated awkwardly. However, when he blinked again, the peculiar sight was no more, and he found himself teetering off balance at the foot of the staircase.

Stabilizing himself, he continued walking. Now that he was on the solid floor, hopefully, the path itself wasn’t warped. The balance of ‘height’ won't help him chart his way through this one.

However, his worries were unfounded as he managed to reduce the distance between himself and Hensen without any more anomalies rearing their head—except the constant storm of sparks, water, and debris that phased right through him.

In no time, he was just a few meters away from Hensen whose eyes looked hollow, staring at lady knows what. But what should I do? How was he to use something like balance to confront this transcendent observer? Hensen was still standing mostly unharmed, the tempest raging on in front of him. He had his arm stretched out, still morphing into thousand different things, and Vern didn't dare look too closely.

A few seconds passed by as Vern stood there, not knowing what to do. Until he remembered the situation he was in mere moments ago, and it gave him an idea.

Gravity.

The whole library disappeared, and past the boundary of this anomalous storm, everything below him was a dark, unfathomable void, whereas the sky above faded into a murky gray. It was like he was standing on a cliffside next to an abyss.

He also realized that he could see either of the two realities as he wished, the vibrant realistic one or the monochrome nihilistic one as he desired. All he had to do was focus hard enough, and the grayscale completely dominated his sight, eliminating the need to physically close his eyelids to ignore reality.

Besides that, this small section where he stood was chaos beyond imagination. It was like that etheric dance of skylights that the fundamentalists from the northern Senn empire talked about, except they weren’t in the recorded shades of green and blue.

The grayscale balance of gravity was flowing like liquid, twisting and turning into patterns that didn’t make sense. Probably one of the reasons everything around him was churning like a storm.

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Still, something was a little different than usual with the balanced sight. This time, the scope of the gravity being perceived by his eyes was too much.

Usually, everything was limited to the room or even stairs. If, in his earlier sight, the scope of height was on a scale as grand as this, then the staircase's top and bottom both would've been similar shades of gray. Because, from the perspective of the whole planet, the height of both ends of the staircase wasn't very different.

But Vern didn't have the time to glean anything about this obscure fundamental of gravity from this view. Every fraction of a second that passed by put an enormous strain on his eyes.

So he did what anyone would have done in this situation. He imagined a somewhat dark shape that would have covered the figure of Hensen in his real sight and turned the world around Hensen a shade lighter.

Taking a deep breath, he braced himself and superimposed this modification onto his real sight.

.

.

.

It didn't burst his eyes. Heck, the pain was even milder than when he was experimenting with the air. Could it be related to gravity already being in a mess? But then why was it so taxing to just look at it?

However, the effect of the vision wasn't as gentle. The chandelier, debris, shelves, flames, smoke, and things from even beyond the hall began hurling towards Hensen, accelerating as they reached him—and passed right through him.

Except his ever-changing arm. Wreckage stuck to whatever extended out of his shoulder and concentrated all around it, brutalizing the blob of mass every second.

"Aaaaghhh!"

Vern involuntarily jerked back in response to the sudden scream, and the vision shattered. Fuck. Why is it so hard to maintain focus? It was already an ordeal to keep the vision active—this little disturbance ended up being the pin that jammed his gears.

"Aaaagh!!" the flowing water turned back into sparks that fell all around them.

"Hah," debris fell right back down with loud thumps.

"HahaHahhaHah," smoke regressed back to its former darkness.

"Hahahahaha…"

"Listen here—you scrap shit." Hensen flung his arm, and the debris collating around it dispersed in all directions. But then his laughter died down as he noticed the state of his hand, and a horrified look briefly flashed past his eyes.

Vern was already backing away, trying to get out of Hensen's sight. The hell do I do now? What other balance could he manipulate that wouldn't knock the wind out of his sails and actually do something to this madman?

But before he could turn around, that sense of contradiction filled every inch of his body, and he stood there, rooted on the spot. Hensen started walking towards Vern ignoring his now static yet mangled hand.

A sinister smile was etched on his face as he said, "You just happen to know how to use that vision on me, right? But you said today's the first time you learned about subjectivity. I let myself lament for a bit, and any random fucker thinks they can walk all over me. But no matter, the Empress knows the truth." He raised his unharmed palm and spread it open, fingers representing the number five.

"You may not forget, but you have to live to remember, right? Let's see how many contradictions you can handle before you give up," then, with a chuckle, he tucked in the thumb.

An endless surge of contradicting thoughts suddenly rose up in his mind. To cry. Laugh. LaugCry. Fuck. No. No. NoCry. Laugh. Tears trickled down Vern's eyes as he began laughing uproariously, "Hahhahhah, it Hahhah is Hahh." It was annoying to feel his body escape his control. This was exactly like that situation in that horrorscape before, but swift and more potent.

So the solution wouldn't be too far off from the last time. Simply focus on something else entirely. But I shouldn't jump the gun just yet. Hensen was already pissed for unknown reasons, and if Vern displayed that he could disregard his vision, things might just turn for the worse.

"Hahhah it is Hhhah my eyes Haahhhahah right? Hahhah take aghhh take them. aghh," said Vern forcefully amidst his fits of laughter and groans, tears continuously leaking out of his eyes.

"Are you trying to fuck with me, or do you really not know?" said Hensen with narrowed eyes

"I do HAhaGh not HahhAghh I only look Hhaahhaah for a Aghh peaceful resolution."

"Wrong answer," Hensen dropped his index finger, leaving only three fingers upright.

Vern walked forward, but his upper body jerked backward. His eyelids began blinking rapidly, left shut only once every few seconds. It was as if when to blink and when to keep eyes open was inversed. Pushing his right hand led to his left one being pulled. The coordination of his body was an utter mess.

It gave the impression of a marionette controlling the puppet with jumbled strings. The more Vern tried out his body's functions, the worse he realized it was.

This really was getting too much. What the hell was wrong with this guy? He wasn't willing to believe anything Vern said and made assumption after assumption without giving him a chance to explain. What didn't bode well for Vern was that this madman's observation was bizarre. Bizarre and formidable.

Vern could maybe ignore a few of these commands, but this was starting to overwhelm him. He had always had a calm mind, but it was just physically becoming impossible to stay in control. This is terrible. What the hell does he want?

"Does that makes you wanna talk straight, or you got more shit to say? If eyes worked like that, I would have long gouged your pair out even if I had to hide from the Visionary behind you for a couple decades."

So eyes can't be transferred? Fuck that. Should I just make up the name of some Visionary? Would that get him off my back? But what if Hensen knew all the visionaries? He already came to the conclusion that Yharl Ballin wasn't a Visionary earlier, calling him some random fucker.

One wrong word and Hensen might step up the torture, leaving him unable to recover at all. From Hensen's words, it was obvious—more than a little obvious that Vern was going to remember whatever was about to happen, but not him. Was that because of his ethereal form? But didn't Hensen have something just like him too? However, that wasn't important right now. He saw a chance here.

Rejecting many sub-par choices, Vern finally landed on a simple yet viable one. It might actually work. Making up his mind, he spoke, "HahhAGHHH hahha I—"

The world shook, and Vern lost his footing, plunging to the ground on his back, blinking like a lunatic. He looked around, mirroring Hensen, who seemed just as perplexed.

The carcasses of scholars that littered the ground began glowing a crimson before a shiny scarlet thread seeped out of them. A thread that became thicker and taller by the second, flowing like a liquid toward the ceiling.

Hundreds of streams of what almost seemed like blood, soared from all around them, boring a hole through the thick ceiling and spire beyond it without any hindrance.

Before Vern could restrain his laughter and tears enough to get a word out, Hensen spoke, "Well, we're out of time. I don't know whatever the fuck this is, but the Monarch of Karthain is about to turn back the clock. Since you refuse to identify your affiliation, your Visionary will have to take an issue with the Empress once the dusk has fallen."

"Because if I have to forget, you don't really deserve to remember either!" and he folded his middle finger.