Yurin stepped into the dueling ring, fingers tight around the metallic hilt of his blade. He detested the sword, though. He much preferred the warmth and brilliance of his constructs to the cold and lifeless feel of steel. However, without a seal, he couldn’t exactly feel the approval or disapproval of his affinity, and the sword was the only weapon he had any sort of training with, so he had chosen it.
Across from him, Marcellus Edgarin stood with a smirk, twirling his dagger elaborately like a hunter weaving traps.
“Good luck, Sunshine,“ Marcellus taunted with a sly grin. “You’ll definitely need a lot of luck if you intend to take me down with a few beams of sunlight.”
Yurin rolled his eyes. “I’m not a solar-awakened idiot.”
This wasn’t the first time his affinity had been mistaken for that of sunlight, but light was a much broader concept compared to sunlight. Light was the absence of darkness; it was illumination; it was visible radiation; it was much more than just sunlight.
Marcellus shrugged in a manner that declared that he couldn’t careless what Yurin’s affinity was. “Light, sunlight, moonlight. I don’t care. I’ll fucking win anyway.”
Yurin twirled the sword, grimacing at how slowly the weapon moved compared to his constructs. and with a sigh, he muttered. “Let the best man win.”
Marcellus grinned, obviously preparing to say something witty and insensitive, but before he could, Professor Alaric raised a hand to halt their conversation and called out. “Begin!”
Yurin attacked immediately. He moved so fast that he was almost a blur, and with more power than was perhaps necessary, he slashed forward, fully expecting Marcellus to dodge or defend himself, but Marcellus did neither. Instead, he laughed and waved his hands comically even as the blade split him in two.
Yurin cursed as the illusion exploded in a shower of sparkling lights and confetti, his body already curving to slash at another illusion as it emerged from behind him. This time, the illusion dodged and aimed the dagger at his neck.
Yurin tried to dodge, but Marcellus’s movements were so bizarre and unimaginable that Yurin was more in shock than in pain when the dagger pierced his neck. The pain caught up to him an instant later, and he quickly grabbed his neck to prevent blood loss only to find himself uninjured.
Laughter echoed from everywhere and nowhere all at once as the dagger shattered into sparkling dust. Yurin sputtered, wondering what in Raol's name had just happened, but he didn’t have time to dwell on the matter as another illusion appeared behind him and lunged.
Yurin dodged and slashed at the illusion, but then another illusion appeared and then another until he was utterly and completely surrounded. The illusions lunged at him with Marcellus’s laughter echoing in the background like an ominous music, but as he moved to defend himself, his perception of reality suddenly warped. The dueling ring distorted, his perception stretching and collapsing on itself as the world itself became slippery. Surreal. Fake.
The illusions merged and multiplied, collapsing on each other as the dueling ring distorted further. Yurin’s gaze swam, and he stumbled, struggling to hold up his weapon even as a dozen illusions lunged at him.
Initially, Yurin had thought Marcellus’s illusions were light-based, a nifty trick based on light manipulation, but it seemed he’d been wrong. Rather than a subtle manipulation of light to create illusions, Marcellus manipulated perception itself, twisting the mind to create the images he desired.
Yurin staggered even as the roof blurred into the ground and the concrete floor turned into water. With unsteady feet, he lashed out, slicing a trio of illusions apart even as another stabbed at him from behind. The mirror dagger pierced something within Yurin’s stomach, eliciting a cry of pain from him even as he lashed out once again and sliced the offending illusion in two.
Panicked, he pressed a hand to his back, expecting to find it sleek with blood this time; instead, his hands came back clean, just like before. Laughter echoed again, and Yurin growled. Marcellus was playing with him, and Yurin hated that. He felt helpless, and it was obvious that Marcellus could have incapacitated him at anytime. He had no idea why Marcellus was dragging this out, but it made him feel weak.
“What’s the problem, Sunshine?” Marcellus taunted again, his voice tinged with an emotion Yurin couldn’t recognize. “Feeling woozy?”
Marcellus laughed, and the world warped again. The earth disappeared from beneath him, and Yurin fell just as another illusion appeared and stabbed at him. Yurin screamed as pain—real pain lanced through his knees, and this time, blood poured out. The illusion grinned, and Yurin realized it wasn’t an illusion after all. He reacted immediately, swinging his sword with as much force as he could muster, but the world shuddered again and Yurin lost his bearing.
Pulling on his well of willpower, he staggered, fighting the perceptions of his own mind even as half a dozen Marcellus’s lunged at him. Cursing the cold blade, Yurin activated {Light Emanation}, and his hands exploded with a flash of high-intensity light, bright enough to temporarily blind anyone who looked directly at it. In essence, the skill allowed him to emanate light from his body, temporarily making him a small sun, but aside from a chorus of curses that echoed all through the dueling ring, the skill did nothing to reveal or harm Marcellus.
“Useless.” Yurin muttered as he began weaving light rays into poorly formed constructs and using it as a defense instead of attacking all the time. However, for every illusion he cut down, more popped up. They appeared by the dozen, attacking relentlessly, and Yurin cursed again as he fought a losing battle against his own mind.
It was annoying and frustrating in a way Yurin had no words for. He loved his affinity, but his innate skills, {Light Emanation} and {Light Manipulation}, just weren’t suitable for combat, or as much combat as he would have loved without his other skills to augment them. Without {Solid light}, he couldn’t create a hurricane of light blades to slaughter this ruffian to pieces, and without {Scorch}, he couldn’t utilize {Light Emanation} to its fullest potential.
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Marcellus’s illusions moved fast, lunching attacks from every angle, and although Yurin blocked and parried as much as he could, the air felt thick, his movements sluggish, and his grip on the cold sword was unsteady. It was like fighting in a dream that he couldn’t wake up from, yet Yurin refused to give up.
He pulled on more of his willpower, struggling to stay upright and maintain his senses. His heart pounded loudly in his ears, each breath heavy as he slashed and cut the illusions to pieces.
“This isn’t real. It’s all in my head.” He muttered to himself, holding onto the thought like a beacon of hope. He focused on the truth behind the illusions, behind the twisted world and the distorted sounds—they were all fabrications, a twisted product of his perceptions not bound by any law of nature. But light… Light was the essence of his spirit. It revealed all truth, piercing through all falsehoods like a knife. It was illumination and insight—the revealer of flaws. It was transparency and hope—the nemesis of darkness. It was freedom and triumph all wrapped into one, but above all, it was clarity.
The words echoed in his mind like the tolling of bells, and as his understanding formed into a whole, the world grinded to a halt. Heat rose from within him, bubbling up to the surface like a river of lava, and Yurin shuddered as his perception of the world crumbled away like a castle built of paper, replaced by a realm of infinite light and breathtaking brilliance.
The Origin Plane of Light revealed itself to Yurin, a realm of pure, radiant energy, where light of all wavelengths—visible and ethereal—flowed in harmony. There were no solid forms, yet a boundless expanse of color and light filled his vision. Streams of vibrant, shifting light stretched endlessly above him, creating a dazzling display of radiance that bathed him in their iridescent glow.
Yurin stared at the realm in absolute wonder, but his awed expression faded when chaos surged into his mind, feeding him with whispers of insanity. The voices started small, but soon they grew to become so loud that they were nearly overwhelming.
Yurin cried out when the probing sensation of an all-encompassing consciousness added itself to the cacophony of chaos. Despite the fact that Daruk had somewhat prepared him for this, Yurin was still very terrified, so he failed to open up his mind as he should have done.
The plane's consciousness didn’t wait for his permission though; instead, it lanced through his mind, as sharp and as clinical as a steel blade. The consciousness dove into his memories like a laser and began reviewing them. The pain was acute, not unlike the continuous stab of a knife into his frontal lobe.
The searching process lasted for what seemed like hours, but when it was finally done, Yurin felt a surge of approval from the consciousness, and his chest suddenly burned with the seal of light. Chaos energy surged into his core, and Yurin let out a sharp gasp as he advanced into the 21st tier.
Energy raced through his pathways at the speed of light, and before the whispers of chaos could overwhelm his mind, the world reappeared around Yurin, seeming much duller and flaw-ridden than before. Yurin’s mind shone with clarity, and he could suddenly see through the lies Marcellus was weaving. He moved, intent on ending this duel once and for all, but that was the moment the twisted effect struck, plunging his emotions into an abyss of negative emotions.
I will never give up. I will kill you all before I falter!
Yurin’s gaze turned black, and this time when he moved forward, it was with the intent to kill in the fastest and cleanest way possible. He lashed forward, slicing through a throng of illusions without care as he made for Marcellus, whose eyes were wide with fear.
Before Yurin could fulfill the whispers of chaos, though, he was suddenly grabbed by professor Alaric, who held him like a man holding an ant. Yurin struggled, lashing out with all the skills he had, but they had absolutely no effect.
Yet Yurin didn’t give up—not when he was flung into a portal that appeared out of nowhere, nor when he found himself trapped within a glass box surrounded by other glass boxes. No, Yurin would never give up, not if he were wounded or taking his last breath. To give up was to let people down, and Yurin had let more than enough people down for a lifetime.
Activating {Radiant Clarity} his newest skill, Yurin searched the chamber for flaws and found none. But that didn’t deter him either. Heedless for his own safety, he activated {Solid Light} and created a cyclone of light blades, all of which he directed at the glass walls, intent on shattering it to pieces, but when nothing happened, he screamed. “I won’t give up! I won’t give up! I won’t do it!
***
The entire class stared at the dueling ring in shock even as professor Alaric threw Yurin into a portal created by someone they couldn’t see. It was eerie seeing someone else undergo the twisted effect in this manner. Half the class didn’t have seals, so they couldn’t really understand what had just happened, but those who had seals understood.
Aodhán, for instance, was happy for Yurin as he’d finally gained what he’d been working so hard for, but he also felt slightly embarrassed that it had happened so publicly. No one could blame Yurin though, as the twisted effect wasn’t something a person could control. Still, Aodhán imagined more than a few students would be fearful of Yurin in the coming weeks.
Ayisha shook her head in amazement. “Well, I guess I bet wrong.”
Aodhán chuckled. “Technically, you didn’t, because no one won in the end.”
“Yeah.” Daruk replied. “It’s crazy that he would have lost, though, had it not been for the seal and twisted effect. I’m sure he gained some awesome skills from it.”
They continued talking casually, not realizing that Andrew was unusually silent. He wasn’t the only one either; many of those who hadn’t gained a seal were also silent, still shocked by the sight they’d just witnessed while professor Alaric discussed with the Rahim in hushed tones.
When Aodhán finally noticed Andrew’s silence, it was already too late as Professor Alaric returned his attention to the class and called the next duel as if nothing had happened, “Alan Kasirel vs. Telula Ziegler.”
As the duel began, Aodhán turned his attention to Andrew and whispered. “Are you alright?”
Andrew nodded seriously and then chuckled. “One would think that after seeing my sisters experience this exact same thing countless times, I’d be more comfortable with it, but seeing Yurin just flip like that... it was disturbing.”
Aodhán shrugged, understanding Andrew’s point. “It was, even for those of us who have experienced it; that’s why we were so eager to talk about something else. The twisted effect is not a very nice experience, but I’ve heard it’s different for every affinity. Remember Daruk’s experience; he had almost no rage but was just as cold as ice, and well, you didn’t witness mine, but it was definitely brutal, far more than what we saw from Yurin.” He shook his head and laughed. “Rahim described me as feral.”
Andrew nodded. “I can imagine. Light isn’t quite as brutal as a storm."
Aodhán shrugged, not particularly convinced. “I’m not sure. I think it depends more on a person’s understanding. Take the storm, for instance; my understanding of it isn’t exactly calm, cool, and friendly, so that influences the twisted effect too. Nevertheless, regardless of what your understanding is, the twisted effect will flip it and make you violent. The degree of violence is what differs.”
Andrew nodded and turned his attention back to the ring just as Alan knocked Telula out of the ring with a flash bang of solar energy. Professor Alaric nodded and jotted something down on his note, all without looking up, and a few seconds later, he called out. “The next matchup. Ayisha Helsarin vs. Grendar Bladewynn.”