Chapter 154: A Summon Is Only As Powerful As Their Summoner.

So much to learn?

The words echoed in Lancet’s mind as if Spectra had spoken them directly into the center of his skull. For a moment, he simply stared at her.

No. That was not quite right.

He stared at the fact that she had said it at all.

Him? He should have been offended. Annoyed. Maybe even outraged enough to laugh in disbelief. Lancet had read Awakener Supreme twenty times. Twenty.

He knew this world’s politics, its power structure, its hidden names, its early outcomes, its late outcomes, its side characters, its secret consequences. What on earth was Spectra, a character he had made himself, trying to tell him?

He knew everything about this place.

Lancet’s brows fell. Or did he?

Did he truly know everything? Because the thing was, the original author was still writing the novel before Lancet found himself trapped in it.

That meant the overarching story, the final lore reveals, and the deepest mechanics of the world were fundamentally incomplete when he arrived. Furthermore, the System had explicitly stated that he could alter future lore with his creations, even if he couldn’t change the past or present.

Lancet’s eyes darted to Spectra, who was casually inspecting her flawless fingernails.

If he could alter future lore, then some things he had thought were already fixed might actually be invented later. The world might not have had all its rules fully locked in yet. It might have been built with empty spaces. Spaces that his own power could fill.

And if that was true—

Then Spectra’s ability to manipulate Gloom did not necessarily mean he had merely written a strange power into existence.

It meant he might have created the reason that power had to exist.

His brows drew together.

Gloom Channels.

He almost scoffed internally.

That sounds ridiculous. No freaking way.

That had to be nonsense, right? Channels were for Grace. That was how the world was structured. That was what everyone knew.

Grace flowed through channels, resided in soul cores, moved through the normal magical architecture of the body. But Spectra had just casually acted as though there was another avenue. Another route. Another structure entirely.

Lancet thought deeper. Wait! Could it be that something happened? Because of Spectra?

He explored the idea.

Could it be that because he created her, and because he gave her the power to manipulate Gloom, the world had adapted around the logic of her existence? Did the story need an explanation for how she could possibly do that, and in answering, did it create the concept of Gloom Channels?

Or... had it always been the intention of the original author to introduce Gloom Channels later in the story?

Lancet’s jaw tightened.

His mind felt like it was vibrating with too many moving parts at once. Spectra had thrown something at him that he had not been ready for, and the worst part was that she had done it with a smile.

Spectra, meanwhile, watched him with a look of quiet amusement that made it very clear she was enjoying every second of his internal collapse. Her expression held a strange balance of superiority and affection, as though she were entertained by the struggle but not entirely indifferent to the outcome.

That in itself was irritating.

Then she spoke. "Your mental torment, although entertaining, pains me to witness."

Lancet blinked and looked up at her. Her tone had softened just enough to make her sound sincerely concerned. Still, he wasn’t buying it.

"You see," she said, placing one hand lightly against her own chest, "I may not seem it, but I want the best for you, Lancet Leogardt."

He studied her face carefully. "Is that so?"

Spectra’s smile turned faintly elegant. "A Summon is only as powerful as their Summoner."

She said it as though it were an obvious truth, a lesson so basic it barely deserved to be explained. "Having a defective Grace channel is bad news for me. I need you to learn the other avenue."

Lancet’s expression hardened at once. "I’m not doing that."

Spectra did not seem offended.

He kept going, more firmly now. "I don’t need to learn Gloom. I just need my Grace channels healed."

The demoness regarded him for a moment, then let out the faintest sound of amusement, almost a sigh.

"You are in the biggest academy in the world," she said. "And yet your channels have not been healed properly. No ordinary healer can mend damage of that extent."

Lancet looked at her, his mouth flattening. "Then I’ll find an extraordinary healer," he said determinedly.

Spectra’s eyes seemed to brighten with interest at that answer, and her expression fully broke into delight.

"Beautiful." Her lips curved with visible pleasure. "You are the storm of my dreams, little lamb. The anguish I cherish."

Lancet stared at her. He was not entirely sure what that was supposed to mean, and he was even less sure he wanted to know.

"Do get better," Spectra said, her tone changing again, growing more practical beneath the teasing sweetness. "You still have to find me my catalyst. I have children to free and a land to reclaim."

Her gaze held his, a little longer now.

"Choose a path fast. There is no reason why we cannot remain allies—"

The rest of her sentence vanished in a bloom of red smoke. Spectra had been forcefully unsummoned.

Lancet raised his brows..Then he exhaled.

"At least the Grace cut off at the right time this time around," he muttered to himself.

CRASSSSHHH!!

The loud sound of trees and vines shattering came from behind him.

"We did it!" Kasto shouted from the other side. "It’s open!"

Lancet turned just in time to see the break in the barrier widen. A messy spray of leaves, bark, and snapped branches spilling around him.

His team came through in a burst of motion and noise, all of them half-stumbled and half-rushed by the urgency of the moment.

Kasto was first to break through fully, breathless and grinning in relief. Vera followed close behind, one hand still glowing faintly from the support magic she had used. Dane came next, his muscular frame forcing through the small hole.

Min Tu appeared after him, dark-eyed and tense as usual, though her gaze immediately locked onto Lancet the moment she saw him standing there.

Then she did something that left everyone utterly dumbfounded. She actually rushed forward and hugged Lancet.

The entire group froze.

"Eh?"

"Eh?"

"Huh?"

Lancet froze too, eyes widened.

The rest of the team stared as though they had seen a ghost. A ghost that hugs.

Who in their minds ever thought Min Tu hugging someone was possible?

The silence lasted for about half a heartbeat before reality caught up with the Necromancer.

Her arms jerked away from him almost instantly as though she had touched something hot, and she stepped back so fast that the expression on her face went from startled to grim in a blink.

For a long second she stood there in stiff, visible embarrassment.

Lancet stared at her, hands frozen in front of him. "Uh... Min Tu?"

Then, without warning, she punched him in the stomach.

"Oof."

Lancet folded over immediately, one hand flying to his midsection as pain burst through him. He stumbled and nearly dropped to one knee before catching himself.

"Hey!" he hissed. "You’re the one who—"

"We’re last," Min Tu cut in coldly, her eyes flicking toward the leaderboard and then back toward him. "We cannot waste time on your silly touchiness."

’My silly touchiness??!’ Lancet straightened with a pained groan, still glaring at her, but the moment had already passed into her usual blunt seriousness. She looked away as if nothing embarrassing had happened at all.

Everyone had forgotten about what they wanted to say. No one even asked how he had killed the Thunderback Gorillas.

Kasto pointed up toward the leaderboard as it hovered over the route through the floating camera feed. "We’re also the farthest from the boss."

Lancet looked.

The rankings were still unfavorable.

The scoreboard’s current arrangement only reminded him that they were behind and moving with too much distance still between them and the objective.

Vera glanced toward the broken vines and the dark route beyond them. "Should we hurry straight there?"

Kasto nodded quickly. "I vote yes. Very strongly yes."

Lancet waited to answer.

He looked at the route ahead, at the broken branches, the dense shadows between the trees, the uneven terrain, and the hidden danger layered through the jungle. Then he looked back at his team and gave a slow shake of his head.

"Not yet," he said.

The others turned to him.

He could tell Kasto was about to complain, so he raised a hand before anyone could interrupt.

"Remember the rules," Lancet said. "We need to gather slowly first. Loot matters. Clear fights matter. Rescue counts matter. We don’t just sprint blindly to the boss unless the route actually supports it."

Kasto made a face but nodded.

Dane was already considering the logic. "Right. If we rush and miss loot or ignore easier kills, we could lose Tributes even if we reach the boss first."

Vera agreed quietly.

Min Tu said nothing, but her eyes flicked once toward the jungle and then back to Lancet, as though silently confirming that she would follow as long as he made the call.

Lancet nodded once. "Alright," he said. "Let’s move."

They turned and started heading on forward. But Lancet’s mind was still a maze, filled with Spectra’s simmering words.

’Use Gloom.’

The phrase hovered there like a dare.

He could not afford to linger on it now. But the thought would not leave him alone. If his channels really could not be restored quickly enough, and if his Grace kept stuttering at the worst moments, then he needed a solution sooner rather than later.

He needed to heal fast.

Not just for himself. But for the team. For the competition.

And, as much as he hated admitting it, so he would not be tempted by anything Spectra had offered.

Lancet drew in a breath, tightened his grip on the Radiant Guillotine, and continued toward the dark jungle ahead.

"Hey by the way," Kasto spoke up, "how did you kill the Thunderback Gorillas?"