Oliver found himself within a small, barren land drowned in cold.

The sky above was painted in a deep ash grey, raining black snowflakes that resembled the remnants of burned cinders despite the freezing air.

A short distance away stood a nightmarish creature formed entirely from darkness. It was roughly the size of an elephant, possessing nothing but two hollow eyes while the rest of its body remained a shifting, shapeless shadow.

It walked toward him with slow, dreadful steps, the ground beneath it smoldering faintly as though fire lingered along its path.

Fragments of Oliver’s memories stained the falling black flakes, only to be devoured by the approaching darkness.

The young man slowly stepped backward with a deep frown.

’That monster is the manifestation of Oliver’s worst memory. I wonder what kind of memory it is for something like that to take shape from it...’

Oliver quickly regretted his decision to interfere with Glassy.

It had not been the smartest choice, and the existence of this entire scenario was bound to disrupt the rebellion event one way or another.

He surveyed the surrounding area and quickly realized there was nowhere to escape within this nightmare. Of course, he had no intention of fighting the manifestation either. That would be pure suicide, because everything within this place was controlled by Glassy, including the outcome itself.

A predetermined execution.

’I’m so tired. Perhaps I should rest here for a while,’ he thought inwardly, forcing himself to remain calm.

Oliver lowered himself onto the frozen ground with a sigh, quietly watching the nightmarish creature approach from afar.

It was not that he had already surrendered, but rather that he was waiting for a solution to reveal itself.

His death... it would not happen in this place.

Even if the story had already changed and he had become completely disposable at any point within it, he refused to vanish into oblivion inside a fabricated dream.

Perhaps that confidence itself bordered on madness.

’Open the descriptions of my Chaos Hue and Infinity Hue.’

[Your Chaos Hue has revealed itself]

[Description: Chaos is the unraveling of certainty. When invoked, probability itself warps around the user, acting as an active rejection of predetermined outcomes. At higher intensities, your very presence violently destabilizes the threads of your surroundings. A fate breaker.

Natural Effect — Reversal: Allows the user to reverse a specific moment in time, with a chaos insertion placed directly into the hands of the user.]

[Your Infinity Hue has revealed itself]

[Description: Infinity is the perception of all threads, past, present, and future, woven together as one. It allows you to perceive the echo of anything, a direct observation of what already exists across time. This Hue grants comprehension over the entirety of a space and every possibility within it, as though standing beyond the flow of time itself and observing every current simultaneously.

Natural Effect — Untouchable: Due to the omnipresence of space itself, the user can access a loop that allows them to evade all physical contact, rendering them untouchable while the effect remains active.]

Oliver was visibly taken aback by the descriptions and natural effects of both Hues. Of course, he would never have discovered this, nor learned the natural effects of either Hue, if he had not summoned their descriptions himself.

The two Hues were overwhelmingly powerful, dozens of times more dangerous than the original Oliver’s Shadow Hue. Unlike weakened Hues, neither of them appeared restrained in any way at the moment.

’The appearance of these two Hues must belong to the foreign soul inhabiting this body, which is me. How do I know that? Isn’t it obvious enough already? My very existence became the variable that changed everything, but isn’t this far too overpowered?’

Glassy’s voice echoed across the nightmare.

"You seem to have completely abandoned the thought of fighting. Nonetheless, both of you are free to leave."

Oliver’s face twisted with shock.

"Huh? Just like that? You’re seriously not going to kill me?"

Hah. So he really had accepted death in the end, because resistance here was meaningless?

A long silence followed as the nightmare slowly collapsed around him.

The monstrous creature dissolved into smoke, and the cold barren world crumbled apart alongside it, returning Oliver to the endless white plane once more.

Glassy finally answered:

"I said not yet."

Oliver scoffed faintly, wondering whether Teresa had agreed to work under Glassy in exchange for his life. If that were the case, then he had just gained an entirely new problem.

However, if not, then what exactly had she said to the Mad Dog for him to suddenly release them without even so much as grazing his skin?

He was genuinely curious.

Teresa was a dangerous individual. At this point, dangerously unstable even to him, and yes, perhaps the wisest decision would be to ensure he never remained by her side for too long, no matter the circumstances.

A yandere...?

He remembered a short story he had once read about one long ago.

It had not been particularly pleasant.

Romantic. Obsessive. Possessive. Protective.

Sure! 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

But beneath all of those traits lurked something profoundly terrifying once such fixation became directed toward a real person rather than remaining confined to fiction.

***

Teresa and Oliver returned safely to the underground basement without being followed or pursued by anyone. Glassy had left them alone and disappeared as though he had never appeared in the first place.

However, that alone heightened the tension of the situation, forcing them to realize they might already be under the scrutiny of unseen eyes.

Marilyn was left in a dilemma after hearing from the two that Glassy had personally revealed himself before them.

Oliver rested against the wall and spoke calmly:

"You don’t need to worry about him watching us, because he isn’t. If he truly were, then he would never allow this rebellion plan to progress any further and would have eliminated all of us in a single move."

He glanced toward Teresa, who seemed deeply lost in thought, before shifting his gaze back to Marilyn. The healer remained silent for a moment and merely shrugged in uncertainty.

"Tess... are you listening?" Oliver asked with a faint furrow in his brow.

The young girl immediately snapped out of her thoughts the moment she heard Oliver’s voice again.

"Uh? Yeah..."

Suddenly, a mischievous grin spread across her face as she added:

"By the way, I think we should accelerate the plan. We don’t have any more time to waste, so it would be better to move now with whatever forces we can gather."

Oliver and Marilyn blinked several times in confusion.

"...Why, exactly?" Marilyn could not help but ask.

What Teresa was proposing bordered on recklessness if they truly acted upon it. Surely, something must have caused her to suddenly arrive at such a conclusion.

Oliver was the most curious of all.

Without warning, the basement door swung open and Kaden stepped inside with his sword drenched in fresh human blood.

Coldly, he spoke:

"It seems we’ve already been discovered... rather quickly. Funny. It hasn’t even been a full day yet."