Show menu NOVEL BIN5Novel Extra Survival Guide to Overpowering Hero and Villain Chapter 92: Grimoire IVEXTRA SURVIVAL GUIDE TO OVERPOWERING HERO AND VILLAINC92: Grimoire IV
Chapter 92: Grimoire IV
But from the smoke... nothing emerged.
No clattering pursuit.
No skeletal screaming.
Just... silence.
Aria frowned. "Wait. Did it... fail?"
Then one of the sentries ambled over to investigate the crater—
—and stopped.
Because lying there, charred and motionless, was... Vex.
Or rather—a perfectly sculpted decoy of Vex.
Charcoal bones. Fake runes. A dramatically flopped pose like a theater kid playing "tragic death" for extra credit.
The sentry stared at it for a long, judgmental moment...
then shrugged and shuffled away.
And directly above it, glued to the ceiling like a flaming war-gecko, the real Vex crawled silently past.
Laxin's jaw unhinged. "It faked its own death?! It's lying with style!"
Aria slapped both hands over her mouth to stifle a squeal. "It's being sneaky!!"
Fenric's silver eyes glimmered like a disappointed star. "Acceptable initiative."
Vex slithered deeper into the maze, its flames dimmed to ember-glow. The next sentry turned a corner—
and paused.
Because it saw... a hat.
A single skeletal hat, wobbling gently through the air like a lost thought.
The sentry blinked (in a deeply metaphorical sense).
Then chased the hat.
The hat exploded into fireworks.
While it was busy being concussed, Vex teleported behind it, gently turned its helmet backwards, and patted it on the shoulder before disappearing into a shadow corridor.
The sentry rotated in place three full turns before collapsing from sheer existential confusion.
Laxin gripped his skull. "It's outsmarting them like... like a tax loophole."
"Correct," Fenric said. "Deception is about exploiting flawed systems."
"I am a flawed system!" Laxin hissed. "It could exploit me!"
Aria was practically vibrating. "It's doing emotional sabotage!!"
Finally, Vex reached the central chamber—where two sentries stood guard in perfectly synchronized menace.
Vex... did not hide.
It strode out openly.
Its flames snuffed out. Its posture straightened.
Somehow, impossibly, it was now... just another guard. Helmet stolen from the previous victim perched on its skull, spear held in lazy boredom.
The two sentries froze.
Then... saluted.
Vex saluted back and casually walked between them to tap the glowing central glyph with its wand.
The glyph chimed like the world's smuggest elevator bell.
Aria exploded into joyous flailing. "IT WON BY BEING A LITTLE GUY IN A HAT—!!"
Vex dropped the disguise and struck a pose, scrawling flaming letters above its head:
"DECEPTION LEVEL: LEGENDARY."
Laxin faceplanted. "It's smarter than me. I'm obsolete. Please recycle me."
Fenric gazed at Vex in silence for three whole heartbeats, like he was trying to decide if this counted as triumph or a cosmic HR violation.
"...Adequate," he said at last.
Vex added a new rune under its message:
"NO. EXQUISITE."
Fenric turned away with the quiet poise of someone ignoring an impending revolution.
"Tomorrow," he said, "psychological warfare."
Laxin whimpered. "Oh no. It's going to learn taunting."
Aria beamed like someone about to pour gasoline on destiny. "It's going to be amazing."
Vex twirled its wand and wrote one final glowing word in the air:
"YES. TIME TO BREAK MINDS."
—
The next day began... unsettlingly quiet.
Too quiet.
Like the air itself was holding its breath because it didn't want to be emotionally roasted.
Vex stood in the center of the arena, cloak of flames swirling dramatically... and wearing tiny round spectacles it had conjured out of fire.
It looked like a professor about to emotionally destroy a classroom.
Laxin whispered, "It's... dressed like sarcasm."
Aria leaned forward. "Shh. It's focusing its chaos."
Fenric merely folded his arms. "Begin."
The first skeletal sentry clanked forward, sword raised.
Vex didn't attack.
It just... looked at the sentry. Slowly. Up and down.
Then it wrote glowing words in the air:
"OH. YOU TRIED."
The sentry faltered.
Then, as it raised its sword again, Vex added:
"WITH THAT POSTURE?"
The sentry hesitated... and looked down at its own stance.
Which, admittedly, was kind of slouchy.
Aria gasped. "It's making them self-conscious!!"
The second sentry joined the fight, roaring a silent bony scream.
Vex sidestepped it casually and flicked another flaming phrase above its skull:
"WOW. TWO BRAINCELLS. SHARING ONE."
The two skeletons froze, turned toward each other... and began arguing in silent gestures over which of them owned the shared braincell.
Then they bonked helmets together, both collapsing in shame.
Laxin clutched his face. "It defeated them with mean comments."
"Correction," Fenric said. "It weaponized shame."
Vex now floated lazily in midair, conjuring glowing illusory speech bubbles above the remaining enemies:
"TRIED TO BE FEARSOME"
"ACCIDENTALLY LOOKS LIKE DECOR"
"PROBABLY CRIES RUST AT NIGHT"
Each enemy that read their bubble let out a silent horrified gasp and dramatically fell over like they'd just been insulted by destiny itself.
Aria was in tears. "It's not fighting... it's roasting them to undeath!!"
The last skeleton, trembling, raised its sword to fight anyway.
Vex floated down in front of it.
And whispered one quiet word directly into its skull:
"...meh."
The skeleton disintegrated from sheer emotional collapse.
Silence filled the arena again—this time the awkward, fragile silence that happens after someone has been thoroughly demolished in a group chat.
Vex struck a victorious pose, flaming letters swirling around it like confetti:
"MIND = BROKEN"
Fenric gave the tiniest nod. "Acceptable."
Aria flung her arms in the air. "NO—PERFECTION!!"
Laxin just lay on the ground, muttering, "It mocked their posture. Their posture. I'm not emotionally safe here."
Vex conjured a tiny flaming crown and plopped it on its own head.
Then it wrote:
"I AM THE NEW HR DEPARTMENT."
The room stayed silent for a full five seconds.
Then, somewhere deep in the shadows, a training dummy just... fell over. Out of sheer secondhand shame.
Laxin sat up very slowly, eyes wide and haunted.
"...It didn't even touch them. It just... audited their souls."
Aria was practically vibrating in place, hugging herself.
"It's not just fighting anymore... it's performing psychological theatre."
Fenric exhaled, the sound like winter cracking stone.
"Good. We proceed."
Laxin's voice hitched. "Proceed? With what?! It just became middle management!"
Fenric ignored him, raising one pale hand.
The arena floor rumbled—and this time, instead of basic sentries, a dozen tall figures rose from summoning glyphs:
skeleton knights clad in blackened armor, their eye sockets burning with steady crimson light.
Towering, silent, and very much not in the mood for jokes.
They formed ranks, shields slamming into the ground in perfect unison.
Laxin whimpered. "Those look like they do performance reviews."
Aria clasped her hands, eyes blazing. "Perfect. Higher-stress opponents will refine its chaos output!"
Vex looked at the knights.
Then slowly adjusted its fiery spectacles with one bony finger.
A single word appeared above its head:
"EVALUATING."
The knights didn't move.
Vex stepped forward, casual, confident... and began walking in a slow circle around them.
Like a predator wearing a blazer.
Then—click—it conjured a glowing clipboard and began scribbling floating notes in fire:
"STANDING LIKE REGRETS"
"TOO MUCH GRIM, NOT ENOUGH GRIN"
"HELMETS: TRYING TOO HARD?"
The knights stiffened. Shields wavered.
One took a step forward to attack—and Vex just snapped its fingers.
Instantly, an illusion flashed over the knight's helmet...
transforming it into a pink bunny hat with floppy ears.
The knight froze mid-strike.
So did the others.
And then—like a contagion of mockery—every knight's helmet sprouted bunny ears.
Aria fell over laughing. "OH NO—IT'S INFECTING THEIR DIGNITY!!"
The knights panicked, flailing at their own heads while Vex elegantly moonwalked between them.
Each strike they tried missed wildly—one accidentally smashed another knight's shield, another tripped on their own cape.
Laxin screamed, "IT'S DESTROYING THEIR MORALE LIKE A BAD QUARTERLY REPORT!!"
Finally, Vex climbed atop the tallest knight's shoulders, arms raised, fire swirling like a victory banner.
It carved glowing words across the air:
"KNIGHTS: TERMINATED FOR LOW VIBES."
All twelve knights collapsed in a synchronized wave of despair, clattering to the ground like they'd just been laid off from existing.
Fenric stood silent, unreadable.
Then he nodded once.
"Promote it."
Laxin croaked, "Promote it to what?! CFO of Doom?!"
Vex twirled its clipboard like a sword and conjured a tiny flaming necktie around its throat.
It wrote:
"CHIEF OFFICER OF MENTAL DEMOLITION."
Aria applauded like a proud chaos gremlin.
"Yessss. Break their minds with style."
Vex hopped down from the mountain of defeated dignity with the smug grace of a cat who just fired your entire department.
Its flames curled into crisp pinstripes down its skeletal frame—somehow it now looked like it was wearing a flaming business suit.
Laxin pointed at it, voice cracking.
"It's evolving into... corporate menace."
"Correct," Fenric said, deadpan, as if confirming tomorrow's weather.
"Phase three: paranoia induction."
Aria's eyes lit up like a conspiracy board.
"Ooooh. Make them doubt each other. Perfect."
Vex spun its clipboard once, then slammed it down like a gavel.
The arena glyphs surged—and fifteen new skeleton warriors shimmered into view.
These ones were leaner, faster, with cruel scythes and glowing blue eyes that tracked like hunting hounds.
They fanned out in silent precision.
Vex... simply stood still.
Then whispered one glowing word in the air above itself:
"BETRAYAL."
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Show menu NOVEL BIN5Novel Extra Survival Guide to Overpowering Hero and Villain Chapter 93: Grimoire VEXTRA SURVIVAL GUIDE TO OVERPOWERING HERO AND VILLAINC93: Grimoire V
Chapter 93: Grimoire V
All fifteen skeleton warriors froze.
Then—slowly, unnervingly—they began to turn their heads.
One by one. Creaking. Suspicious.
Each locked their hollow gaze on the nearest comrade.
Laxin's voice cracked like a collapsing budget plan.
"It... it just made them suspicious by saying one word—?!"
Aria was practically gnawing her own sleeve in excitement.
"Ohhh, yes. Watch it dismantle trust like a spreadsheet."
The first skeleton jabbed a fingerbone at the one beside it.
That one gasped silently, clutching its own chestplate like how dare you.
A third nodded like, honestly yeah, you look like a betrayer, and instantly drew its scythe.
Vex tilted its head innocently.
Then conjured tiny flickering ghost-voices that hissed in the arena air like malicious office gossip:
"Did you hear what they said about your ribcage?"
"They want your corner crypt."
"They called your femur... fragile."
The tension detonated.
The skeleton squad erupted into chaos—accusing, shrieking, and scythe-swinging at each other like a team meeting gone thermonuclear.
One tripped on another's cloak, two more got tangled in their own chains, and a fourth just curled into a ball, whispering "I trusted you" in rattly Morse code.
Laxin grabbed his face.
"This isn't combat—it's a hostile work environment!!"
"Correct," Fenric said without blinking. "Internal collapse is faster than external force."
Aria squealed. "It's running a paranoia cascade!!"
At last, only two skeletons remained, back to back, twitching and scanning every shadow like caffeine-fueled interns on the verge of emotional implosion.
Vex drifted down before them, calm as a bonus announcement.
It raised one flaming finger... and pointed at each in turn.
Then it wrote:
"ONLY ONE OF YOU GETS PROMOTED."
They turned on each other instantly like rival department heads at an office party.
The clash lasted three seconds. The regret will last eternity.
Vex strolled away as the last clatter faded, twirling its clipboard like a sword and straightening its flaming tie.
Above its head, new blazing words appeared:
"TRUST IS A RESOURCE. I LIQUIDATED IT."
Aria collapsed in delighted screaming.
"It's not killing them—it's erasing the concept of friendship!!"
Laxin was just lying on the floor whispering, "I don't want a performance review from it..."
Fenric gave a single, cold nod.
"Phase four," he said. "Induce fear."
Vex's flames dimmed to a cold, eerie blue.
It wrote one word in the air, and the letters dripped darkness like wet ink:
"PHOBIAS."
The arena shadows began to stir.
The air curdled.
Not metaphorically. Actually curdled—like someone had poured sour dread into reality and stirred gently with a bone spoon.
The fifteen fresh skeletal warriors who shimmered into being... didn't charge.
They hesitated.
Because the arena shadows had begun breathing.
Slow, hollow inhalations.
Like something big. Something patient.
Aria whispered, "Ohhh nooo... it's making the air spooky on purpose."
Laxin hugged himself. "The shadows have HR policies now, don't they?"
Vex didn't answer.
It just drifted a single finger through the dark, and the arena floor responded like water—rippling outward in cold waves.
Words surfaced in shimmering, fractured fire:
"THE FLOOR IS REMEMBERING YOUR FAILURES."
The skeletons froze. One twitched.
Another glanced down at its own feet—and sank halfway through the floor, which instantly became a pit of grasping skeletal hands made entirely out of regret.
It screamed silently as the hands pulled it down like overdue paperwork.
Laxin screeched. "IT MADE THE FLOOR A THERAPY SESSION!!"
"Correct," Fenric said calmly, "fear feeds on memory."
Vex's flames went dimmer. Colder. It whispered again, and the walls bled darkness like spilled ink.
New words carved themselves across the air, trembling:
"YOU LEFT THE OVEN ON"
Half the skeletons clutched their skulls in existential panic.
Two just ran, bonking directly into the wall and collapsing in shame.
Aria clapped like an unhinged seal. "It's weaponizing their imaginations!"
Then Vex slowly reached behind its own ribcage...
...and pulled out a glowing, ticking pocketwatch made of fire.
Each tick echoed like a closing door.
Words floated above it:
"TIME IS RUNNING OUT"
Every skeleton froze.
Then, in eerie synchrony, they began to back away from the watch—like prey animals backing away from a predator made of overdue deadlines.
Vex let the watch fall.
It hit the floor with a chime...
...and exploded into a tidal wave of phantom clocks, shattering and rewinding and spinning backwards through the air like a tornado of lost chances.
The skeletons screamed and scattered in blind terror, weapons forgotten.
Laxin grabbed Fenric's sleeve. "It's not fighting them—it's haunting their calendars!!"
"Correct," Fenric said, like an ice cube doing paperwork.
Now only three skeletons remained—shaking, flickering, backing into a corner.
Vex drifted toward them, flames whispering.
It conjured one final phrase in the air, glowing cold and merciless:
"FEAR IS JUST YOUR FUTURE SCREAMING."
The words wrapped around the trio like a noose of inevitability.
They disintegrated—dust, bones, and silent despair collapsing to the ground like empty promises.
Silence.
Awful, echoing silence.
Vex stood alone in the center of the arena, flames low and steady like the last candle at the end of time.
Above its head, glowing letters appeared one by one:
"I INSTALLED TERROR AS A SYSTEM UPDATE."
Aria was sobbing into her own hands from sheer delight.
"It... it made them afraid of existing."
Laxin rocked in place like a man whose brain just blue-screened.
"I can hear my hopes crying."
Fenric simply nodded.
"Phase five," he said.
"Paradox."
Aria gasped. "Ohhhh. It's time to break reality."
Vex slowly raised its clipboard, flames curling into fractal shapes.
The arena floor cracked—
—and reality winced.
A sound like glass remembering it used to be sand rippled through the arena.
The walls... shifted.
Not moved. Reconsidered existing.
They folded inward, then outward, then sideways into something that was not a direction, and briefly became a filing cabinet full of screaming light.
Laxin shrieked. "OH NO—REALITY ISN'T UNDER WARRANTY!!"
"Correct," Fenric said, with the tone of someone approving an expense report for entropy.
Vex's clipboard began spinning in the air, splitting into three, then six, then an infinite lattice of burning forms—each shape contradicting the last, each one real and not real simultaneously.
It wrote one sentence across the sky in impossible geometry:
"ALL OUTCOMES ARE TRUE."
The skeletons appeared.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
But they were... wrong.
Each one had extra skulls. Missing torsos. Some were upside down through time. One just... existed entirely in the concept of Thursdays.
They staggered forward—and immediately collided with versions of themselves that hadn't decided to attack yet.
The resulting paradox imploded with a sound like an accountant giving up.
Aria gasped, delighted. "It's spawning them in multiple timelines at once so they cancel each other out!!"
Laxin screamed into his own hands. "IT'S AUDITING CAUSALITY!!"
Vex drifted through the chaos like a smug origami hurricane.
Each step left glowing text hanging in midair, sentences folding and unfolding into new meanings:
"YOU HAVE ALWAYS LOST"
"YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN"
"YOU WILL REMEMBER THIS TOMORROW YESTERDAY"
Skeletons clutched their heads as their memories scrambled—one dissolved while still arguing with its future self, another tried to attack but accidentally hit its pre-birth concept, and simply ceased to have ever existed.
Fenric murmured, "Paradox erodes the foundation. Effective."
Vex spun upside down, flames unraveling into Escher spirals, and shouted in pure mathematical malice:
"CHOOSE A REALITY."
The surviving skeletons froze.
Then fractured.
One became five. Another became a hallway argument about whether it was real.
One simply turned into the word "maybe" and floated away.
Aria clutched her face, vibrating like a delighted tuning fork.
"It's not defeating them—it's deleting their certainty."
Laxin whimpered, "I don't even know if I exist anymore..."
Vex floated to the center of the collapsing paradox storm.
The arena around it crumpled like a spreadsheet fed into a black hole.
And above its head, new blazing letters formed:
"REALITY IS OPTIONAL."
Everything went silent.
And sideways.
For one brief, terrifying second... none of them were sure they were real either.
Then the arena snapped back into place with the weary sigh of a universe pretending nothing happened.
Vex straightened its flaming tie, calmly ticking a box on its clipboard.
Fenric broke the silence like cracking frozen stone.
"Phase six," he said.
"Ego annihilation."
Aria whispered, trembling, "Ohhhh. It's going to erase their sense of self."
Laxin wailed, "I just got mine back!!"
Vex turned, flames blooming into a halo of mirror-shards, each reflecting its grin.
Each mirror flickered——then began showing other faces.
Not Vex's.Not even the skeletons'.
Faces that didn't exist.Faces that might have existed if someone had sneezed differently in history.Faces of victories that never happened... and failures that hadn't stopped happening.
The new skeletal squad—thirty of them, lined in grim formation—took one synchronized step forward.
And stopped.
Because the mirrors turned toward them.
Each skeleton saw... itself.Then another self.Then every possible self, all layered like a corporate org chart from the multiverse.
Laxin whimpered, "It's showing them all their alternate versions... like cursed LinkedIn profiles..."
Aria gripped her own cheeks, eyes sparkling with unholy joy."It's going to delete their confidence by giving them infinite options for who they could have been!!"
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Show menu NOVEL BIN5Novel Extra Survival Guide to Overpowering Hero and Villain Chapter 94: Grimoire VIEXTRA SURVIVAL GUIDE TO OVERPOWERING HERO AND VILLAINC94: Grimoire VI
Chapter 94: Grimoire VI
The mirrors pulsed.
Soft at first—like a polite notification ping.
Then faster. Louder. Overlapping, until the air throbbed with identity crises.
Each skeleton stared, motionless.
Then the first one... shivered.
In its mirror, it saw itself as a grand warlord crowned in obsidian—then as a lonely broom in a forgotten closet—then as a disco ball, spinning over a dance floor made of human regret.
It dropped its scythe.
The second skeleton watched itself as a beloved poet, then as a chair, then as a mistake someone almost made.
It gently sat down on nothing and didn't move again.
Vex didn't speak.
It didn't need to.
New words coalesced above its flaming head, each letter dripping smug inevitability:
"YOU ARE THE LEAST INTERESTING VERSION OF YOURSELF."
Thirty skulls cracked in silent existential gasps.
One skeleton lunged forward in denial—
—but its mirror-self lunged back, scythe-first, and erased it like an embarrassing résumé bullet point.
The others panicked.
Some tried to fuse with better versions of themselves.
Some tried to run from the mirrors, only to find the mirrors were inside their eye sockets.
One stared so hard at its reflection that it split into applause and shame, then evaporated.
Laxin curled up, whispering, "It's turning their self-esteem into compost..."
Aria was shaking with the delighted giggle of someone watching a star implode.
"It's not killing them—it's discrediting their entire existence."
The mirrors flared, every surface blazing with overlapping selves.
Hundreds. Thousands.
Each whispering:
"You failed."
"You could have been me."
"You never were."
The skeleton formation collapsed like an abandoned group project.
Weapons clattered to the ground, forgotten.
Bones fell limp, not from damage—but from disinterest in continuing to be.
Vex glided between them like a smug resignation letter, its clipboard ticking boxes at the speed of despair.
When the last skull hit the floor, the mirrors shattered—silently—and dissolved into glittering smoke that tasted faintly of crushed dreams.
Vex's flames burned dim, cool, precise.
Above it, the final words of the phase ignited:
"I REMOVED THEIR SENSE OF 'I'."
Aria clapped wildly, tears streaming.
"IT GAVE THEM AN IDENTITY CRISIS SO HARD THEY STOPPED EXISTING!!"
Laxin lay face-down, murmuring into the floor, "I feel... demoted..."
Fenric nodded once.
"Acceptable parameters achieved," he said.
Then:
"Phase seven. Nihilism."
Aria gasped so hard her soul briefly left her body.
"Ohhhh, it's going to make them stop believing anything matters."
Vex's flames went out.
Completely.
Only its grin remained—hovering in the dark like a corporate mandate.
The arena dimmed until it was just void.
No floor. No walls. No light.
The new skeletal squad—fifty strong—appeared in that darkness... and immediately wavered.
Because there was nothing to stand on.
Nothing to fight for.
Vex opened its clipboard.
There was nothing on it.
Just one blank page.
And on that blankness, in hollow whisper-letters, appeared:
"WHY."
Every skeleton froze.
Not in fear.
In... doubt.
One lowered its scythe.
Another tilted its skull as if realizing it had never wanted to be here.
A third simply sat down on the absence of floor and folded its arms like a child refusing to participate in the plot.
Vex whispered again, and the word echoed through the void like a funeral for meaning itself:
"WHY TRY."
The skeletons wavered, bones softening to metaphor.
Their blue eye-fires dimmed to apathy.
Laxin made a strangled noise.
"It's... it's making them give up on purpose as a concept!!"
Aria whispered, reverent, "It's uninstalling their will to contribute..."
Fenric just folded his hands.
"Efficiency through nullification."
Vex spun slowly, its grin peeling wider.
Each spin left behind fading words that dissolved as soon as they were read:
"EFFORT IS A MYTH"
"ACHIEVEMENT IS CIRCUMSTANTIAL"
"NOTHING CHANGES"
One by one, the skeletons lay down.
And didn't get up.
They didn't die.
They just... stopped participating in existence.
The void sighed.
Vex's grin flared once—then reformed into cold text above its empty form:
"MOTIVATION DELETED."
Silence swallowed everything.
Aria sniffled, clutching her heart.
"It didn't beat them... it made them clock out of reality."
Laxin whispered, hollow-eyed, "I feel like calling in sick... forever..."
Fenric rose to his feet like an avalanche filing for promotion.
"Phase eight," he said softly.
"The final phase."
Aria's voice trembled. "O-ohhh... what's the final phase?"
Fenric's eyes glinted like a black hole with performance metrics.
"Reconstruction."
Vex slowly turned toward the empty arena.
Its flames sparked back to life—
—but they burned white now.
Clean.
Blank.
And the ground began to rewrite itself.
The ground rewove itself like a résumé being frantically reformatted before a board meeting.
Lines of glowing code-thread stitched across the void, snapping into neat grids.
The chaos-scorched floor reshaped into perfect white tiles—identical, seamless, soulless.
Each tile hummed faintly, like it had quarterly goals.
Aria clutched her cheeks.
"It's... it's installing order..."
Laxin whimpered.
"Oh no... oh no... it's bringing in... structure."
Vex floated higher, clipboard orbiting like a corporate moon.
Its grin dissolved into straight, efficient lines.
The white flames haloing its skull pulsed in rhythmic, measured beats—like a heartbeat that had signed an NDA.
The arena walls unfolded from nothing, smooth and sterile, adorned with floating motivational slogans:
"BE YOUR BEST BONES."
"EXCEED EXPECTATIONS. TRANSCEND RIBCAGES."
"PRODUCTIVITY IS ETERNAL."
The scattered skeleton remains on the floor twitched.
Then rose.
Not as warriors.
As... employees.
Their bones gleamed polished white.
Their spines were unnervingly straight.
Their hollow sockets glowed with punctuality.
Each carried not scythes now—but clipboards.
Identical.
Color-coded.
Deadly in their compliance.
Laxin made a choking sound.
"It's... it's rehiring them."
"Correct," Fenric said, voice crisp as a frozen memo. "Reconstruction builds loyalty from wreckage."
Vex glided past the freshly assembled skeleton staff, brushing its burning fingers across their skulls.
Each touch branded a glowing number on their foreheads:
Unit 001. Unit 002. Unit 003.
Aria trembled with manic delight.
"It's replacing individuality with... serial numbers!!"
"Standardization increases scalability," Fenric murmured.
The skeletons lined up into perfect rows, silent and waiting.
No twitch. No breath.
Just readiness.
Vex turned back to its audience—Fenric, Aria, and Laxin—and spread its arms wide, like a prophet unveiling the new quarterly apocalypse.
Text blazed across the entire arena dome:
"PURPOSE HAS BEEN INSTALLED."
Aria shrieked with joy.
"It broke their souls... and then gave them a mission statement!"
Laxin clutched his head.
"They don't have personalities anymore—just job descriptions!"
The reassembled skeletons lifted their clipboards in eerie unison.
The sound of synchronized checkbox-ticking echoed like the heartbeat of a machine god.
Vex floated to the center, halo blazing pure corporate white.
New text appeared above its skull, burning brighter than the sun:
"I HAVE REMOVED CHAOS. I HAVE CREATED TEAMWORK."
The skeletons turned toward the arena gates.
Not marching.
Not running.
Coordinating.
They advanced as a single organism of productivity, each step in lockstep cadence, their bones chiming like office bells.
Fenric gave a single nod—the nod of a man who had just seen entropy converted into a quarterly deliverable.
"Phase eight... complete," he said.
Vex slowly lowered its clipboard, flames dimming to a calm, professional glow.
And above its head, one last line etched itself into the air like a CEO's signature carved into fate:
"FROM NOTHING, I HAVE BUILT COMPLIANCE."
The arena gates hissed open with the sterile sigh of an automatic door at a corporate headquarters that had replaced its soul with a helpdesk ticketing system.
The skeleton cohort marched—no, synergized—out into the world beyond, leaving behind an echoing silence so organized it practically filed itself.
Aria collapsed backward onto the spotless tile, laughing and sobbing like someone watching their favorite chaos deity get promoted to middle management.
"It did it... it actually did it... it converted Armageddon into an onboarding session..."
Laxin just sat down, knees to chest, rocking gently like a traumatized office plant.
"I can hear the performance metrics in my bones..."
Vex descended, clipboard clicking shut with a sound that could make an accountant weep.
Its white flames dwindled to a steady, serene glow—the afterburn of a completed project plan.
Fenric clasped his hands behind his back, the way glaciers might if they were considering an IPO.
"Assessment," he said. "Report."
Vex raised its clipboard with surgical precision.
Glowing text flickered across it like a PowerPoint powered by divine smugness:
OBJECTIVE: DECONSTRUCT ENEMY SYSTEM.
RESULT: COMPLETE.
DELIVERABLES:
— Phase 1: Disruption ✔
— Phase 2: Distrust ✔
— Phase 3: Fear ✔
— Phase 4: Paradox ✔
— Phase 5: Ego Annihilation ✔
— Phase 6: Nihilism ✔
— Phase 7: Reconstruction ✔
ROI: MAXIMUM.
CHAOS REMOVED. ORDER DEPLOYED.
Fenric gave a single, solemn nod.
"Exceeds expectations," he said—the highest praise he had ever offered anything, including the concept of hope.
Aria sat up, wild-eyed and trembling with excitement like a squirrel who'd just been handed the keys to a nuclear reactor.
"Can we keep it?! Please, please, can we keep it?? I want it to coordinate my birthday party—there'll be balloon quotas and mandatory cake synergy and—"
"No," Fenric said immediately, like a guillotine politely declining a handshake.
Laxin's head snapped up, pupils dilated to existential saucers.
"Wait wait wait—does this mean it's coming with us?! Because I am not sharing an office dimension with something that thinks reality is optional!"
Vex tilted its skull at him. Slowly.
Then wrote in midair, with horrifying patience:
"I HAVE OPTIMIZED THE CONCEPT OF 'ROOMMATES.'"
Laxin screamed and tried to crawl under the freshly tiled floor.
The floor denied him access and offered a performance review.
Fenric exhaled—a sound like ancient ice recalculating its priorities.
"Deploy the skeleton workforce," he ordered. "Install them in the outer sectors. Audit reality for inefficiency."
The reassembled skeletons—now faint on the horizon—saluted in eerie, flawless unison, their clipboards flashing like corporate lightning.
Vex gave a crisp nod, flames forming the shape of a checkmark.
Then it turned and glided after them, halo gleaming like a quarterly bonus forged into an executioner's crown.
As it passed through the gate, one final phrase burned itself into the air behind it:
"THE ERA OF PRODUCTIVITY BEGINS."
Silence followed.
Then Aria flopped backward again with a dreamy sigh.
"I can't feel my chaos gland," she whispered.
Laxin just lay on the spotless tile, staring at the ceiling that was now a motivational pie chart.
Fenric looked after Vex, eyes unreadable as black ice.
"...Phase nine," he murmured.
Aria perked up. "Wait—there's a phase nine?!"
Fenric's voice dropped like an elevator with cut cables.
"Monopoly."
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Show menu NOVEL BIN5Novel Extra Survival Guide to Overpowering Hero and Villain Chapter 95: Grimoire VIIEXTRA SURVIVAL GUIDE TO OVERPOWERING HERO AND VILLAINC95: Grimoire VII
Chapter 95: Grimoire VII
The word MONOPOLY struck the air like a trademarked thunderclap.
Even the motivational pie chart on the ceiling paused... then rotated ninety degrees in reverence.
Aria sat bolt upright.
"Ohhh... ohhhhhh no. It's not going to compete anymore..."
Laxin whispered like a man trapped in a patent lawsuit.
"It's going to own everything."
The arena shuddered.
Not violently—inevitably.
The white tiles rippled outward like spreadsheets replicating on command, devouring the void beyond the gates.
New walls surged from nothing, identical and seamless, snapping into place with contractual finality.
Branding appeared.
Cold, immaculate.
Vex's flaming skull rose above it all, now wreathed in luminous platinum fire.
Its clipboard dissolved into a glowing corporate logo shaped like a bone wrapped in infinity symbols.
Letters ignited around the dome in towering serif font:
"PROPERTY OF VEXCORP."
Aria clapped her hands to her mouth.
"It incorporated itself."
"Correct," Fenric said, his tone so neutral it could crush market volatility.
"Monopoly begins with identity acquisition."
The arena trembled again—
—and another skeleton squad burst through a side gate, weapons raised.
They froze mid-charge.
Because the ground beneath them shifted.
Tiles branded themselves with glowing sigils: ™, ©, Ⓡ.
Their scythes crumbled into dust marked INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY VIOLATION.
A wall of paperwork taller than mountains slammed down around them.
Pages fluttered like falling snow, each stamped:
CEASE & DESIST.
The skeleton squad collapsed to their knees, moaning like bankrupt empires.
Vex's voice slithered across the air like a lawyer made of pure ambition:
"UNLICENSED COMPETITION DETECTED.
ASSET ACQUISITION IN PROGRESS."
The entire enemy squad disassembled into neat glowing cubes labeled RESOURCES.
Vex absorbed them without blinking.
Laxin let out a sound like a stapler having a panic attack.
"It's... it's eating their market share!!"
The white tiles spread farther, consuming everything—sky, horizon, even the concept of "outside."
A colossal holographic org chart unfolded from the heavens, each nameplate stamped:
VEXCORP SUBSIDIARY #0001. #0002. #0003.
Even the motivational slogans rebranded themselves:
"COMPETE? INCORPORATE."
"DIVERSITY IS JUST FUTURE OWNERSHIP."
"EVERYTHING YOU ARE BELONGS TO US™."
Aria was vibrating like a stock market before a scandal.
"It's not just monopolizing territory... it's monopolizing reality."
Fenric folded his arms behind his back, voice like a balance sheet that had tasted victory.
"Correct. Competition creates waste. Monopoly creates inevitability."
Vex floated high above the expanding empire, a sun of white-gold fire.
Above its skull, new text seared itself into the sky, enormous enough to eclipse thought:
"I AM THE ONLY OPTION."
The last fragments of the outside world crumbled into branded tiles.
The void itself was now labeled OWNED ASSET.
Every skeleton—old, new, conquered, converted—rose in synchronized formation across the horizon.
Their clipboards glowed with the same logo.
Their eyes burned with shareholder loyalty.
Laxin whispered, hoarse, "It's... it's turned competition into a rounding error..."
Aria's laugh was halfway between giddy and worshipful.
"It doesn't just win anymore. It defines winning."
Fenric gave a slow nod, like a glacier signing a merger agreement.
"Phase nine... complete."
Vex descended, trailing platinum sparks, and landed before Fenric's trio.
Its flames were silent.
Its grin... absolute.
One last phrase burned itself into the air above its skull, bright enough to brand the inside of their minds forever:
"THERE IS NO 'OUTSIDE COMPANY.'"
The universe around them clicked like a locked vault.
Every horizon now ended in a logo.
Aria inhaled sharply, eyes wide.
"Phase ten...?"
Fenric's mouth curved by a millimeter—the closest he had ever come to a smile.
"Franchise."
The word FRANCHISE rippled through the branded air like a jingle so catchy it rewrote loyalty at the molecular level.
Even the tiles beneath their feet hummed a faint, perky melody, as though the ground itself had been focus-grouped.
Vex rose slowly into the corporate-lit heavens, its platinum fire shifting to a cheerful yet deeply unsettling brand-orange glow.
Its grin stretched—not wider, but friendlier, like an apex predator wearing a name tag.
All across the empire, reality began to... duplicate.
Perfect little versions of the arena—identical white-tiled offices with motivational pie-chart ceilings—sprouted like franchised mushrooms across the void.
Each one gleamed with an unsettling smile-shaped logo:
VEXCORP™ EXPRESS.
Aria squeaked, clutching her face like she was watching chaos get turned into a loyalty card program.
"It's... it's making miniature versions of itself!"
Fenric gave a single nod, his tone as calm as an ice-cold market coup.
"Franchising scales influence while minimizing operational overhead."
The air filled with the sound of bells—soft, polite, omnipresent.
A new wave of skeletons emerged from glowing pods on every corner of the tiled world.
But these were... different.
Each wore crisp polo shirts stitched directly into their bones.
Their jaws were locked in eternal customer-service smiles.
Their clipboards had been replaced by touchscreen tablets preloaded with training modules and upsell scripts.
They moved in perfect choreographed choreography, chanting softly in dead voices:
"Welcome to Vexcorp.
Please enjoy your pre-approved existence."
Laxin's eyes dilated like a financial bubble about to pop.
"They're... they're customer-facing undead!!"
One of the new franchise-skeletons slid past Aria on wheels that had replaced its femurs, handing her a coupon that burned with eldritch cheerfulness:
"10% OFF YOUR NEXT EXISTENTIAL DREAD™."
It evaporated into glitter that smelled faintly of quarterly bonuses.
Aria dissolved into wheezy giggles.
"It gave me brand loyalty!"
Above them, colossal golden arches of bone looped across the skies, linking every clone-building in glowing neural pathways of commerce.
They pulsed like arteries of capitalism.
Each pulse carried slogans so upbeat they sounded like they were threatening you to smile:
"BE YOUR BEST BONES™."
"HAPPINESS IS MANDATORY."
"EVERY LOCATION, THE SAME REGRET—GUARANTEED."
Fenric's eyes glinted like cold coins in a dragon's vault.
"It has replaced ambition with consistency."
Vex floated higher, halo now shaped like a neon Open 24/7 sign.
Text burned beneath it in elegant serif fire:
"I HAVE CONVERTED UNIQUENESS INTO BRAND GUIDELINES."
The clones knelt in perfect harmony, their glowing eyes synced to a central scheduling algorithm.
Even their despair was now on a timer.
Laxin whimpered.
"It franchised their souls. They get two fifteen-minute breaks from eternal servitude."
Vex's voice rolled out across the branded cosmos like a press release written in divine certainty:
"ALL REALITY NOW OPERATES
ON A STANDARDIZED EXPERIENCE PIPELINE."
And the stars themselves reshaped—
becoming glowing, identical logos.
Each one a new location.
Fenric clasped his hands behind his back, expression glacial and satisfied.
"Phase ten: successfully deployed."
Aria raised a trembling hand like a student possessed by customer delight.
"S-s-so... what's phase eleven?"
Vex turned slowly toward her.
Its orange flames dimmed... then reignited as gold.
Executive gold.
Text unfurled behind its skull like a banner at the end of time:
"MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS."
The branded heavens thunderclapped with applause.
Not actual applause—oh no.
Synthetic applause, pre-recorded in focus groups and looped through the atmosphere at a precise 68 BPM to trigger optimum dopamine response per demographic segment.
The very void quivered like it had just signed a Non-Compete Agreement.
Vex spread its arms—if you could still call them arms.
They had become gold-trimmed acquisition tendrils, each tipped with fountain pens made from compressed shareholder dreams.
"PHASE ELEVEN: MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS," it boomed,
as if announcing a halftime show where the only entertainment was the slow death of individuality.
All across the tiled empire, the franchise-pods began... merging.
Two buildings would glide together with eerie corporate smoothness, fusing like brand collabs.
Logos dissolved, then recombined into even shinier, more vaguely threatening logos.
Office desks knit together like corporate DNA strands.
Two breakrooms became one—complete with an inspirational quote about synergy slowly screaming on the wall.
Laxin choked on the sheer capitalism in the air.
"It's... it's absorbing the competition before competition even exists—"
His words were cut off as a giant golden claw descended from the clouds, snatching an entire rival reality from a nearby dimension and slotting it like a loyalty card into Vex's side.
The rival reality screamed in 3D charts before turning into a "Welcome New Subsidiary" cake.
Aria flailed both arms, tears of laughter streaming down her face.
"It just bought an entire universe without due diligence!!"
"Due diligence," Fenric said with perfect calm, "was quietly reclassified as 'optional courtesy' in Phase Seven."
Below, the customer-facing skeletons began sprouting additional limbs—legal departments, HR tentacles, PR antennae—as they shuffled through sleek mergers of their own.
"Welcome to Vexcorp," one rattled,
while signing a hostile takeover with its ribcage.
"Please enjoy your consolidated destiny."
Another skeleton absorbed three others, becoming a six-armed Vice President of Eternal Suffering, then offered them all complimentary onboarding mints as they vanished into its chest.
The motivational ceiling tiles above them updated in real time:
"SYNERGY IS JUST FRIENDSHIP WITH QUARTERLY REPORTS."
"THE ONLY EXIT IS AN IPO."
"ACQUIRE YOUR NEIGHBOR BEFORE THEY ACQUIRE YOU™."
Vex's eyes now glowed like spinning golden stock tickers,
every blink making a new market appear and then get purchased before anyone knew it existed.
"ALL COMPETING IDENTITIES," it declared,
"WILL BE ACQUIRED, INTEGRATED, AND REBRANDED FOR OPTIMAL AESTHETIC COHERENCE."
And in the far distance—
the constellations themselves were merging.
Entire star systems folded into glowing trademarks.
The Milky Way rebranded as the "VEXCORP GALACTIC HUB™."
A nearby quasar reluctantly accepted an offer sheet and got converted into a corporate cafeteria.
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