Chapter 4: The Echo Labyrinth
The designation Tier Null turned the Grand Academy
into a fortress built around a single, volatile anomaly.
Me.
---
I became both the most feared
and the most ignored presence in Astra'vhel's elite institution.
The students—proud heirs of Sovereign Class Markings
and Abyss Seraph bloodlines—
knew they couldn't detect me.
And that fact alone made them hate me.
A blind human who existed where he shouldn't.
An anomaly they couldn't categorize.
A variable they couldn't control.
---
But isolation?
Isolation was my weapon.
My "Live Bait" status granted me access
to abandoned training complexes
and sealed Fold research wings—
the perfect laboratory for Chaos.
---
My training was relentless.
Brutal.
Beautiful.
It revolved around mastering my new senses
and rejecting every law the Academy worshipped.
---
I. The Mastery of Sound: Echo Mapping
My blindness would become my greatest edge.
So I trained until the ambient noise of the Academy—
the electric hum of barrier enchantments,
the rhythmic breaths of sleeping demidemons,
the distant warp and twist of Fold energy—
merged into a continuous, hyper-detailed,
three-dimensional awareness in my mind.
Echo Mapping.
---
I sprinted through labyrinthine corridors
woven with shifting walls and dimensional folds.
I tuned my footsteps with surgical precision
until the vibrations they produced
were cancelled out by surrounding atmospheric pressure.
Silent Step.
A technique born from Fenrir's void-silence.
When I moved,
I ceased to exist in the Academy's auditory space.
A ghost.
A glitch.
A non-local threat.
---
II. The Trial of the Eclipse
Elite students, fueled by arrogance
and the Principal's unspoken encouragement,
often attempted to "humble the anomaly."
One day, three Eclipse Class demidemons
ambushed me in the ancient Shadow Path—
a maze built for assassins
and undetectable killers.
---
I didn't need sight.
I heard everything.
---
1st Attacker — Wraith-Claw Dynast
Footsteps heavy with forced stealth.
Talons primed.
A dimensional fold preparing to tear open.
2nd Attacker — Crimson Render
Hot, emotional pulse.
Aura crackling in a high-frequency sizzle.
3rd Attacker — Oracline Specter
Dangerous.
Quiet.
His mind-technique forming with dry, brittle static.
---
The Wraith-Claw lunged first,
erupting from a tear in space.
I responded with a localized Void Pulse—
a surgical cancellation of existence.
The fold froze.
His momentum ruptured.
He was sent flying back
by the horrifying realization
that his strike had been paused mid-action.
---
The Crimson Render attacked next.
I heard the hum of his technique once—
and inverted the expected result.
His fiery strike dissolved
into harmless, drifting heat.
---
The Oracline Specter fired a mental assault.
I inverted that too.
His own aggressive intent
rebounded into his skull,
giving him an instant, blinding migraine.
---
I stood untouched, adjusting my blindfold.
Not a word spoken.
The students fled—
shame louder than their footfalls.
The message was absolute:
Tier Null was not handicapped.
Tier Null was untouchable.
---
III. The Looming Architect
The Academy could no longer pretend.
Instructors watched my mastery through surveillance,
forced to create new terminology to describe me:
Reality Inversion.
Fold Resonance.
Anti-Mark Aura.
Words that didn't exist
until I made them necessary.
---
The Fold itself began to react.
Strange distortions appeared—
not the chaotic rage of Denvigons,
but Inverted-Class Fold entities,
manifesting only near my energy signature.
---
Then, one evening,
perched on a jagged spire overlooking Astra'vhel,
I felt something impossible.
A sound that had been missing
since the moment of my rebirth.
A sound I instantly recognized
as the anchor of my new existence.
---
A Chaos Domain blooming nearby—
subtle, elegant,
resonant like a collapsing star.
---
Then came the confirmation:
A refined, calculated rhythm.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
A sleek, black-lacquered cane
striking the obsidian far below—
the sound traveling effortlessly
through every layer of the Academy.
He had breached the dimensional seals.
The Cosmic Contractor had arrived
to reclaim his property.
---
Fenrir Alistair Blivixis
was here.
---
The Inverted Mark on my chest glowed—
cold, sharp, demanding readiness.
The training phase was over.