The students of the Grand Academy could not attack Dawn with spells or Markings; Fenrir's decree and Dawn's Anti-Mark Aura forbade it.
Their only recourse was to attack the last remnant of the human he was—his psychological vulnerability.
The elite cohort, calling themselves the Order of the Obsidian Eye, staged their confrontation in the Academy's main dining hall, ensuring an audience of hundreds of demidemons.
As Dawn entered, moving with the silent, detached grace gained from the Fold excursion, a Chrono-Demon—the leader of the Obsidian Eye—slammed a collection of objects onto the table.
They were cheap, pathetic trinkets from Earth Variant 93-H:
a tarnished housekeeping key,
a crudely drawn picture of a missing animal,
and a blood-stained, worn piece of fabric.
"Look at him!" the Chrono-Demon sneered, projecting his voice to the furthest corner of the hall.
"The Tier Null monster. He was nothing but a blind, disposable runt in his first life! A servant, cleaning up after the people who despised him!"
The Chrono-Demon pointed a finger dripping with psychological malice.
"Your power is a lie! It only masks the truth: you were born worthless, betrayed by the only person who cared for you! You died unloved!"
The entire hall fell into a pressurized silence.
The attack was flawlessly executed.
It hit the raw, human core of Dawn's past suffering—the loss, the neglect, the final, sharp knife of betrayal.
---
I. The Surge of Memory
For a fraction of a second, the pain struck him.
He heard it again:
the girl's trembling, false voice,
the metallic clink of hidden weapons,
the whisper of the knife sliding into his back.
The memory burst loudly in his Echo Mapping, its emotional frequency threatening to destabilize him.
His old, human self would've collapsed under the grief, shame, and guilt.
This was the moment the students were banking on—
the crack in his identity
that would sever the pact.
But the Inverted Mark pulsed.
Cold.
Demanding.
Fenrir's words echoed:
"Use your suffering.
Inversion means flipping the script on pain."
---
II. The Inversion of Trauma
Dawn reached inward—not to attack, but to redefine.
He grabbed the betrayal, the agony, the shame—every raw, negative frequency—
and forced the Inverted Mark to flip its causality.
The pain didn't drain him.
It became power.
The grief was no longer loss.
The betrayal was no longer a wound.
The memory inverted.
His blindfolded eyes glowed faintly with the auroral distortions of the Blivixis Gradient.
Identity Nullification activated.
The memory of betrayal lost all emotion.
What once hurt became cold, unbreakable Calculation.
The warmth of his former empathy evaporated—
replaced by the same cosmic indifference he showed the Denvigons.
---
III. The Weaponized Empathy
The Chrono-Demon saw the glow.
His arrogance shattered into fear.
"Wh–what are you doing?! Just break!"
Dawn spoke.
His voice was flat, stripped of all human cadence.
Terrifying in its neutrality.
"You speak of betrayal.
I felt it.
And now, I have inverted it."
He released the wave of Inversion Energy.
Not to injure—
but to reflect.
The Chrono-Demon, the Mirage Fury, and the Doom-Reaver Titan collapsed instantly.
Not from pain.
From emotional inversion.
They experienced the twisted, mirrored versions of their own deepest insecurities:
— their unspoken failures
— the fragility of their Markings
— the betrayal of the cosmic Order they worshiped
Their minds buckled.
The hall erupted in chaos.
Hundreds watched three elite demidemons break down under an attack that wasn't a spell…
…but a weaponized trauma inversion.
---
IV. The Approval of Chaos
Across campus, in the Principal's stolen office, Fenrir Alistair Blivixis sat back in his chair.
He had seen everything through his Chaos Domain.
He smiled.
A slow, delighted, horrifying sound that echoed through the Academy's silenced surveillance channels.
"The ultimate victory," Fenrir murmured.
"He is no longer human…
nor merely a weapon.
He is the Inversion of the human condition itself.
Magnificent."