[ Location: Hawkins High School - Crowded Hallway ]
Her jaw popped.
It was an ugly, wet sound that cut right through the panicked screaming of the students around us.
Chrissy's head tilted back at a sickening angle, her feet dangling two feet off the linoleum.
'I'm playing cosmic war with outer god over a cheerleader in the middle of passing period , Is my life a joke?'
No time for useless thought's.
I stepped forward, throwing my hands out, palms facing the ceiling.
'Reality Anchor. Lock her down.'
[ Ability Active: Psychokinesis (Divine). ]
I seized the spatial coordinates of her physical body and slammed the brakes.
The invisible, crushing pressure pushing her toward the ceiling hit my mental shield like a runaway freight train. My knees buckled instantly. The linoleum beneath my sneakers cracked in a spiderweb pattern.
"LET GO," a voice whispered in the back of my mind.
It sounded like yellow fabric tearing and drowning men gasping for air.
"Eat dirt," I gritted out. Blood instantly welled in my left nostril, dripping hot and fast onto my chin.
My Spirit was pushing against an entity whose Spirit was quite literally unquantifiable.
I dropped my left hand, maintaining the anchor with my right and reached into the empty space at my hip.
'Inventory: Equip Void Blade.'
A collective gasp echoed through the hallway as a three-foot sword made of pitch-black metal materialized out of thin air into my grip. I flooded it with pure, violent Aether.
The blade ignited, crackling with a terrifying, blinding violet aura.
Eddie Munson, who was cowering behind a row of lockers, actually stopped breathing and his eyes bugged out of his head.
I looked at the empty space just above Chrissy's hovering head. I could feel the freezing cold, slimy psychic tether connecting her to the Abyss.
I swung the sword.
SLASH.
The blade connected with the invisible tether.
The psychic recoil was deafening, It was an EMP for the human brain. Every fluorescent light bulb in the hallway exploded simultaneously, raining sparks and glass.
A shockwave of displaced air blasted outward, knocking every student within fifty feet flat on their backs.
Gravity slammed back into the building.
Chrissy dropped like a stone, hitting the floor in a crumpled, gasping heap.
I stumbled back, leaning heavily against a locker, wiping the blood off my face with a shaking sleeve.
My head felt like it had been split open with an axe.
The hallway was dead silent, save for the sound of Chrissy wheezing for air and the groans of unconscious and dazed teenagers.
I looked around.
Dozens of kids were staring at me from the floor, their faces pale, eyes wide with absolute, primal terror.
In my pocket, the Stone of Avarice began to pulse. It was practically vibrating, soaking up the ambient fear leaking into the air.
'Wait.'
A dark, incredibly greedy thought crossed my mind.
'They're already terrified and I just blew my cover completely, so I will just wipe their memories right now... or I could get paid for the trauma.'
'Fear farming a high school. I'm definitely going to hell, but at least I'll go rich.'
The temperature in the hallway dropped ten degrees. The violet energy crackling around my sword flared, casting long, demonic shadows against the lockers.
I let the sheer, suffocating pressure of a Dimensional lord press down on the hallway.
A few kids whimpered. Some started to cry, unable to look away from my glowing violet eyes. To them, I wasn't the weird rich kid anymore. I was the apex predator in the room.
[ Stone of Avarice Active. ][ Fear Transmutation Initiated... ][ +200 Points... +450 Points... +800 Points... ]
'Cha-ching,' I thought, my headache dulling slightly as the sweet rush of system currency flooded my account.
"F-Frostwell?"
I snapped my aura back, the heavy pressure vanishing instantly.
Eddie Munson was sitting against the lockers, clutching his head, staring at me.
He looked at the glowing sword in my hand than at the shattered lights and looked at my bloody face.
"You're a Jedi," Eddie whispered, his voice trembling on the edge of sheer hysteria. "No... wait. You're a Sith."
"Shut up, Munson," I hissed, dismissing the sword back into my inventory.
[ Total Farmed: +2,100 Points. ]
'I can't memory-wipe a whole hallway now. By the time I finish, the others will be here also I need to contain the core problem here, Its more important.'
I grabbed Chrissy by the collar of her jacket and grabbed Eddie by his Hellfire shirt.
"Hey! What are you—"
'Apparition.'
CRACK.
[ Location: Abandoned Chemistry Lab - Second Floor ][ Time: 12:20 PM ]
We tumbled onto the dusty floor of an unused classroom.
Eddie scrambled backward like a crab, pressing himself into the corner beneath the periodic table. "Teleportation! You just teleported! What the hell is going on, Frostwell?!"
"Breathe, Eddie, or I'll put you to sleep," I snapped, turning to Chrissy.
She was hyperventilating, clutching her jaw.
She looked like she was vibrating out of her skin.
"Chrissy. Look at me," I said, my voice commanding but calm. "What did you touch? What did you see before the headaches started?"
"I... I don't know," she sobbed, tears cutting through the dust on her face. "It was just a nightmare! My mom... she was yelling at me... and then..."
She squeezed her eyes shut. "A sign. A yellow sign."
Eddie stopped hyperventilating in the corner.
He slowly looked up. "A... a what?"
"A yellow sign," Chrissy cried, hugging her knees. "I saw it carved into the tree outside my window. Then it was doodled on my locker and... and when I close my eyes, it burns behind my eyelids. It's just a shape, but it hurts!"
I felt the blood in my veins turn to ice.
'A memetic virus, So Hastur doesn't use physical anchors. The anchor is the idea of him. The Yellow Sign. If you see it, you're marked.'
"Eddie," I said, standing up, my head pounding from the massive output of Aether I'd just used to farm the hallway. "Stay here. Watch her and do not let her look out the windows and do not let her draw anything."
"Where are you going?!" Eddie yelled, panicking. "You can't leave me with her! What if she floats again?!"
"I need to consult the manual," I muttered grimly.
I walked to the back of the lab, put my head between my knees to stop the spinning, and opened the interface.
I asked for tactics.
[ Open Chat Group ]
Vivan Frostwell: Need tactical advice. Fast. I'm dealing with a memetic hazard. A curse spread just by seeing a specific shape , So how do you sever a purely conceptual anchor when the enemy isn't physically here?
Shikamaru Nara: Conceptual hazards are a massive drag. Physical barriers won't work. You'd need high-tier Fuinjutsu to seal the victim's perception, or just wipe their memory of the shape entirely.
Sosuke Aizen: A concept manifesting physically without a tangible anchor? Fascinating. I have spent my existence studying the linchpin of my own reality—the Soul King. Since joining this network, I have analyzed the backend architecture of world-hopping, Vivan. Universes with established pantheons do not have random energy leaks. It shouldn't be possible for an Outer God to reach you so casually. Concepts require a medium to cross into the physical plane. Unless... the medium itself is broken.
Vivan Frostwell: Meaning?
Sosuke Aizen: Meaning the dimensional boundary of your reality is severely degraded. It is like a rotting wall; even a mild draft can punch a hole through it. Who is your world's Firewall?
Vivan Frostwell: The what?
Optimus Prime: A supreme guardian, Vivan. The wisdom of the Matrix of Leadership warns of this vulnerability. In my travels across galaxies and dimensions, I have encountered entities whose mere existence fortifies the fabric of reality against the Abyss—the void between dimensions.
I stared at the glowing blue text.
'A Firewall. An immune system.' My mind raced back to the Upside Down. To Vecna. Vecna wasn't a god. He was just a psychic serial killer squatting in a pocket dimension.
Lelouch vi Britannia: Interesting, I guess we are on the same page here, If you don't know who your Firewall is, Vivan... your world doesn't have one. It is a fragile node. Defense less. That is likely why the System chose to arm you.
The realization hit me like a physical blow.
'So earth doesn't have a guardian. It had Vecna acting as a scab over the wound the Russians made and I killed him. I tore the scab off. Now the real infection is leaking in, Is that the reason'
Vivan Frostwell: Crap. Okay, so my world is an open door. But if it's been unguarded this long, why hasn't it been swallowed whole already?
Sosuke Aizen: Biology always finds a way to survive, Vivan. An unguarded planet will often develop its own localized, predatory immune responses to fight the cosmic bleed-through.
Lelouch vi Britannia: I agree with Aizen. There are likely hidden factions on your Earth fighting this war quietly. But they rely on stealth.
My heart skipped a beat.
'Stealth.'
I thought about what I had just done in the hallway.
I had dropped a localized Gravity Well, shattered reality to sever a cosmic tether, and then flared a aura to farm terror from fifty teenagers.
I hadn't been stealthy there.
Esdeath: You just showed off your power, didn't you? VIvannn
Vivan Frostwell: ...I did it to farmed some points. Lady.
Shikamaru Nara: You are an idiot.
I closed the chat, my hands shaking slightly because of excitement and little bit tiredness.
'I farmed 2,100 points, and in exchange, I just told my exact coordinates to every hidden monster on the planet. This will be fun.'
[ Location: Outskirts of Hawkins - The Deep Woods ]
[ Time: 1:00 PM ]
The fog rolled through the dense Indiana pines, thick and unnatural, clinging to the damp earth.
A sudden blur of motion disturbed the mist.
It was too fast to be a car, too silent to be an animal.
Four figures came to a sudden, absolute halt in the center of a clearing.
They did not breathe or sweat.
They wore dark, immaculate cloaks that seemed to swallow the meager sunlight and their skin was pale as marble, cold and hard as diamond.
Jane. Small, angelic, with hair the color of pale gold.
Alec. Her twin, exuding a quiet, suffocating stillness.
Felix. A towering monolith of muscle and cruelty.
Demetri. The tracker, his eyes closed, his head tilted toward the sky.
Demetri ran a hand over the bark of a nearby oak tree.
The wood was slightly charred, buzzing with the residual, violent energy of a dying Outer God's curse and the blinding flare of Aether.
"He is here," Demetri spoke, his voice like velvet dragged over shattered glass. He opened his eyes. They were a brilliant, piercing crimson. "The psychic flare was immense like a second sun igniting and dying in the span of a heartbeat. "
Felix crossed his massive arms, a low growl rumbling in his chest. "An Outer God's tether was severed, and someone soaked in the aftermath like a glutton. Only a fool or a god challenges the those beings so loudly."
"Then we have found our little God," Jane smiled. It was a sweet, terrifying expression. "Lord Aro's orders were very clear. The walls of world are cracking and the Abyss is leaking , Some one here making too much noise."
Alec looked toward the distant, hazy outline of Hawkins High School.
"Do we recruit him to guard the veil?" Alec asked softly. "Or do we silence him?"
Jane's red eyes narrowed, locking onto the distant hum of Vivan's lingering aura.
"We give him a choice," Jane said coldly. "He joins the Guard to fight the rot... or we burn him to ash."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(New Membership Option)
New Membership - Special Tier ( Only 15 members Limit )
DISCOUNT Code : BCAF8
Content: Read 30+ chapters ahead. + Access to All my fanfictions.
Link: https://www.patreon.com/c/kapa69
Support Goal:
1000 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter.
Please drop a Stone to support the story!