"Don't depend too much on anyone in this world. Even your shadow leaves you when you're in the dark."

-Ibn Taymiyyah

━━━━━━━━┓ ? ┏━━━━━━━━

"Kneel."

Suddenly as he is running towards me with potent vigor and an evil intent looking all desperately insane, Zen's feet lost its strength, almost suddenly, which made him kneel in front of me.

He's the one being a fully-evolved narcissist here, thinking how special he is for having such links with the extraordinary. He doesn't know that my power is even more dangerous. Apart from controlling inks, give me something that is black, physical, spiritual or emotional it may be, I can take control of it. Show me an ill will and I can likely control every fiber of your body. Yes. This is part of my power, a personalized authority I received from the Goddess.

"Zen! What happened?" ladies came to the rescue worrying if that little kneeling has somewhat left a dent of wound or something. So, he already has a Fandom huh... that was rather quick?

"What-what happened? I- I can't feel my body" the Wolfenschtein descent on his knees, questioned.

"Is this what these Herrschers are capable of doing? You acted highly a moment ago, why are you kneeling now? Rather weak aren't you now cool guy.", I humiliated him, but with a very sober and irritated face, one that spells "If you should have just let me do my thing, then this should not have happened to you".

"You! what did you d-do to me?!"

"Nothing. Should be Karma's doing, you know. While I only came here to recover what's mine you disturbed me like I'm someone who is subject to answer any of your questions. Narcissist? Kid? Me? Just look at your self and reflect. Well, I'm not as introverted as you think I am, so I'm gonna tell you this... You can act heroically all you want, but your feud is probably not my concern. "

"Why? Just tell us that you had joined the other side for your girlfriend's sake you piece of lovestruck crap!" the four-eyed Glen again made his verbal attack. I looked at him with a cold gaze, as an assurance that if you'll open your mouth again, I'm gonna do something more horrible. And him, feeling the danger, averted his hateful gaze quickly. with an insulting clock of his tongue...

"Nope. That certainly is not the case and also, let me clear this out. I and Celes are not in a relationship or whatsoever. Your logic in judgment is faltered beyond flawed. We just met each other."

"Then why the hell can you approach her openly? And how could you explain that you can call her by her first name! "

"Huh? And why should I not? Because she is the Prima Donna? Seriously how stupid had everyone become, fearing someone just because of a nickname... Not to mention how foolish you are of your choice of publicly announcing what Armada you would join. It should have been kept a secret from the start."

"What do you mean?" the gothic lolita classmate, Charlotte Shirehart, asked.

While it somehow hurts to gush forth a few words now (would be a waste of saliva), I felt the need to give them a taste of reality.

"You may be smiling now, that you have found allies, but hmmm...You know that you're still hell-bent to kill each other right?"

"No. There's no way we are killing-..."

"You sure about that though?" I intervened...

The girl, believing in the power of friendship is unable to say any additional words.

"You all really are clueless about what's happening. Surely, it's high time for you to realize that this is not the kind of nightmare that you have in your sleep...It's a nightmare of the dissatisfied reality that awaits us every time we open our eyes. You can play 'friends to everyone' but, let me repeat, we are in a game where we will kill each other to achieve our own goals and to determine the fate of humanity. There's no way I would tell openly what Armada I chose, that's like persuading a thief to steal your millions in your own accord. Except, we are not talking about money here."

Everyone is left speechless, even the Wolfenschtein himself.

What's fascinating though is how they just keep doing better and better in making their situation worse. For them, it was the most logical thing to do. Find friends. Form a group. And be safe together. Yet, that's just a juvenile way of thinking. Everyone here has their own reasons why they venially want that wish and inevitably, Homo sapiens have this insatiable hunger for the irrational. It's only a matter of time when someone would make the first move of betrayal.

"If you have nothing more to say then I'll take my leave. And lastly, Instead of arguing here why someone chose to be against the 99% of the crowd present, you should have had started preparing. What you're doing now is beyond childish, and thinking you'll probably survive outside just because you found these dear friends who can't even survive a little jab is but the worst case of narcissism there is. You saw that right? How that man was killed in front of us just because he defied an instruction. This is a warfare, where killing is the new norm...And this is not a matter between going head-to-head or hand-in-hand, it's a matter of strategy. But what you're doing here is publicly announcing that you are okay being betrayed yonder... Let's go, Shiro. I don't want you getting acquainted with such people." And with that, I should be on their top - 10 most hated list right now. But, I also think that it's for the best as it was somehow inevitable. Men will always prefer comforting lies rather than the ugly truth. It's a part of their matrix.

"Hey! Undo this, will you?! Hey you!" Zen, still under my dominance shouted. Well, the moment his head cools down the bind would automatically be unchained.

Without saying anymore, I then hastily got out of the scene without even saying anything to Celes. And I presume that somehow, she will be able to handle herself just fine. It's just that, I came in a very bad timing. How did everyone know that she is in the Chaos Armada anyway?

I quickly made my exit feeling a little exhausted. Probably from using my power to control someone and of course, gaining that much of a de trop attention... So this is the backlash huh? It is almost like a life span was sucked out of me shortening my days. I should probably train using this more, the moment the real journey starts... I wonder to what extent can I really make use of this?

Yet... That Wolfenschtein, is really something else. If Gold is also considered valuable on the new land we are soon to explore, he's one lucky bastard. But, that has a minuscule chance of being the case. The Midas Touch. Now, it feels like, I'm not the only one who tricked a deity unto giving a power that is beyond balanced.

Ahhhh. I completely ruined the low-key plan. Oh well, can't hurt to restart again.

Celes Reignsworth. You heard everything right? There's simply no means of 'complete' trust right now. It's vague beyond question. And I know you too, think the same. While we may be taking the same gate leading outside, I know that the path we will take... is very discrepant from each other.

"Oni-chama are you ok?" Shiro, seeing how somewhat exhausted my demeanor is and how deep my thoughts seem, started worrying.

"Of course. You don't need to worry about me okay?"

"Kay." She replied, even though her face clearly showed a very concerned expression.

I checked my clock to see what time it is. It's 9:30 PM... It's enough. We should probably eat for now and rest. Tomorrow at the early three. The threshold begins.