255 Dream Comprehension and Item-S

The entire nation of Buckfastleigh had been put under curfew.

Worse was the situation of the nation's capital with thousands of royal police guards and hundreds of investigators turning it upside-down, hoping to find… well, something.

It all happened on the night of the auction, just after they had sold the last item. A scream had awakened the sleeping monsters in and out of the City Hall, and it was so heinous and heart-wrenching that it was impossible to relate it to a grieving woman, and the storm that had rampaged the city afterwards.

Viscount Lucas Arbuthnot, Set Lord of the 2nd Set, had been assassinated in his chamber at the topmost section of the Hall.

That was pretty much everything the officials could say for sure then.

A day later, when all the nobles, guards, and commandos had been questioned, the Royal Police Force released a statement that the late Viscount had died of Soul Shock. It was a frightening effect of various Skills using which a user could freeze, burn, or petrify the target's soul completely from within. None could find the attacker, however. How could someone possibly attack the Viscount within the protection of the enchanted chamber walls? Soul Shock was an effect of Instantaneous Skills, so the attacker must be near to him when the Viscount had died. Yet, aside from his lady wife, and now widow Elenora, there was no one with him.

Not known to all, but among a tight circle of prominent officials and the other 6th-floor Contestants present in the same section, there was a talk of two unknown individuals who had shared the chamber of the late Viscount. It turned out that the other two individuals had paid for all the items that were thought to be bought by the Set Lord.

Even stranger and the mind-gobbling thing was that the Royal Police Force adamantly refused to release the sketches of the faces of these two individuals in this tight circle when demanded so. Not only that but they also refused to pursue the matter of their identity, stating that these two individuals had left the chambers half an hour earlier based on the statement of the lady Elenora and the four guards stationed outside the chamber's doors.

By the end of the third day, the mystery of Set Lord's death had almost become the mystery of the vanished death couple.

It seemed, Kai's gamble of imitating the authority of Rinnegan-user had finally paid off, for the only ones who could have pulled that off were those who had come in contact with the white-skinned man personally.

Unknown to all this, Kai was lying on a makeshift bed of wool and straw inside a straw hut. His face was calm, his eyes closed, and in between his brows, there was an uncanny redness.

He had yet to wake up.

Seven days of tiredness, almost no sleep, continuous reading, learning, questioning, and then the events that had played out on the night of the auction after leaving the capital city, especially that flaming figure and those three words, had resulted in something that had never been tried, experimented, or even thought of in millions of millions of years. These were a series of chain events that had never been combined before and would never happen again in the same sequence or of the same nature.

Only one word could define Kai's state. Unique.

Even Glitch had failed to earn this word in the Primordial Tower. There was only one thing that had come remotely close to being called Unique in this place. Multiverse Interdependency.

After losing consciousness, and seeing the attempts of many fire pillars trying to take the shape of the flaming being, resulting in failures, Kai had fallen into a strange state of inexplicable lucidity.

He was dreaming, and yet, he was aware of his dreams. Kai was walking on the blurriest boundary separating the realms of wakefulness and the strangest oblivion of all, the dreamland. He could perceive himself, his inner Self that was now reading, going through the same documents he had already gone through once before in the Temple of Byagoona. Yes, of that too, he was aware. The only thing that he couldn't do was control the dream itself.

Sometimes his inner Self was jumping to the seventh day, feeling reluctant to leave the library, and on the very next, it was walking with the white-skinned man, making Kai shiver anew.

Reading, writing, questioning, and then again going through the same.

For hundreds of times, his inner Self traced the same steps, repeating the same process in an uncontrolled and unhinged manner.

And then suddenly, his inner Self was walking out of the main hall of the House of Black and White, the black and white colors of the High Priest's cloak billowing in front of him as if two different worlds birthing and dying.

'A Saying that has been passed down from ancient times before the first dawn. It has no true meaning, and every faceless man has interpreted it in their own unique way, concluding a result different from all. Listen…' the man, whose face was blurred, whispered these words in his self's ears.

'The gates of the true essence of the Facelessness open when the White acts as Black and the Black acts as White.'

Randomness ended there and then began a never-ending cycle of the most absurd events. A controlled meditative state of Kai's inner Self, trying to comprehend the meaning of the Saying. Understanding that had always lurked in Kai's subconscious and unconscious mind came flooding his lucid self.

And from this abundance of bizarre happenings, birthed a question. Curious as Kai was, his true Self turned out to have surpassed even his conscious mind.

This question represented Kai's prime curiosity.

'If I am Black, then who is White?'

Days, months, years, and decades seemed to have passed, asking the same question in an infinite loop while all the knowledge and insights Kai had gained since his birth in the previous world flashed by his Self, again and again, his Wills kept extracting the essence out of them, feeding his curiosity.

When comprehension crawled out from these extractions, like always, and following some archaic fundamental code of existence, it spurted out as another question.

'If I am White, then who is Black?'

The moment Kai's lucid Self asked this second question to itself, he knew what he must do to achieve his Uniqueness. And as often goes with Uniquenesses, everything about what Kai had figured out was unique, from the beginning to the end.

Amid this unworldly realization, Kai's eyes opened with unseen serenity. He took a deep breath and found that some hidden knots in his mind had untangled themselves, paving a fresh path for him to tread on.

And now, he must walk on it, come life or death.

"Black is the contrast to White, and White is the contrast to Black," he told himself, his voice sounding ethereal. "If there is no contrast to Kai Stormborn, then I must create one myself."

His voice rippled the air and Item-M came darting into the straw abode from some unknown direction, her eyes wide in shock and joy. Yet, the moment she was about to speak, she noticed Kai's strange state and frowned.

"How many days have passed?" he asked, looking around.

"10 days, master."

Kai nodded. "We must talk," he told her. "Sit."

Kai's bedding was on the ground, so Item-M sat down near him, bending her legs quite ladylike. "Let me confirm something from the System first," Kai said, framing the question methodically in his mind. "Chaos, what are the instructions for a Contestant on the 3rd position of the Worth-Stat Ranking for using the privilege to reincarnate as an in-world character?"

The System demanded only 1000 MC for this question, as it would have told him the answer for free in the White Room upon accessing the privilege, Kai knew.

A detailed notification appeared in front of him, and Kai read it aloud for Item-M.

[

Following are the points that a Contestant must consider after the reincarnation:

1. The Contestant will not have access to the Stats while in the reincarnated body. Everything that makes a Contestant, a Contestant, will be locked.

Note: Accumulated experience does not come under this instruction's purview

2. The Contestant will replace the in-world character's inner self entirely

3. The Contestant will be able to transfigure to their original self for 3 hours, called the Identity Period. For these 3 hours, the Contestant will have complete access to their Stats as if they have teleported to a Random World without reincarnation. The Contestant will be allowed to return to their reincarnated self only after the Identity Period's end. There will be a 48 hours cooldown between any two Identity periods.

WARNING: If any in-world character relates the reincarnated character to the Contestant's true self with certainty, then the Contestant's existence will be obliterated.

4. A Crisis Timer of 7 days will be imposed on the Contestant as well. Every use of the Identity Period will reset the Crisis Timer. If the reincarnated Contestant were to not use the Identity Period in 7 days, including the Cooldown, a forceful transfiguration of the same period would be imposed.

]

Kai paused, looked at Item-M, and asked, "Noticed something?"

She pressed her brows, looking thoughtful. It took her a few minutes, but when she answered, there was no hesitation in her voice. "Gender," she told him. "It says nothing about gender."

Kai grinned. "Exactly," he said, his eyes landing on the notification again. "I remember the System's instructions before my Initiation Mission. A Contestant can't change gender before teleportation, but that point isn't valid when the Contestant is reincarnating into the Random World, as, in a way, the appearance will remain the same. It's the replacement of the two inner selves, from the in-word character to the Contestant."

Item-M looked confused. "I understand, master," she said, frowning. "But I am not getting the point."

Kai took a deep breath, and then told her everything that had happened in the House of Black and White, keeping the knowledge and the Saying shared by the High Priest to himself. He also told her about the Clue, and then what he had seen in the Soul-Blood drop before passing out. And as there was no limitation on letting her know about his comprehension based on the Saying, Kai told her about the realization he had come up with.

"NO!" Item-M cried, her eyes horrified. "This is madness, master. You…"

Madness, it may be, but Kai knew it was the only way. "Yes, there are Contestants with Glitches in the Primordial Tower other than me," Kai declared, in a tone that demanded no objection. "But in the Chaos' Valley, there is only one. And there is only one Contestant with Glitch who knows the Saying of the Many-faced God as well. This will be a Multiverse Interdependency unique to me.

"I will reincarnate in the body of the opposite sex. This will be my first contrast, the primal conversion of Yang to Yin. I will let her know every answer doesn't lie in slaughter. This will be my second contrast, the quintessential conversion of inner selves. I will let her live a life with her own personality, thoughts, and goals. This will be my third contrast, the ultimate conversion of existence. In this reincarnation, I will open the gates to the true essence of Facelessness. With only two faces… I will become a Faceless man."

A light breeze entered the hut, lifting the end of Kai's hair, and a drop of sweat trickled down from his brows. Everything failed to match the glint in Kai's eyes. The glint of unwavering determination.

Item-M sighed. "You aren't aware of the dire consequences of the things you have just said, master," she told him, her expression pained. "I remember hearing about the journey of comprehensions of the Contestants above the 5th Set. And based on that, I can tell you this. One moment. It would take one moment for you to lose yourself. If even for once you were to accept that you and your reincarnated self are the same people while in her body, then all of your work will crumble down to nothingness, and your mind will shatter.

"Such comprehensions and practices bring with them inexplicable and unknown dangers with irreversible consequences. I beg you to reconsider. Why the need for these absolute restrictions?"

Kai narrowed his eyes. Another row of words kept coming to his mind like an unforgettable horror scene. "In restriction lies freedom…" he mumbled, hoping to find some elusive meaning.

"Huh?" Item-M leaned towards Kai. "What?"

"Nothing." Kai shook his head. There was no going back now. Item-M could never comprehend what it had taken for him to come to this realization. If he were to let go of this opportunity, then he might not find another way in the next thousand years. Or he might not find it ever again.

"I have decided," Kai said, standing up. "This will be my path, and if the time comes to face the consequences, I will welcome them with open arms. There is nothing to worry about. I will not be hasty about it. If time can be compressed, then it can be stretched as well. I will stretch the time limit of the Mission as far as possible using the remaining Mission Credits and then reincarnate into a child of about 4-5 years old. Then, it will be easy to mold her personality and other traits, garnering no unwanted attention towards my reincarnated self. Now, let's go. She's about to come. We need to welcome her."

Item-M and Kai walked out, and the entire hut exploded in tiny paper insects, straw raining down on the empty ground where once Kai was living the oddest dream.

*

*

1st floor,

Teleportation zone of newbie Contestants

Kai felt odd, as he stood there in the dry bleakness. Once again, he was standing on the earth where he had begun his journey many months ago. In front of him, there were hundreds of caves; dark tunnels running down into the pit of the earth.

This was where he had come out of after clearing his Initiation Mission.

This was where she would come out from too.

"It was her Soul-Blood drop," Kai told Item-M, who was standing by his side. "I don't know who that flaming being was, but he had forcefully claimed half her soul, and along with it, half of my control over her. I can feel her. She is coming. And if she doesn't bend to my Will, then we will have to kill her. The curse has lost its meaning to me weeks ago already. Only Karma remains. And I think, I can deal with my Karmic Cycle by myself too."

"It will be difficult, master," she replied. "Our Stats are restricted, and we can't use Mana, Spiritual Energy, and even the complete extent of our Abilities. Our Skills are locked, and though you can use your Glitch, it is nothing without the Abilities. We can use Items, but we don't have the strength to back them up. Our City Passes allowed us to come here unhindered, and our pretense of bringing the newbies to the City of Assignments might work as well. But if even two or three of the newbies grouped against us, then…"

Kai knew what would happen then. "They are here."

A gust of dry, hot air breezed over the open mouths of the tunnels, and newbie Contestants came out one after another.

Two, three, ten, forty…

Kai counted them all, standing far from the nearest cave. When the hundredth Contestant had come out, only then did Kai's senses pick up her existence. He could feel it, his control over half of her soul and body.

Even the very air had receded, leaving behind a choking silence.

Then she came out.

A red blur, Kai noticed, his eyes narrowing. An enormous red cloak with high collars flapped behind her as if it had a life of its own. Her body seemed to be covered in a red-black rubbery costume from head to toe. And even from here, he could see her eyes, glowing green.

Four iron chains were flailing about her, lashing out at anyone unfortunate enough to come in her approach. All Contestants backed away as she walked towards him, her feet scarcely touching the beaten ground.

She had sensed him as well.

When she arrived a few feet away from him, goose pimples stood up on Kai's hands and his neck. A devilish hunger for revenge and monstrous waves of power was ebbing out of her, flowing towards Kai.

Her entire face was hidden behind the black mask with white crescent-shaped patterns over her eyes. Suddenly, all iron chains snapped, whipping at the earth, and shattering the ground just under Kai's feet.

Kai stepped forward, shocking the already stunned Item-M.

He grinned, and a hint of his bloodlust seeped out of his hazel eyes. His slave trembled. The iron chains receded, melting back into her body, and her red cloak, billowing majestically without the wind, fell on the dirt. At last, she dropped to one knee.

"Item-S greets you, master," she said, her head down, and her voice echoing. "I have returned."

"Who was he?" Kai asked, not wasting any time.

"Not he, master," she told him, lifting her head. "He was a HE. Malebolgia was HIS name, a Deep One. I have HIS Blessing now. The Blessing of… Spawn."

"Haha!" Kai laughed demonically, less at the name and more at the irony of meeting another Deep One. "Are you hearing her, Item-M? Dare someone name my slaves something else? You are an Item. You are my Item. I promised you revenge, and you will have it. You are not a Spawn. You are just what I named you. Now, rise. It's time for carnage!"

She had bent as She-Spawn, but the only one who rose was a slave. A slave of a Demon, nevertheless. Her iron chains slithered out, and her high-collared red cloak left the ground, billowing with a bloody aura.

The green glow in her eyes exploded, becoming an epitome of revenge, hatred, and Hell.

The tale of Item-S had finally begun.

**********

AN: Relevant images related to Item-S' appearance are available on Discord.

As I said before, the reincarnation has been decided quite a long time ago after discussing it with readers, and going through all the suggestions.