Sylvain

A man moved across the middle areas of the 25th floor. He had a symmetrical face that was rugged and rough.

His muscles, that were not too visible under his clothes were bulging and packed with power. His overall figure was quiet lean as he stood at a height of 6 foot 5 inches. An eerie glow was in his lava coloured eyes.

All around his body was a cloth so red it seemed to be draped in blood. The crimson robe, extending below his feet and dragging in the air behind him seemed to shine with a fiery glow. Various accessories donned the robe along the neck and the waist as well as the chest.

Underneath the robe, on his legs he wore bright red pants that seemed muddy in complexion as compared to the robe. And underneath the robe, right at the waist was a red needle.

Yet the greatest and most eye catching feature about this man was his fiery red hair that extended down to his waist. And alongside that, a blazing crown floated gently above his head, burning with the embers of war.

In his hands, the man carried a book, outlined with blood and embossed with the glyphics of battle.

His eyes were focused before him, right down towards a giant pit that extended further than the eye could see. An unimaginable void.

"Hmph!" The man snorted with a disdainful expression.

Then, the shinsu around him changed.

All the shinsu, down to the most insignificant droplet turned into a blazing pyre that soon rushed upon the man as if to devour him whole and burn him into the landscape.

Yet, all the Flame only got absorbed into his body.

The muscles on him expanded and emitted a shade of red as the blood vessels constructed and heat waffed off the man in waves. Steam began to rise from his body.

Suddenly, the man turned his head to look at the sky.

There, a giant behemoth stirred. It's serpentine body slithered in the air and hundreds of thousands of eyes suddenly cast their gaze onto the man.

The man, standing like a God of war before this giant entity, sneered and turned his head back.

"Administrator... what monsters." He muttered to himself before shaking his head.

"I still don't understand why I had to be the testing dog. What a load a shit." The man said in a clear voice.

Then, without a sliver of fear or hesitation, the man jumped into the pit.

The administrator continued to watch as he descended down into the darkness that was gradually illuminated by the fiery red glow of the man.

"That looks tasty..." A deep bellowing voice rang in the air. And then, the administrator disappeared.

~~~

Along Winston's hand swam a small fish, not unlike the shape of a normal sweetfish.

It was a sheen silver in colour and it's scales glitched at the ends, making it seem as if it were in a permanent static.

As the beast swam in the air, it left behind a trail of distorted space and a network of transparent threads hung from it's lateral fins. Along with that, two tentacle like appendages, not unlike the moustache of an Asian Loong, came out of the top of it's head.

"I guess that was successful?" Winston raised a brow at the creature.

It had taken a whole month for the operation to finish.

A brain as large as the city of New York came together to form a super computer with a single purpose. Design a lifeform that can evolve into a divine sea fish. Shinsu worth hundreds of high rankers was utilized in it's making. Considering all that, the end result came out surprisingly... cute.

"I shall name you... let's see.." Winstin pinched his chin, watching the Divine shinhueh nuzzle up against his palm.

Considering that Winston had been it's creator, and the source of the shinsu quality it was made out of, it had quickly proclaimed him as it's master.

"How would... Sylvain? How would that sound like?" He asked the sweet fish.

The sweet fish swam around his arm and swam to the top of his head, gently resting it's body.

You don't seem like you care.

Winston smiled and then, with a flick of his hand, the entire space shattered.

He appeared in the real world, veiled by an illusion and out from a door.

Winston stared at the fish for a second.

Then, a smile appeared on his face.

"I'll deliver you to the workshop. Let's make Charlotte an anima." He chuckled. And so, he promptly leaped into the spirit world, avoiding the eyes of the administrator that had locked onto him the moment he stepped out of the confined space.

~~~

Charlotte floated atop the residential ship, overlooking the entire event with a smile. She already knew how the event would function. Information gathering was never a problem for someone of the Cowardly Trio. Even more so with spectral threads.

As the host, Io continued to explain the rules, she suddenly felt a chill travel down her spine. Her eyes almost widened. Almost.

Charlotte looked up the meet the gaze of the one that made her feel an inkling of danger.

There in the sky was a man floating in a white trenchcoat. He had glasses on his face while he smoked a cigarette.

She narrowed her eyes imperceptibly and grinned at the man. Then, she winked at him.

She had no idea who this man was. However, her intuition told her not to find out using spectral threads. For the man could actually 'see' the threads that attached her to the main body.

Curious... that feeling of power... pure and unadulterated power waffing off of that man. Charlotte mused. It's enough to send shivers down my spine.

At that moment, her intuition told her.

This was a family head.

What's a family head doing here?

Just as she thought that, the man stepped into the void and disappeared into a spacial distortion.

She raised an eyebrow.

Curious indeed.

She shook her head, deciding to have the worms of stars inside her think about the encounter and the possible consequences to a family head of all people leaving his abode and coming to a workshop battle.

Then, with a smile and clear eyes, she turned her gaze back towards the people. Right in her hands was a silver revolver with a single bullet.

The gist of the test was simple.

You only get one bullet.

You can either shoot a person for elimination and pass yourself or shoot another person to pass them, leaving you to search for other people and to raid their bullets.

In the end, to get selected, you either have to get your teammate to shoot you with a good bullet or to have eliminate another person by the confined of the rules.

Charlotte didn't think too much. There was hardly any need to when you were so overwhelmingly powerful than the others.

She raised her hand that was grasping the revolver, and then, fired off into the void.

A ripple travelled through the space, and the bullet disappeared, passing right through an illusory door.

Instantly, a message arrived at her pocket.

It was one of the tickers to the Archimedes.

Her eyes curved into a mischievous crescent shape.

Let's just have some fun. She looked towards a far corner of the area. And I know just where to go.

Just then, as she was about to leap into the spirit world, the space around her rippled.

She stopped and looked to the right. A door appeared and opened in the air, and from beyond the door, where only light was visible, came out a silver sweet fish.

"Ah. The experiment was successful."

Although Winston's marionette and avatar network functioned as a hive mind, collecting information and processing it, there was always a momentary lag between the avatars because of them being situated on different floors. This led to the hive mind splitting off, creating a different mind of operation for a specific floor so that the information could be better organized.

"What's your name? Sylvain?" She petted the sweet fish gently.

Well, anima it is.

Feeling a strange connection to the sweet fish, she 'gifted' it one of her worms; essentially turning the sweet fish into a parasitised being.

It was not one of controlling nature.

It would be more comparable to Pallez Zoroast parasitising Leonard. It was quiet a common practice between the beyonders of the Error pathway. Simply gifting one of their worms to a sealed artifact could lessen the risks and bring out subservience in the artefact. The same was true for creatures.

The air around the sweet fish instantly became thicker. The shinsu in the air seemed to glitch with static effect and threads and doors appeared around it in miniature forms.

"That's a good synergy." Charlotte extended her hand to the sweetfish. The fish in question gently nuzzled against it and flowed further to hide into her sleeve.

Then, Charlotte again looked towards a certain direction.

Shaaa!

With a burst of flames, she was gone.

~~~

Endorsi Jahad had never felt more satisfaction.

"I heard that the slayer nominee had long hair and was breathtakingly scary in appearance. But looking at you, you're quite ordinary." She said, keeping a gun at Jue Viole Grace's head.

"Tell me. Are you really Jue Viole Grace?"

Viole was silent.

Just then, a droplet of shinsu appeared in the air in front of them. And as it popped, a revolver came out of it.

"A Gun?" Said the Traveller.

"What?" A momentary distraction was made on Endorsi's part. One that didn't escape Viole's notice.

With a frighteningly fast reflex, he swatted away the arm and pointed right at the Princess.

Damn! I got distracted! Endorsi yelled, moving to subdue the slayer candidate.

However, she stopped.

He stopped me? Endorsi's eyes widened.

Not missing the opportunity, Viole instantly got down and sweeped her off the ground.

"Damn!" Endorsi cursed and kicked the slayer candidate away, sending him flying a full twenty meters.

"Mr. Traveller! Do you have any more bombs!" Viole yelled at the Traveller while in mid air.

"I do! But they're for tanks!" He yelled.

"There's a tank coming at us right now! Throw them!" Viole landed and pointed at the Princess of Jahad that was rushing at them with a pissed off expression.

In a panic, the Traveller chucked 9 of his strongest bombs right at the Princess.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Various explosions sounded in a single moment, enveloped the area in a thick smoke and flames.

"Cough! Cough! Dammit! Did they escape?!" Endorsi cursed again. She looked at the large hole in the metal walls before her.

"Tch! How dare they call a slender girl like me a tank!?" She stomped her foot onto the floor.

"Are they wrong though?" Suddenly, out of nowhere, a feminine and melodious voice rang in her ears.

"Who's there?!" Endorsi yelled, turning back to meet the possessor of the voice.

Tap! Tap!

The sound of walking rang in the room, echoing off the walls.

Out from the darkness came a gorgeous woman. Her hair was a bright golden and eyes of sapphire. Her face was perfectly symmetrical and her cheeks were tainted with a slight natural blush.

Endorsi's eyes widened, recognizing this woman.

"You're... Charlotte? Winston's teammate?" She asked.

Charlotte smiled.

"Guess."

~~~

A/N: I was immensely disappointed only one of you's got the animal farm reference in the previous chapter. Shout out to NoWhereMan who got the reference.

"All people are born equal, but some are born more equal than others." It's a quote from animal farm by George Orwell.

It signifies how the government advocated equality to all people but gives certain privileges to the ones in a higher position. It outlines the hypocrisy of the government and how it manipulates the masses.

In the context of the tower, it underlines how everyone is born 'equal', yet the irregulars or the ones born of their blood are 'more equal' than others, reflecting Reflejo's dissatisfaction with the way things are.

Animal farm is one of my all time favourite reads. You people should try it.

~~~

RANT AHEAD! WARNING!

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A/N: I was thinking of doing a mass release some days after, but I figured I might as well have some cliffhangers to off this.

Anyways, do leave some suggestions as to what the sweet fish's powers should be. And it's still in it's infancy stage and has a metamorphosis coming up somewhere down the line. Suggest some designs for it as well.

And finally, do take the time to comment and share your thoughts. It keeps authors like me motivated.

PS, I was thinking. You know, random things and I read the chapter of Demon Slayer: Silent Journey(I apologize if the name is wrong, this is a rant at the top of my head), and it hit me.

Why don't fanfic writers just try and make their own stuff? Like, most fanfics are a bunch of 14 year olds, though it's not too different for the official authors I'd assume considering the oversaturation of smut and harem fictions- which just tells me the authors really don't care at all about the realism of a story and just care about a wish fulfilment fantasy. And I cannot stress this enough, there is nothing wrong with that. My fanfic is also like that in the first place. It the whole concept of a fanfic. Escapism.

They are fulfilling a demand. People, of which edgy teenagers are a big part of, like to imagine themselves in such scenarios of escapism.

But it always eludes me that why are we missing peak fiction the likes of Emanuel Capricorn or various other people could make with their skills.

I mean, I realize that monetary gains is a big part of it. Patreon as a platform is a good way to make money if you aren't comfortable with making an original project.

But still, we could probably see a lot more Peak fiction if half of the decent fanfic authors decide to make a novel. But I guess creators give what the audience demands. So, that's that.

Anyway, I am working on an original. It's going to come out somewhere along the next year( if it can be completed until then, no promises.)

Anyone that read the entire rant, you deseve a thumbs up👍

Cheers~~~