The sun had long slipped beneath the horizon, leaving the alley choked in the darkness—thick and sticky, like spilled ink bleeding across stone.
In the shadow-dreanched narrow, a standoff simmered. Elyis stood alone. Her hazel. Eyes gleamed with something dangerous, locked into the doll in Grathe's hand.
A glare that hunted Liliya.
"Hey. Little lady, isn't it past your bedtime?" Grathe sneered as he stepped forward, gripping the doll—Liliya—like weapon.
Elyis's gaze flicked to him, her smile curling wider.
"Elyis...what are you doing? It's not safe here." Ifa said, her voice cautious, uncertain.
"Don't worry, Miss Elf~" Elyis cooed, her tone syrupy-sweet, with something rotten fostering beneath.
Then, the house around them groaned.
Bricks, rusted nails, and jagged metal wrenched themselves free—howling through the air, each shard aimed for Liliya.
Ifa barely raised a barrier in time. But the assault didn't stop. It accelerated.
More and more debris from the homes, dragged out by unseen hands.
Scream spilled into the night—cries for help from those still trapped inside, as the walls meant to protect them twisted into coffin of wood and stone.
Walls folded in. Roofs caves. The alley was becoming a tomb of shreiking wood and twisted iron.
Inside the barrier, Liliya stared, shaken.
"What is going on? How is she this strong?" Lilya though. An unnerving feeling crept into his soul.
The girl before him wasn't a character from the novel he's read, or even form the one Grathe was from.
She was something... Else.
"Ifa,stay on guard. I'll end this." Grathe growled, his voice sharp with anger.
Then, without warning, he hurled Liliya—so fast the air cracked with sonic boom. In an instant, the porcelain doll was hurtling straight towards Elyis's face.
But Liliya wasn't the real threat.
Grathe shot past Liliya in a blue, closing the distance—and slammed his first into Elyis's gut.
At the same moment, he caught Liliya mid-air, his timing flawless.
Despite the absurd speed of the throw, Liliya's delicate body remained unscathed. Grathe had reinforced the doll with mana, thoughening the porcelain like steel.
Elyis staggered back, coughing up blood. All around her, the bricks and metals she had torn from the building lost their momentum—falling from the air a synchronised cascade.
But before the debris could crash down, Ifa raised her hands—magic flaring. Dozens of glowing barriers bloomed into existence, both large and small, forming layers of protection above, around, and between the falling wreckage.
She didn't just shild herself and Grathe—she protected everything.
Grathe looked down at the girl. Small, broken and bleeding. For a moment, he felt sorry.
He gently set Liliya down, then sighed in quite frustration.
Reaching into hsi pocket, he pulled out a healing potion and crouches beside Elyis, tilting the bottle towards her lips.
"Why are you trying to heal her!?" Liliya panicked, though no one could hear his soul speak. Lost in the absolute silence of his porcelain mouth.
But Elyis swatted it away, blood smearing her hand.
With trembling limbs, she tried to stand, using the wall behind her for support.
"It's not over..." She rasped.
Then—crack.
The very bricks beneath her palm jolted free, ripping themselves from the wall and smashed into her skull.
Her head burst with a sickening crunch.
A heartbeat later, her body collapsed, limp and headless, into the cold cobblestone.
The alley went still.
All three stared in stunned silence, horror etched across their faces.
"What the..." Grathe whispered.
The came the voices.
From the shattered homes and broken alleys, the cries of survivors began to spill into the night.
"Help.... someone..."
"Somebody help me. I am stuck!"
"My son... My son, he—please!"
"My daughter is over there! Help her!"
"My leg! I can't feel my leg!"
Desperate cries filled the air, layering into a chorus of painc, pain and fear.
The city guards arrived—just in time. For a heartbeat there was relief. A flicker of hope.
But it does quickly.
Elyis's lifeless body twitched. Then again and again.
Her headlesd neck spasmed and from it, something began to spill out. Not blood, not bone.
But glitching, thread-like tenderils—thin, flickering strands that writhed unnaturally, as if made of broken code and silk.
They coiled and twisted, weaving together like a hive-minded mass of serpents. A grotesque ballet of corrupted movement.
Piece by piece, the threads began forming a monstrous shape, long, undulating, serpentine.
Am eldritch horror, pulsating with unnatural life and shimmering like nightmare renderd through a broken screen.
The three could only stare, frozen in pure horror, as the thing roes, no longer Elyis, but something far worse.
The creature slithered towards Liliya, glitching everything it touched. The ground warped beneath it, phasing, trembling, physics unraveling in its wake.
It voice erupted, metallic, layered with static, like a corrupted choir unraveling at the seams.
"I will kill you...[REDACTED]."
Theword split the air, sharp, final, and yet, no one heard it.
It wasn't silenced.
It was removed.
Liliya didn't react, he couldn't, he was just a doll after all.
But if he could flinch, he would have.
All he could do was watch, his glassy eyes locked on the approachin horror, his mind racing with one though.
"What was that name?"
The serpent slithered towards him, trailing glitch and distortion in its wake, unraveling the world around them like code being rewritten.
Then it coiled around Liliya.
"Ahhh...!" Liliya's voice cried out, not form the mouth, but from deep within, pain echoing as his fragile shell began to crack.
The snake wrapped tighter, longer, its form pulsing with corrupted data.
"That's right... scream" the glitch-laced voice oozed from its body, like radio static with teeth.
The corruption surged deeper into him, twisting, fracturing, until it reached the core.
And there... It met resistance.
Not ejection, not immunity. But a pules of recovery.
The cracks began to mend. The damage was undone. The core restored... Slowly, but stubbornly.
"What kind of core do you possess...?" The snake's voice now wavered, not with fear, but something like recognition.
Then it hurled him into the wall. Porcelain shattered on the impact, but did not break completely.
Above him, the serpent opened its mouth wide.
Spinning row of jagged, shark-likebteeth lined it's throat, grinding like a monstrous blender, ready to consume him whole.
Suddenly, a halo of light tore open the sky, drawing every eyes upward. Suspended within the glowing was the figure of a girl, it was...
Aliza Bloodcrowne.
Her crimson hair blazed like wildlfire, flickering against the heavens.
Dong. Dong. Dong. Dong.
Four distant bells tolled—one from the North, South, East and West.
"Four bell ring from North, South, East and West." Aliza declared, her voice thunderous, echoing across the world like a divine decree.
A haunting choir of angelic voice erupted from the sky—distorted, layered, almost broken, as though reality itself was singing.
The glitching serpent launched towards Aliza, it's writing body distorting space around it.
"As angles sing their final queries..." Her voice cut clean through the cacophony, unyielding, untouched.
The came the soud—marching, heavy, thunderous, rising from beneath the earth.
"As headless demons march on."
Silence followed. Not peace, but absence.
The serpent had reached 95 meters, stretching, clawing through the sky—but no matter how long it grew, it couldn't touch Aliza.
The halo widened, wrapping around Aliza's entire form, then burned white hit, brighter than the midday sun.
Illuminating the whole country.
"Now hear me—All, Gods and Demons alike."
The blazing ligh contracted, tightening, condensing into a single, burning marble at the top is Aliza's index finger.
"I cast upon this world..."
She flicked her finger.
The marble screamed through the air.
"ALL DEVOURING FLAMES."
And in an instant—it struckm
The serpent ignited. Reality trembled.
Liliya looked on in excitement as the snake burned. It was Aliza's strongest move, one he had always wanted to see.
But after if by cruel fate, everything froze. Everything except the snake.
The serpent slowly began to slither towards him, the flames still clinging to its body—frozen in time.
"Ah, I see... Perspective One is protecting you." This time, the voice was clear. It was the voice of a man.
"If it wasn't for him giving you plot armour, I would have easily killed you." He said, his tone dripping with disdain.
Then, his form began to take shape—a tall, skinny body clad in a sleek black suit, a black tie lined with a single thread of gold.
But what stood out the most, was the body itself.
No face . No hands. Just a black, glitching void.
"What do you say, [REDACTED]?" He asked, looking at the doll.
There was many questions brewing inside his mind, but only one rose to the surface—one he had longed for someone to hear since the moment he reincarnated.
"Can you hear me?" Liliya asked, a trace of fear slipping into his voice.
"Not what I would have asked. But yes, I can hear you."
He adjusted his tie with his left hand, and with a subtle flick of the right, a book appeared in his open palm. Seemingly from nowhere.
A book that looked anything but normal. Its cover was bound in black, leathery skin, and ten unblinking eyes were arranged in a perfect circle at its centre. Each of the four corners bore a different rune, etched deep like scars.
He opened the book, it's page creaked like dried skin, and a sudden guest of wind burst forth, distorted and stuttering, as if reality itself cried in agony. It twisted through his glitching hand, breaking into static shard of light and shadow.
"W—who...what are you?" Liliya asked, his voice trembling thin and brittle, laced with fear.
"I am Perspective Nine." He declared, and began tearing a page from the book and with it, reality itself.
A white void began to devour the world, like an eraser scraping mercilessly across the lines of existence—unmarking everything with a quiet, terrifying grace.
"Next time we meet, I won't be playing games." He said before vanishing into thin air.
And then the white void consumed the world, and Liliya.
It was a familiar feeling, a feeling he never again wanted to ever experience.
Same as before he slowly began to gain his hearing and vision.
As he gained his hearing he could hear Grathe and Ifa quraling. And when he gained the vision he could see the cubbolstone of the alleyway.
"No, I didn't mean that. I meant—why did you buy a stolen doll?" Ifa snapped, her irritation growing.
"Because she has a magical core." Grathe repeated, unfazed.
"Wait... what's going on? I've heard this conversation before..." Liliya thought, her mind spinning as a sharp wave of déjà vu ripples through her.
"Ugh... Forgot it. Talking to yoybis like arguing with a wall!" She huffed, her voice sharp with frustration.
Grathe just smirked, that infuriatingly smug grin creeping accross his face.
"Anyway, what's the real reason you called me here?" He asked, his tone shifting to something more serious.
"There has been a sighting of a skeleton fisherman." Ifa said. This time there was no mention of the puppeteer killer.
"Wait... What? This wasn't supposed to happen... Was it due to...?" Liliya whispered, confusion flooding his thoughts.
"Was it because of him?" He added, the question trembling on the edge of fear and realisation.
"You want me to kill it? Hah...but I haven't even had a chance to try her out yet." Grathe said, eyeing the doll in his hand like a new toy he couldn't wait to break.
Liliya's soul tremble I'm fear as Grathe's gaze lingered on his delicate porcelain form.
"I believe you can master it easily—after all, you are the greatest puppeteer." Ifa said, her voice flat and nearly monotone. But flicker in her eyes betrayed a quite excitement to see him fight.
"Sigh... You're quite pugnacious, aren't you?" Grathe said, eyes flicking to ifa and the secret excitement dancing behind them.
Ifa looked down at the doll, Grathe and said.
"Can't you hold it more carefully?" Ifa snapped, pointing at the doll.
"And shame on you, for buying a stolen doll form a thief."
"I'm sorry I didn't want the poor vendor to face death penalty." Grathe shot back.
"You could've taken it for free." She reported sharply."
Grathe held Liliya with both hands, his pitch-black eyes locked onto the doll's bright blue ones.
"I just wanted to help him... What do you think I was doing for those six days?" Grathe said softly.
"Were you running a background check on the vendor?" Ifa replied, calm but with a hint of annoyance curling in her tone.
"Yeah... He's a single father. Two kids. So at least the money will help feed them." Grathe murmured, his soulless eyes dimming—touched now with sorrow.
"Grathe...why are you here?" Liliya questioned himself, looking at Grathe's eyes.
Ifa sighed. "You're softer than usual." She said, gently patting his back in attempt to comfort him.
"I should've bought that briefcase too!" Grathe shouted suddenly, breaking the tension like a slap.
He shoved the doll into Ifa's arms and took running towards the guards, who were just about to finish packing up the vendor's stall.
Ifa stared at Grathe's retreating figure as he sprinted towards the vendor—then she lowered her gaze to Liliya, her expression twisted with disgust.
A look that stirred something in Liliya.
Something painfully familiar, something he never wanted to feel again.
"Wait for me captain." Ifa called out, and began to follow after him.
By the time Ifa reached Grathe, the vendor and the guards were already leaving—and the briefcase had already been purchased.
The briefcase looked old—scuffed lether, brass hinges dulled by time, a faint burnt scent wafting off it like memories that refused to fade. He clicked it open with a practiced hand, and inside was lined velvet, worn and tattered but still soft.
"Thank you for bringing her." Grathe said with a huge smile contrasting with his tired soulless looking eyes. To the point it almost looked creepy.
Ifa didn't respond. She simply tossed the doll towards him with a flick of her wrist.
He barely caught it in time.
"Careful!" He snapped, his voice cracking with sudden sharpness. Holding Liliya gently, he began folding her limbs inward, guiding her porcelain body into fetal position. Then, with practiced care, he nestled the doll inside th briefcase.
Ifa scoffed. "It's literally unbreakable. Why do you care so much?"
"Yeah, yeah..." Grathe muttered, shutting the case with a soft click.
And just like that, the world vanished.
Inside the briefcase, here was nothing but silence—thick and suffocating. Even the sound outside were reduced to distant, muffled murmurs, like whisper through water.
In that velvet-lined void, Liliya had no breath, no voice. Only thought. And those thoughts spiraled.
A thousand questions churned in his head, like waves crashing in a stormy sea of confusion. But two broke the surface, louder than the rest:
"Who is Perspective one?"
"And what the hell is Perspective Nine?"