Shades of the New World

Chapter 150: Psycho Twelve

He then noticed that Nasst's silhouette was completely still, like the man was stuck in time. Only in the World of Thoughts, a similar look could be seen, since the World greatly slowed down time for a mage. The other Worlds didn't have such a convenient feature.

'Maybe I should leave' Evin was thinking, before he heard the familiar voice of a girl.

"Finally, you enter my World. You really like to keep a lady waiting, huh?" Twelve Jokes said annoyedly. Unlike Evin's voice, hers didn't seem to experience any change in this environment. 

But since Evin now knew who was the culprit behind the weird occurrence, he could calm down slightly.

"Lady Twelve Jokes," he said and turned towards the source of the voice. Evin saw the Authority wearing a light pink dress, one completely covered with complicated laces. As Evin was wondering if the other had a change of heart in her fashion sense, Twelve Jokes' clothes suddenly shifted into a distorting mess, before rearranging itself to look like a wine red shirt and skirt combo with a pair of jeans on the bottom.

'Jeans under skirts? Somehow, it actually looks not bad,' Evin commented.

"Just call me Twelve," she murmured and sighed out: "Well, why did you come here?"

"I wanted to see if I could use Time energy to dispel spells," Evin said and noticed that the weird effect on his voice had disappeared.

"Ah, whatever, take it if you need to," Twelve grumbled slightly. Evin wondered what made the Authority so angry, but didn't dare ask about it.

"Oh, how was the meeting between you all?" Evin asked, curious about what happened to the organization and also trying to break the ice a bit.

"Hmm, pretty much the same as always. The serious ones went back to their responsibilities, while I'm pretty sure some of them are still at Kena's place doing whatever," Twelve shrugged.

"Any news from the organization?"

"I don't know much, but it seems like everyone from the organization ran away somewhere that the mortals can't reach. Even though practically the strongest group possible under the Authorities led by Kal himself was sent after them whoever they were, their decisiveness is quite commendable," Twelve lightly shrugged her shoulders.

'That super-imposer from the North? Isn't he basically an Authority at this point? I heard them talking about letting Kal replace Selat soon If that guy couldn't catch them, then ain't I fucked?' Evin thought worriedly.

"Don't worry about it, I don't think they will be coming back any time soon. Pretty sure it would take them a few dozen years at least," Twelve muttered.

"Do you know anything about them?"

Twelve smirked, pulled out a chair from somewhere and sat down.

"Well, they seem to come from another World Obviously not Earth, since from what I heard from Kal, they seemed to have spaceships already," Twelve said with a dry chuckle.

"Spaceships?" 

'? Are we in the same world?'

"I know, right? I couldn't quite believe it when I first heard it as well. But it isn't that surprising. Alvox itself is like a closed off little island in the vast universe. It's not that surprising for Otherworlders to have spaceships. Don't worry about, though. They'll never be as good as mother..." Twelve became a bit more lively when she spoke about the Empress.

"Oh, have you ever seen the entirety of Alvox?" she suddenly asked and lazily beckoned Evin closer with a silver hand.

'Why does this Twelve seem so different from before? The one who was constantly smiling at me with a cheshire smile...'

Evin walked near her and let Twelve touch his forehead. An image of a continent appeared in his head and Evin could finally see the entirety of the Empire with his eyes.

Sure enough, Evin could see an Empire divided into four different parts very clearly. The first thing he noticed was the general shape of the Empire which was a very round upside down triangle. 

The next thing he noticed was the Southern Islands and a tall, black, needle-like thing located directly North of it, which was the center of the Empire. 

'Is that Tower city?' Evin wondered as he looked at the scattered islands on the bottom of the image. The Islands were scattered in a way that looked like it was cracked because of some external force. It didn't look like it was created from a giant earthquake but more like the aftershock of an attack.

But Evin decided to worry about it later, and looked at the other three countries.

The border between the West and the North was as clear as a line, with the huge cliff that continued on for almost half the size of the Empire itself, before merging into the ground. The four Cataracts that ran along it were constantly shrouded in a deep mist as well. 

The West and the North looked very green and prosperous, with the North's green looking more like Earth's taigas and the West looking more like a grass plain with the occasional forests. But the border between the South and the West looked to be a lone and rather large island between the two countries.

From what Evin could see, the ground on said Island was completely barren and the amount of red and black dots all over it was almost confusing. 

'How many explosions must have happened there?' Evin couldn't help but think. Sighing, he looked at the East. A collection of huge blue Oases surrounded by a ring of green inside the vast sea of sand. 

Looking at it from the top, Evin really found it hard to imagine. As he sighed, the mental image disappeared from his mind. 

As his mind reappeared in the World of Time, he immediately noticed that something wasn't right. He saw Twelve sighing loudly, the sigh echoing countless times in Evin's ears for some reason..

"You're such a boring person Judging by how much different you feel, you must've spent all this fucking time training like crazy. What's the point of doing all of that? You're just going to fucking die, after all. Even if you live, you'll live under the thumbs of the Empress, doing whatever she asks of you," This time, Evin could hear how Twelve's voice was becoming distorted, like how he first tried talking here. And the content of her talk seemed to be a lot off as well. His guts began to feel danger.

Twelve suddenly stood up and gently caressed the boy's cheek. Evin could feel that Twelve's hands were abnormally cold, compared to a normal hand. But it wasn't hard like a freezing one, on the contrary, it was very soft. Naturally, this sudden act of Twelve instilled a very thick feeling of terror in side Evin.

'What the fuck is happening?' Evin thought with panic. He was very deeply scared and confused, but he somehow managed to not show it on the outside. Only the most observant of people could distinguish a tinge of fear taking root in Evin's constricted pupils. At this point, he also realized that it was becoming hard to move.

"What do you want to do with all that power? Tell it to me, I'll take care of eeeverything for you~" 

Twelve's voice turned extremely high-pitched and began to grate on Evin's ears. Evin's muscles tensed and he could feel his body hardening. 

He could only watch with dread as Twelve's nails seemed to elongate slightly, as she slowly drew a red line with it from Evin's cheeks to his neck. Evin could feel his warm blood streaking through his body, but his body had seemingly turned to stone without him realizing it.

"I just fucking want one thing from you in return," Twelve said as her hands reached Evin's chest.

"Your red-blood heart" 

Twelve's nails slowly dug into Evin's skin and started crawling deeper inside, like she wanted to claw out Evin's heart.

He felt no pain, but that didn't mean that he was fine. Far from it. In Evin's mind, countless voices and sounds were overlapping, like he was a schizophrenic on the edge of insanity.