Chapter 93: Grimoire V
All fifteen skeleton warriors froze.
Then—slowly, unnervingly—they began to turn their heads.
One by one. Creaking. Suspicious.
Each locked their hollow gaze on the nearest comrade.
Laxin’s voice cracked like a collapsing budget plan.
"It... it just made them suspicious by saying one word—?!"
Aria was practically gnawing her own sleeve in excitement.
"Ohhh, yes. Watch it dismantle trust like a spreadsheet."
The first skeleton jabbed a fingerbone at the one beside it.
That one gasped silently, clutching its own chestplate like how dare you.
A third nodded like, honestly yeah, you look like a betrayer, and instantly drew its scythe.
Vex tilted its head innocently.
Then conjured tiny flickering ghost-voices that hissed in the arena air like malicious office gossip:
"Did you hear what they said about your ribcage?"
"They want your corner crypt."
"They called your femur... fragile."
The tension detonated.
The skeleton squad erupted into chaos—accusing, shrieking, and scythe-swinging at each other like a team meeting gone thermonuclear.
One tripped on another’s cloak, two more got tangled in their own chains, and a fourth just curled into a ball, whispering "I trusted you" in rattly Morse code.
Laxin grabbed his face.
"This isn’t combat—it’s a hostile work environment!!"
"Correct," Fenric said without blinking. "Internal collapse is faster than external force."
Aria squealed. "It’s running a paranoia cascade!!"
At last, only two skeletons remained, back to back, twitching and scanning every shadow like caffeine-fueled interns on the verge of emotional implosion.
Vex drifted down before them, calm as a bonus announcement.
It raised one flaming finger... and pointed at each in turn.
Then it wrote:
"ONLY ONE OF YOU GETS PROMOTED."
They turned on each other instantly like rival department heads at an office party.
The clash lasted three seconds. The regret will last eternity.
Vex strolled away as the last clatter faded, twirling its clipboard like a sword and straightening its flaming tie.
Above its head, new blazing words appeared:
"TRUST IS A RESOURCE. I LIQUIDATED IT."
Aria collapsed in delighted screaming.
"It’s not killing them—it’s erasing the concept of friendship!!"
Laxin was just lying on the floor whispering, "I don’t want a performance review from it..."
Fenric gave a single, cold nod.
"Phase four," he said. "Induce fear."
Vex’s flames dimmed to a cold, eerie blue.
It wrote one word in the air, and the letters dripped darkness like wet ink:
"PHOBIAS."
The arena shadows began to stir.
The air curdled.
Not metaphorically. Actually curdled—like someone had poured sour dread into reality and stirred gently with a bone spoon.
The fifteen fresh skeletal warriors who shimmered into being... didn’t charge.
They hesitated.
Because the arena shadows had begun breathing.
Slow, hollow inhalations.
Like something big. Something patient.
Aria whispered, "Ohhh nooo... it’s making the air spooky on purpose."
Laxin hugged himself. "The shadows have HR policies now, don’t they?"
Vex didn’t answer.
It just drifted a single finger through the dark, and the arena floor responded like water—rippling outward in cold waves.
Words surfaced in shimmering, fractured fire:
"THE FLOOR IS REMEMBERING YOUR FAILURES."
The skeletons froze. One twitched.
Another glanced down at its own feet—and sank halfway through the floor, which instantly became a pit of grasping skeletal hands made entirely out of regret.
It screamed silently as the hands pulled it down like overdue paperwork.
Laxin screeched. "IT MADE THE FLOOR A THERAPY SESSION!!"
"Correct," Fenric said calmly, "fear feeds on memory."
Vex’s flames went dimmer. Colder. It whispered again, and the walls bled darkness like spilled ink.
New words carved themselves across the air, trembling:
"YOU LEFT THE OVEN ON"
Half the skeletons clutched their skulls in existential panic.
Two just ran, bonking directly into the wall and collapsing in shame.
Aria clapped like an unhinged seal. "It’s weaponizing their imaginations!"
Then Vex slowly reached behind its own ribcage...
...and pulled out a glowing, ticking pocketwatch made of fire.
Each tick echoed like a closing door.
Words floated above it:
"TIME IS RUNNING OUT"
Every skeleton froze.
Then, in eerie synchrony, they began to back away from the watch—like prey animals backing away from a predator made of overdue deadlines.
Vex let the watch fall.
It hit the floor with a chime...
...and exploded into a tidal wave of phantom clocks, shattering and rewinding and spinning backwards through the air like a tornado of lost chances.
The skeletons screamed and scattered in blind terror, weapons forgotten.
Laxin grabbed Fenric’s sleeve. "It’s not fighting them—it’s haunting their calendars!!"
"Correct," Fenric said, like an ice cube doing paperwork.
Now only three skeletons remained—shaking, flickering, backing into a corner.
Vex drifted toward them, flames whispering.
It conjured one final phrase in the air, glowing cold and merciless:
"FEAR IS JUST YOUR FUTURE SCREAMING."
The words wrapped around the trio like a noose of inevitability.
They disintegrated—dust, bones, and silent despair collapsing to the ground like empty promises.
Silence.
Awful, echoing silence.
Vex stood alone in the center of the arena, flames low and steady like the last candle at the end of time.
Above its head, glowing letters appeared one by one:
"I INSTALLED TERROR AS A SYSTEM UPDATE."
Aria was sobbing into her own hands from sheer delight.
"It... it made them afraid of existing."
Laxin rocked in place like a man whose brain just blue-screened.
"I can hear my hopes crying."
Fenric simply nodded.
"Phase five," he said.
"Paradox."
Aria gasped. "Ohhhh. It’s time to break reality."
Vex slowly raised its clipboard, flames curling into fractal shapes.
The arena floor cracked—
—and reality winced.
A sound like glass remembering it used to be sand rippled through the arena.
The walls... shifted.
Not moved. Reconsidered existing.
They folded inward, then outward, then sideways into something that was not a direction, and briefly became a filing cabinet full of screaming light.
Laxin shrieked. "OH NO—REALITY ISN’T UNDER WARRANTY!!"
"Correct," Fenric said, with the tone of someone approving an expense report for entropy.
Vex’s clipboard began spinning in the air, splitting into three, then six, then an infinite lattice of burning forms—each shape contradicting the last, each one real and not real simultaneously.
It wrote one sentence across the sky in impossible geometry:
"ALL OUTCOMES ARE TRUE."
The skeletons appeared.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
But they were... wrong.
Each one had extra skulls. Missing torsos. Some were upside down through time. One just... existed entirely in the concept of Thursdays.
They staggered forward—and immediately collided with versions of themselves that hadn’t decided to attack yet.
The resulting paradox imploded with a sound like an accountant giving up.
Aria gasped, delighted. "It’s spawning them in multiple timelines at once so they cancel each other out!!"
Laxin screamed into his own hands. "IT’S AUDITING CAUSALITY!!"
Vex drifted through the chaos like a smug origami hurricane.
Each step left glowing text hanging in midair, sentences folding and unfolding into new meanings:
"YOU HAVE ALWAYS LOST"
"YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN"
"YOU WILL REMEMBER THIS TOMORROW YESTERDAY"
Skeletons clutched their heads as their memories scrambled—one dissolved while still arguing with its future self, another tried to attack but accidentally hit its pre-birth concept, and simply ceased to have ever existed.
Fenric murmured, "Paradox erodes the foundation. Effective."
Vex spun upside down, flames unraveling into Escher spirals, and shouted in pure mathematical malice:
"CHOOSE A REALITY."
The surviving skeletons froze.
Then fractured.
One became five. Another became a hallway argument about whether it was real.
One simply turned into the word "maybe" and floated away.
Aria clutched her face, vibrating like a delighted tuning fork.
"It’s not defeating them—it’s deleting their certainty."
Laxin whimpered, "I don’t even know if I exist anymore..."
Vex floated to the center of the collapsing paradox storm.
The arena around it crumpled like a spreadsheet fed into a black hole.
And above its head, new blazing letters formed:
"REALITY IS OPTIONAL."
Everything went silent.
And sideways.
For one brief, terrifying second... none of them were sure they were real either.
Then the arena snapped back into place with the weary sigh of a universe pretending nothing happened.
Vex straightened its flaming tie, calmly ticking a box on its clipboard.
Fenric broke the silence like cracking frozen stone.
"Phase six," he said.
"Ego annihilation."
Aria whispered, trembling, "Ohhhh. It’s going to erase their sense of self."
Laxin wailed, "I just got mine back!!"
Vex turned, flames blooming into a halo of mirror-shards, each reflecting its grin.
Each mirror flickered——then began showing other faces.
Not Vex’s.Not even the skeletons’.
Faces that didn’t exist.Faces that might have existed if someone had sneezed differently in history.Faces of victories that never happened... and failures that hadn’t stopped happening.
The new skeletal squad—thirty of them, lined in grim formation—took one synchronized step forward.
And stopped.
Because the mirrors turned toward them.
Each skeleton saw... itself.Then another self.Then every possible self, all layered like a corporate org chart from the multiverse.
Laxin whimpered, "It’s showing them all their alternate versions... like cursed LinkedIn profiles..."
Aria gripped her own cheeks, eyes sparkling with unholy joy."It’s going to delete their confidence by giving them infinite options for who they could have been!!"