Perception was an odd thing. You could take two people and have them witness the same event; still, they might report two very different things that had occurred, memory conformity, or eyewitness misidentification.

Rory understood that as well as another fundamental fact.

One's perception was one's reality.

The best way to trick someone, to tell a lie that couldn't be caught? Make them believe that they'd already seen through the ruse, their perception as having 'caught on' doing more harm than good.

In fact, Rory had personal experience with such misdirection. The summer after he graduated from high school, Rory decided to have a party when he had the house to himself one weekend. Thinking he'd perfectly covered everything up, his parents noticed something was off when Monday rolled around. A single painting, slightly off-kilter. It was minor enough that Rory hadn't noticed, but significant enough that his parents had realized something was amiss. After all, Rory had no reason to mess with the painting.

Realizing the jig was up, Rory came clean and told the truth. He, in fact, had had people over. His friends, who'd drunk too much at a party he let crash at his place, and they'd gotten a bit rowdy.

The 'truth' was still a lie, but in having caught his 'lie,' his parents never bothered to question if perhaps the truth they were told was also a lie. Sure, he'd been grounded for two weeks, but it was far less than had he been properly truthful.

Perception was powerful that way, and misdirection and confidence in one's perception of the 'misdirect' were enough to change one's lived reality.

And why did any of that matter?

Because Rory had just finished pulling off the goddamn best misdirect of his life.

The Architect Bane felt good.

Really good.

A clash with your most hated foe, which ended in your victory, tended to leave one feeling good.

Not only had it beaten the abysmal Architect, it had even managed to land a lethal blow, one that would surely-

No.

That was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

But what?

Besting the Architect shouldn't have been the issue. In fact, by killing the-

Wrong.

That was the problem.

How had it killed the Architect?

The Architect Bane knew it was a creature born from the whims of the Eternal, made to oppose the Architect as a chosen enemy, the nemesis that would be the Architect's undoing.

And therein lay the problem.

How had it killed the Architect? The Eternal had created it with an inviolable rule: until the final confrontation of the eighth realm, it couldn't kill the Architect. It had surely tried, but it was thwarted by an overriding will, preventing it from lashing out with a fatal blow.

So, how had it managed to kill the Architect just now?

The answer was simple.

It hadn't.

Rory felt good.

Really good.

Which was odd because Rory was impaled on the arms of the Architect Bane.

Or, that's what Rory wanted the Architect Bane to think.

"Nifty trick, eh?" A second, not impaled Rory said before lunging forward, driving his battle standard up through the Architect Bane's chest and lower jaw, the sudden surprise attack catching the Architect Bane off guard as it was skewered.

"You see, something occurred to me a while back," Rory said, feeling rather smug as the illusion impaled on the Bane's claws dissipated. "If you could sneak attack me, why couldn't I do the same?"

"Really, it was simpler than you'd expect," Rory continued as he tapped his foot to the ground, a circle surrounding them that had appeared from seemingly nowhere, four gems placed within the cardinal directions. "A bit of misdirection. It turns out that making something think they've figured out the trick makes it much easier to swindle with the real play."

And what a play it was. Grinning gleefully, Rory flicked his wrist as several wires appeared, further binding the Architect Bane.

"It all started with a thought I had quite a while back. Projection magic is all about my inner reality and turning it outward. So, what would happen if I twisted another person's perception of reality? Could I take hold of their reality?"

Technically, the fight wasn't over, but with a spear stabbing through its back and into its brain, Rory felt confident in his victory, leaving only one thing to do.

Gloat.

"Ghost Image is itself an illusion when you get down to it," Rory said as he paced around the pinned Architect Bane. "But I use that illusion as the basis, the canvas for something real, even if only temporarily."

Stepping behind the Architect Bane, a knife appeared in either hand, which he promptly stabbed into its knees. The monster, quite literally kneecapped, slumped as it lost the physical and structural integrity needed to keep itself standing.

"So I began testing the theory out. I'll skip the boring parts, but it turns out, yes, I could manipulate the perceived illusions of others and give them form. Without being told exactly what they were seeing, though, it was almost entirely impossible… Almost."

Raising his hand, Rory admired the banite ring that made using every skill or magic relating to his Vocation magnitudes easier.

"Also, the more potent the illusion, the more potent the conjured reality. When conjured through a Rare-grade weapon, they could theoretically reach the point of becoming physically substantial."

Rory knew he was having too much fun with his gloating and that anyone genre-savvy would understand it was better to end it before some second phase began, so he stood still, looking the Architect Bane straight in its face.

Radiating hate, Rory could feel the monster's potent emotions, a single emotion radiating so strongly that he found himself able to put words to it.

"How long into the fight did I trap you?" Rory tapped his foot once before leaning in close, a new knife forming within his hand as he pressed it to the neck of the monster.

"Since when were you under the impression you weren't trapped from the beginning?"

And with that, Rory slashed the throat of the already incapacitated monster. A shriek like a million knives scratching one against another rang out before the Bane imploded with a wave of power that sent shivers down his spine.

And then it was gone.

"My win," Rory said with a sigh of relief.

It had been closer than he had let on. He hadn't been lying when he'd said he had trapped the Architect Bane in the kernel of an illusion from the beginning. It just hadn't been all-encompassing like he'd implied. Most of the fight had occurred as it appeared, which had been necessary; most of what transpired had to actually happen, or it would sense something was amiss.

So while most of the fight transpired almost precisely as the Architect Bane had seen, small—nearly inconsequential—illusions were placed, hidden until the time was right. All while giving the Bane obvious things to see through, a blur of color, its depth perception being strangely off, and sounds not reaching it properly.

While maintaining so many illusions and shaping them into reality was seriously difficult, that was the joy of his baneite ring, one of the lynchpins of the entire plan. Had it perhaps been a dirty trick?

Sure, but a win was a win.

"Hundred dollars says the next adaptation is anti-illusion powers," Rory muttered as he approached the crystal dominating the center of the peninsula they'd fought upon. "Illusions that you can turn into reality are bullshit, after all."

The idea hadn't even been his originally. Mariah and Gil had brainstormed the concept of using an illusion-based weapon to hopefully synergize with his current style of projection magic. The real purpose of having an illusion-producing flag had been kept top secret, and Apostolos himself was the only one to learn the truth on their way here.

"Good. As for the rest of the plan. It falls upon one of two points. If the Architect Bane gained an adaptation to my projection magic, like you suggested might be possible, then you'll stay with me in a two-versus-one match-up against the Bane."

"And if it's adapted to counter solar magic?"

"We'll have you bail out early. You'll put up a good front of trying to stay in the fight because I need you to convince the Architect Bane that the main plan is the same as last time, a good old-fashioned jumping."

"But that's not the plan."

"No," Rory confirmed with a sly shake of his head, pulling on his battle standard. "This is."

"The flag? I know the spear being able to hurt things it normally couldn't, but-"

"No, that's merely a convenient little bonus. The real key is right here." Rory gave the flag itself a ruffle.

"The illusions? Sure, the colors and shit it can blast in your head are disorienting, but I don't see how something like the Architect Bane wouldn't acclimate."

"Oh, it will," Rory said in agreement. "But that's misdirection."

Ruffling the flag once more, suddenly Apostolos found himself staring at empty space.

"Master?" Apostolos shot up, surprised.

"Right here," Rory said from the seemingly empty space.

"Where'd you go?"

"Nowhere," Rory said before reappearing. "I just reinforced the reality of what your brain was already saying it was seeing or not seeing."

"Huh?" Apostolos questioned, a blank look on his face.

"In the same way the illusions can play tricks on your eyes, seeing lights and sounds that aren't there, it can also hide things from your eyes you should be seeing, such as the light rays that would have entered your eyes and informed you that I was right here. You'd normally realize quickly that something was off, causing the illusion to lose its hold on you. You'd notice me without issue, except by injecting Architect's Reality; my projection magic can turn the illusion of those missing light rays into reality, as your brain is convinced what is hidden isn't just hidden; it was never there to begin with."

Rory vanished once more, only to reappear nearby.

"Wait, how did you teleport like that?" Apostolos questioned once more.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"I didn't," Rory said, and suddenly, there were two Rorys, the second one sitting where he'd been before. Staring between the two, the second Rory that had 'teleported' began to fade away. "With me vanishing, your brain began trying to make sense of my absence, insisting I must be somewhere, so I capitalized upon that and made that reality as well. By trying to make sense of what it is or isn't seeing, your brain tricks itself even more, and I reinforce that with Architect's Reality."

"That's… Hot damn, that's powerful." Apostolos sat back down, eyes wide.

"Aye, but I reckon it won't work more than once against the Architect's Bane. So, I have to sink it deep into an illusion slowly, make it comfortable that it's the one in control and seeing right through me, until at the opportune moment I disappear -its mind already convinced it has seen through me- it won't expect that the 'me' its seeing is an illusion. The entire time, I'll prepare for a killing strike and end the fight in one go. The only hiccup is that the more variables I have to account for, the more difficult it is to hold it all together."

"Hence why Eia is playing distraction and why you want me to 'run away' during the battle." Apostolos realized.

"Bingo,"

"Master."

"Yeah?"

"I'm only going to say this once."

"Say what?"

"You're a damn genius."

"A genius I am," Rory mumbled, still feeling rather proud of himself.

And why wouldn't he? It ended up being the easiest battle with the Architect Bane when it should have been the hardest.

If things had gone sideways, that wouldn't have been the case, but 'maybes' were academic meanderings; they meant nothing in the face of objective reality.

Still feeling proud of himself, his smile began to vanish as a pulse of power radiated outward from the large crystal.

No.

A second pulse blasted out several seconds later.

No, no, no.

A third, even sooner.

Oh fuck.

Turning around, Rory beelined toward where Eia and Apostolos had been battling the horde of Bane-shaped monsters. A normal human would have never crossed the distance in time. Still, Rory was long since past that, clearing over four hundred meters of path in a little over seven seconds.

"Bad news!" Rory shouted, waving his hands over his head as he noticed Apostolos and Eia atop two deceased monsters he had no recognition of.

"What happened? Things go south?" Apostolos was up in an instant, looking concerned.

"Beat the Bane, but that's not the issue!" Rory yelled out. "We've got seconds until that crystal over there-" Rory quickly pointed back to the peninsula he'd been fighting on. "-goes boom! Wait, you'll be fine, so screw you." Rory quickly turned to look at Eia instead. "That little blessing you got from the Khan, it's time!"

Another shockwave of power pulsed out, and another only four or five seconds after, the pace rapidly increasing; they had maybe thirty or so seconds before shit went seriously sideways.

Eia closed her serpentine eyes, and from within her, Rory felt an energy emanate that wasn't her own. She drew on the temporary boon given by the Khan of Blue Lightning, protection from the corrosive space energies of the Bane.

"Alright, Apostolos, you know how you form Radiance Embers?"

"Yeah?"

"Do that same thing, but instead of trying to pop out an ember, just release as much of your aura as possible."

"I don't like how you phrased that to sound like, but sure." Apostolos nodded, closing his eyes as a wave of warmth radiated out from him.

And now, my part.

Withdrawing several gems -two rooms and one barrier gem- Rory turned his hand upward as they floated level with his face. Utilizing the two room gems, Rory 'claimed' everything in their surroundings, including the energies both Eia and Apostolos were projecting.

Even with the room gems, had they wanted to, they could have easily stopped his attempt to control their energies, but they weren't, so it was no problem.

Harnessing their independent energies, Rory then directed them through the third gem -the barrier gem- as he began something he was definitely not prepared to do.

Well, do or die.

First up was Architect's Essence Inscription, which he used to achieve aural attunement through the barrier gem before simultaneously activating Architect's Reality. Dual 'casting' two skills had generally been his limit, the source of his projection magic nothing more than the usage of Architect's Reality in tandem with Ghost Image.

Except now, he was about to force himself past that limit as he drew upon Ghost Image, a third skill at once, to form a surrounding dome of phantasmal crystal panes.

Head pounding instantly, Rory gritted his teeth as the ghostly panes began to solidify. They were formed of crystals that twinkled like sunlight, and arcs of blue lightning occasionally flashed through them as well.

His lattice affinity would lend the physical structure needed to house Eia and Apostolos's energies. In contrast, their energies would provide the countering backbone to their impromptu shield.

Another pulse of power, and Rory knew they had seconds at best.

Now for the hard part.

He'd constructed a dome utilizing their three differing affinities, borrowed boons, and reinforced it with a barrier gem.

Now, he had to maintain it.

"Hold on tight!" Rory shouted as, with one last pulse, the crystal that had been destabilizing rapidly exploded, a rush of equal parts corrosive and spatial energies washing over everything. As the two differing affinities reacted, space itself was corroded, a blinding wave of darkness rushing at them.

Thrusting his hands forward—not because it did anything, just because after seeing so many movies and shows, it seemed appropriate—Rory pushed with all his might. The crystalline barrier of sunlight and blue lightning kept them moored within a torrent of void-like nothingness.

Blood began pouring expeditiously down his face from every orifice, as the stress of maintaining three skills at once—four if you counted the nearly constantly active first stage release of his Eyes of the Architect—shredded him internally, not helped by the fact that he was also pushing back a void explosion.

Pushing with all his physical and magical might, seconds ticked by until the dark void surrounding them finally vanished. Able to see past the limits of the barrier once more, several things became apparent at once.

First, the peninsula was gone, including the pathway to reach it.

Second, the 'shoreline' of the oblivion shore had been pushed back nearly forty meters. The stone was gone as if it had never existed.

Third, any trace of the Architect Bane, of its operations, was also gone. It was as if the universe had sterilized their surroundings of any external influences, no more than an ordinary black stone cliff that just happened to overlook an endless void.

"Yeesh," Apostolos muttered, glancing around. "And I thought our combo sun attack was lethal."

"Yeah," Rory grunted before falling flat on his ass, looking up at the ceiling far above.

"Master?" Apostolos rushed to crouch over him, concerned as always. "Are you okay?"

"Fucking no," Rory grumbled. "Do I look okay?"

"A little talkative for someone in such bad shape," Apostolos said, Rory's chatter putting him more at ease. Eia likewise nodded in agreement.

"' Ppreciate the short-lived concern." Rory groaned in pain. "It's a good thing the Architect Bane basically didn't land a single hit on me; I don't think I could have pulled that off without being in near-perfect condition."

"Right," Apostolos said. "So, the fight with the Bane…?"

"Went off without a hitch," Rory confirmed. "Surprisingly, the plan worked perfectly. And honestly? This entire showdown was a little anticlimactic, ignoring the nuke it dropped from being a sore loser."

"A nuke?"

"Big scary boom-boom," Rory explained.

"Righttt," Apostolos said. "Your head feeling a bit loopy?"

"Like you wouldn't fucking believe," Rory answered. "Now, if you will excuse me, I'm taking a nap."

"Right here?"

"Right here," Rory repeated before passing out.

"Fffucckkk, my head," Rory muttered as his eyes fluttered open.

"Feeling better?" Apostolos asked from nearby, sitting around a bonfire, except it was a bonfire of pure sunlight without a single log.

So not a bonfire at all.

"Well, I'm not bleeding from my entire face anymore, so I'd say yeah, I am." Rory sighed as he slowly pushed himself upright. "Where's Eia?"

"Off hunting. I think she was annoyed she didn't get a chance to eat any of the bane-touched monsters, especially the Camazotz."

"The cama-what now?"

"The two monsters you saw us- you know what, never mind." Apostolos sighed. "She's off, looking for prey, so close to A7, she's probably getting impatient as well."

"Tell me about it," Rory said as he pulled his interface up. His progress to A7 had been maxed for a bit now. Still, he hadn't dared push his ascension before his third and final confrontation with the Architect Bane, lest it be counted as an auto-loss.

"So…. Rewards?" Apostolos offered after a moment of silence.

"Oh, yeah, rewards." Rory concurred, a flashing icon appearing in the corner of his vision as if summoned.

Planetary Event: Bane's Birth

Requirements: All Founders A6+

Having crystallized and solidified their foundations, the time has come for the spark of chaos to be added to the dry kindle of potential once more.

Event Details: For the next three tiers (6,7,8), each founder will be confronted with their Chosen Bane three times per tier. Defeating a Chosen Bane at least two out of three times will be counted as a tier victory. Final rewards will be scaled based on tier victories. A Chosen Bane will not attempt to kill a Founder directly until tier eight confrontations. Successfully wounding a Chosen Bane to a pre-determined degree will award minor rewards per fight, regardless of victory or defeat. Should a Chosen Bane be completely killed, a new Chosen Bane will be spawned. Tiering up before battling a Chosen Bane three times in a tier will automatically count the entire tier as a loss.

Chosen Bane of the Architect

Tier Six Status: 2-1 (Reward Available)

Tier Seven Status: N/A

Tier Eight Status: N/A

Current Level: N/A

Adaptations:

-Spatial Warping and Affinity

-Solar Negation and enervation

-N/A

Staring at the interface, Rory felt himself licking his lips. A rush of satisfaction filled him as he stared at the Tier Six Status.

2-1. Eat that, you stupid bug-looking fucker.

Aside from the sheer gratification of confirming his tier six victory, there was the little matter of his reward. In his first fight with the Bane, he was rewarded for doing enough damage, nothing more, nothing less. In his second fight, his reward had been an excuse to begin shuttling people to Ehkorrus.

They had been nothing more than the one-off reward of a single battle. Now, Rory figured the reward had to be juicy, given it was likely his reward for defeating the Bane in the tier six bracket entirely.

C'mon, Daddy needs a new pair of… well, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but my point stands!

Prompting the reward screen to appear, Rory was first greeted with the cheesy sight of a wheel spinning, slowly ticking to a stop.

As soon as it did, a new screen appeared.

Planetary Event: Bane's Birth Tier-Six Full Encounter Report

Record: 2-1

Status: Judgement Victory (Non-Absolute)

Reward: Reduced Diamond of the Void

Exceptionally curious, Rory looked around before noticing a small stone sticking out of the ground just outside where the barrier had been. Except it was not a stone; on closer inspection, it was a diamond as black as midnight.

Convenient.

Walking over to it, Rory picked it up, examining the diamond and what made it valuable enough to be the only reward for his victory in the tier-six bracket of the Planetary Event.

Reduced Diamond of the Void

Rarity: Master

Most diamonds are made under heat and pressure. This one was made in the absence of space itself. Formed of the void, it carries traces of its conceptual powers. Due to the short-lived conditions forming the Diamond of the Void, the overall rarity and potency are reduced.

"Hot damn," Rory said as he finished examining the diamond.

"Is it good?" Apostolos asked, having been quiet while Rory viewed the rewards and examined the diamond.

"Damn straight. Master rarity, so one notch over Extreme if I remember correctly."

Flicking his wrist, the diamond sailed through the air as Apostolos snatched it before giving Rory a look like he was insane.

"What?" Rory asked incredulously. "It's a master rarity diamond. Doesn't exactly scream 'fragile,' does it now?"

Apostolos ignored Rory, examining the diamond instead. Letting out a low whistle, Apostolos turned to face Rory.

"Isn't this exactly what you've been looking for?"

"It is?"

"Remember, your Null Window musings?"

"Oh, oh right," Rory nodded along sagely.

"My master is an idiot," Apostolos sighed as Rory winked once at him.

As much fun as messing with Apostolos was, Apostolos wasn't wrong.

He wasn't wrong about the diamond being perfect, that is, not that he was an idiot. Obviously.

Years ago, as a reward for being the first to complete 10% of a delve, Rory was awarded knowledge regarding spatial manipulation, specifically traveling through space.

A fun way of saying teleportation.

Several things were needed to do so. First and foremost was a gateway of appropriate conceptual significance. Thankfully, they'd been handed that on a silver platter, the Null Window. Otherwise, it would have taken… decades, if not more, to try to make something himself that matched the criteria.

The second requirement was energy. That was perhaps the easiest requirement to fulfill, given their entire settlement was like one big battery.

Third was a focus. Without one, you could appear anywhere or nowhere, vanishing from space and time entirely. They'd been cheating in that regard; the Null Window had been forcibly attuned to the Architect Bane, which was convenient for reaching the Maw as it was hiding within.

Of course, I've got a feeling that convenience has been lost now that the tier-six bracket has been cleared.

Without a forced attunement, a focus needed to be provided to teleport anywhere. After countless days within his mind palace -the equivalent of weeks within- Rory had settled on utilizing gems in place of a focus. Take a space gem -theoretical, given he hadn't made one yet- and plot out each intermediary convergence point between the primary and final point as 'signifiers' for the details of where you wanted to 'land' and voila, a focus.

Was it likely to be accurate or even reusable? Probably not, but it was the best idea he had for the short term. Anyway, the details of where he appeared mattered less to him than simply the desire to go somewhere.

Which left one final ironclad requirement: a vehicle. Not in the literal sense, but an object that could act as a sort of 'buffer' for any journey longer than a tiny hop through space-time. Without some buffer, the extended passage through the 'void corridor' -the term he'd given for the space 'in-between' space- would disintegrate him in the worst-case scenario.

Rory greatly preferred not being turned into void dust, so a proper 'vehicle' went without question.

The vehicle was the next most demanding outside of the initial gateway requirement. There simply weren't a lot of naturally occurring space-y things lying about. He'd considered artificial creations to use as vehicles, but they had a similar problem to the rocket paradox.

What's the rocket paradox, you may be wondering? Simply put, the heavier the rocket's payload, the more fuel it needed. The issue arose when one remembered that rocket fuel wasn't weightless, so the more rocket fuel you required, the more the rocket fuel itself added to the weight, and the more rocket fuel you needed to overcome the weight… of the rocket fuel.

That was essentially the problem with any renditions he'd considered for an artificial vehicle. The power they needed to deal with required increasing the size to allot more literal space for runes, gems, and other vital doohickies necessary for magical contraptions. The larger it was, the more magical doohickies were required, the larger it needed to be, and so on and so forth.

Suppose he had access to extremely powerful resources of at least rare quality. In that case, it theoretically may have been possible. Still, they were only just beginning to produce a single form of 'easily' replicable rare-grade material.

And that was a single material, ignoring that rare quality materials were the floor, not the ceiling, for what would be needed if he ever wanted to make an artificial void vehicle.

The Diamond of the Void was, therefore, the perfect answer. Conceptuality-wise, it was already attuned to the void. Quality-wise, it was clocking in with an extremely impressive Master grade.

Using it as a conceptual core, Rory was already beginning to develop ideas for creating a void vehicle no larger than an armband or amulet.

Gazing into the diamond, Rory slowly nodded his head.

Not much longer now.

A new horizon, new opportunities, and new challenges.

Soon.

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