“Follow us.
We shall unveil the architecture of your reality,” Mr.
Juvier commanded, his voice devoid of its earlier shopkeeper warmth, replaced now by the cold resonance of something inhuman.
He stood as a pillar of stillness amidst the clutter of his boutique, but Yuxuan could now perceive the subtle distortion in the air around him—a ripple indicating that Juvier was not merely a man, but an entity anchored to a deeper, more sinister layer of existence.
Yuxuan hesitated, his rational mind warring with the impossible reality unfolding before him.
He was a man who preferred logic, yet he found himself compelled by an invisible current, stepping forward and pulling into their orbit.
As they reached the scarred wooden door, Juvier raised a trembling hand, his voice dropping into a rhythmic, guttural incantation: “Ressurection of Abyssal Omega”.
The air in the room tore open.
A luminous, sapphire array bloomed across the floor, crawling up the walls like bioluminescent veins, pulsating with a light that seemed to bruise the very air.
Sheren pushed the handle, and the door swung wide, revealing a threshold that defied the laws of Euclidean space.
“Welcome,” Sheren whispered, his eyes gleaming with a manic devotion, “to the interstitial void—the 3.5-dimensional space, architected by the enigmatic Smith Zero”.
Yuxuan crossed the threshold, and the sensation was immediate: a violent, jarring systemic collapse.
He looked down at his own hands, his breath hitching in his throat as his flesh began to strobe in and out of existence, his entire physical form distorting like a corrupted digital image.
It felt as though his biological components were failing to map onto the surrounding space, a sensory overload that made his head swim.
“What is happening to me?” Yuxuan gasped, his voice echoing with an unnatural, metallic frequency, his vision flickering between reality and an abstract mess of polygons.
“The consequence of trespassing into a higher manifold,” Juvier remarked, watching Yuxuan’s agony with detached fascination.
“In the third dimension, our forms are rigid, static, confined to the shallow surface of space.
But here?
To maintain equilibrium within the 3.5-dimensional fabric, your body must undergo a forced recalibration.
We define this as the ‘Rull Saving System’—or simply, R.S.S.
It is the only thing preventing you from being shredded by the dimensional pressure.”
The glitching stabilized, and Yuxuan stood in a gargantuan hall, his senses reeling as he perceived objects with a terrifying, hyper-real clarity—as if he were viewing the world at 12K resolution, every atom and imperfection laid bare. You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
If he were a man of science, his mind would have fractured trying to calculate the impossible physics; instead, he felt only a cold, growing numbness.
The hall was vast, featuring three long windows looking out onto impossible, non-Euclidean vistas, while the opposite walls were reinforced with geometric patterns that seemed to shift when viewed indirectly.
Nine men and four women stood throughout the chamber, their presence heavy with the weight of secrets.
A woman at the desk looked up, her white gown blending into the sterile, infinite light of the room.
“Lord Omega,” she greeted, before turning her gaze to Yuxuan.
“Is this the new initiate?”.
“Register him,” Juvier said, before dissolving into shadow, leaving only the faint scent of ozone behind.
Sheren leaned in close, his voice a dangerous murmur.
“Listen closely, Lie.
You have discovered us, and now you have two paths: join this unofficial organization, or succumb to the unknowns you have glimpsed.
We don’t just research; we encounter.
We protect this city from the nightmares that dwell in the blind spots of human perception.”
He explained that the organization—the Shadow Smiths—worked in the shadows of the city to confront the terrors behind the curtain, a mission founded in 5023 KC by Smith Zero, a pioneer of forbidden occultism.
“The pay is twelve thousand Dolemns a month,” Sheren added, his eyes unblinking, waiting for Yuxuan’s reaction to the mundane incentive paired with the supernatural reality.
Yuxuan took the pen, his hand steady despite the tremors of his soul.
As he wrote his name, age, and address, a singular, crushing truth settled over him: there was no turning back.
He finalized the registration, noting the binding term: No one is to reveal this secret from family, and death awaits those who falter.
His life as a passenger was over; he was now a shadow in a city that fed on the unwary, bound by a contract written in the silence of the void.
After the registration process, the atmosphere in the hall settles into an oppressive silence.
“The ink on that page is more permanent than your own heartbeat, Lie Longterm.
Do you understand the gravity of the bargain you’ve just struck, or are you merely blinded by the novelty of the void?”
“I understand that my previous life was a narrative built on falsehoods.
Whether this bargain is an end or a beginning is secondary to the fact that it is the first truth I have encountered.”
“A cold answer.
Fitting for a Smith who has yet to be tempered by the fire of the 3.5th dimension.
You speak of truth as if it were a prize, but here, truth is a corrosive.
It will eat away at your memory, your attachments, and eventually, the very name you just signed.”
“Then let it eat.
If my current existence is a facade, then its erosion is a service, not a penalty.”
(A thin, humorless smile touches her lips) “You have the scent of an Eraser about you, though you lack the scars to prove it yet.
Tell me, Yuxuan—when the fog finally lifts and you realize that even this organization is just another layer of the illusion, what will you have left to cling to?”
“Nothing.
And that is why I am the only one here who is truly free.”
“Freedom is a dangerous delusion for a new initiate.
Be careful, Lie.
In Hullsperk, even the shadows have teeth, and they find fresh blood quite…
intoxicating.
Welcome to the machine.And I’m Glorrya Scotans.”
“….”