The Gamer's POV

[The exclusive attribute Gamer Privileges has detected a distraction from immersion in the Gamer.]

[Cause of distraction: False Reality.]

[Gamer Privileges has activated a Non-diegetic barrier.]

[Due to the effects of the Non-diegetic barrier, the Gamer has been granted brief partial willpower enhancement.]

’Huh?’

Cedric was thrown into even deeper confusion after reading the messages.

’False reality? What is happening?’

His mind suddenly began to race and his heart began to thump even faster.

’Willpower enhancement...’

He remembered that he had once received a similar notification some months back when he had been under the influence of a Siren’s mental compulsion. Back then, Gamer Privileges had stepped in with a similar boost to help him snap out of it.

’Am I under a mind hex?’ he thought, his panic rising as he quickly looked around at his comrades. ’Are we all under mind hexes?’

It didn’t make sense...

If that was the case, then how? When had it happened?

His eyes darted back to the screens in front of him, specifically to the cause of the distraction.

’False Reality...?’

He snapped his head away to the battle raging in the distance. He could see the Nagas fighting the Hollow Ones. He could also see the explosions from the cadets using their skills.

He frowned and switched to focusing only on the eyes of his ravens, but everything looked the same. He could even see Evelyn battling bat-like creatures somewhere among the chaos.

So, what false reality was he under?

And could no one among them notice it?

Looking at his comrades, they didn’t seem to notice anything strange.

’False reality, false reality...’

The thought began to repeat over and over in Cedric’s mind as he kept looking around for clues... for anything... for something!

He thought about asking Leon to use his eye to divine the situation, but then he noticed that Leon only had one eye left at the moment. He had already used one earlier at the bridge, and although it was beginning to regain its color, it was a bad idea to have Leon sacrifice the other one right now.

So, he quickly snapped his gaze away from Leon and looked toward Uriel, who was just coming back from the brink of unconsciousness.

Of course, she too had only one eye left, considering she had used the other earlier when activating Judgment Time against the Lord that had shot Leon.

But he needed her to sacrifice the second one. It was a choice between her sight or doom for all of them, depending on what was actually happening.

In barely a few seconds, he suddenly vanished. As a raven dropped from the air, he reappeared, dropping down beside Uriel — who was drawing in large, ragged breaths — and Goldie, who was hovering over her in a state of frantic distress.

Then, without wasting a second, he reached down and gripped Uriel’s shoulders, shaking her urgently. "Hey, hey, hey, hey. Come on, come on, wake up, Uriel!"

She turned her gaze to face him and he could see that one of her eyes was gold while the other was pale, as expected.

"Listen. I need you to quickly use your eye to figure out what is happening right now. I think we might be under some kind of false reality."

"Huh? W-wha... what...?" Uriel stammered, her voice weak and disoriented, but at that moment, the obsidian monolith several meters away began to crack. The world around them suddenly dimmed as darkness began to flow out from under the monolith like ink in water.

Seeing that, Cedric, who had turned to look at the monolith, snapped his gaze back to Uriel. "Come on, quickly!"

Uriel’s eyes went unfocused as she pushed herself off the ground. Then, her golden eye began to darken, signifying that she had activated the ability.

"What is it, Cedric?" Leon, who had begun running towards them, called out.

But no one gave a reply.

Uriel’s one good eye kept darting around as if she were reading a script only she could see. Barely a few seconds passed before her expression twisted into pure horror.

She immediately snapped her gaze up to a pale Cedric, then snapped her gaze away toward a heavy-looking naginata buried in the sand a hundred meters away.

"It’s the weapon, Cedric. It’s that weapon! It’s put everyone within a few hundred meters of it under a false reality!"

She screamed and Cedric’s eyes widened at her reply.

However, just then, Cedric heard a loud, deep, and calm voice behind him:

"I’m impressed."

Cedric’s pulse immediately quickened because apparently, Lee Lim had suddenly appeared behind him.

Everyone panicked, and just as Cedric was about to turn around, Lee Lim grabbed him by the nape of his armor.

Then, he raised him up with one hand like a ragdoll and swung him violently before bringing him down to smash him into the sand.

He did smash Cedric into the ground, except Cedric managed to vanish in the nick of time, just as his body hit the sand.

At the same time, a raven that had already begun moving toward the sword the moment Uriel spoke suddenly erupted into Cedric. He crashed breathlessly onto the ground not too far from the blade.

Cedric coughed and groaned, but he snapped out of it in barely after a second. He immediately scrambled desperately toward the blade. As he lunged forward, he suddenly heard Lee Lim’s voice echo everywhere around them all at once like a booming choir of the dead.

"It’s no use. You can’t lift the blade. No one can except me."

Despite hearing that, Cedric didn’t stop. He scrambled forward and, before he even fully reached the weapon, he extended his hand to tap the steel and yelled:

"Inventory!"

Lee Lim’s expression suddenly twisted into shock and utter alarm when he heard that.

And at that moment, Cedric touched the blade. Like someone deleting something from existence, the blade suddenly vanished into his inventory.

A loud crack sounded, and then... reality shattered like broken glass.