The blade seems to swing in slow motion towards me.

A blinking blue window appears with a cheery ding!

[Would player like to activate—]

I don’t waste my time complaining like before and slam my hand on the button as he lunges.

A silver light obscures my vision as his sword connects only… I don’t feel a thing.

Glancing down, there’s now a faint glowing silver mist covering me like a second skin. all I feel is a faint cold, as if I just suddenly walked into a fog cloud. The man swings again and even though I race to back up, he’s unnaturally fast, just like how the not robot was unnaturally strong. The blade slices my skin, or at least it tries too. But the sword harmlessly slides off my skin, force redirected with a power that can only be called magic. I don’t even feel the weapon at all, not even a ghost of a breeze.

“Huh,” I flex my fingers, watching as the light moves with it, “well I guess that’s helpful,” but I keep an eye on the new blue window flickering at my elbow.

[Shield of Peace: Unique Acolyte ability. 1 cast per day, mana cost five. Duration 1 minute.]

[While using the ability, [Shield of Peace] the player becomes invulnerable to all damage. This effect will be broken if the player engages in a harmful action or tries to cast another spell.]

A neat trick, but the stupid thing only lasts a minute and…

[Shield of Peace remaining duration- 00:58]

That minute is already ticking down fast.

“What is this? What trick are you—?” his gaze sharpens and it’s the most present he’s looked since he had his little show killing the preschool teacher. “Your Divine” he spits like a curse, backing up a step, sword raised in front of him defensively as he glares, the shadows pulling closer in to swirl around his feet. ‘Well fuck,’ I think, forcing down my own confusion, ‘clearly whatever I did must be a big deal if mister not-a-knight, serial killer is acting like that.’

I’m not super sure what caused the sudden change, sure I have a shield, but it’s not all powerful or freighting as far as his skill was (I assume his weird shadow writhing and fear effect was a skill anyway, I refuse to admit I was so terrified of him earlier for no reason.) But I’m not about to let this chance get away now that it’s here. If he thinks I’m scary cause I can glow, then I’ll be a glowstick boogeyman.

“How about we handle this like adults and I leave you to your murdering and go about my day?”

He raises an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed with the offer, even as he watches me warily. Considering his prideful nature earlier I didn’t really think it would work, but hey I at least did want Zeke always tells me to do and tried to “end it before it begins.” Unfortunately for my kind little brother, I know the truth of how people work, and this conflict will end with one of us joining the headless woman at our feet.

But…

I glance over at the system window and frown, re-reading the words, “This effect will be broken if the player engages in a harmful action..." ‘Guess that rules out just punching his lights out.’ Still, he doesn’t know I can’t attack. So, I twirl the knife in my hand, it’s a bit harder since I’m not used to this kind, it is styled more like an assassin’s dagger from a low-budget fantasy movie than the more modern switchblades I’m used to, but hopefully just me holding will at least add to my own threatening aura.

“It won’t last forever girl,” Night promises, stalking around me with slow even strides, “Whatever god you are pledged to can’t interfere here,” again it is a statement, he knows something I don’t.

Waving his hands around the cavern, he continues, “The tutorial hasn’t even really begun yet,” he laughs, mania bleeding back into his face. “How long are you going to make me-us-me wait before I gut you?”

I don’t grace him with an answer, sort of pointless to insult him when he enjoys it, ‘Sick weirdo’. While it is annoying to just let him chatter away, cause clearly this guy likes hearing himself talk, with this stupid shield up, there’s not much I can do. I know I can’t attack him, even though I want to, but I can’t just stand here, the timer is continuing to tick and once it hits zero, I’m dead either way.

I could run, even if the thought is sour on my tongue, I might like the fight, but I know when to live for another day. But Night will follow. He’s too on edge to just let me go. Has some personal stake in my death now, clearly whatever had made him warily also is urging him to make sure I’m no longer a threat permanently. He will hunt me till his blade tastes my blood.

“Want to say one last prayer?” he asks as the time slowly ticks by, his voice is a burning fire, all mocking jagged things, meant to hurt and tear.

I tighten my hand on the knife, “I don’t know when I gave you the impression that I believed in some nonexistent higher power, but it’s just you and me and all your dead bodies.” I gesture towards the trail of bodies behind the man, “Why don’t you ask them instead, or maybe that thing you keep talking to psycho?”

He gasps, but it is clear that he’s not really offended, because his smile is wide, teeth too sharp and too many for a normal human, whatever the fuck he turned into really is freaky. “So vicious for a healer,” he chuckles voice echoing around the edges, as he gives me a pointed once over that makes my skin crawl and I nearly gag when I see interest in his eyes, “Shame you ended up one of them, you would have been a nice teammate, Nova.”

The sudden confusion that washes over me, makes the burning insult I was about to spit fizzle before I ever voice it. ‘Nova?’ I think with confusion, ‘that’s not my name.’ But thinking on it, the not-robot lady had called me Nova as well, ‘Is it some sort of pen-name? A code? An insult?’

[Loading Player profile!] The system helpfully chimes in suddenly appearing next to me. I don’t miss the way the man’s eyes flicker to it as well. Interesting. So other people could see the system as well, best to keep that in mind.

[Error!] It dings again, the system window now red and angry, [Error found in player data, not all information can be displayed!]

‘Wow… really unhelpful.’ I think glaring at the window, ‘Also why is my background all weird, is that what’s causing all the problems?’

“Well, that’s interesting,” I glance over at the crazy man in front of me, he’s just pulling back from yet another attempt to end my life. I check the timer, 43 seconds left. “Seems you’re hiding something else too.”

Glaring I wave my hand through the system’s screen, scattering it into a thousand tiny blue pixels, “Anyone ever teach you it's rude to look at people’s personal information creep?”

He laughs, and it’s more normal now, the buzzy mania slowly leaking out of him the longer he goes without stabbing a person, maybe he was just high off the bloodlust and not drugged out of his mind. But his wiggling shadows and inhuman appearance would point to there being something else very wrong with him.

“Seriously dude what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Rude,” he snaps, lunging out to strike me once more, but his blade just harmlessly slides off my skin, he sighs and runs a bloodstained hand through his dark black hair, revealing an interesting tattoo of little x symbols along his forehead, “you could ask a little nice healer.”

“Oh, pardon me,” and I glare even as I pitch my voice into something falsely sweet, “Let me ask you a question good sir… what the fuck is wrong with you?”

He doubles over in laughter and I honestly don’t know why I expected him to actually answer me. ‘Screw it, why should I care what he is? not like it matters to me at all.’

[Awakening conditions reached!] A blue text box cheers, [Activating exclusive background ability!]

“That was not an offer to do something!”

[Ability data: Because of player’s status as a □□□□□□□□, [Error in data, reporting anomaly-] player is able to peer into the beyond and see the true nature of others.]

The blue system window flashes red with being error and warning signs for a second before returning to the normal blue, [[Gaze of an Unfilled Dream] Activated!]

And suddenly my vision shifts, it's different from the faint silver glow from the shield, a soft ambient light printing my vision. This is more like someone just slapped a phone filter over my eyes, everything goes abstract and whisp-y, as if between one blink and the next I’ve started to dream. The environment twists and swirls, even the ground is a sea of colorless drifting clouds. Everything except Night, who stands in front of me with perfect clarity just the same—no—no he's completely different, wrong and right and bizarre.

Night is standing before me, but there are two of him, two images messily overlapped. One is this Night physically, but he’s dressed in gleaming armor and has a firm serious glare on his face, opposite to the suave peacocking personality I’ve come to be annoyingly familiar with. While the other man is dressed in the familiar suit, but he’s more muscular, taller, and covered in tattoos, physically looking almost nothing like the Night I remember seeing, but his cocky smirk and bloodlust are the same as I remember.

“What the fuck is this?”

An angry error window appears for a split second before a white window appears over top of it, shattering the blue box. [Your skill. It lets you see the truth of this game.]

“What?”

“Now who’s the crazy one acolyte?” Night laughs pointing an accusing finger at me, “You’re talking to nothing too!”

I glance back down at the white text box but it’s still there. In fact as I look, the white textbox comes into even more focus, glowing and demanding my attention.

[He can’t see these messages]

[His “Sight of the Unbound” only works for the system]

I glance back at Night, or rather the two images overlapped together that make Night, ‘I think his crazy was contagious.’ “And you’re not the system?”

[No. We are more than that]

Ominous, but unimportant. Who cares what this thing—or group if it’s using we—is. Night is still holding his sword, waiting for the perfect chance to kill me, I have a brother to save, and my shield of useless pacifism is going to run out soon.

“Return my vision to normal, I’m getting a headache.”

[This is what you wanted to see]

“I just wondered what the hell is wrong with him! I didn’t ask for this.”

Night raises an eyebrow at my yell, lowering his sword from his dozenth attempt to murder me, “Something in that pink head of yours break, Nova? It's not going to be fun killing you if you’re not aware.”

It’s my turn to raise my eyebrow at him, ‘Tabling that fucking insane sentence,’ and I turn back to the white, not-a-system-but-very-much-looks-like-a-system window.

[The data was incorrectly overwritten, where one should be, there is two].

"I figured that much out just by looking at him,” and I gesture towards Night who looks for once actually maybe offended instead of amused, I wish I could savoir it a little but this not-a-system seems a more pressing concern, “And?”

[You are a healer.]

[Only you can do this.]

Even though I know I won’t like the answer, I still ask, “Do what?”

[Your job.]

[Stopping the system from destroying another life]

[You can HEAL him].