Shadow slave: In The Eye of The Beholder

The aches in Silas's body had dulled to a distant throb by the time the healer was finished. His bruises were fading fast, and his ribs—once screaming with pain—were now just sore reminders of the battle. Across from him, Caster sat quietly, his posture stiff, his nose freshly set, and the blood wiped away. Despite the healer's work, the tension between them still hung heavy in the air.

As Silas adjusted his sleeve and prepared to leave for his for the cafeteria, Caster finally spoke up.

"You're quite feral."

Silas paused, a smirk creeping across his face. He turned slightly, casting a glance over his shoulder. "Why, thank you." His grin widened, more mischievous now. "It's what's kept me alive all this time."

Without waiting for a response, Silas pushed past, He could still feel Caster's emerald eyes on his back as he left." The fight he had felt like a dream, when he looked back on it, it felt like hours of immense focus and determination he had battled caster with. 

It was crazy to think that in a few years, he might be fighting for days on end like the tales he'd heard of the Awakened. But for now, the future could wait. Right now, the present—specifically, the academy's food—was calling.

Silas received his portion and made his way to the familiar table where Sunny and the blonde girl were already eating. He went unnoticed until he plopped down beside them, Sunny jolting his head toward him, his mouth still stuffed with food.

Silas glanced at the startled boy for only a second. With the silence hanging between the three, he decided to focus on his meal. Sunny, however, quickly swallowed and spoke up, his voice a mix of playful curiosity and hesitant disbelief.

"I heard you bit Caster."

Silas looked up, surprised. Word of his fight had already spread. Did people not have anything better to do with their day than gossip?

He gave a nod. "Yeah, I did that..."

Sunny's eyes widened slightly before he stuffed another forkful of food into his mouth. Talking with his cheeks full, he muttered, "I feel sorry for the guy. You probably gave him some sort of disease."

Silas's eye twitched at the remark, irritation flickering across his face. He had the urge to respond with the utmost kindness, but instead, he sighed and decided to focus on his meal. Last time he got too caught up in other matters, his food had gone cold.

Eventually, Sunny finished his meal and stood to leave, heading back to his room. Silas, however, wasn't ready to let the earlier insult slide. A petty thought crossed his mind as he remembered Sunny's comment about giving Caster a disease.

With a smirk, Silas activated [Beholder's Eye], watching as the golden thread of Sunny's fate passed him. Trying to suppress a snicker, he reached out and grasped the string, giving it a firm tug downward. He was going to enjoy watching Sunny trip, thanks to his altered fate.

But nothing happened.

'The hell?'

Silas frowned. The string hadn't moved an inch, Confused, Silas yanked harder, his face flushing from the effort, but the thread remained stubbornly in place, immovable despite [Guiding Tapestry]. As Sunny continued on his way, the string eventually vanished from Silas's sight, following its determined path.

Sunny glanced back at Silas, noticing the ashen-haired sleeper who had been pulling at the air with all his might. His confusion was plain as he muttered to himself while leaving the cafeteria.

"And I thought I was crazy."

Silas was left bewildered, his eyes wide in disbelief. Unlike every other string he had interacted with, Sunny's thread refused to bend, refused any alterations. Silas was speechless, his mind racing as he sat in silence, the only company being the blonde girl at the table, who had remained completely unaware of the strange scene that had just unfolded.

'He has a different soul core, and now this? Is it just him? Who else is immune to [Guiding Tapestry]?'

Shaking the thoughts away, Silas pushed the questions aside—there would be time to test such theories later. Now, however, another curiosity occupied his mind. The timid girl who always sat with Sunny. Who was she? She had a quiet beauty, the kind that would naturally attract attention, and yet she was ignored by most of their cohort. What stood out even more were her eyes—so different from Sunny's.

Where his were filled with determination, hers seemed clouded with despair. Unlike the other sleepers, who looked ahead with excitement for their future, she kept her head low. Her large, blue eyes held an emptiness that unsettled him, reminding him of the hollow gazes of corpses he had seen in the outskirts.

Breaking the silence, Silas spoke with measured politeness.

"Sorry I didn't ask for your name before. Mind if I get it now?"

The girl flinched at the sound of his voice, shrinking back slightly before nervously replying.

"Oh, um, it's Cassie." She hesitated, as though wanting to say more, but quickly shrivelled away, avoiding further interaction. Her unease puzzled him—what reason did she have to fear him?

Silas frowned slightly at her response, noticing the subtle way Cassie shrank back. Something about her seemed off—more than just shyness—but he couldn't place it. Deciding not to press her further, he gave a nod.

"Nice to meet you, Cassie."

With that, Silas rose from the table. He grabbed his tray and walked away, leaving the cafeteria behind. As he stepped into the academy's long corridors, the faint buzz of conversations and footsteps echoed through the hallways, though his thoughts were elsewhere.

The memory of Sunny's unyielding string gnawed at him. It was unlike anything he'd encountered

So, he wandered the halls of the academy, brushing against every string he could find. Each one obeyed his will effortlessly, every person following the golden threads without the slightest notice. As he tested more and more, Silas began to understand the nuances of his power.

He discovered that manipulating an awakened string required significantly more effort than a sleeper's. It was harder, but still within his ability. When he pushed one string as far as he could, it resisted at around 12 meters—6 less than the timid boy he'd tested on earlier.

It became clear that rank influenced how much control he could exert over a person's fate. Yet there were outliers—people whose strings resisted more than any other. The silver-haired Nephis, for example, whose thread barely moved 4 meters at most, felt almost as rigid as steel. And then, to his surprise, Cassie had proven difficult as well. When he passed her by again, her string only budged up to 6 meters, even when he pulled with all his strength.

While Sunny was still the only one completely immune to [Guiding Tapestry], these findings led him thinking, although he had no master to test on, it was obvious that people of higher ranks were harder to guide, but his two peers as sleepers were harder for some reason.

Laying on his soft bed, watching as darkness soon filled the room, pondered further. 

was it because nephis had a true name? though it would make sense due to their significance and rarity, the blind girl had no true name to speak off, she was considered the weakest out of everyone there, yet her string was more durable than all of them. 

'Well, they have a resistance to it, so a resistance to fate? or any kind of interference in their fate? if that's the case, sunny probably has complete immunity to any altering of his fate.'

Silas sighed as he rolled over in the sheets. 

With [Guiding Tapestry] being useless against sunny, it would be a lot harder to fight him, although [Beholders Eye] allowed him to see the future of a fight, allowing for Silas to prepare countermeasures, it still had its limits, one being that some things no matter his interferences could seem inevitable, that's where his ability to shift the threads came to his desire, he had experienced such instances in his duel against caster. 

So, without it sunny would be a more fearsome opponent then most, along with nephis who would take more effort to shift the strings, so for the both of them, hopefully he wouldn't need to fight them.

Silas let time pass by as sleep evaded him, in the boredom he decided to check one more thing, the shimmering runes manifesting in front of his eyes. 

[Flaw: Oathbound Conscientious].

Flaw Description: In defying your fate, you have accumulated debts that demand repayment. you are tied to the people who have enabled you to live your pitiful defiance, compelling you to repay their favours, The more significant the debt, the stronger the compulsion.

[Debts]

[Azell - ██████░░░░] - 60%

[Beholder - ███░░░░░░] - 30%

[Winter-█░░░░░░░░░]-3%

[Layle-█░░░░░░░░░]-3%

He glanced at the new name at the bottom of the list, it seemed that the awakened healer who had treated him had occurred some debt from him, she was the only new addition to the list, he had not received any debts to pay recently simply due to being on his own. 

Though that could not last forever, he could not only rely on himself, eventually he would have to have the assistance of others, surviving alone in the nightmares was a fruitless endeavour, no matter how strong one was, they always needed someone to have their back. 

With sleep finally taking his weary soul, he left his final bit of mind spark before it fell to rest. 

'I already have a few in mind.....'