Sudden Attack

At Backlund University's History Department, Cyril glanced at the office, where only old Professor Fells sat blankly in his chair, then raised a hand and knocked on the door.

Knock~ knock~

"Come in."

Cyril stopped before the desk and calmly looked at the elderly man opposite him. "Professor Fells, you wanted to see me?"

Old Fells did not move from his chair, but his tone changed slightly.

"You skipped class again this morning?"

"Uh..." Cyril froze for a moment. He had not expected old Fells, who usually paid almost no attention to his students, to care so much about him. The old professor did not even have a class that morning.

After a brief hesitation, he nodded lightly. "Yes, I was a little late this morning."

Only by an entire morning.

Old Fells seemed to believe his explanation and skipped over the matter, saying instead, "I've prepared a gift for you."

"Ah?"

"Thank you, Professor, but there's no need for a gift."

Cyril looked at him in confusion, feeling that old Fells was somewhat off today.

Although old Fells was not known as stingy at the university, he was certainly not the kind of professor who thoughtfully prepared gifts for students. Especially not for Cyril, who was not among his most outstanding or favored students.

Old Fells ignored his refusal. After speaking, he bent down and took a picture frame from the drawer beneath his desk, its front facing downward.

The instant he saw the frame, Cyril suddenly felt a spiritual warning and instinctively wanted to flee.

He retreated rapidly, but he was still a step too slow. Old Fells had already turned the inverted frame around, placing it directly before him.

The front of the frame depicted a forest formed by dense, twisted, dark-green dead trees. Above it hung a dark-blue moon that resembled an eye, gazing down at the forest below and everything beyond the frame.

Cyril's gaze inevitably met the eye in the picture. For an instant, he seemed to feel a gaze descending from an infinite height.

When he came back to his senses, old Fells's office was gone. He stood instead in a dark-green, twisted forest without a single leaf—the forest within the frame.

The Painting World!

He had been pulled into the Painting World again. This time, it seemed that not only his mind, but even his body had been dragged in.

After a brief silence, he reached out and lightly pressed the air before him. Rings of dark-blue radiance rippled from his palm, yet the "door" he had expected never appeared.

"So it really doesn't work?" Cyril lowered his head and sighed.

He had just attempted to replicate what he had done before, using the Apprentice's Door Opening ability to open a passage between the Painting World and reality, but he had failed.

He had a feeling that the problem lay with himself.

"Is it because only my mind entered last time, allowing me to break free from the Painting World easily with my own status?"

"And this time, my mind and body haven't separated, so the status originating from my soul is being restricted by my body? Or perhaps I simply don't yet have the ability to physically cross dimensions?"

As he muttered to himself, he saw a familiar figure swiftly take shape between several twisted dead trees in the distance. It was old Fells.

He held a black wooden cane in one hand and the half top hat that had originally been on his head in the other. His azure eyes brimmed with barely concealed madness and excitement.

"You're not Professor Fells!"

Cyril frowned at the suddenly appearing figure. Other than that face, he resembled old Fells in no way whatsoever.

Old Fells said nothing. With a somewhat coquettish posture, he strode toward Cyril. With every step, some of the color drained from his body until he completely transformed into someone else.

She was a brown-haired, brown-eyed woman with sharply defined features. She possessed both fierce arrogance and affected pretentiousness, and wore heavy, gaudy makeup. She gave the incongruous impression of a noblewoman and a female bandit forcibly fused together.

The half top hat and cane in her hands changed as well, becoming a long blade stained with rust-red spots and a pitch-black revolver.

Cyril frowned as memories flashed through his mind. He recognized her.

Zoila Hernandez, leader of the Blood Axe Gang in Backlund's East District. A Sequence 8 Listener who had gone mad after hearing voices from the stars.

This was one of the tasks Adam had assigned him earlier, and he had even received the reward for completing it in advance.

He had not been particularly eager to complete this task, but he had not expected the target to come looking for him like this. He was beginning to wonder whether Adam was urging him on.

Cyril looked at the knife and gun in her hands, his teeth aching. Had he known, he would have kept skipping class.

He had come to the university to attend lessons, not to fight. He had not brought any weapons with him, yet he had happened to run into a criminal armed with a knife and gun who had made him her target.

Having returned to her original appearance, Zoila Hernandez made no unnecessary remarks or movements. She raised her gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger in one fluid motion.

Bang! Bang!

The golden bullets landed on a lightless curtain without creating even a ripple.

"Black Curtain" + "Escape Trick"

As a lesser form of Flash, Escape Trick's speed was already close to short-range teleportation. In the blink of an eye, Cyril used the cover of Black Curtain to appear at Zoila Hernandez's side.

But what greeted him was the pitch-black muzzle of her gun. Zoila had seen through his trick and precisely locked onto his position.

Bang!

The instant the gunshot rang out, Zoila's body uncontrollably arched backward. The gun muzzle that had been aimed at Cyril veered away, and the bullet missed.

Cyril relaxed slightly. What he had done just now had been extremely risky. The owner of a painting had absolute control over the Painting World, so no matter how clever or dazzling his tricks were, they could not prevent her from locking onto him.

Especially since, as someone affected by the High-Dimensional Overseer, she most likely possessed the ability to observe the world's truth. This heavily countered Sequences such as Trickmaster and Magician, which relied on deceptive performances and precise manipulation.

Fortunately, she had been too confident and did not understand the Trickmaster's abilities well enough. That gave him one chance to take a risk.

Taking advantage of the instant her body lost balance, Cyril extended his left hand and lightly pointed with his index finger. A frost-white ray tinged with blue shot from his fingertip, accurately targeting her eyes.

"Freeze!"

This trick was not powerful. It could only rapidly lower the temperature, form frost, or create a thin layer of ice. But if it struck the human body's most vulnerable eyes, it could still produce unexpected results.

To his surprise, the ray created by Freeze missed.

After losing balance, Zoila's body twisted into an unbelievable arc, dodging the ray that had been about to strike her eyes. She even twisted around and slashed at him with her blade.

Cyril immediately dodged the long blade stained with rust-red spots. His intuition was warning him directly: this blade was more dangerous than the revolver in her hand.

...A mystical item?

As the thought surfaced, he saw smoke carrying a pungent sulfurous smell billow from where the blade had cut. The smoke seemed alive, surging toward him with clear intent.

Snap~

Cyril retreated while snapping his fingers.

The black smoke rushing toward him vanished into thin air, then abruptly appeared around Zoila, completely enveloping her.

"Transfer Gas"

A trick he had always considered rather useless. After all, it could not directly transfer away the air and suffocate someone to death. He had not expected it to prove useful now.

From within the black smoke carrying its pungent sulfurous stench, Cyril heard a cough tinged with pain.

Zoila had apparently not expected Cyril to return her own Beyonder Ability against her. Caught off guard, she inhaled part of the black smoke and suffered from its poison and corrosion.

The next second, gunfire rang out again.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Although the black smoke affected Zoila somewhat, it also blocked Cyril's vision, preventing him from noticing in advance that she had aimed her gun at him again.

This time, Cyril, who only reacted thanks to the warning of his spiritual intuition, failed to dodge the bullets completely. One struck his shoulder and another his side. The only fortunate thing was that neither hit a vital spot.

"Hiss~"

Cyril gritted his teeth against the pain and constantly changed positions, not daring to pause in any one place.

He had originally wanted to hide behind the surrounding dead trees, but they were like scenery painted into the backdrop. They looked close enough to touch, yet he could neither reach nor touch them.

"Dammit, Adam!"

After a moment's hesitation, he chose to call Adam's name, but received no response. It seemed that this Painting World did not connect with the Mind World.