"Hey, where are you going?" Viktor shouted.
Wednesday was walking in the opposite direction. Without turning her head, she replied, "Anywhere that doesn't involve your supervision."
"You know it's dangerous out there. Those cultists might come after you since you saw their ritual."
"I'm not afraid of them," she said flatly. "Let them. The only thing I fear is their incompetence."
Viktor realized that Wednesday was heading toward the theme park, the very place Rowan had dragged her into the woods and tried to kill her. But if Viktor remembered correctly, that wasn't supposed to happen yet. It should still be a few days away.
'I want to go back to school right now,' he thought, 'but my curiosity is telling me to follow her. Since this is the real world, I shouldn't rely on what I know from the show. Things are changing, and anything related to the plot might change too.'
Viktor wanted to know why Wednesday was going to the theme park, so he decided to follow her. Just then, he received a text from Jass and Agnes. Jass warned him that the dorm master already found out and was now reporting to Principal Weems, while Agnes asked where he was and why he hadn't come to dinner.
After a quick reply, Viktor continued to follow Wednesday without saying a word. Soon, they reached the theme park. Wednesday suddenly turned on him, glaring eyes almost dropping into Viktor.
"Are you incapable of walking in a different direction, or is stalking me your new hobby?"
"I want to go with you," Viktor said. "Principal Weems already knows we're missing. I'm not going back alone."
Jass had just texted him that they'd been discovered missing. Jass tried to explain it away, but his excuse wasn't very convincing. Viktor didn't care much about that right now; he was more worried about the cult. What he really wanted was to know what kind of vision Wednesday had seen.
From the start, he suspected Wednesday wouldn't have come all this way just to sightsee. When he saw her in the woods, he guessed she must have had a vision connected to the ritual, and that was why she came there in the first place.
"But why are you going alone?" Viktor asked.
"Who exactly appointed you my legal guardian? Because unless you've suddenly become my parents, my whereabouts aren't yours to worry about." Wednesday tone was cold.
"A-alright…" Viktor went quiet for a moment and raised his hands in surrender. This wasn't like him. He let out a heavy sigh. 'My anxiety is only making things worse. The moment I saw that man in the prison, and the mark on those bodies, I knew I might be connected to this cult after all.'
The pressure was unbearable. Seeing the mark on the dead only made things worse. Honestly, from the moment he woke up that morning, he hadn't felt right, as if something inside him was slowly breaking.
Because of this pressure, Viktor had hoped to use Wednesday's visions to ease his mind. He shook his head slightly. Suddenly, the wind grew colder. Viktor scanned the area, frowning.
Viktor paused as he narrowed his eyes; his attention was on the parking lot.
"Hey, do you see this, Wednesday?"
Wednesday turned her gaze.
Shadows slithered like snakes, growing larger as they passed the parked cars, absorbing every trace of darkness around them. Then, creatures began to emerge, tall, twisted figures with unnaturally long arms. Their faces were blank, pure white voids where features should have been.
Viktor's expression hardened. Beyond the shifting shadows, he spotted a robed figure wearing a mask, clearly the one controlling them. The figure slowly raised a hand and pointed directly at him.
A wave of icy dread shot through Viktor's entire body. The shadow creatures let out a piercing shriek and charged toward him.
Viktor immediately grabbed Wednesday's arm. "Run!"
They bolted into the theme park, the shadow creatures in hot pursuit. The monsters slipped through cars and obstacles as if they weren't even there; nothing in the physical world could slow them down.
"I knew it would be dangerous," Viktor muttered between breaths.
The shadow creatures kept chasing them, but as soon as Viktor and Wednesday crossed into the theme park, the monsters melted into the darkness around them. They slithered from one bystander's shadow to another, weaving through the crowd like invisible serpents stalking their prey.
They finally stopped at a relatively safe spot. Viktor sank, catching his breath, before turning to Wednesday.
"I think we should go back to the school. Right now."
"What's chasing us isn't random. It reeks of the cult. They've marked us, and now they're trying to erase us." Wednesday said calmly, though her eyes were sharp. "For now, we retreat. Not because I'm afraid, but because dead girls rarely get the satisfaction of solving their own murders."
"Right?" Viktor let out a breath of relief.
As he stood, a sudden wave of dizziness hit him. He nearly collapsed, but Wednesday caught him just in time.
"What's happening to you?" she asked.
"I, I don't know…" Viktor's eyelids grew heavy, and before he could say anything more, he lost consciousness. His glasses slipped from his face, and for a split second, Wednesday saw his eyes clearly before he went completely limp.
---
Viktor opened his eyes, but the world around him was burning.
His world was screaming in agony. Fire spread through the fields, and every creature he had sent into this world lay dead.
The shrieking of bat-like creatures echoed through the darkness, pouring out of cracks in the sky.
"What the hell—!" Viktor cursed for the first time in his life, frozen in shock.
The World Book appeared in his hand, flipping open on its own. On the Population page, he saw the name and nature of the monsters invading his world, their numbers growing with every second. They were here to destroy everything.
They were creatures from the Outer Dimension. Somehow, they had discovered his world during the Outer God's invasion, and now they were taking advantage of the lingering cracks to pour through.
These creatures were called Nyxwings, low-level monsters born from the Outer Dimension. Individually, they were weak, but in swarms they could overwhelm even powerful monsters.
Viktor began sacrificing the Nyxwings that had already entered his world. It was the only way to kill them, but his World Energy was limited to 100 points. He used the energy to manipulate the terrain, sealing cracks as fast as he could, but there were too many.
Sweat ran down his face. Then a deep, guttural roar, like a goat's scream, tore through the world. A small, grim smile formed on Viktor's lips.
"If you like destroying things…" he murmured, "…then I'll let you destroy as much as you want."
The seal on the monster that the Outer God had once sent into his world broke open. A massive crack split the ground, and the creature's roar shook the air.
The Nyxwings shrieked in response, agitated by its presence.
The battle between the monster and the swarm began. The earth trembled as they clashed. Viktor seized the chance to focus on sealing the remaining cracks. These rifts were weaker than the ones caused by the Outer God and closed more quickly.
But Viktor's World Energy kept draining as he sacrificed more and more Nyxwings.
The monster proved unexpectedly useful as expected. After a long, grueling effort, Viktor managed to seal every last crack. He kept killing and sacrificing Nyxwings, converting their life into World Energy, using it to strengthen the seals and stabilize his world.
By the end, only a few Nyxwings remained. Viktor captured them, planning to study them later. Then he resealed the Outer God's monster and collapsed from exhaustion.
He could have killed the summoned monster and absorbed its life energy, but he hesitated because he was afraid that doing so might absorb something from Outer God.
He couldn't risk it. The Outer God had already marked him, planting their power into his eyes. Even a single mistake could cost him his life.
When he finally caught his breath, he opened the World Book and discovered massive changes; almost all the insect population had been wiped out. None of the animals he had sent had survived the onslaught.
But at least he had gained a significant amount of World Energy, enough to reinforce the seals and strengthen his world overall.
Viktor stood before the surviving Nyxwings. Up close, they resembled twisted, ancient vampires, gaunt, winged, and nightmarish. They shrieked closer to Viktor, but he was not afraid; he was just angry.
"You invaded my world," Viktor said coldly. "And now you're terrified of me…"
He was ready to kill them all with his own hands. Opening the Status page, he edited his own attributes, boosting a temporary strength to almost peak Level 0.
Viktor didn't know how to judge one's strength. Because of this, he didn't know how powerful the monster, the Outer God, or even these Nyxwings were. So he created tiers to judge their strength based on their souls. He categorized them into levels: Level 0 was the weakest, and that was where his strength currently was, while the monster was Level 1, and the Nyxwings were almost Level 1.
Using this new system, Viktor could now measure the strength of every creature in his world. The World Book began to reveal new information, and a new page formed as the eighth page, recording the level tiers of every living being in this world.
He forged a sword of steel, coating it with all the energy his world could spare. When he tested it on the Nyxwing's cage, the blade sliced through like butter. Satisfied, Viktor steadied his breathing and faced one of the creatures.
The Nyxwing shrieked and tried to flee, but the nearby trees twisted into living restraints, binding its feet.
"You sought to destroy my world," Viktor said, stepping closer. "Now that I'm here, why are you running?"
The Nyxwing seemed to understand. It screamed and lunged at him. Viktor swung his sword, clashing with the creature in a brutal fight.
He pushed himself harder, trying to grow stronger through battle, but in the end, he couldn't kill them all by sheer effort.
With a bitter sigh, Viktor activated his "cheat," killing the rest instantly.
"You could have been a good population for my world," he said, glaring down at the corpses. "But I don't tolerate outsiders."