While his operatives moved unseen across kingdoms…
While Sanctum Bell pulsed with new missions and the Black Vein stabilized…
Shin was training.
Alone.
In a void-tempered training space hidden beneath HQ, lined with illusion-resistant walls and silence sigils.
His tea still steamed beside him.
His coat folded over the rail.
His black coin floated midair, spinning faster with each heartbeat as data streamed into his interface—logs, encounters, dodge-trees, enemy patterns, leadership responses.
System recalibrating.
User Level: 48 → 60
Skills enhanced. New abilities acquired.
— SHIN LEVEL UP —
Current Level: 60
Class: Phantom Strategist
Style: Universal Blade / Shadow Leader / Fearless State
Newly Enhanced Skills
◆ Auto-Dodge Mk. III – "Ghost Weave"
Shin now dodges with predictive foresight, reading attacks before they begin.
Visual trails linger behind him—leaving a false image that tricks the next attacker.
◆ Universal Translation: Echo Layer Unlocked
Shin can now read ancient soul-script, forbidden contracts, and demonblood glyphs.
Grants Diplomatic Disguise when reading unknown runes—appears fluent in local speech instantly.
◆ Rewriting Magic – "Clause Reversal"
Shin can now flip magical effects tied to contracts or binding spells.
Cursed collar? Turns into a blessing.
Tracking rune? Becomes a jammer.
◆ Leadership Trait – "Coin Echo Authority"
All nearby S.I.N operatives gain temporary skill buffs while within Shin's presence.
Can issue mental commands to operatives in combat without verbal orders.
Allies gain +20% resistance to fear and confusion effects.
◆ Passive Skill – "Fearless Reflection"
If a mind-control, terror, or domination spell is cast at Shin…
It reflects.
Back to the caster.
Twice as strong.
— SYSTEM NOTIFICATION —
[ SHIN LEVEL UP COMPLETE ]
Level: 60
Command Tier: Black+
New Trait: Unshakable Calm
All Tea-Based Buffs Duration: Doubled
Passive Coin Pulse Radius: Increased by 120 meters
Emotion Override Limit: Removed
Shin opened his eyes, standing in the center of a spinning storm of blades, smoke, and mirrors. He hadn't drawn his sword once.
Everything fell to the ground.
Not a single cut touched him.
He calmly reached over, sipped his tea.
"Let them come.
I haven't even started."
They called themselves the Hollow Circle.
Ex-Vanguard assassins.
Sanctioned mages.
Emotionless combatants trained to hunt only one kind of target:
Fearless Leaders.
And now, they had one in their sights—Shin.
The Setup
In a remote valley posing as a peaceful diplomatic relay, the Hollow Circle laid their trap.
They carried Anti-Fear Relics—engraved rings soaked in null-aura runes.
One mage carried a mind-breaker curse laced with reality folds.
Two blades were forged from emotion-draining obsidian.
They had studied Shin's methods.
They had planned for his movements.
They even accounted for tea.
"If he drinks mid-fight," their leader said, "that's when we kill him."
They did everything right.
Except one thing.
They failed to understand the nature of a man who already turned fear off.
The Encounter
As expected, Shin arrived.
Calm. Alone. Unarmed.
Wearing his usual black business suit and gloves, sipping from a fresh ceramic cup—black tea, no sugar, no milk. Steam drifted from the rim like mist before judgment.
"I see you've gone through a lot of effort," Shin said, voice unshaken.
The Hollow Circle surrounded him in perfect formation.
Magic flared. Weapons hummed.
"Fearless doesn't mean untouchable," the squad leader hissed.
"No," Shin said calmly. "But it does mean… you're terribly unprepared."
The moment they activated their relics—
He reflected everything.
— SKILL ACTIVATED: FEARLESS REFLECTION —
Anti-Fear Aura detected.
Returning effects to casters
Multiplying pulse strength x2
Initiating Mindbreak Feedback…
In an instant:
The leader felt existential dread so deep he collapsed, sobbing like a child.
The mage vomited illusions, choking on her own curse.
One swordsman screamed for a mother who wasn't there.
The other dropped to his knees, shaking uncontrollably—blades forgotten.
Shin stood among them.
Unmoved.
Still sipping.
He crouched next to the sobbing commander, placing a black coin gently beside his convulsing hand.
"Next time," Shin said softly, "try aiming for someone who still has fear to give."
He walked away.
Behind him, the Hollow Circle was already unconscious—defeated not by violence…
…but by the weight of their own inverted tactics.
— SYSTEM NOTIFICATION —
[ Encounter Complete – The Hollow Circle Neutralized ]
Relic Feedback Loops: Activated
Mental Resistance Shattered
Status: Operatives Broken, Incapacitated
No Casualties
Coin Drop Initiated
Passive Skill Buff:
"Dread Echo" – Enemies who attempt fear immunity near Shin now suffer +50% feedback risk
Back at HQ, Sanctum Bell logged the outcome under a new classification:
"Combat Not Required.
Subject: Shin.
Tea remained warm throughout."
In a dim, rune-lined chamber below the Sanctum Bell's vault, two operatives stood before Shin.
One: Petal, the pink-haired Shadow who once vanished into noble halls like a wisp of steam.
The other: Lio, the calm recruiter with gold eyes and a tactician's mind beneath his stoic front.
Shin sipped from his cup—hibiscus this time.
He said nothing for ten seconds.
Then:
"Fear is a weapon.
But when you control it, it becomes something more.
A mirror."
The Lesson Begins
Shin activated the Null Chamber—a training room that replicates psychological pressure, illusion-based trauma, and divine mental interference.
"You will not learn to be fearless," he told them.
"You will learn to make them fear your lack of it."
Stage One: Recognition
Objective: Recognize intrusive fear-based magic.
Petal was subjected to illusions of capture and abandonment.
Her coin flickered. But she whispered:
"This isn't me. This is someone else's attempt to control me."
Shin nodded once.
Lio was given false visions of failure—an entire city falling because he was too slow.
But Lio walked forward through the burning mirage and said:
"If this was real, I'd still move.
So I'll move now."
Shin smiled faintly behind his cup.
Stage Two: Compression
Objective: Suppress fear, compress it, and control its pulse.
"Fear isn't weakness," Shin explained. "It's power. Yours.
But it must be bottled until it screams backward."
They meditated while surrounded by recorded echoes of their worst missions.
Petal's breath grew silent, her heartbeat matching the coin pulse exactly.
Lio redirected his fear into focus, redirecting his adrenaline toward calculated counters.
At the center of it all, Shin stood unmoved.
Stage Three: The Mirror Test
Objective: Reflect an emotional attack using inner stillness.
They stood in a triangle, Shin at the center, while illusion mages hit them with advanced mind-pressure:
Guilt.
Shame.
Terror.
Loss.
Lio trembled—until he smiled.
Petal wept once—then wiped it away and said, "You'll have to do better."
Shin raised a hand.
"Now invert it."
Both agents pulsed their coin resonance outward—
A flash of black light.
Illusions shattered.
The fear rebounded toward the mages—who stumbled, stunned.
— SYSTEM NOTIFICATION —
[ Specialized Technique Acquired: "Inversion Pulse" ]
Petal and Lio may now reflect low- to mid-tier mental and fear-based magic back at the source
Effectiveness increases with proximity to Shin or via Whisperguard tether
Passive Buff Activated:
"Echo Alignment" – Shadows and Recruiters trained in fear-inversion gain +25% resistance to illusion manipulation
As the room dimmed and their breathing returned to normal, Shin walked past them and poured a fresh cup of tea.
"You're not ready for what I can do yet."
They glanced at him.
"But you're ready to scare the ones who think they are."
The city was known as Gravemire.
A jewel of the northern trade routes.
High walls. Spired towers. Welcoming to all species.
But beneath its beautiful face—it was a predator.
Gravemire was where Shadows vanished.
Where noble-led bounty networks and sanctioned hunters sold rumors of "coinless ghosts."
And where S.I.N operatives were either turned…
or tortured to death in hidden cells.
Mission Brief – Codename: "Mirrorbite"
Agents Assigned:
Agent Lio – Field Recruiter, Combat Class: Phantom Blade
Shadow Petal – Infiltration Class: Veiltype, Trained in Fear-Inversion
Objectives:
Infiltrate Gravemire as minor diplomats from the Merchant Alliance.
Identify the Guild running the Shadow Hunts.
Locate any surviving S.I.N signals.
Survive contact with suspected fear-mages and report findings.
Arrival
Lio wore a formal black-and-gold coat, posing as a stoic envoy.
Petal, in noble pink robes and silver-rimmed glasses, played the "delicate niece."
Together, they stepped off the merchant sky-carriage under surveillance.
The bounty warding stones pulsed once—searching for coin resonance.
But Shin's coin-cloaking glyphs held.
The two were invisible to the scan.
Inside Gravemire
They walked calmly past the slaver's guild.
Past disguised orphanages used to train future contract killers.
Past smiling nobles who hid rune-burned eyes behind expensive lenses.
Petal whispered:
"This city's not just dark. It feeds on fear."
Lio replied without looking:
"Then let's starve it."
The Trap
It came on the third night.
A whisper.
A false request.
A contact claiming to know where a lost S.I.N agent was held.
Petal followed the trail through an underground tunnel.
And walked directly into a fear chamber.
Scene: Chamber of Dread
Wards flared.
Torches ignited.
Six bounty-class enforcers stood ready, cloaked in anti-fear relics.
At their center stood Mistress Elquira, a mind-weaver mage who collected Shadow souls to "weaken S.I.N's myth."
"Let's see what this flower holds when she wilts," she said, activating a memory tear.
Petal gasped as false images overwhelmed her:
Lio's corpse.
Shin captured.
Her coin shattered.
She trembled.
Then… she smiled.
"This again?" Petal said softly. "I trained for worse."
She exhaled.
— SKILL ACTIVATED: INVERSION PULSE —
A ripple of dark-pink light erupted from her coin.
Elquira staggered—her own illusion tearing back into her skull.
The enforcers screamed, clutching their heads.
One began confessing secrets. Another dropped to his knees.
The others fell unconscious from psychic backlash.
Petal stood in the center, eyes glowing beneath her cracked glasses.
"Next time… use something original."
Meanwhile, Lio had already infiltrated the surface guild hall.
By the time Petal returned—dusty, but calm—he handed her a sealed scroll.
"List of buyers, bounty names, and noble sponsors."
"How long did it take?"
"Seven minutes. You took eight."
"Hmph. I had to clean up."
— SYSTEM NOTIFICATION —
[ MISSION COMPLETE: MIRRORBITE ]
Fear-Inversion Confirmed Operational in Live Combat
Bounty Guild Crippled
S.I.N Survivors Extracted: 3
Noble Conspirators Exposed: 12
Coin Echo Level: Red to Green
Passive Buff:
"Cityblind" – All trained inversion operatives now reduce detection in anti-coin cities by 40%
Far away, in his usual chair, Shin sipped.
"Good.
Let the cities that prey on fear… choke on their own."