George glanced around his vibrant mansion—every wall, every object now saturated in rich color through his eyes. The mansion wasn't just beautiful; it was alive, bathed in the quiet power of his expanding Record.
He rose from his chair and walked to the desk. Pressing his palm against the embedded sensor, a soft click echoed, and a holographic screen shimmered to life above the surface.
Right on cue, the door opened.
Victor stepped in, composed as always.
"You called, sir?"
"Yes, Victor," George said without looking away from the screen. "Today's tasks are complete. You may go home."
Victor nodded once. "Understood, sir."
He turned and walked away, silent and unquestioning.
Unsurprising. By now, Victor was almost entirely suffused with George's Record—he had been near George more than anyone else, day after day. The influence was nearly complete.
As victor's presence completely erased infront of him
George closed his eyes, focusing on his Record. With a deliberate pull, he reached out—not physically, but through consciousness—and touched Leilah Voss's Record.
Then, he activated the skill he had obtained from the Eidolon Watcher.
He had named it: [WATCH].
A wry smile tugged at his lips.
"[Watch], huh?" he muttered. "Yeah... real creative name"
The world shifted.
His awareness slipped into Leilah's perspective. He was no longer in his mansion, but in a modest office hallway, moving with her steps. She was holding a parcel, navigating through the corridors with practiced ease. Every blink, every breath—George experienced it as if it were his own.
Strangely familiar. Strangely comfortable.
Time blurred.
When he finally pulled back—detaching his consciousness and returning to his body—George blinked at the wall clock.
An hour and a half had passed.
"…Did I really just watch her for that long?" he murmured, more to himself than anyone.
A pause.
Then he added under his breath, "Am I becoming a creep?"
But deep down, he already understood the truth.
It wasn't about Leilah. It wasn't even about curiosity.
It was the power. Seeing through someone's eyes without their knowledge. Living their life like an unseen god in the rafters.
And enjoying it.
George exhaled sharply, as if trying to exorcise the thought. He shook his head, clearing the residual fragments of Leilah's world from his mind.
"Then, without another word, he rose from his seat. But as he took a step toward his room, a sudden wave of dizziness struck him. His vision blurred—and before he could grasp what was happening, darkness swallowed him whole as his body stood like statue in the office "
-------------------------
When George opened his eyes, he was no longer in his office.
Around him stretched an infinite void—pitch-black and silent, the kind of silence that presses against the skin. Then, like golden cracks forming in glass, tendrils of light emerged. Thousands of them. They floated with eerie grace in the emptiness before him, each one gently pulsating with a rhythm that felt... alive.
George didn't panic. He knew where he was.
His soul space.
He had been in something like this before,once before—when he entered Leilah's soul space to observe the Eidolon Watcher. But this time, it wasn't someone else's world. This was his. And unlike the dreamlike intrusion into Leilah's subconscious realm, here, he had control.
He raised his hand.
The void obeyed.
With a subtle shift in intention, the blackness around him twisted and morphed. The air thickened, colors bled into form, and in seconds, the emptiness reshaped itself into a familiar scene: George's office. Red leather sofa. Glass table. Holographic screen flickering faintly in the corner. A soft hum filled the air, imitating the background frequency of his real-world sanctuary.
But the golden tendrils remained untouched.
Still there. Still floating.
They didn't belong to this soul space. They were external—foreign, yet not hostile. Like guests. Or perhaps, messages.
Curious, George reached out and gently touched one.
Instantly, his vision fractured. His mind surged with a torrent of alien sensation. He didn't see people, emotions, or scenes. He saw rocks.
He stood on an ancient cliffside, unmoving for millennia, feeling wind erode his surface.
He sat deep underground, pressure shaping him, heat churning in silence.
He lay by a riverside, smooth and worn, basking under the sun.
These were not symbolic impressions. They were raw experience. The life of rock. Their long, still, patient existence. No thoughts. No judgment. Just presence.
When George pulled back, gasping, the memory stream halted.
His brow furrowed.
The golden tendrils shimmered and coiled in the void around him—thousands of them, each a thread tethered to something George had drawn into his Record. Rocks. Plants. Insects. Furniture—tables, chairs, broken tools. And among them... a single human.
But not all the tendrils gleamed with the same brilliance. Some flickered faintly, half-formed, their essence faded—unmanifested echoes of objects not yet fully assimilated.
George reached out to one.
His hand passed straight through it, like mist parting in silence.
"…I can't access them yet. Not until their Records are fully assimilated."
His voice barely echoed in the vast stillness of his soul-space. He nodded to himself, scanning the boundless void one last time. It was growing. Shifting. Becoming something more than just a reflection of his inner world.
Satisfied—for now—he gave the silent command.
Exit.
Reality folded around him like a collapsing dream.
In an instant, George's eyes snapped open.
He was back in his office. The air tasted familiar—dry and sharp with the faint scent of wood polish. The glow of his desk lights pulsed softly in the corner of his vision.
And then—
Cold.
A blade. Pressed firmly against his throat.
From behind.
His entire body stiffened in a rush of instinctive terror. Not the cool, calculated fear he was used to mastering—this was raw. Primal. Every breath shallow, spine locked.
What the hell—?
He hadn't sensed anything. No sound. No warning.
George is only a small office worker just a week ago and now there is a blade over his neck pressed from behind
His thoughts stumbled over themselves.
'Did someone get in?'
'While I was inside my soul space?'
'How long was I gone?'
His lips parted slightly, his mind screaming for clarity. He stood still, too stunned to move, afraid that even a twitch would draw blood.
Behind him a mechanical voice echoed
"Where you dreaming while standing Dr helel"
George froze.
In the mirror before him, a shadow loomed—silent, deliberate. Behind his own reflection stood a man dressed head to toe in black, his presence so quiet it was as if he materialized from the void itself. A glint of steel shimmered at George's throat, cold and unforgiving. The blade was steady. Precise.
George was just a office worker living a peaceful life less than a week ago and now he is standing in a different world with a blade upon his neck
George swallowed the air in his mouth slowly
Even though the blade made him afraid
But it was the mask that made George's breath catch.
A stark white skull stared back at him from the man's face—expressionless, eternal. It wasn't just paint. It wasn't just intimidation. It was a symbol. A signature. A warning.
His heart thudded once, violently.
He didn't move. Didn't dare.
Instead, he muttered the name the news had whispered like a curse. The same name etched into police reports and crime scene graffiti. The name the city had begun to fear with a kill count of 220
"THE STRIKER."