Kai stopped smiling.
Not because he was done. But because he’d reached the point where the smile had already done its job.
"It all started when you told why you ca to this world," he said.
Jason looked at him.
"Mass fraud. Investnt sche. You ruined four thousand families." Kai put his hands in his pockets — the calst gesture he had.
"For soone who spent years deceiving people, you’re shit at lying in person."
Jason didn’t answer.
"First you said that at the beginning you had used the system on purpose." Kai looked directly at him.
"Then you said the won of the village were alone when you arrived and that you were the one who stayed to help them." Pause.
"But when Serah and I arrived, we spoke to soone at the entrance. She told us you were already here when the n left. That you were the only one who didn’t leave."
Silence.
"How could your system have driven the n away from the village if, according to you, they had already left when you arrived?"
Jason had the expression of soone recalculating how many mistakes he made and in what order.
"That contradiction," Kai said, "I noticed it by the second cup of coffee."
---
[NocheEterna99: while Jason thought he had him convinced, Kai had already found the error]
[StrearHunter: "for soone who spent years deceiving people, you’re shit at lying in person" — BRUTAL]
[xSorinx: Serah has a face like "I knew it. I didn’t know it but I knew it."]
[Pedro_Sierra: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) keep going keep going]
[Deral_Bleattler: ←←← contradiction detected at cup 2 →→→ Kai kept drinking coffee without saying anything →→→ TRAP MODE ACTIVATED]
[User_7741: (•̀ᴗ•́)و Kai is way too smart (•̀ᴗ•́)و]
---
"While we talked," Kai continued, "I felt sothing."
He looked at his own system panel — still active, floating discreetly in his field of vision.
[System — past alert: logged]
[3 hours ago: external enchantnt influence detected]
[Effect on user: NONE]
[Cause of immunity: classification in process]
"Your system tried to expand toward while we talked." Kai looked at him.
"Subtle. Gradual. The kind that doesn’t feel like an attack... because it isn’t — it’s more like constant pressure. Like water against rock."
Jason didn’t deny anything.
"The problem," Kai said, "is that my system warned . And when I looked for what it was, I found the pattern."
Pause.
"The sa pattern you probably used with the n of the village. You didn’t drive them away all at once. You pushed them. Little by little. Until they themselves decided there were better reasons to be sowhere else."
Silence in the plaza.
The blue flas in Jason’s hands were still active.
The shadow on his right shoulder.
The temporal distortion at 51%.
"How co it didn’t work on you?" Jason said — a genuine question within a situation that no longer had any other aning.
Kai looked at him.
"Because the magic of beings weaker than doesn’t affect in the slightest."
---
The silence that followed lasted exactly two seconds.
Then Jason let out a laugh — not the genuine one from before, but the smile of soone who’s just been insulted in a way he can’t ignore.
"Weaker?"
"Yes."
"You? Rankless? Magicless? No classifiable power whatsoever?"
"Yes."
The blue flas in Jason’s hands flared brighter.
"Interesting perspective from soone who in thirty seconds is going to be under the full effect of my system with active ti fracture."
"Before that," Kai said, "there’s sothing else."
He pulled sothing out of his pocket.
Small.
Rectangular.
The kind of technology that didn’t exist in Aethon but that he’d recognized since it appeared in the box the chat had sent along with Serah’s lingerie weeks ago — and which he had filed away as "useful at so point."
A cara.
Small, discreet, with a green light indicating it had been recording for a while.
"A viewer of mine sent it to when we arrived at the village," Kai said. "Because they suspected you."
Jason looked at the cara.
Then at Kai.
"And what of it?"
---
[Pedro_Sierra: .]
[GarcíaFTW: PEDRO_SIERRA WAS THE ONE WHO SENT THE CARA]
[NocheEterna99: PEDRO SAID EARLIER THIS GUY LOOKED FAMILIAR FROM ANOTHER STREAM]
[StrearHunter: Pedro_Sierra knew Jason from before. He recognized him.]
[xSorinx: the most important viewer of the stream just turned out to be Pedro_Sierra]
[Pedro_Sierra: I saw him on another stream a while ago. Sothing didn’t add up with this guy from the start. Glad I could be of use ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]
[Deral_Bleattler: PEDRO THE MVP. PEDRO THE HERO. PEDRO THE LEGEND.]
[User_7741: ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ PEDRO_SIERRA MVP ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ]
[GarcíaFTW: ┌(ಠ_ಠ)┘ PEDRO ┌(ಠ_ಠ)┘]
---
Kai turned the cara around.
On the small screen, the video played back the entire conversation from the plaza with the colored benches — the flower, the introduction of the village won, every calculated phrase of Jason’s, the mont the pink aura had intensified.
And the mont Jason had smiled in front of the destroyed door with the expression of soone whose plan was working.
Jason watched the video.
Watched his own face.
And sothing in his expression — which until now had maintained control even with his red jaw and the destroyed stall behind him — changed.
The blue flas in his hands went from glowing to blazing.
"Fine," Jason said.
His voice had sothing it hadn’t had throughout the entire conversation.
Real rage.
"Fine."
He lunged.
---
It wasn’t gradual.
Jason’s system at maximum level, with ti fracture at 58%, produced attacks from different angles.
The first was soul fire aid directly at Kai’s chest — speed amplified by the temporal distortion, coming from where Jason stood and simultaneously from a lateral angle that contradicted his physical position.
The second was shadow dominion — not a projectile but a presence seeking to adhere, to slow, to make the next movent cost twice as much.
The third was still forming.
---
And then the system spoke.
Not Kai’s system.
Not Jason’s system.
Sothing different — a voice that wasn’t the enthusiastic announcer of the dungeon but sothing more official, colder, with the tone of an announcent from which no one escapes.
"EVENT DETECTED: BATTLE OF STREAMS"
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