Fourth Floor
Tyler and Mana stepped onto the fourth floor of the Circus, entering a wide chamber that resembled a library. Rows upon rows of aged scrolls were neatly arranged on shelves made of coral and crystal, the air thick with the scent of salt and parchnt.
"This place is packed," Tyler muttered, glancing at the myriad scrolls. He picked one at random and unraveled it carefully.
"Most of them are maps," he noted, eyes scanning the faded ink. "Maps of islands, sea routes, currents... so of these routes don’t even exist anymore."
Mana examined a scroll beside him, nodding in agreent. "These are ancient," she said, brushing a finger along the edge. "So of these ink patterns look like pre-cataclysmic arrays."
They exchanged a glance, then silently stored all the scroll in their respective storage devices.
After combing through the room, they continued forward, eventually arriving at another chamber. This one was quiet—eerily so. The mont they stepped inside, Tyler slowed his pace.
"It looks like... a bedroom?" he said, tilting his head in confusion.
The entire room was washed in shades of white and grey. The walls, the floor, even the furniture seed to be drained of color, as if life itself had been bleached from the space.
Mana frowned, then walked toward a switch embedded in the cloth-like wall covering. With a soft click, she activated it.
In an instant, color rushed back into the room like a flood. The transformation was imdiate—and startling. The lifeless chamber blood into a vibrant, whimsical space that looked like it belonged in a circus-thed nightmare.
The canopy bed at the center had thick red and gold drapes, the top of which was adorned with a wide-grinning clown face. Balloons—so real, so enchanted to float endlessly—hovered above the canopy and along the chandelier, which now pulsed with soft carnival lights.
The walls were decorated with portraits of strange, exaggerated figures—twisted jesters, acrobats, and masked perforrs. Their eyes followed Tyler and Mana wherever they moved.
"I feel like we’ve just walked into a fever dream," Tyler said under his breath.
"Correction," Mana whispered. "A clown’s normal dream."
Velvet curtains filtered golden light through the tall window, bathing the room in an eerie glow. On the floor, marbles, wooden toys, and spinning tops lay scattered—as if a child had just been playing monts ago. From sowhere, a music box played a slow, slightly off-tune lullaby.
Tyler stepped cautiously into the room. "This is definitely the Clown’s bedroom."
Mana followed behind, her gaze flicking toward the bed. "Wait... soone’s here."
There, nestled under the circus-thed canopy, lay a young girl. Her entire body was painted like a clown’s—white base, red cheeks, painted lashes, and exaggerated lips. But she wore no clothes at all. She was perfectly still, her chest unmoving.
Tyler narrowed his eyes. "Is she... dead?"
"Mana can’t feel a soul," Mana said flatly. "No heartbeat either."
Without hesitation, Tyler walked over and placed his hand on her chest.
Mana raised a brow. "Pervert."
Tyler gave her a sideways glance. "It’s for research purposes." Then, with a slight smirk, he pinched the girl’s nipple.
A web-like grid of shimring threads lit up across the girl’s body for a split second before vanishing.
"See that?" he said, straightening up. "That’s a fresh-preserving array. Sa type I use on Apollo’s body. Except Apollo’s already at the Divine Seeker Realm—his body won’t rot for centuries even without it."
Mana approached, inspecting the glowing remnants of the web and then she touched her wrist "She has developed acupoints, but her foundation is empty. Novice level at best."
Tyler nodded grimly. "So the Clown was keeping her... like a trophy? Or he bangs the corpse? What a sick freak."
Without another word, Tyler and Mana began to implant charms around the room. He moved with precision, placing them at key locations—the door, the corners, near the windows. When he approached the girl to set one on her directly, he paused and hesitated.
"Look at this."Mana said suddenly, holding up a small book.
Tyler turned. She was holding a diary, worn but intact. Most of the pages were filled with erratic writing, sketches, and symbols, but what caught Tyler’s attention was the cover—a strange, feather-like array embedded into it.
"This... this clown was probably an array master," Tyler muttered. He pulled a feather-shaped tool from his storage pouch and traced it along the array on the diary’s cover. The intricate circle rotated slightly with a soft hum, as if unlocking a chanism.
Suddenly, the world around them shimred—and changed.
The vibrant bedroom faded, replaced by a quiet village under a dusky sky. Huts with thatched roofs lined dirt paths. Smoke rose lazily from chimneys. The scene was peaceful... but dreamlike.
Tyler reached out and tried to touch a nearby fence. His hand passed right through.
"We’re inside a mory," he said. "A mory cloud. The diary’s embedded with a recording array."
In the real world, both Tyler and Mana stood motionless, their eyes unfocused as their divine sense penetrated the diary. Within the mory, however, they were fully imrsed.
"So all of this is a projection from the Clown’s mories?" Mana asked, eyes scanning the dreamlike village.
Tyler nodded slowly. "Looks like we’re watching a biography... Let’s see what kind of monster he really was."
"Mana wonder if he has tragic story. Like ’ Villains are not born, they are created ’ kind of story."
They began to explore the village, walking silently through its ghostly paths. Eventually, they reached a small, worn-down house at the edge of town. It wasn’t a random stop—both of them felt it. This place radiated the strongest presence.
"This must be the Clown’s childhood ho," Tyler said.
They phased through the front wall—and froze.
Inside the dim-lit room, a couple is having pleasure.
The couple in the bed failed to notice that a small boy was hiding inside the cabinet, watching them through a hole.
"That’s the clown?" Tyler asked, narrowing his eyes.
Tyler and Mana both focused on the boy peeking from within the shadows.
"He’s watching his parents fight," Tyler added.
The scene shifted abruptly.
The boy was older now, perhaps by a few years. Another boy stood beside him, younger by a little. They huddled together inside the sa cabinet, once again observing a heated argunt.
"That must be his brother," Tyler murmured. He recalled the Clown once casually ntioning that he had killed his own brother because he saw his brother’s future which was better than his own.
This ti, their parents weren’t fighting in pleasure —but money.
The father, reeking of alcohol, slurred angrily. "What do you want to do? There’s no one dying lately. No dead, no job!"
His voice cracked through the room. He was an undertaker. Undertaker ans a mortician responsible for burying the dead. But the village had been unusually peaceful without any disaster, leaving him unemployed.
His wife snapped back with venom. "You spend what little we have on cheap liquor! We’re starving while you wait for people to die!"
The father’s fist slamd against the wall, and the boys flinched from inside the cabinet.
The mory flickered and changed again.
Now Tyler and Mana stood above a house in the village. Below, an elderly man shuffled slowly under the shadow of a towering tal jackfruit tree. His body trembled with age, his steps barely lifting from the ground.
Then—a jackfruit, thick and heavy as stone, fell directly on his head.
The old man collapsed imdiately, lifeless.
Tyler’s expression darkened. "He died from that?"
Mana nodded solemnly.
The next mory followed quickly.
The old man’s funeral. The clown’s father, dressed in undertaker robes, stood beside the grave, reciting rites. Coins clinked into his palm from grieving villagers.
Then it happened again.
A little girl drowned in a shallow river near the village.
Next, a hunter got caught in a bear trap that had seemingly been misplaced.
One by one, villagers started dying—always in accidents. Always conveniently spaced just enough to avoid suspicion. The father’s inco steadily grew.
Tyler and Mana exchanged glances.
"It was the clown," Mana whispered. "He orchestrated all those deaths."
"And his little brother was with him," Tyler added. "Watching everything."
They had been right.
The mory clearly showed the Clown and his younger brother perched atop the tal jackfruit tree, then the clown dropped a heavy fruit directly onto the old man’s head.
The sa pattern repeated with the other deaths.
They saw the clown dragging the helpless little girl into the river, her cries muffled by the water. anwhile his brother just watched it from the shore.
Then ca the hunter—his fate sealed when the clown deliberately misplaced a bear trap along his usual path.
Each death had been orchestrated, each one staged to look like a tragic accident.
Mana’s voice was low, almost a whisper. "Mana take back what Mana said about villains not being born."
Tyler nodded, face serious.
The scenery shifted again.
Another year passed.
Now, the older boy—clearly the future Clown—was holding an old man’s head underwater, his face calm and practiced. Beside him, the younger brother gripped the man’s legs, helping to drown him.
Neither of them noticed a small figure in the distance.
A child—no older than six—was watching the murder unfold from behind a tree, his eyes wide with horror.
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