How To Survive A Calamity

He felt like he was running insane and loosing his mind.

Victor felt rage and anger, uncontrollable wrath like he wanted to destroy something or someone in his grasp.

He felt fear and terror from the marrow of his bones.

He felt sorrow and sadness that his heart quaked and wept.

He felt disgust and innate repulsion at himself and all things, like he wanted to throw it all up and rip his disgusting flesh off his body and pick his fibers one by one.

And he even felt like he wanted to smile and laugh, to scream and cry out at the top of his lungs and organs!

•[Danger Sense is strongly reacting!!]

It was excruciating.... everything!

And then—

•[Ding! Skill: Immersion has been forcefully activated!!]

•[Ding! External influence has been detected! Skill: Immersion is strongly reacting!!]

Then Victor slowly came to his reasoning...

"Wh...wha-t...."

Tears of blood streamed from his eyes.

He felt something shake and trembled inside his mind, like a thick fog slowly dispersing, allowing bits of reasoning to reside once more.

At the same time, Victor was assaulted by a pulsing headache and his perception of the world and his surroundings appeared surreal and fake for a moment.

Red streams of blood flowed down his cheeks from his eyes.

Victor grasped at his chest, his heart insanely pounding behind his ribs, trying to control his breathing and forcefully regain composure.

•[External influence has been promptly detected! Skill: Immersion level ??? Is strongly activated!.]

Victor blinked his eyes, his face as pale as a ghost and stared at the familiar interface.

He felt a small tremor of cold detachment as a small portion of his mind and humanity temporarily fused with Meta, a familiar yet distant feeling.

Indeed, he felt a portion of his mind coldy isolate from the rest, as if leaving beyond his control. The Skill: Immersion formed massive mental walls like a fortress around it, and drowned the rest of his mind in seething, cold clarity and reasoning.

Victor stiffled a shaky breath, still feeling the cold breath of the whispers of dread and horror at the back of his neck. Each of the breath he took in felt icy cold and dry despite the searing heat of the red desert and raging sun above.

But it was enough. The Immersion skill allowed him to hold on to his crumbling mind and pull together his psyche for long enough to slowly come to a datk realisation..

'What just happened...' he gasped.

And then he heard a scream.

"Aaarrgghhhhhhh!!!"

A haunting blood curling cry called out agonizingly from Don's lips as he's expression crumbled, pale striken with a ghastly face.

His eyes were widened with horror as if he had seen a ghost as he stared at Barns decapitated corpse on the ground.

Various emotion began to swell towards his throats. They muddled from under his gut, retching all the way up to his throat like bile.

Don stared at his uncontrollably trembling fingers and his expression pulled even further.

With those arms... With those same fingers, he had reaped the life of another.

The moment before he had attacked, to think so Don had done it with ease and aimed straight at the life of a human without a second thought for the mistaken belief and error that the bracelet would activate.

In the first place, was it supposed to be that easy to have the mindset to target or think of taking the life of another human?

Was it supposed to feel that easy to decapitate the head of one?

'I...i'm a monster...!' Don stared at his fingers, eyes trembling and mind throbbing.

He wanted to claw out the flesh in his throat to rid himself of the nauseating taste of retch.

Don wanted to scream — he wanted to cry out at the top of his lungs and pull out his hair.

Fear, dread and horror — ten thousand emotions decided to reap him apart from the inside out.

The headless corpse of Barns never left his vision. Don felt like he was in a bad dream.

'A nightmare... it's a nightmare...!'

A recurring one — a nightmare that never ended.

Then, all he had to do was wake up...

'Yes...'

Just wake up.

There was nothing truly like a dream that never ended — nothing like a nightmare that was forever eternal.

Dreams ended when the person finally awakens back to reality from their sinking slumber.

All Don had to do was wake up to escape the truth of this world conjured all up in his messy head full of disjointed thoughts and crippling emotions.

Yes, indeed.

Don stared at his trembling fingers, his eyes flashed with cold, ruthless and deranged twisted clarity.

Then the next second he lunged for his own neck, gripping it tightly enough to cut off his air flow.

It was a bad dream.

A nightmare.

Don was going to wake up from it.

He was going to escape it.

Once he did, everything would be fine.

He just had to...

"...urk!"

... Just had to wake up.

His grip tightened ruthlessly round his neck, Insanity flashed like a grey shroud through his eyes and streams of crimson blood flowed down his cheeks like tears.

Victor's eyes widened immediately at that point.

'No, don't! Something is wrong!'

"Don!" He shouted desperately, trying to reach out to the young man over a distance but to no avail. Don was already deeply consumed by the horrors of the mind, denial and fear, and Victor couldn't tell his body to move.

His mind, which had been crippled by madness a few seconds ago was recovered, but his body hadn't full recovered either.

So Victor desperately called out to Deandra who was similarly on the verge of collapsing, his voice croaking like a beast on its last legs.

"Deandra, stop Don immediately!! Don't get consumed, it's an attack! We're under attack—!!" It didn't take Victor many realisations later to quickly reach that conclusion, even with [Immersion] and the system notification.

The sudden passive activation of the Immersion Skill, the overwhelming reaction of Danger Sense, and finally the System prompt and notification at that time....

All of it pointed towards one conclusion.

But as soon as Victor had said so, the figure of a different cadet lunged ruthlessly at him from the side with a horrified expression and blood shedding from her eyes.

"It's because of you!!" The female cadet screamed in confusion, fear and hatred all at the same time.

Her sword, with muddled intent, slashed through the air for Victor's neck.

'Shit—!'

It didn't seem like he or Don were the only ones affected as victims by whatever disturbing development was happening. He had only been lucky to regain clarity through the Immersion Skill, and if it even wasn't for the system, Victor most likely wouldn't have even realised something was happening to them without their notice immediately

But even know that now, that realisation couldn't help him in time with his current situation.

The blade cleanly reaped through the air without hesitation for his neck. It was raised wuth the pure mindless intent to kill as well.

There was little Victor could do while his whole body still refused to completely listen to him.

But Victor had to move somehow...and move still he did. Your next read is at empire

Victor snapped his head slightly backwards away from the sword trajectory only slightly with a groan.

He eyes flashed fiercely like a ferocious beast and Victor reacted like one at that moment.

He spread open his mouth and caught the sharp steel blade between his teeth with a surprisingly loud clangour. His jaw bit down powerfully against the sharp blade with an inhumane amount of biting force to completely hold it in place.

For a moment, the deranged female cadet froze, unable to move. For that quick moment, it felt like time had stopped.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world only continued to move uninterrupted beyond them.

The cadets, now mad, lunged themselves at eachother like angry mobs.

Even Deandra and the other two girls, Trise and Chelsea weren't exempt from the chaotic onslaught that the crater swiftly unraveled into at a baffling intensity.

With madened looks of fear and rage, blood leaking from the eyes, everyone attacked eachother with confusion like they were long time bitter enemies.

The crater exploded into pure chaotic movement and Victor felt the stench of death loom closer with Danger sense.

Then his gold eyes flashed with similar intensity and deepened like entering a trance.

He bit down down ruthlessly on the blade in his mouth, shattering it in a single go with his teeth like a mad untamed beast.

The shards bit into Victor's lips, tongue, and gums, shredding the inside of his mouth. And filling it with the ironic taste of his blood

But Victor still retained the beast like insanity, unrelenting in his gaze and appearance as he forcefully clenched his left fist and forced his Ether to flow internally and ge roared a command:

"That's enough!"

Victor's voice descended, something surged forth like tsunami, and all movements in the proceeded to cease at once accordingly.

Internally, Victor heard a family chime but paid no attention to it.

•[Ding! Enchantment: «Ruler's Authority» has been forecefully activated]