pages of rebellion

Noah is trapped in an enclosed space, caught between the labyrinth's walls and a strange man standing before him. There was no escape—only battle. It was a losing fight from every angle. His arm was injured, bleeding slowly, but he had already lost a significant amount of blood, making it feel numb. He was unarmed against a professional assassin wielding daggers, who appeared to be either C or B rank. This was a battle Noah was bound to lose—if not for his "foresight" skill, he would have already died at the very beginning.

The assassin attacked again, his movements fluid, resembling an arrogant, taunting dance. Noah managed to evade thanks to foresight, retreating backward—but he was trapped between the wall and the assassin.

"Damn it, what about the teachers?! Didn't the principal say he would intervene if any of us were in danger? Was the broadcasting signal cut off? No, that's impossible. If that happened, the test would have been stopped immediately, and all the teachers would have rushed in to save the students… That means only my broadcast feed was cut off. I noticed earlier that a crow was flying above me, as if monitoring my movements. It must have been acting as a camera. That means… this guy must have killed it to ensure the teachers wouldn't notice what's happening!"

Noah's thoughts raced as his anxiety grew. Cold sweat dripped from his forehead, and the frigid air felt like it was slapping his skin.

"It's time to use it…" Noah thought to himself.

He activated his "influence field" skill, unleashing a vast, invisible field extending far and wide. The assassin immediately sensed the shift in the atmosphere and didn't give Noah a chance to breathe—he lunged forward to attack again. But this time, Noah vanished—reappearing behind him.

"W-What?!" The assassin exclaimed in shock at the strange disappearance. He quickly turned around to find Noah standing far away.

"I did it… That night before Yana woke me up, I managed to test my theory. If I can control any physical object within my domain, that means I can manipulate particles. And if I swap my particles with another object's particles inside my domain, I can do what I just did. This isn't teleportation… It's a 'Position Exchange' between me and another object inside my field," Noah thought, analyzing his newly discovered ability.

"See you later," Noah smirked and winked at the assassin.

The assassin lunged at Noah, slashing his dagger—but before reaching him, Noah disappeared again, leaving behind a small stone that the dagger sliced through instead.

"Damn it!!" The assassin growled in frustration.

Noah reappeared elsewhere—in a vast, open space without walls or a ceiling, as if a vortex of darkness was swallowing everything.

"Where… am I?" he muttered, looking around.

As he walked forward, a rusty metallic scent mixed with a faint trace of blood hit him.

"T-This smell…" A wave of unease washed over him as he continued forward. With each step, the scent became stronger.

Then, he reached an area where numerous students lay on the ground, bleeding slowly. Their pooled blood had formed a crimson lake beneath a strange figure standing silently in the center—its face turned upward, gazing at the void above.

"W-What happened here? And who… is that?" Noah whispered, his concern deepening.

Scanning the fallen students, he spotted Liam and Blake—they were bleeding more than the others, their bodies appearing battered and repeatedly struck. Unlike the other students, they had suffered more.

At that moment, the strange figure turned toward Noah. Their eyes met.

Something inexplicable surged within Noah. A strange, detached sensation—like reality itself had frozen. There was nothing left but this stare between him and the figure. It felt eerily familiar, yet disturbingly foreign.

The figure's gaze held no expression, but deep inside, Noah sensed a profound connection between them.

There was no fear, no hostility—only a silent understanding. It was as if part of him had encountered another hidden part that had been buried all this time. The moment was heavy, but not terrifying. It was simply an encounter with something that had always been inside him—something he couldn't explain but could feel with unsettling clarity.

"I-Is this the 'Echo' the principal told us about? It looks… exactly like me. Like I'm staring into a mirror. Is it… my Echo?" Noah's thoughts raced as confusion and dread consumed him.

"Did my Echo do this? No, that's impossible. Even though I hate those who bullied me, those who hurt me, those who ignored me, and those who pretended to help me… I never once wished to harm them like this. There's no way this thing is my reflection… Right?!"

He clung to denial. He always believed he was a good person—useless, perhaps, but never someone with such violent desires.

"T-This must be a mistake! Yes, that's right. There's no way this thing is me. It has to be someone else's Echo, not mine. I would never do something like this—!"

Noah's breathing quickened, panic rising. He buried his face in his hands as his thoughts spiraled.

Then, in the depths of his mind, a dark shadow appeared behind him, wrapping its arms around his neck.

"How long do you plan to stay weak?" a voice whispered, its words echoing endlessly in his mind.

"If you can't accept reality, you're even weaker than you think," the eerie voice grew louder, repeating itself again and again.

"W-What should I do then?!" Noah's voice trembled in fear.

"Embrace yourself. Accept who you are. Rejecting it will only break you faster. You feel disgusted, repulsed, horrified—because you're looking at your reflection. This is what everyone saw when they looked at you. You are no different from anyone else. Just another greedy, selfish, repugnant creature!"

"T-That's not true! I'm not like that!" Noah clutched his head, his eyes widening.

"You only care about yourself! You didn't even acknowledge the part of you that was suffering—you tried to push it away and reject it! How dare you?! How dare you?! How dare you?! HOW DARE YOU?!" The voice screamed, its intensity splitting through Noah's mind, sending sharp pain through his skull.

"N-No… I-I didn't…!" Noah whimpered, biting his lip hard as tears welled in his eyes. He pressed his hands against his head as if trying to crush the thoughts attacking him.

"I didn't do anything… This isn't me…!"

He kept repeating these words in his mind, as if trying to convince himself. The shadow around him expanded, its whispers growing into an overwhelming cacophony.

"It's you… It's you… It's you… It's you… YOU ARE ME!"

Noah clenched his teeth, the pain in his head becoming unbearable. Cold sweat ran down his face as he collapsed onto his knees.

And then—amidst the storm of voices, the suffocating darkness—

"Noah… run…"

A weak, rasping voice barely reached his ears.

Noah's eyes widened in shock, as if struck by lightning. This wasn't his inner voice. This wasn't the shadow.

Slowly, he lifted his head—his gaze fell upon Liam, lying in his own blood, his trembling hand reaching out.

"L-Liam?"

Liam's eyes barely remained open, but he looked directly at Noah. And in a voice so faint it could barely be heard, he repeated—

"Run… Don't go near him…"

At that moment, something shattered inside Noah—like a massive stone crashing down, pulling him out of his spiraling thoughts.

The darkness around him receded. The maddening voice in his head grew distant.

There was no time for hesitation. No time for denial.

This wasn't just a nightmare inside his mind. Something real was happening.

Noah raised his head, looking once more at the Echo before him. But this time, he no longer saw it as a reflection—

He saw it as a threat.

"This thing... is not me. Even if it's a part of me, even if it reflects something inside me, I will never accept it."

Noah clenched his fist and looked at Liam, then at the rest of the injured students.

There was no time to understand everything. There was only one thing clear to him now—

If he didn't move, everyone would die.

A field expanded from Noah's body using his "Influence Field" skill, stretching to cover the entire area around him. At the same moment, the Echo did the same, causing their fields to collide at an invisible boundary.

The ground beneath them trembled, and the objects within their overlapping fields quivered, as if they were uncertain to whom they belonged. The confrontation turned into a hidden war, each side trying to impose dominance over everything within their reach.

"D-Does it have the same abilities as me? Then it's a reflection of my existence, not just my image," Noah thought to himself. It was clear this wouldn't be an easy fight.

The Echo lunged at Noah, throwing a punch at him. Noah blocked it with his elbow and attempted to counterattack with a punch of his own, but the Echo dodged, leaping backward. Noah immediately dashed forward and launched a series of punches, but the Echo avoided them all, using a mirrored version of the "foresight" skill. The Echo then retaliated with a kick aimed at Noah, but he dodged using foresight and grabbed the Echo's leg, throwing it upward. Noah then teleported to its destination, intercepting it midair with a powerful punch to the chest, sending it crashing into the ground, shattering the surface beneath.

Noah landed and watched as the dust settled, revealing the Echo standing up, with a fractured part of its body—like a broken mirror.

"Even if it can predict my movements using 'foresight,' if I create an environment where it can't avoid my attacks, I might win," Noah thought to himself.

Suddenly, the Echo appeared behind Noah and struck him with a devastating punch, sending him flying into the maze's walls, shattering them on impact.

"W-What?! What just happened?" Noah thought, as he felt warm blood trickling down his head.

"M-My 'foresight' skill didn't work just now… What does this mean?"

Noah's anxiety spiked. Could it be a system malfunction? No, that was unlikely—the system didn't make errors like this. Did the Echo possess an ability that nullified skills? No, that was improbable as well, since Noah himself didn't have such a skill. Was it the nature of the Echo inside this maze? That seemed like a possible explanation.

The Echo was a reflection of existence, and possibly even of state. If Noah landed a successful hit on the Echo, it was only logical that his "reflection" could do the same. The maze itself must have intervened, ensuring an equilibrium between the natural state of humans and their Echoes.

If his theory was correct, then any injury inflicted on one would allow the other to do the same naturally.

That meant—if one of them died, so would the other.

"This is a tough situation..." Noah muttered under his breath.

As Noah and the Echo prepared to clash again, a sudden, deafening crash shook the entire maze.

"What was that?!" Noah said, immediately raising his guard and turning toward the source of the noise.

He heard the sound of something being dragged and scraping against the ground, getting closer at an alarming speed.

With every passing second, death approached.

Then, from behind the maze's crumbling walls—

A massive serpent-like monster emerged.