The SSS Talent That Wasn't Supposed to Exist

THE COUNTERFEIT STORYTELLER

The emergency siren wailed piercingly, slicing through the air of the Aegis Headquarters, which was now completely locked down under a Red Lockdown status. Airtight steel doors dropped from the corridor ceilings, splitting the giant facility into dozens of isolated secto

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• THREE PERCENT

  Survival probability: three percent. That blood-red warning text flickered dimmer and dimmer at the edge of Arka's vision. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth, and every breath felt like a slash of a razor blade deep within his chest.Before him, the experimental monster stepped forward slowly. The Storyteller Killer—the executioner of storytellers. The creature tilted its head, the Narrative Fragment in its chest pulsing with a rotten golden glow, ready to absorb and deflect any direct narrative Arka attempted to build.I cannot attack it directly, Arka thought quickly, wiping the trace of blood from his lips as he forced himself to rise. Every time I force a narrative onto its body, it uses that as momentum to adapt. But... what if the narrative isn't aimed at it at all?Elena crawled closer, holding back the torn wound on her shoulder. Her pupils emitted a faint golden glow from her Truth Seeker Talent, pushed past its operational limits."Arka... the pattern..." Elena whis

• BORN TO KILL A STORYTELLER

  Thick smoke smelling of ozone and organic preservative fluid quickly drifted from the shattered giant cylindrical capsule. The special glass, a dozen centimeters thick, cracked into pieces, spewing thousands of liters of cryogenic fluid onto the floor of the secret Aegis laboratory.BZZZZT! CRACK!Before Arka could finish downloading all authorization files from the main console, a giant figure crawled out from inside the capsule. The creature walked on four steel-claw-like extremities, its body draped in glistening black scales that vibrated in sync with the primordial mana pulse. However, the most terrifying thing wasn't its physical form, but rather the creature's chest cavity, which emitted a dim golden glow from the Narrative Fragment shards forcibly implanted into its heart organ.GROOARGH!The creature's roar did not emit ordinary sound waves, but rather a frequency distortion pulse that instantly made Arka's personal interface screen vibrate and fill with static."Arka, get aw

• BETRAYAL IN AEGIS

  The low buzz of emergency sirens hummed softly inside the temporary detention facility at Aegis Headquarters. The tactical vehicle, wrecked from the earlier ambush, had been evacuated, and Arka alongside Elena were escorted directly into the main command room to submit an official report.In front of the interrogation desk, Arka handed over the subdued Archive member to the security forces. However, the memory crystal fragment belonging to the first Storyteller that he found at the station remained hidden deep inside his coat pocket. Arka knew that surrendering the object to Aegis was equivalent to handing the keys to his destiny over to the wrong hands."This Archive member is part of a radical underground faction responsible for various recent Talent anomaly disruptions," said Aegis Operational Director Kaelen—a rigid-faced high-ranking official—while staring at the captive's preliminary interrogation data screen. "They are a terrorist group attempting to shatter the stability of th

• THE MAN FROM 117 YEARS AGO

  The plume of thick black ash from the monster's carcass slowly subsided at the end of the underground station corridor. Without wasting time, Arka deftly concealed the clear crystal glass shard into his inner coat pocket precisely as the Aegis squad commander turned to face them. "Situation secure! Secure the sector three perimeter!" the commander shouted, giving instructions to his subordinates who were beginning to approach. The crystal shard emitted no light outside of Arka's touch, as if designed to respond exclusively to the Storyteller's existence. Beside Arka, Elena glanced briefly toward the youth's coat pocket, then gave a small nod to signal that she had successfully blocked the soldiers' line of sight. A few minutes later, Arka and Elena were inside an armored Aegis tactical vehicle moving swiftly away from the station sector toward the central screening facility. The atmosphere inside the vehicle cabin felt suffocatingly silent. Arka sat leaning against the steel seat,

• THE STORY THAT SHOULDN'T BE TOLD

  The pale blue glow of the secret archive monitor reflected across Arka and Elena's faces. After Lucian's hologram recording stopped, neither of them spoke for several minutes. The weight of information piling onto Arka's shoulders had now morphed into a nexus of conflict far greater than mere campus issues or government bureaucratic tests. The surrounding power map was now divided into three major factions, each hunting him with entirely different motives: Aegis: The government security division that viewed Arka as a dangerous systemic anomaly, ambitious to research and control his power for the sake of national stability. The Archive: A shadowy ancient organization that had awaited the arrival of the Storyteller for 117 years, believing Arka's emergence was the trigger for the collapse of the world's op

• THE MONSTER THAT KNOWS

  The raspy, hissing sound escaping from the gaps of the monster's clawed jaws echoed through the dimly lit station corridor. The grip on Arka's wrist tightened, leaving a stinging pain mixed with a bone-chilling cold."Arka! Let go!" Elena yelled in panic. Her mana dagger swung quickly, slashing off the monster's claw that gripped Arka until the creature's carcass bounced onto the floor.Before Arka could even catch his breath, the sound of heavy combat boots thundered toward the end of the tunnel. A fully armed Aegis tactical squad appeared with brightly glowing mana rifles, pointing their gun barrels directly at the creature."Target isolated! Prepare extermination fire!" the Aegis squad commander shouted from behind his tactical helmet.BZZZZT!A barrage of energy rounds flew rapidly, slamming into the remaining spider monster's body. However, something strange happened. Instead of shattering to pieces from the gunfire, every time an Aegis mana bullet hit its shell, the monster's bo

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