Chapter 565: Anomalies

“Riley!”

“Alice, you’re here…”

“Hehe, sorry to keep you waiting. Lorraine’s just been, well… a bit too worried about me lately.”

“Is something wrong?”

“A-Ah, n-no, not at all. Hehe~ it’s just that our research papers have to be finalized before the end of the week…” Alice waved her hand dismissively, though her faint smile betrayed the stress she was under.

Inside Alice’s domain, the skies stretched endlessly above us—bright, painted in sweet gradients of lavender, rose, and gold.

Colors danced as though someone had brushed the air itself with strokes of watercolor.

The once monotone world, the bland white sheet that had existed back when we defeated the White Queen, was now long gone.

Since the fusion of the Red and White Realms, this place had transformed beyond recognition.

It was vibrant, alive, almost like a mirrored version of the real world, yet dreamlike in how exaggerated and surreal its beauty appeared.

Clearly, Alice and Cheshire had poured more than a little effort into renovating this realm.

Right now, I stood upright in the middle of the city, three orbs rotating lazily above my hands.

Each orb carried its own divinity, the unique forces clashing against one another yet, somehow, finding harmony.

Sparks of light and strange hums pulsed between them, like discordant music that still found rhythm.

I closed my palms, drawing the divinities back into myself, and the orbs vanished into a dull warmth that lingered beneath my skin. Exhaling, I approached Alice.

“Are you done with your training?” she asked, tilting her head slightly, her mismatched eyes gleaming with curiosity.

“Somewhat…” I muttered, before glancing over my shoulder at the scene I’d left behind.

The ground was wrecked—small houses twisted as if folded like paper, roads split into unnatural jagged lines, the very sky itself bearing deep scars that pulsed faintly like wounds.

Yet the disturbing part wasn’t the destruction itself.

It was the way the world refused to stay destroyed.

Walls mended themselves as though time had rewound, roofs straightened without a sound, and the broken horizon rippled unnervingly back into place.

Air should’ve been flowing naturally, but instead, rivers of water cascaded silently where wind currents ought to have been.

Streaks of light bent unnaturally to follow the water’s flow, like liquid suns dripping across the sky.

It was a scene both awe-inspiring and mind-numbing—beautiful and eerie all at once.

Alice clasped her hands behind her back and leaned closer to me, her smile sharp and curious.

“Hehe~ you really did a number on my domain again. Cheshire will scold you later, you know?”

Alice teased, though her crimson eyes glimmered with something sharper when they dropped to my hands.

“Still… I guess you’ve gotten better at using your authority, Riley.”

“This is hardly better though…” I muttered, flexing my fingers.

“But you did get the information you wanted, right?”

“…Yes.”

That was the reason I’d been training here, in Alice’s realm. To push my divinities past the breaking point, and to find what lay beyond the clash of their resonance.

“Alright then—leave the mess to me.”

Alice smiled, raising her right hand.

Her crimson glow flared, bleeding through her hair and eyes like wildfire before she snapped her fingers.

SNAP!

In an instant, the twisted amalgamation I had created—the fractured homes, the warped sky, the rivers of light—vanished as though they’d never existed.

The world knitted itself together in a blink, and all was pristine again.

If there was anyone suited to fixing reality-bending disasters, it was the master reality-bender herself.

“Looks like you’ve gotten used to your authorities as well, Alice.”

“Hehehe~ I practiced really hard, you know. Now I can even—”

Warmth wrapped around me before she could finish. Arms snaked across my chest, soft and familiar, but the voice came from behind me.

“—do this~”

Another Alice hugged me from the back.

“…A clone?” I asked surprised, the Alcie behind me smiling so brightly.

“Mhm~ but not quite,” the Alice in front said with a grin, her reflection mirroring her movements. “It’s more of an astral reflection of myself. Each one is just as strong as I am.”

Did she… take inspiration from the White Queen?

No—this was different. But still, the similarity was unsettling. The same kind of overwhelming, duplicating presence.

Alice—my Alice—was becoming even more busted than before.

I couldn’t help but smile.

“W-What? Why are you smiling at me like that?” Alice asked, her brows slightly furrowed as if suspicious of my grin.

“Nothing,” I said softly. “I’m just proud of my dear Alice.”

I reached out and coupled her up against me, patting her head.

She blinked in surprise, as if she wasn’t expecting me to say something so direct, but she didn’t deny my touch either.

Instead, that familiar little giggle escaped her lips—her trademark “Ehehe~”.

This side of her—the open, vulnerable, human side—was exactly what made me fall for her in the first place.

That warmth, that charm… it was the kind of thing you never got tired of.

“By the way, Riley…” she started, tilting her head as her crimson eyes lingered on me. “Are we really not going to tell the other girls about… what happened with you?”

I froze for a moment before answering.

“…Well, we can, but we can’t afford to risk it.”

Her smile faded into a faint pout. “Is it because of that evil goddess you mentioned…?”

“That’s part of it,” I admitted, my tone dipping lower. “But it’s also because of the nature of my authority itself.”

“I see…” Alice’s expression softened, though a small trace of worry remained in her voice. Then, with a little sigh, she leaned closer and whispered, “Well, I suppose this will just have to be a secret between the two of us for the time being.”

“Yes…” I murmured back.

Even if I wanted to, telling the others recklessly wasn’t an option.

My authority didn’t move as freely as Alice’s did, but its consequences—its cause, effect, and result—were absolute.

[Warning: Truth about the user [Heaven’s Anomaly] will result in negativity.]

That message still echoed in my mind.

Perhaps that was the reason Alice could resist the worst effects—her reality-bending nature shielding her from the fallout of my existence.

But “negativity”… it was a vague, subjective thing. If she was being affected somehow, it might not be obvious at first.

For the worst-case scenario… I might need Emilia’s help.

If anyone could counteract or cleanse the lingering effects of my authority, it would be her.

[Authorities Acquired!]

[Conceptual Oblivion]

[Effect: You become a walking paradox—a sovereign whose presence unravels the very scaffolding of reality.]

[Previous Blessing effects upgraded!]

[Blessing of Change: Rewrite the fundamental nature of any concept—turn “immortality” into “fragility,” “hope” into “decay.”]

[Blessing of Death: Your aura brings true death—not just physical cessation, but the erasure of existence from memory, history, and meaning.]

[Blessing of the Fraud: You can lie to the universe itself, convincing it that “fire is cold,” “time has stopped,” or “you were never born.”]

[Unique Combined Authority Effect: Oblivion Rewrite]

[Effects:]

[Lie to the Concept: Convince it that it is something else entirely.]

[Kill the Concept: Your presence erases its original form from existence.]

[Rewrite the Void: Implant a new truth, one that the world now accepts as absolute.]

[Passive Authority: Unreality Field]

[Effect: Within a certain radius, reality becomes unstable. People forget their names, gravity flickers, and even gods hesitate to speak, fearing their words might be rewritten into lies.]

I exhaled slowly as the notifications faded.

Even if the system’s words dripped with grandeur, I knew the truth: I hadn’t practiced any of these effects at a hundred percent.

They were still… unfinished. Rough edges of a blade too sharp for me to fully hold.

And there were limits.

Always limits.

The more audacious the lie, the greater the rewrite, the heavier the price in divinity.

If I wanted to collapse entire nations into a dream, it would burn me dry. If I wanted to kill the concept of “light” itself… I might erase myself with it.

Although I felt like I had been reborn as something akin to a god… I also felt small. Hollow.

I had lost nearly everything else—my hard-earned skills, my stat foundation, all stripped away. Reset.

In a physical sense, it made sense. I wasn’t even the same race anymore.

I was something else—an anomaly dressed in human skin.

It was clear enough already—my physical attributes alone now far surpassed the S-rank strength stat I once prided myself on.

My body moved smoother, faster, stronger than anything I’d been capable of before.

And yet… even with all that, the true limits of my power remained unknown.

Master Beon once told me: “First, master the external. Then, seek the internal. Only then will you find balance.”

But with the abilities I’ve acquired, that logic might not apply anymore.

If anything, I might need to take the opposite path—learning the internal, the essence of what I am now—before I can even hope to control the external chaos that leaks out from me.

After all, I don’t know how subjective, how intrusive my authorities can become when left unchecked.

I’m grateful Alice is here with me. Out of everyone, she’s the safest one to be near while I test these boundaries.

Rose… Rose is different.

I care for her, but her current self isn’t stable enough to withstand even the smallest ripple of my authority.

If she ever unlocks her eighth mana circle, then maybe—maybe—I could risk revealing this side of me around her.

Until then, she’s too vulnerable to the kind of distortions I now carry.

For Alice, though… she already knows most of it. I told her nearly everything that happened in the dungeon.

Well, almost everything—I had to bend some details, adjust the narrative just enough for it to make sense without exposing her to the raw truth of my ascension.

Yet even with that, she accepted it all without a shred of suspicion.

No questions. No doubt.

She just trusted me.

That trust—it was disarming. Endearing. In her golden eyes, I saw no calculation, no caution, only belief.

But deep inside, I know a day will come when I’ll have to tell her everything. No edits. No filters. Just the unaltered truth.

And maybe… Alice will be the only person in this entire world who can truly understand me.

I shook my head, brushing off those unnecessary thoughts.

There was no point dwelling on half-formed worries about the future, not when my priorities were already clear. For now, I needed focus.

“By the way, Riley~”

Alice’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I turned to her, curious.

“Yes?”

“How was your day these past couple of days?”

“Well… it was fine. Why do you ask?”

The second the words left my mouth, Alice’s expression shifted. Her crimson eyes widened in mock surprise before she puffed out her cheeks, glaring up at me with a pout that looked far too cute for the amount of annoyance it carried.

“Really~? That’s all? You didn’t notice anything unusual? Nothing at all?”

“Not exactly… why?”

Before I could blink, she suddenly pressed both hands against my torso, squeezing tightly as though she was trying to pinch me.

From the way her fingers flexed and trembled, though, it seemed like she only ended up hurting herself.

“Why are you so hard…” she muttered, shaking her hands out with a small grimace.

“Alice?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she looked at me again, eyes narrowed, lips pressed into a thin line. Her voice carried a mock-sweetness, though the edge in it was impossible to miss.

“You really didn’t feel like something was missing these past couple of days? Like maybe… oh, I don’t know… a certain someone popping up beside you every night? Someone wrapping you up in a warm hug, whispering goodnight, giving you a morning kiss before you even get out of bed~?”

I blinked, caught off guard.

“Well… not exactly. I mean, Seo tends to sleep in my bed often now. And Rose too—though in her case, it’s mostly to keep an eye on Seo’s antics. And even Snow, despite her duties, has been—”

I froze mid-sentence.

The air shifted.

Alice had gone quiet.

Dead quiet.

She just stood there, her bangs casting a shadow over her eyes, lips curved in a sharp little smile that didn’t reach her face.

“Hehe~ is that so?” Her laugh was light, but her tone carried a knife-edge. “You must’ve had such a fun time, hm? So fun you didn’t even realize I wasn’t there. Maybe it’s my fault. After all, I’ve been too busy. Too distracted.”

She stepped closer, almost whispering now.

“Next time… maybe I’ll just forget about all those research papers. Maybe I’ll just ignore everything else and do what I should’ve been doing all along—be at your side, every night, every morning. After all, my dear future husband…”

Her golden eyes turned crimson finally locked onto mine, burning with both playfulness and something deeper.

“…Forgot the one who’s always been there.”

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