Complete Silence.The air is still, time seems to have stopped.Mary looks at the Masked Man, after one of his masks fell around him, and his body cracked from a fiery blow that nearly ended him.
But he slowly rises, brushing off the debris from his shoulder, gazing at her with eyes that do not see the world the way she does.
Then he whispers... a voice that seems not to come from his mouth, but from every direction:
"Have you ever wondered, Mary... what's behind this reality?"
Silence.
"What happens in the gaps between moments? Between two heartbeats? When you blink, in those tiny fractions of a second? Do you think the world stops?"
He smiles, a faint smile.
"That is the Transparent World. A world unseen by the eyes, where no sound is heard. It's not a fifth dimension, nor magic. It's a mass of information, invisible light, raw perception."
His body begins to transform, as if dissolving into waves, before reshaping itself in an instant.
"This world... does not obey the laws of time; rather, it mocks them. Everything happens here at once. The past, the present, and the future... they melt into one vessel. And anyone who tries to touch it, disappears."
Mary furrows her brows. "And yet... you're alive."
He looks at her, then points to his mask.
"I am no longer one person, Mary. Every time I enter that world, I leave a part of myself behind... and am reborn, with new masks, fragmented memories."
Then he points his finger toward the ground.
"People call it the void, or delayed death, or the fabric of souls... but its real name is: the Transparent. Anyone who enters does not leave as they were."
Then he bows forward, whispering fiercely:
"And you now... are on its edge."
Suddenly, the ground beneath Mary's feet cracks open, not falling... but sliding.It's as if she's moving inside a glass surface, seeing everything around her... but no one sees her.
Voices. Faces. Memories.All passing by her, but she cannot touch them.
Then... everything suddenly returns to normal.
Mary steps back slowly, breathing heavily, her eyes trembling.
"What... was that?"
And the Masked Man, with a voice that echoes, whispers:
"Welcome to the first threshold of the Transparent World... the place that decides who deserves to know, and who must be erased."Mary still stands, but her steps are unsteady.She breathes heavily, trying to gather her strength, but something has changed...
"What is this feeling...?"She places her hand on her chest, where her heart has begun to beat irregularly, as if something is pressing from within.
"Heat? No... it's not fire. It's cold... like my consciousness freezing itself."
She prepares to attack again, but suddenly—She is struck by a sharp pain... not in her body, but in her perception.
Visions...Images of memories that are not hers.Children running in the void.Masks speaking in incomprehensible languages.And a man resembling the Masked Man... screaming, then disappearing in bursts of white light.
She retreats, trembling.
"These are not my visions... this is not me!"
The Masked Man watches her silently, then whispers:
"See? This is the price. No one enters the Transparent World and leaves unscathed."
She tries to ignore him, attacking, but her hands tremble in the middle of the strike.The energy doesn't respond like it usually does.The flames delay by fractions of a second...As if the laws of the natural world no longer work with her the same way.
"The more I fight, the more I feel like I'm losing something of myself... My strength? No. It's something else."
Then she hears a faint voice in her ear, a voice that sounds like hers but she didn't utter it:
"You are not here... you are there..."
She freezes for a moment.
And the Masked Man approaches, not to strike, but to look directly into her eyes:
"You've tasted the Transparent World. And now... you are half visible, and half absent. Any attack you make could backfire on you. Because this world does not forgive those who do not understand it."Something deep... dark...Like a forgotten shadow creeping at the edges of her memory.
Then... she remembers a name.
"The Nightmare World."
She knew nothing about it.She had only heard the name once from an old woman who changed the course of her life.Mary strikes with all her might, her blazing sword cutting through the air toward the Masked Man...But he doesn't move.
Strange... why doesn't he dodge?
Suddenly, the sword passes through him... as if he were smoke.
"A copy?!"
A voice erupts from above... and below... and from behind... from all directions:
"Welcome to the fragmented perception ocean."
Mary turns quickly, but nothing is clear.Then... a sudden blow pierces her shoulder from an unknown direction.
Blood splatters, but she cannot see where the attack came from.Then another... from her back.
"Damn... this isn't speed, it's... invisibility."
She kneels for a moment, placing her hand on the wound... and thinks:
"I can't see him... not even sense him. These attacks are not from this world."
The Masked Man appears from the shadows, raises his hand calmly...And four masks orbit around him, sending invisible wave pulses.
"These masks... do not exist in our world."
"They move in the Transparent World, striking you from points you cannot predict."
Mary whispers:"Hidden sources... outside perception."
A faint voice echoes in her mind:
"The fifth world... is the source of the threat."
She assumes a defensive stance, breathing slowly, trying to slow everything around her...
"If I can't see it... I will feel it."Mary breathes deeply. The strikes still come from points she cannot see. But she refuses to surrender.The anxiety begins to seep into her mind, but she resists it fiercely. Even if she can't see the enemy, she will feel him.
"How can I... how can I fight him if I can't see the attack?"
Energy builds up inside her body. Her physical limits exceed themselves. She knew she had to push beyond her human abilities to sense the threat that manipulates all the laws of reality.
"I need to open my horizon fully."
With one step, the energy explodes from her body in an unprecedented way.It pierces her senses.
Suddenly... the temperature around her rises, and the ground beneath her feet begins to boil.Mary closes her eyes, breathes steadily, and opens her spiritual perception.
"I can feel him..."
The attacks are not only coming from assumed directions, but from different frequencies.The Masked Man's masks capture the electromagnetic waves she was manipulating, and now Mary senses the frequencies.
The network begins to form around her.The attacks come in the form of zero points in her now-visible field, but invisible to the physical world.
"There..."
With one strike, she opens her eyes. She sees the minute details.
"Energy, dimensional frequencies, radiation effects. I'll catch everything now."
Then she turns her body with extreme flexibility, sensing the incoming strike, and she can predict its location before it happens.
"You play in invisible fields. But I will draw you a finish line."
She pulls her blazing sword and directs it toward the hidden dimension attempting to strike from it.Her sword radiates a tremendous fiery light, cutting through the space around it. She can now sense every thread of the spectral threads.
"You were moving in the Transparent... now I will create my own world."
"You hide yourself, but I will reveal you."
The next move comes at incredible speed. But she sensed it, intercepting it with one sword move.
The sound of destruction:"You are now in my sensory domain."
A slight debris, then nothing. The Masked Man is no longer where he was.
Mary whispers:"I can see everything now."
After sensing the Masked Man's power, she decided to turn the battle into a field he couldn't predict.She gathers her energy in her hands and blends it with the iron element she scattered across the battlefield.
The earth around her transforms into an iron camp.The iron shapes in moments, scattering around her with incredible speed, and each piece is carved into iron soldiers forming from every angle.Hundreds of iron soldiers now stand beside her, awaiting orders, as if they were statues made with precision, but they possess life and strength.
"Now I won't fight alone."With a smile full of confidence, Mary wears a new mask.It has no striking details, but it's strangely simple, with small holes revealing her eyes, yet it carries an intense and steady gaze, reflecting her inner strength more than its appearance.
Despite its simplicity, the calmness it radiates gives it an invisible power, as if the mask silently screams about Mary's control over the battle.Mary places her hands on her gloves, ready for a new fight, knowing that this mask will not diminish her desire to win.The mask now remains as the source of her identity in the battle, it doesn't need to be extravagant to prove its power.Mary returns to control, but the Masked Man will surprise her.