060 Bizarre Ghost - Part 1 - Merrick’s POV

  The ballroom gleamed with the sort of expensive elegance that made most people stiffen their posture or whisper in low, reverent tones. Gilded archways, chandeliers the size of small hovercrafts, and a live quartet humming away in the corner—all meant to signal: you are among the elite now, so try not to drool on the carpet.

  Naturally, the kids were having the time of their lives.

  Mirai and Mark were dancing. Not well, mind you, but with enough enthusiasm to charm the entire side of the room watching them. She led half the time, which Mark didn’t seem to mind—too enchanted by her to notice he looked like a slightly more coordinated scarecrow in formalwear. They spun past the buffet table, laughing about something I was too far away to hear. The way they looked at each other, like no one else in the room mattered, was unmistakable.

  Ah, youth. Dangerous, unpredictable, and almost always exhausting.

  The two seemed unaware to what they were feeling at each other as far as there conversations would go. However, if given time, I imagined the two would eventually end with each other. But then again, it was too early to say.

  As for the others…

  Karl, ever the human furnace, had abandoned all social grace and was conducting an in-depth investigation into the hors d'oeuvres. He had one plate in hand, another tucked under his arm, and was currently interrogating a server about the sauce-to-meatball ratio.

  Elena stood off to the side, holding a flute of something sparkling and non-alcoholic. Her posture was statuesque, gaze sharp, yet her lips curved slightly as she nodded along to Lady Ash Enoch. It was a surreal contrast… the brooding aloof girl making polite conversation with a reincarnating noblewoman. But somehow, it worked.

  Then there was Greg.

  He was chatting up Cherry near one of the floral centerpieces, flashing that toothy grin of his—the one that usually meant he was either about to say something wildly inappropriate or attempt a social experiment. Given the soft giggle from Cherry and the way she leaned away, I knew which one it was.

  I sighed, straightened my coat, and crossed the room in long strides. Before Greg could deploy whatever disaster of a pick-up line was queued up in his brain, I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back with the force of a disappointed uncle.

  “Apologies,” I said to Cherry, who waved it off with a laugh that made my eyebrow twitch.

  Greg pouted, arms crossed like a chastised child. “You didn’t have to manhandle me.”

  “You’ll survive,” I said. “Go find Karl. I’m sure the two of you can discover something edible that won’t result in a diplomatic incident.”

  He slouched off toward the buffet, mumbling something about “harsh vibes” and “underappreciated charisma.”

  I took a deep breath, surveying the ballroom again. A few of the Enoch family members had already arrived—cousins, uncles, one woman who looked like she spoke in riddles and smelled faintly of cinnamon. Their numbers would grow in the coming days, like a slow tide of silk and secrets. Each one carried influence, stories,and motives. And some of them carried trouble. I could feel it in the air already… subtle, faint, like ozone before a storm.

  But for now, it was fine.

  The kids could have their fun, dance, flirt, overeat, and momentarily pretend this was just another social function.

  The weight of responsibility was mine to carry.

  If anything went wrong—if danger crept through the halls in silk slippers—it would be up to me to rally them, to issue the right orders, to cover every angle we hadn’t even considered yet.

  And I would. I always did.

  But tonight, just for now, I allowed myself to exhale.

  The calm never lasted long, but when it did, it was almost beautiful.

  I decided to have a word with the security chief of the estate. The man was competent enough on paper: background in corporate defense, top marks in drone coordination, and one unfortunate mustache. I’d wanted to assess his readiness for something beyond catering fiascos and mild aristocratic sabotage. We were, after all, guarding Lady Ash Enoch—a soul stitched to generations of power and enemies.

  I was halfway across the ballroom when the air… shifted.

  It was subtle at first. A flicker in the corner of my vision, a tremble in the quartet’s string section that didn’t match the rhythm. Then, everything stopped.

  The music halted mid-note. Conversations froze mid-syllable. Wine paused in mid-pour. A server with a tray of shrimp vol-au-vents stood like a wax figure, one foot hanging in the air. Even the lights seemed dimmer somehow, like the world had exhaled and forgotten to breathe back in.

  And yet, I moved.

  Slowly, cautiously, I lifted my arm. Flexed my fingers. Walked forward.

  Not an illusion. Not dream state. A temporal field? No… psychokinetic mass paralysis. ESP. Powerful, subtle, elegant.

  Whoever did this wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. Yet. They were just… isolating. Selecting.

  Across the ballroom, a figure approached the dance floor.

  Tall. Well-dressed. Midnight suit, collar sharp enough to cut glass. His hair was dark, slicked back, face symmetrical in the way that made people assume he was either nobility or a fashion model. Maybe both. His gait was calm, but purposeful.

  He was heading straight toward Mark and Mirai.

  They were frozen mid-spin, Mark smiling like an idiot, Mirai’s hand just brushing his shoulder.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I moved without thinking—coat flaring behind me as I crossed the ballroom, boots clicking against polished marble. I stepped between them and the intruder, body shielding the kids.

  To say I was nervous would be a gross understatement. My heartbeat ticked in my ears. My palms were cold. This level of ESP… I’d only read about it in classified reports and half-insane footnotes. The kind of thing they used to call "world-bender" ability before the term got phased out for being melodramatic.

  Still, there was one advantage I had.

  I could adapt.

  I didn’t know why. Maybe some quirk of my nervous system. Maybe a trauma-engraved mutation. But whenever things twisted—time, space, perception—I found ways to move through it. I wasn’t faster or stronger or more talented.

  I just kept functioning when everything else failed.

  The man stopped a few feet from me, surprise flickering across his face.

  “Well,” he said, voice smooth like silk over steel. “Didn’t expect that. Someone like you exists.”

  “Who sent you?” I asked. My tone was flat, professional. My hand drifted toward my coat.

  “No one sent me,” he replied, smiling faintly. “I came of my own intent.”

  Bad answer.

  I drew the sidearm from my coat, leveled it at his head, and fired three rounds in quick succession—one, two to the eyes, one center mass. The kind of pattern you only use when you want a message sent loud and clear… or someone dead.

  The bullets froze in the air like they’d hit invisible glue.

  He reached out casually and plucked them, one by one, as if they were floating apples. He studied them with interest.

  “There are numbers carved into these.” He turned one between his fingers. “You’re a man of habit. Precision. A little compulsive, perhaps.”

  He tossed the bullets aside. They hovered for a second before dropping with soft clinks.

  “Let’s start again,” he said, brushing imaginary dust from his lapel. “My name is Ark. And you are?”

  I didn’t lower the gun. “Merrick.”

  His smile deepened. “Well then, Merrick… Shall we talk, or is this going to be more of a duel at dawn situation?”

  I didn’t lower the gun.

  “You say no one sent you,” I said, leveling my voice to something between a command and an invitation. “Elaborate.”

  Ark clasped his hands behind his back, as if this were a polite dinner conversation and not a reality-freezing standoff in the middle of a ballroom. His gaze wandered lazily toward Mark, who remained frozen mid-step, caught in some eternal attempt at rhythm.

  “I came to pick up my son,” he said.

  My mind did a full somersault.

  “Son?” I echoed.

  He gestured casually. “Mark.”

  Yeah. That was too on the nose. Too casual.

  Mark? Son?

  Of all the reasons someone might crash this party—assassination, espionage, abduction of the child of prophecy—this… this was something else.

  “You’re joking,” I muttered.

  Ark raised an eyebrow. “Why would I joke about something like that?”

  I didn’t answer. I was too busy trying to reconcile what he just said with the lanky, barely-coordinated disaster of a teenager now allegedly carrying the DNA of this reality-warping prince of smugness.

  Then Ark snapped his fingers. Not with magic or flair. Just a sudden, thoughtful pop like someone recalling a half-forgotten recipe.

  “Ah. I know you,” he said. “You’ve met my ex-wife. Evelyn.”

  I blinked. “What.”

  He grinned. “I’d go so far as to say the two of you had a romantic fling, didn’t you?”

  Oh, for the love of—

  “How did it go?” he asked, smirking.

  “How are you doing this?” I snapped, gesturing to the room—the still air, the frozen people, the world locked in some kind of dreamlike paralysis.

  He tilted his head. “Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing. Few can resist my ESP. And no offense…” His eyes narrowed slightly. “But you aren’t that famous.”

  Fair.

  I holstered the gun slowly, more as a show of calculation than surrender.

  “Let’s make a deal,” I said. “You tell me the name of your ESP, and I’ll tell you mine.”

  Ark gave a short laugh. “What if one of us lies?”

  “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

  He considered it. Then nodded. “Fine.”

  We stood in silence for a beat. Two men in the eye of an invisible hurricane, surrounded by gilded opulence and time-locked nobles.

  “I can induce a telepathic effect,” I added, “at a level precise enough to detect lies.”

  Ark whistled softly. “So that’s how you’re planning to keep this honest. It seems I am at a disadvantage…”

  “Something like that.”

  “Very well. We count to three?”

  “On three.”

  He nodded. We both inhaled.

  “One… two… three.”

  “Grand Magus,” I said.

  “Outside Time,” Ark said.

  We stared at each other, letting the words settle between us like dust on an old book.

  I didn’t lie. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. As a professor registered with the Academy, my ESP classification was on record, backed by oath and blood-test verification. Fabricating it would’ve brought sanctions, not to mention moral implications I wasn’t fond of juggling.

  Besides, I wanted to keep a picture of honesty.

  Ark, on the other hand… might have been bluffing. Or maybe not. “Outside Time” sounded ridiculous in that this should be illegal kind of way. And yet, the name fit. It was apt. Stylish. Ominous.

  I had a feeling this wouldn’t be our last meeting.

  He smiled at me—slow, knowing. The kind of smile a man gives before vanishing behind a curtain, leaving nothing but questions and a pile of unanswered paperwork.

  “I’ll leave you to your party,” he said. “For now.”

  He turned, walked away through the frozen crowd like a ghost, and just as I opened my mouth to ask one last question, the world snapped back.

  Sound returned in a crash. The quartet finished their chord. Champagne glasses clinked. Mark stumbled, caught himself, and laughed like nothing had happened.

  Only I stood still, watching where Ark had been, heart pounding like a war drum.

  And somewhere, in the back of my mind, I thought—

  Son? Really?

  Mark and Mirai stopped mid-dance, blinking at me with that sort of confused concern teenagers wear when an adult walks in looking like he’s seen a ghost. Mirai tilted her head slightly, sharp eyes scanning me like she was already piecing together something wasn’t right.

  “What’s the problem?” she asked.

  Mark, ever the open book, pointed at me with theatrical shock. “Professor! You just appeared! You can teleport too?”

  I didn’t answer immediately. My body was here, sure. But my mind was still five minutes ago, still in that silent, frozen ballroom, staring into the eyes of a man who claimed to be Mark’s father and had casually defied physics like it was an old hobby.

  Outside Time.

  That’s what Ark had called it. And I believed him.

  He hadn’t lied. I’d felt it in his tone, in the absence of resistance when I’d skimmed his surface thoughts. He was too composed to fake something like that under my watch.

  Stopping time. Or no… slipping out of it. Existing adjacent to its flow. It was elegant. Terrifying.

  But ESP of that caliber didn’t come for free.

  Nothing that powerful could exist without a leash—or a price tag.

  There were always restrictions. Laws of equivalent exchange. I’d seen it time and again. The girl who could burn things with her voice but lost her speech for days afterward. The boy who could become intangible but couldn’t breathe when he did. Even my own adaptability—it came at the cost of a constant recalibration that left me sleepless and on edge, like a machine that never fully shut down.

  So what was Ark’s cost?

  My gut said it had to be significant. To affect time, to bypass cause and effect—that was poking the universe in the eye with a hot iron. Something somewhere had to balance that out. A physical toll? A temporal one? Maybe even something deeper, like the inability to affect things while Outside Time, or a time limit before the present caught up and snapped back.

  I filed those thoughts away for later dissection. Right now, I had two pairs of very concerned eyes on me.

  “I wasn’t teleporting,” I finally said, straightening my coat. “Just walking quickly.”

  Mark frowned. “You walked like twenty feet in half a second.”

  “I’ve had practice.”

  Mirai narrowed her gaze. “What really happened?”

  Smart girl.

  I gave her a look that said not here, and she picked up on it immediately. Her lips pressed into a thin line, but she nodded. Mark, meanwhile, was still trying to figure out if he should be impressed or concerned.

  “Go back to dancing,” I said. “The rhythm still needs help.”

  Mark grinned. “That’s just my style.”

  They returned to the floor, laughter bubbling back into their steps like nothing had happened.

  But I lingered a moment longer, eyes scanning the room. No sign of Ark. No temporal tremor left behind, no signature I could trace. Just polished floors, murmuring nobility, and too much sparkle on the chandeliers.

  Still, I could feel it. A thread had been tugged.

  And I had a sinking feeling we’d just heard the opening note of a much bigger symphony.

  Shoutout to Aura Farming! ???

  Romance or Ruin, Aura Farming takes us back—before the ruins, before the romance—to where it all really began. Follow Gavin Goodman as he slowly builds power the old-fashioned way: by farming aura.

  Romance or Ruin, you’ll love the more grounded (but no less intense) journey of Aura Farming. Same world, new perspective—different vibes, same soul.