Chapter 235: Well Played
Elara finally had an opportunity to attack.
As if the Blood Demon was losing interest or running out of mana, she felt like its movements had slowed and that it was just toying with her. That’s when she suddenly seized the upper hand, tying the scarlet reflection down with chains.
Then, rather than using what she had just learnt over her gruelling exchange with the demon, she reverted to what felt most natural.
"Crimson Flash!"
But this time it was different.
Using the principles of what she had learnt, her use of mana was much smoother and more efficient, reducing the activation time and increasing its potency.
The beam pierced straight through the demon’s chest, leaving a gaping hole in its body.
Silence filled the endless darkness.
The Blood Demon looked down at its chest, then back up at Elara.
A slow smile spread across its face.
"Well played, kid."
It didn’t seem sour in the slightest, and if anything, seemed weirdly pleased.
"Don’t get the wrong idea. I only taught you because I can’t have my host going around giving me a bad rap, and it hurt my soul to see you use my power so wastefully."
She smiled, seeing another side of the demon.
"And also don’t think that what I gave you just now is all my power. I gave you four times what I gave myself access to, but that’s far from all of it. Your frail little body still can’t handle that."
Its body slowly dissolved into crimson mist, and the last thing it said left her curious about their next exchange, which she never thought she would have.
"I thought you’d at least get to Lesson F..."
Then it was gone.
Elara remained standing, breathing heavily.
Her body wasn’t injured, with it restoring itself again, but she felt utterly exhausted.
She looked at her own trembling hands.
’I-I won.’
At least... technically.
Though deep down she knew the truth.
The Blood Demon had never once been serious, and it had only used a quarter of the energy she possessed.
Even then, it had dominated the battle from beginning to end, able to kill her thousands of times over if it didn’t restore her body. All she had managed to do was land a single attack, one that it even seemed to have allowed her to.
The realisation should have terrified her.
Instead, she found herself strangely grateful and relieved.
It had mocked, beaten, and humiliated her, tearing her apart over and over again. And yet every strike contained a lesson, every defeat had revealed another weakness, and every insult had forced her to improve.
The lessons were brutal, but were lessons nonetheless, and she would be lying if she said she hadn’t learned anything.
She looked around the empty darkness, with only one question on her mind.
"Did I win in time?"
There was no answer, but as if on cue, the surrounding darkness began to crack...
-
The Golden Flutterer possessed something that should not have existed: an infinite supply of mana.
And it didn’t simply cast illusions.
It reached into the very soul of its victims, dragging their consciousness into prisons handcrafted from their deepest fears, greatest regrets, and most painful memories.
This was not a battle, not in the conventional sense.
No swords clashed, no explosions echoed across the floating islands, and no blood was spilt.
Instead, the battlefield was eerily silent.
Outside, every member of the clearing squad remained exactly where they had been standing when the Golden Flutterer had spread its radiant wings. Liora’s shimmering barrier vanished the instant her consciousness was stolen, not that it had done much to protect them from the mental attack.
Ethan stood frozen, one arm still supporting Liora’s exhausted body. Kaela remained half-crouched, ready to charge. Darius leaned upon his spear. Dave’s bloody tears continued to stream down his face. And Elara, Rowan, and Seraphina were also frozen in place.
They looked like statues.
Only the butterflies remained active.
The enormous Golden Flutterer hovered before the gigantic cocoon, its golden wings beating rhythmically as countless lesser butterflies continued feeding their mana into their king. Golden particles drifted through the air like glowing snow, as its mental dominion over the Titled deepened.
Across from the clearing squad, the giant cocoon began to stir.
Crack!
Crack!
Large tears spread across its leathery surface, and from it crawled out a giant caterpillar.
Then another.
And another.
Dozens of grotesque creatures emerged from the cocoon, each one almost the size of a car. Their bloated green bodies dragged across the floating island, leaving behind thick trails of glistening slime.
Their countless tiny legs squirmed against the stone, hungry mouths opened, and rows of grinding mandibles clicked together eagerly.
Unlike the butterflies, these creatures possessed no elegance whatsoever.
They existed for one purpose: to eat and grow, so they could also become mana-rich butterflies like their seniors in the sky. Their mother produced a golden platform for them to cross the abyss, as they slowly began crawling toward the frozen Titled.
There was no rush, and there was no need for it.
Their prey could not move.
The butterflies would maintain the illusion for as long as necessary, tormenting their prey.
Time itself had become meaningless.
Minutes outside could become months on the inside, and the victims would only awaken if they were able to escape their own minds.
Or never awaken at all.
The Golden Flutterer was slowly eating away at their very souls, and it was only a matter of time before they were all just lifeless shells for its progeny to feed on...
-
Elara had spent what felt like a couple of hours inside the Blood Demon’s twisted mental realm.
The others hadn’t been so fortunate.
For some, it had been days and endless loops of suffering, which they all believed to be reality. They had no recollection of who they were, nor did they have a chance to try to remember, constantly being tormented.
The illusions had become their entire world.
Yet even among them, one soul suffered more than any other.
Ethan had spent months inside Monster Manor, and somehow, the Golden Flutterer had managed to make that hellhole even worse. It had taken the darkest parts of his memories, every fear, regret, and ounce of hatred, then amalgamated them into his worst horrors.
The constant tension, violence, and isolation returned Ethan to the darkness he had been running away from. Be it with alcohol, or since receiving his Title, with training, he was avoiding recalling those dark years.
Anything to not become that version of himself again.
The man who hated the world and hated himself even more.
Now he was dragged straight back there, and unlike the others, Ethan’s mind refused to break easily, which only worsened his suffering. The Golden Flutterer recognised his resilience and, day by day, it worsened his nightmare.
It required more mana and focus to do so, but it had more than enough of both.
Each cycle slowly stripped away another piece of the man’s resistance, like water wearing away stone.
The question was: Would it eventually succeed?
Only time would tell...
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