No More

Chapter 29: Twilight Part 2

Then two arrows flew and hit my blades, knocking them off course. Just in time for Aiden to tackle me onto the ground. Gill raised his mace above his head, ready to slam it down on mine.

I head-butted Aiden, causing him to loosen his grip on me, slightly recoiling back. I used [Geo-Kinesis] to make both blades pierce through Gill's head before looping the chains around Aiden's neck.

I had the chains tighten around him, chocking him as I punched him off of me before I snapped his neck.

I saw both of their bodies fade and disappear reappearing with Lukas and Maya. All of them injured, as they are exhausted.

I really hate illusions.

"How did you even find me?" I asked. "Why are you even in the Twilight Forest?" All of us are tired as we had our weapons pointing at each other.

"Don't be stupid Jess." said Aiden. "We've been following you. It was easy to follow you into this clearing since we spotted you running in the woods."

I stopped, looked around and realized something. "How did we get here?"

"Uh, we tackled you off the cliff into this clearing, duh." Sassed Maya. "We all chased after you since you were trying to kill that raven for it's mystic feather."

"...How did you know that?" I asked. For a moment there, I could see Maya's eyes widen. "Even if you saw that I was chasing the bird, you had no way of knowing why."

"Does it matter?" said Lukas. "We tackled you off the hill and down into this clearing, we have you outnumbered and-"

"No you didn't." I said quietly, interrupting as I shake my head.

"What?" Aiden asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You didn't tackle me off the hill." I explain, rubbing my, suddenly, sore head. "I only remember you charging at me, and then a split second later we landed on the ground..."

I felt something wet on my face: my nose is bleeding. The air around me felt... artificial.

I looked around me to see the one thing that can confirm my suspicions. The first thing I saw with [Mana Vision] when I arrived here, is the large creature that I saw inside the hollowed hill is now gone.

We are fighting this whole time! The noise alone from Aiden's shouting should have awoken the creature. It should have attacked us because Maura told me that one of the heads is awake when it sleeps, staying on high alert to watch for intruders.

Then there are the Ocelots fighting me. It was easy, too easy. And when they did fight, their teamwork was flawless. They even countered my weapons, my skills, even though they never seen them before. It's almost as if they can read my thoughts...

It's not that they can read my thoughts; I'm in my deepest thoughts. Literally. They trapped me in an illusion, using my own mind against me!

These aren't really the Ocelots, they're just illusion constructs, using my own thoughts against me to keep me distracted.

It all makes sense. I saw before with [Observe] that Maya is an illusionist. She can fool my senses, but she cannot erase my memories.

And I remember a large creature sleeping inside the hollow hill! Maya didn't know that the creature existed, so she didn't place it inside this illusion.

The creature's lair, containing a multi-headed reptile monster, is in that hollow hill, full of rare ores and treasure, but it's just a normal hill!

They were distracting me, but they didn't consider the surroundings. So if everything isn't real, then what the hell is really going on in the real world?

Ping!

Due to realizing that everything around you is fake, [Mana Vision] has been leveled up to level 40!

I felt a sudden rush to my eyes as I saw the world become a light blue hue. Everywhere, even the ground and the sky, is made of Mana.

Maya's Mana...

This is all a natural forest; there shouldn't be any Mana here in the first place! And this only confirmed my suspicions once again: It's all a fake.

I then did something that I should have done in the beginning. I wasted my time using my Chaos Blades, but I have a Quad Dispenser and necromancer powers.

I would have just used that to deal with them, they're not even worth fighting! But I just ignored that option because they were keeping me occupied.

I spawned lich, created a deep hole underneath the Ocelots, filled with spikes. There's something I want to test...

I then saw a simple arrow fly out, killing my lich in one hit. It didn't even raised it's transparent yellow shield, and a simple arrow wouldn't have been able to kill it.

I saw the 'Ocelots' jump out of the 10 block deep hole, readying their weapons at me. I saw the Mana become more... strained. Maya is starting to panic.

This really is an illusion; she knows I have necromancer powers. So she makes it appear that I can use them, but she doesn't know what powers a lich have, so she just made it like a floating skeleton, and weak as one too.

She is starting to suspect that I know I'm in an illusion, so she is just trying to make it so I can't get out, and enhancing the illusion constructs to make them appear impossible to beat.

So if Maya is watching, she's adjusting the world as well. So if she has a direct connection to this false world, then that means is has a direct connection to her Mana Core.

"You really need to work on your illusions, Maya." I said as the 'Ocelots' eyes widen, alarmed as they charged at me, their eyes turning red as their teeth became black, unleashing an inhuman scream as smoke leaked from their bodies.

But this isn't real, so they have no power over me. The illusion constructs passed through me, doing absolutely nothing except pissing me off.

I activated [Grim Harvest] as I let the familiar black threads weave around this world. Like a parasite, it grows and spreads, infecting while it does. First the threads pierced the 'Ocelots', and they 'died' as the black threads continued to stich it's way into this illusion.

And into Maya's Mana Core.

I started to retract the threads. The world started to shutter as I saw the Mana become disoriented. Her Mana that is used to create this illusion started to retract into me, being absorbed by me.

Then within seconds everything turned black. I thought for a second that I'm in another illusion, in a Void-like area. But no, my eyes are simply closed.

So I opened them, and saw blood and fire. Maya is on the ground, writhing in pain as my black threads retreat from her body, pulling out her Mana Core.

The Ocelots have awoken the creature, desperately fighting the five headed, fire breathing, reptile.

[Hydra]

Level 300

The multi-headed, reptile-like monster that resides in the Twilight Forest. Its habitat is inside a hollow hill where the front of it is open for the creature to enter and exit into its home full of precious and valuable materials.

The hydra is immune to fire as it can breath exploding fire balls, have tough as iron scales that cover its body, and regeneration so high that it can regrow two heads when one is destroyed.

-

A/N: To be continued! I bet you weren't expect that plot twist, now did ya?!

So, new followers! Aiden_The_Writer and ZoeHayton!

For you two, here's a blaze rod... that's been soaked in water and turned charcoal black. Blame my supplier, he still didn't deliver my order of cookies. >:(

/ <--- Blaze Rod