"Finally... we can keep moving," I muttered to myself.
I took a step forward, but something felt wrong. I looked at Jessica, and for the first time, the "Death Angel" looked genuinely terrified. She wasn't looking at me—she was looking past me, her eyes wide, her breath hitching in a way that made my blood run cold.
"Why are you looking at me like I'm a monster?" I asked, but as I turned around, the words died in my parched throat.
Standing there, coiled in the shadows of the abyss, was a Twilight Naga. Even on the surface, these creatures are legendary nightmares—venomous, cunning, and sadistic. But the one down here? It was gargantuan. Its scales were the color of bruised obsidian, and its eyes glowed with a sickly, iridescent light that seemed to vibrate against my retinas.
The bastard didn't even give me a chance to summon a shadow. With a speed that defied physics, the Naga lunged. A massive, scaly tail slammed into my chest, launching me into the jagged obsidian wall behind me.
Crack. Jessica saw her opening. She ignored her broken leg and lunged at the creature with a burst of white flame, her silver hair flying. But suddenly, the Naga wasn't there. It vanished like smoke in a gale, reappearing instantly behind her. Before she could scream, its obsidian claws tore through her thighs, pinning her to the ground.
"YES! Finally!" I shouted, a twisted sense of relief washing over me. "Wait... shit, that's bad. Why am I happy about that?"
"WATCH OUT, YOU FOOL!" Jessica shrieked, her voice cracking with pain.
I turned, but it was too late. The creature was already looming over me, its shadow swallowing me whole. Its claws ripped through my torso, shredding muscle and bone. But as the steel-hard nails sank into my chest, something felt... off. It was softer than the previous times I'd been impaled. The pain was there, searing and hot, but it felt distant, like a memory of pain rather than the thing itself.
The Naga vanished again. I was standing. I was just... standing there. I looked down at my chest. No blood. No hole.
Before I could process the impossibility of it, the Naga grabbed me again, hurling me back into the wall. My shoulder shattered—or so it felt. The impact was so real I could hear the bone splintering, yet as I hit the ground, the wound vanished.
Wait a minute... were Twilight Nagas part of the curriculum? I racked my brain, searching for the lessons from Mr. Welim back at the academy.
As I searched my memories, the Naga lunged and decapitated me. I felt the cold slide of the blade, the sensation of my head leaving my shoulders, the world spinning—and then, I was standing again. The Naga was gone.
"What the hell is happening?" I whispered, my hands trembling.
The cycle began again. The Naga kicked me into the dirt, but this time, the sensation changed. It felt like I was fighting Jessica. Then, a heartbeat later, I was back in the starting position.
Okay, Celosia. Think. I was experiencing version after version of my own death, only to be "reset" back to the beginning. Was it time magic? No, that was too rare, too divine. Was it future-sight? No. Then it hit me. Mr. Welim had mentioned it once in a whisper: Twilight Nagas are masters of Illusion Magic.
I wasn't dying. I was being mentally tortured. My brain was being tricked into feeling every sensation of a thousand deaths while my body stood still in the dark.
A dark, twisted thought began to take root in my mind. If this is an illusion... can I stay in it? If I prolong the fight, can I find the source of the mana? Can I absorb the very thing that is killing me?
"Let's play, you overgrown snake," I hissed.
If this was an illusion, my mana pools should be infinite within the dream. I summoned my Shadow Blades and lunged. The Naga didn't even flinch; it ran straight through my blades, its body ethereal, and tore my torso in half. I died.
I stood.
I looked around, trying to find the real Naga. The bastard put me right back into a loop. This time, he forced me to watch as I used my own hands to gouge out my eyes and throat. I felt every wet tear of tissue, every snap of a vocal cord.
I stood.
I tried to run. I sprinted toward what looked like an exit, only to impale myself on a jagged rock that burst through my sternum. The pain was white-hot, blinding, and utterly fake.
"I thought Folia was an arsehole with his visions," I spat, wiping phantom blood from my mouth. "But you... you're a special kind of piece of shit."
I stood.
This time, I tried to keep my eyes closed. It worked—for a second. The darkness of the cave returned, and I felt the cold air. But like an idiot, I opened them too soon. The Naga caught my gaze, and suddenly, I was falling. I fell from a height so great the air burned my lungs, slamming into the bottom of the abyss over and over.
I stood.
My mind was beginning to fray at the edges. The repetition was a hammer against my sanity. I tried to close my eyes again and move toward where I thought the Naga was. I opened them for a split second to check my distance, and the creature pounced. It began to rip my limbs off, piece by piece, starting with my fingers.
This happened twenty-five times. Twenty-five cycles of feeling my bones being pulled from their sockets.
On the twenty-sixth time, I didn't scream. I didn't move. My eyes were half-open, glazed and vacant. That's when the creature finally spoke. Its voice wasn't a sound, but a vibration in my skull, cold and sibilant.
"You are different from the two-leggers who usually stumble into my lair. Most lose their minds by the tenth death. Tell me... what is broken inside you? You are not strong. You are not fast. Are you simply... insane?"
The giant arsehole thinks I'm crazy?
"I'll show you insane," I whispered.
In a moment of pure, reckless madness, I reached up and began to tear at my own throat with my fingernails. I didn't wait for the Naga to do it. I did it myself. I broke the rhythm of his illusion by forcing a reality he didn't command.
I "stood" again, but this time, the world flickered. The Naga was visible, and for the first time, he looked surprised. He lunged, driving his claws into my shoulder. This time, the pain didn't reset. It didn't vanish. The blood was warm, real, and staining my tunic.
This was the moment. The real Naga had stepped into the physical world to finish me.
"Got you," I wheezed.
I reached out with my good hand, ignoring the claws buried in my bone. My palm made contact with his cold, scaly hide. I didn't push him away. I pulled him closer. I felt the familiar, slick sensation of my Absorption Magic kicking in. The purple, shimmering essence of the illusion was being drained out of him, flowing into my veins like cold mercury.
The Naga shrieked, a sound of pure, primordial terror, as his greatest weapon was stripped away.
The Illusion Magic... it was finally mine.
Until next time.