Chapter 43: Chapter 38 – Facing Griscent

Griscent attempted to re-educate the real Slade through mind breaking torture.

Young Slade rammed into Griscent with a truck. His sacrifice was an opportunity for the real Slade to escape.

Slade obtained the ability to use “Prison of Illusion” after answering the status window. His skill bore a hole into Griscent’s dream world, and he fell through the floor into an unknown void.

Falling in an infinite darkness, Slade could no longer see the rift in Griscent’s cave from which he entered.

“Aaaaah!”

Eventually, light bloomed underneath him.

He braced for a painful crash, closing his eyes.

“Hmm?”

Instead, he gently landed on a slanted surface, losing all his momentum after crossing the exit rift.

“Fu-”

He slipped on the glassy ground, tumbling down until he splashed into red water.

He waddled in a blood colored sea, wasting precious seconds to crawl back on the island.

“Click click click” The rhythmic sound of bumping metal rung in Slade’s ears.

He scanned the new scenery.

“Is this… a watch?”

He had landed on a giant circular glass covering countless cogs and springs that clicked together.

“No, that’s slightly different.”

Instead of moving clock needles, the mechanism opened and closed with an iris.

“Something feels wrong too.”

Few cogs were stuck in place, struggling to turn. The iris could neither fully open nor fully close while leaking liquid lubricant.

“Damn it, I’m still in an illusion!”

The closing rift right above the giant device reminded him of his predicament.

"How do I leave this place?”

Water. Water everywhere! Land was nowhere to be found.

Giant blurry shadows walked at the edge of his sight range, filling him with a sense of unease. But they paid no attention to his insignificant existence.

Looking back at where the rift disappeared, he noticed a breath-taking structure stuck on the unreachable ceiling above him.

A transparent pillar of eyes hung inverted from the unreachable ceiling.

In the real world, it looked like an eye-covered tree, an organic chaos of tentacles.

But in that dream, it looked like a neat circuit that connected countless gears.

“Oh no… I am inside her head, right?”

Instead of severing the connection between Slade and Griscent, his skill sent him peering inside her soul, just like how Griscent dug out his memories.

I can feel her presence everywhere, but it’s different from earlier… This feels inert, like carved in the stone, he thought.

But it wasn’t time to decode this abstract world. He opened his status window to read the description of his new skill, but there was no useful hint.

[Personal Skill: Prison of Illusion - Connect to the mind of another creature through illusions. High success rate against low attunement or willing targets. This ability was developed to replicate the effect of beholders’ final evolution.]

“Please, let me wake up for real this time!” he prayed.

White fire enveloped his body. After gathering a bit more, he would rip open this fake world...

But before he was done, a giant ball of tentacles descended onto the top of the slanted platform. A brown-haired human body protruded from it, holding a dangling corpse by the neck.

Griscent threw the teenager’s body at him. “Here, you forgot something.”

The sliding lump of meat traced a red line over the glass disc.

Slade glared back at her.

How dare you handle mah boi like this?

He caught the remains of the illusory teenager and laid him at the bottom of the island.

She frowned with unease as she scanned the horizon. Her gaze fixated on the far away giants walking their way. “Wait… What is this place?”

“Do you not know? Can’t you transform this place like the cave?” Slade asked.

The woman crumpled, holding her mouth in a bout of nausea. “Ugh… This isn’t right.“

The scenery represented her subconscious. This neutral world escaped both their grasp and could become the perfect arena for him.

While Griscent was shaken by terror upon looking at the limitless sea, Slade tried to weaponise his white flames into offensive illusions, just like how Griscent shaped herself into a human appearance.

Raising his fist like a power ranger. His white flame converged into a ball of light above his hand. “Iron man!” he screamed.

From that seed of hope, a lifesize cardboard curtout depicting a smiling Tony Stark in his iconic red suit fell onto Slade’s head.

“Dang it-”

Griscent howled, still shaken. “Slade, get him!”

The mangled teenager stood up, not dead enough and dripping with water. He sluggishly jumped behind the real Slade, letting out an amateur zombie wail.

Slade turned around, blocking the boy’s bite with his arms. He repelled the threat with a kick. “Kuaah!” he screamed as his forearm’s flesh tore away.

The boy landed on four with a beast-like agility.

Slade held his bleeding wound. “No… You didn’t do that!”

“Oh yes, I did… Since you wouldn’t stand still, I fixed his memories instead. I plan to have him devour you and take over. He’ll be my lovely Slade!”

Her primal fears represented in this world seemed to paralyze her, but she could work around by sending her illusions after him.

“I’m sorry about this… I’ll put you out of your misery,” Slade said.

Acknowledging its opponent, the zombie-like illusion lunged forward.

Slade needed a simple weapon to materialize. He couldn’t manifest technologies out of his understanding, such as Iron Man, so he would rely on a good old sharpened stick.

He pulled out a dagger from his white flame.

Missing the head, Slade stabbed the reckless boy in the shoulder thanks to his greater reach.

The zombie grabbed his hand and pulled Slade down into the sea.

They fell together and tried to drown each other as they wrestled underwater.

But the zombie pulled out the blade and stabbed it near Slade’s clavicle. His assault went on as he bit onto the weakened man, tearing his flesh apart.

Bubbles of air escaped Slade’s mouth as he struggled. He could neither reach the surface for air, nor get out of the zombie's clinch.

Well, shit-

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