"You demon! You killed so many of our people. We will kill you."
"Kill him, and our people will find peace."
"Kill the demon! Kill the demon!"
"No rest for the demon. Kill him."
Seeing all of this, Max understood he was once again inside an illusion.
'Damn this!' He cursed as he once again tried to use the sa thod—or at least attempted to—only to realize that he couldn't feel his soul.
Max's eyes widened as realization struck him. He hurriedly looked at his hands and clothing. "I am in soone else's body!" he muttered, closing his eyes. A mont later, he opened them, his face dark.
'I feel no connection to the system or any of my power,' Max thought grimly.
Last ti, he had escaped the illusion with the help of his soul power, but what about this ti, when he was just a normal human waiting to be killed?
"Let's kill him and be done with it."
"Yeah, we have other things to do after that."
"Kill him!"
The soldiers once again poised to attack Max, their swords and spears glinting ominously under the dim light of the illusion.
Max studied their movents, a strange calm settling over him. 'Since this is an illusion, nothing will actually happen to . So… let's just die, I guess?' He thought wryly, though the idea was far from comforting.
He rembered the last ti he had been struck. Even though it was all an illusion, the pain had felt real. His muscles ached from blocking their strikes with his shield, and the sensation of hitting the ground had coursed through his body like a thunderbolt.
Still, he steeled himself. "Co on then… Kill . I'm waiting. Kill now!" Max shouted defiantly, glaring at the soldiers.
His words enraged them. With synchronized precision, the soldiers lunged forward, their weapons gleaming with lethal intent.
This ti, Max didn't raise his shield.
Ctcha!
The cold, sharp sensation of four or five spears piercing his chest tore through him. He gasped as blood bubbled from his mouth, the tallic taste filling his senses.
'Damn, this is painful,' he thought bitterly, silently cursing the Thorne Family for subjecting him to such tornt.
As the weapons were withdrawn, the pain beca unbearable. His legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground, his strength rapidly draining away.
His vision darkened, the edges fading into a void. 'Is this what this illusion was all about? Accepting death?' he wondered.
Those were his final thoughts before the darkness swallowed him whole.
Opening his eyes, Max found himself once again in the void-like world of endless darkness.
"I'm back," he muttered under his breath, a bitter smile tugging at his lips. 'So that illusion was about dying…' He sighed, glancing around. The oppressive darkness pressed in on him like a familiar, unwelco guest. 'Is this not over yet?' he wondered, bracing himself for what kind of tornt would follow.
As if responding to his thoughts, the darkness around him began to shift and dissolve, replaced by a grand, ancient palace. The architecture was intricate, its halls vast and echoing, yet there was a strange emptiness that made his skin crawl.
This ti, he was walking amidst a group of adults, all around 20 years of age. But sothing was wrong—he couldn't control his body. It moved on its own, as if he were a passenger trapped in soone else's mory.
Most importantly he was ten years old like them unlike them.
Max's gaze darted around as his body, along with the adults, moved through the palace and into a dense forest. The towering trees cast eerie shadows, and the silence was suffocating.
'No… This couldn't be!' Max's thoughts raced as he recognized the scene, the surroundings, the faces of the adults. He had seen this before. He had 'lived' this before—if only in a dream.
Five years ago, when he was just a kid of 10 years old, he had a recurring nightmare. In it, he 'played' with adults he didn't recognize, only to lead them into a forest where he rcilessly killed them.
The dream had haunted him for weeks, its vividness leaving him shaken. But he had dismissed it as a aningless, grotesque nightmare.
Now, living it again, Max felt an icy chill run down his spine.
But as the mory unfolded, he realized sothing strange. The visceral fear that had gripped him in his childhood was absent. Instead, there was an eerie detachnt. Experience tales at empire
The adults wandered aimlessly through the forest, their laughter echoing among the trees. But Max—or the version of him within this mory—moved with purpose.
And then it happened.
With a single swing of his blade, the forest was silent. Blood splattered across the ground, and lifeless bodies crumpled where they stood.
The mory's horror was undeniable, but the most chilling part wasn't the act itself—it was how he had felt.
Even now, experiencing it again, he recalled the morbid fascination that had overtaken him. The sight of blood, the stillness of death, the crimson painting the forest floor—it had drawn him in, captivating him in a way he couldn't explain.
Max shuddered just thinking about it.
'This is why…' he thought grimly. 'This is why I've always felt disgusted when people call heartless.'
Those words had struck a nerve, not because they were true, but because they mirrored this hidden side of him—a side he couldn't reconcile, a side he couldn't explain.
After experiencing this scene, the world dissolved into nothingness and darkness clouded his vision once again. He was back in the world of the darkness.
'I am back again… now what?' Max sighed as he looked around the darkness.
As he stood in the suffocating darkness, he heard it—a voice, soft yet piercing, echoing through the void.
"Maxy!"
His breath caught. That word. That voice. It sent a jolt of recognition through him, awakening sothing deep and buried within. Only one person had ever called him that.
'No… it can't be…'
He swiftly turned around, his eyes scanning the infinite darkness. And there she was. A lone figure stood amidst the void, glowing faintly as if defying the oppressive gloom.
It was her.
A beautiful young woman, no older than twenty, with long black hair cascading down her back like a silken waterfall. She wore a simple black shirt and jeans, her attire unremarkable, yet it couldn't hide the radiance of her presence.
Her expression was solemn, but her smile was genuine, the kind that tugged at his heartstrings.
Max's throat tightened, his chest heavy with a storm of emotions he didn't know how to process. He hadn't seen her in years—no, he 'couldn't' have seen her in years.
"Big Sister!" He called out instinctively.
"Maxy, how have you been?" Her voice reached Max as she floated and appeared in front of him.
Max glanced at her, his mind occupied with hundreds of questions, but there was one he had to ask first.
"Are you real?" he asked.
Freya smiled gently. "No, I am not."
Max sighed, expecting that, his expression turning sad.
"However, this version of isn't like the illusions you have experienced just now," she said, explaining. "Before I left for the Middle Domains, I left a very small part of my soul here in this world of illusion."
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