As soon as I entered the Domain, my stomach and head started aching violently. I instinctively looked down at my body as I saw a disgusting black smoky worm crawling out of my transparent stomach, writhing like it was alive.
"What the fuck is this?" I cursed imdiately.
"Calm down. That's just residual corruption being purged from your soul." Ra appeared in front of and casually crushed the worm under his foot like it was nothing.
"The mind harvester has already started feeding you and shifting the area," he continued calmly. "It'll be done in about half an hour. So take your mories and think of a damn plan to get out of here, unless you want to end up inside its body permanently."
"…Feeding what now?"
My attention snapped straight to that one word.
"I wouldn't have said anything but honestly, your dumb state is starting to get annoying, so let explain sothing."
He smirked.
"How the hell do you think you have been able to keep running nonstop for thirteen loops?"
My silence was enough of an answer.
"That bastard keeps feeding you and nursing you back to full strength before restarting the loop." Then he added, almost mockingly, "The feeding process is… efficient. It uses one of its fleshy tentacles to transfer nutrients and mana directly into your body."
My face stiffened.
Before I could even open my mouth, Ra burst out laughing.
"Relax, relax. I was just trying to lighten the mood." He said with a crooked grin. "It only uses its mana to give you nutrients. I was joking when I said it uses tentacles."
Then he paused.
"…Or was I?"
My expression twitched.
"Just give back my mories," I said in annoyance.
"You see that big orb behind ?" Ra pointed lazily, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "Go touch it. That's your mory sphere. I extracted it with great difficulty from myself, you know…"
"Okay." I didn't joke around this ti and simply walked toward the orb and placed my hand on it.
The mont I made contact, everything crashed into at once. mories flooded my mind like a violent wave, sharper, clearer and more vivid than they had ever been before. They weren't just restored… they were enhanced.
It only took a few minutes but it felt like reliving an entire lifeti and when it finally stopped a slow smirk spread across my face
Ra walked over to . "Why are you smiling? Did you finally find a way out?"
I looked straight at him. "Nope. I an, you have my mories too, so you should already know how hopeless this situation is."
My mind drifted back to Noah's notes, the detailed ones he had given about every known monster in the novel.
Xyrrhael — The Mind Harvester was written there too.
A monster also known as a Living Space. One that trapped its prey inside landscapes ford from their own mories, slowly feeding on their emotions and thoughts until nothing was left but a hollow shell.
After that, it absorbed their bodies into itself.
And there was a special note given under it.
That if you remotely see Xyrrhael in your proximity, you should run because this monster for all of its incredible powers had one weakness, it was that it couldn't hide itself properly.
Most of the ti it tried to disguise itself as a room, a building or an environnt, but there were always tells or sothing off about it which made it easy to recognize… if you noticed early enough.
But once you were trapped inside, there was no way out as the monster could collapse the space infinitely, over and over, until the host lost all energy and died.
"Ra, can I sohow use the Domain to teleport my physical body away or sothing? Or maybe use it to scare that bastard off?" I asked.
"Yeah, sure. Why not? You can also summon gods while you're at it and ask them to dance." He scoffed. "Fucker, if it were that easy, do you really think you would be crying here after getting trapped? I would have done it already."
Tsk.
I clicked my tongue in annoyance but then… sothing about his words hit a second later.
Summon the gods…?
My eyes narrowed slightly.
…Wait.
What if?
A plan slowly started forming in my head when Ra imdiately narrowed his eyes at .
"What are you planning now?"
"What if… we give it mories that could annihilate it just from knowing them?" I said quietly.
There were a few nas and a few mories in my mind that could never be spoken out loud or could never be rembered properly. Things that erased minds, souls and even existence itself just by being acknowledged. That was why I had always buried them deep in the back of my mind.
…but if I could sohow make one of its projections speak those words instead or if I could even make it eat one particular mory of mine, I was certain that this bastard would die.
I had a word I could say them myself, sure but my soul would probably be erased before I even had the chance to escape into the Domain and honestly, even I wasn't suicidal enough to test that.
"What mory are you talking about?" Ra asked, genuinely curious.
I smirked.
"You know… there is that one particular mory that attracted HIS gaze. The one that almost got killed. Hell, I am still cursed with a terminal illness because of HIM."
Ra's expression imdiately shifted, sharp with concern. "Rael… we don't know what will happen if you ss with Him a second ti."
My smile only widened. "This is the only choice we have and I am going to enter the Domain before it even finishes digesting that mory."
"But how are you going to make sure it eats that particular mory?" Ra asked.
My smile wavered for just a mont because that… was the hardest part and it was going to cost .
"I just have to suffer through the loops long enough to understand the pattern of how it siphons my mories."
Ra clicked his tongue. "That could take a lot of loops."
"Yeah," I replied calmly. "But we have all the ti we need since the ti inside this bastard is distorted beyond reason."
Then I looked straight at him.
"And more importantly… I have you."
A faint grin returned to my lips.
"You'll remind who I am every ti I am on the verge of forgetting."
"Rael, that's madness," Ra snapped. "What if you never figure out the pattern? What if in just a few loops you forget to enter the Domain and then forget everything about what we discussed… even what the Domain is? We can't keep expecting so mysterious blind boy to co save you every ti you lose yourself."
I looked at my split soul and I didn't need any special sense to see how worried he was. It was written all over him.
I reached out and patted his head once.
"That's exactly why we have to do this, Ra," I said quietly. "We can't rely on soone else to co save us."
My eyes hardened slightly.
"We have to find our own way out and this… is the only path that gives us the highest chance of survival and who knows I might figure out the pattern in just the first loop… and get us out of here."
Ra still looked unconvinced but I didn't say anything anymore.
"I believe the restructuring is nearly done… I will be going back now. I will co here after every two loops to recover my mories."
I willed myself to return to the real world… but before my soul completely slipped away, I looked back at him.
"And… I'm sorry for overworking you."
Just for a split second, his expression softened. "Who the hell is overworking for you, I am only working for my own—"
I couldn't completely hear what he was saying as my consciousness entered my body again as the new loop had begun… and I started focusing on the smallest changes in the environnt and within myself because this ti… I wasn't just surviving the loop, I was studying it.
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