The world in front of me was slowly covered by the vast darkness. I gradually lost the feeling of Brusken pulling my hand. My body felt light. Really really light.
In this darkness, I can tell I am no longer in the arena. I'm just in a vast page of black, mix with some black in between, forming the extremely black blackness of black. After a few seconds, the first signs of light broke through the darkness. Then, more and more appeared. It was the night sky, or at least an illusion of it. The dim moonlight didn't make the ground look brighter, but instead make it feel more empty and silence.
"No wonder everyone fears him. This is some amazing illusion magic." I thought to myself. "It's been a while since I got trapped in an illusion this complete and powerful. Guess I'll enjoy it and see what it can do."
I lied down on the black floor. You can't tell whether there's actually a floor if not for the stars, which doesn't appear on it. I stared calmly into the sky, and even dazing off.
The world was filled with pure silence the whole time. Nothing appeared or attacked me. No air movement, no subtle vibrations, nothing at all. It was so calm and silent that it could easily make people go crazy
I estimate that I dazed off for about 3 hours. After this long period, I can only feel one tiny difference compared to when I first entered the illusion.
"Ahh, so it's a soul sucking illusion huh? The rate of the soul sucking is so low that if I didn't get forced to train so much in my childhood, I don't think I would even notice it." My soul was feeling a little lighter. Based on the amount of change and the constant speed of soul regeneration and syncing them with my heartbeat, the real world most likely only passed 3 minutes.
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"I guess that enough for this time. I wonder what kind of games he is playing with my soul." I took out my dagger. After looking around and appreciating how perfectly made this soul illusion was for a last time, I stab myself in the heart. Minimum pain and most effective way to kill oneself, or at least for me, in order to break this illusion and most others too.
When I opened my eyes once again, I was back in the arena. But, something seemed off. The arena was empty, except there being people in the rings. Yea, rings.
There are now 7 rings in the arena, arranged in an circle. Two of them are empty. The other five had one of each contestants in the last battle. Only now, there are waves and waves of spectators attacking them.
The spectators are basically perfect clones. I noticed Brusken being one of them. He was attacking the puppeteer, Erih. Brusken's eyes were glowing as he deflected the puppet strings Erih swing at him with small explosions. It was just like the original Brusken. Not even flinching as he takes one step at a time towards Erih while deflecting the attacks.
Erih seem to be doing the best out of the other contestants. While trying to attack Brusken and stop him from getting closer, he still managed to defend against the other weaker clones.
[ Gore ahead ]
Two of the contestants had gruesome endings. They were surrounded by the clones then the clones started to eat them alive. They bit and tore his skin. They had their limbs pulled apart like tigers having tug of war to see which one will get the biggest piece. Blood leaked everywhere. Their screams were extremely horrible to hear. It might give me nightmares the next time I sleep. Let's change the 'might' to 'surely'.....
The clone were just like zombies. They competed with each other to get an extra bite of the contestants. One of the unlucky contestants had their head crushed open by the rampaging zombies. His eyes role out of his head and brain exposed. Then, the zombie horde went extremely crazy. It seemed like they really want a bite out of the brain.
[ Gore ends ]
I turned away. I couldn't keep watching. The screams were still echoing in the arena. I really can't take it anymore. I took out my dagger once again and stab myself.
This time, my body felt heavier again. I grasped for air and try to calm myself down. Although I seen torture chambers in action and real zombies before, I have always thought I seen the worse of the worse. But seeing that, it's on a whole different level that I'm not ready to handle
I looked around. All the contestants were fainted on the floor. Well, most of them, at least. The spectators are back to their seats, including Brusken who was still hugging my hand.
"Oh damn, the night illusion wasn't scary, but the other one was serious. No matter what, I really do have to say, he is extremely talented to create an extremely perfect night sky illusion inside of an also super complete illusion." He really is the strongest illusionist I seen, and I have seen too much to count.
I calmed myself down and managed to get the wicked scene out of my mind. Then, pulled my hand out of Brusken's grip. I took my dagger out for a final time. This time, I did a tiny poke on Brusken's finger, just enough for some blood to leak out. I dip my finger into the blood and placed it into Brusken's mouth. Upon touching his tongue, he woke up instantly.
He was panting. His eyes were filled with fear. I pat his head. Then, I looked over to the ring as Brusken tried to get himself back together.
There was Lance, Rose, and Zack. The three of them formed three corners of a triangle. Lance and Rose were standing in a battle-ready posture. Zack was sitting on the ground and was smiling and occasionally giggling at the hard floor.
The atmosphere was extremely tense. I can only sense my heart beating and the calm motion of the wind as I stared at the three of those.