It took a while for Cedric to lure his Nightmare into place. As one might expect from an entity born out of fear, it was quite cautious. Convincing it there was no trap would be impossible, but convincing it that it had already seen through the trap…?

Cedric smiled as he saw the glowing, angler fish shaped wireframe that marked his Nightmare’s position freeze - slowly shifting its head around to look at all the illusory Andies that had been positioned to ambush it. Andie posed no threat to the Nightmare, and it knew that. Still, it might find the enormous quantity of Andie suspicious. There was, after all, only one of her.

Thankfully, it seemed Cedric’s Nightmare had the mind of a cunning beast, not a cunning person. A liar’s instinct, but not their wisdom. And so, it either found nothing wrong with the sudden appearance of a clone army, or assumed Cedric would crudely use the illusions’ semi-tangibility to directly assault it. Most likely the latter.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Cedric couldn’t help but smile a practiced smile - one born of habit, not instinct. Hook, line, and sinker. The Nightmare had just swum its way into a direct assault that weaponized the semi-tangibility of Cedric’s illusions - just as it had probably predicted. But the method was far from crude.

“Lend a hand, my Empathy.”

All the false Andies leapt into battle, evaporating into icy purple fire as soon as they got close to the Nightmare - revealing their original, less illusory, drone form beneath. Beams of icy purple energy shot out of the drones and into the wire frame, where they reached deep and tore out a mixture of black scales that shimmered like oil, and clean mathematical cubes of shadow goo. As soon as the pieces were separated from the Nightmare, they started to burn away into Will to Live. Icy purple Will to Live. Cedric’s Will to Live.