The two unleashed their auras and the whole place was shaking. The air in the surroundings went cold and was moving rapidly. It was like we were in the middle of a sandstorm but without the sand. It was a pain to just keep my eyes open just like a person stuck in a sandstorm.

But amidst this chaos, I saw a few silhouettes moving. It was the other patriarchs and the matriarch. They took the chance of eliminating both Ierda and Polso and ran for the throne. Once any of them sits on it, they will obtain control over the entire Demon continent. If that happens, only god knows what would happen. We have to stop it no matter what.

The temple’s design was not simple to say the least. It had a complex maze-like design to make enemy invasion harder. Since this hadn’t always been a ‘temple’, it had booby traps all over the place. Much of the temple was dark and some areas were dimly lit which made it harder to spot traps. To add to all this, the temple constantly changed its layout. According to Osiris, there was even a treasure chamber somewhere hidden.

We were in the lobby area of the temple and the maze part comes after this. But the lobby area in itself was the size of three football fields. It would take the family heads a minimum of three hours to navigate their way through the maze area. They might not reach the throne at all in the worst case. We have got plenty of time on our hands, so the first priority is to maintain the power balance. To do that, no one should die here, but that is a difficult task. No matter how hard we try, at least one of us is going to die here.

Ierda shouted and Polso grinned like he’d been waiting. Ierda had an Ice attribute and Polso had a Mirage attribute just like Asher.

“Icicle cannon!” A huge cannon made of ice emerged from Ierda’s hands. The sharp ice was shot toward Polso.

“Optical Realism Shield!” At his words, a holographic shield made by the Mirage attribute appeared.

Before the shield could block the icicle bullets, Ierda ran towards Polso. Ice covered Ierda’s Hands like gloves.

Ierda muttered under her breath, “Permafrost.”

The icicle bullets were blocked by the Optical Realism Shield and the shield disappeared. There was a frosty smoke and Ierda emerged from the smoke. She hit Polso in the solar plexus. The place she hit was covered by ice and Polso spat out blood.

This was Permafrost. A skill that could be molded in different forms to fit various needs. Its main ability is turning the area of contact into ice. In this case, Ierda molded Permafrost into a pair of gloves and struck Polso. His core is now frozen making it harder to move.

“Not bad for a softie.” Polso said in a mocking way.

“Let’s see if you’re weaker than a softie. Shall we?”

Polso’s hand emitted a red glow and he faced his palm outwards and extended it towards Ierda.

This did not look good. It was time for us to intervene. I suggested Osiris, “Osiris, Please go after the other heads with Clara. Me and Asher will finish them off.”

Osiris nodded and told me to avoid killing them if possible. But he also said this. “The skill Polso is using right now is his most powerful. It can infect your mind and you’ll become a mindless zombie. This is different from the ones the Lauers family was affected by. The skill is the same but that one was cast with sufficient magic power to only disconnect their consciousness, but this time Polso is using more than half of his magic power. This might be his last trump card. Be careful.”

Polso unlike earlier was showing killing intent on his face. Ierda just scowled. Both of them were building up magic in their whole bodies. The aura was way too intense for me and Asher. My nose was bleeding and my head hurt from the pressure.

“So this is what a fight between two heads of families looks like.” Asher was astonished.

“I hope to grow past that level in the future. That's going to be my goal for now.”

Osiris and Clara are now gone. Me and Asher have to find a way to stop this somehow. I glanced at Asher. He was emitting a faint glow.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh it's nothing. I’m just trying to cloak myself with magic like Polso Daku. We have the same attribute after all.”

Look at this guy training even at the hour of mishap. “Do you have a plan? We have already practiced together to maximize our attribute’s strengths, so covering our weaknesses shouldn't pose a problem.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Yeah. They both have their focus solely on each other. They have forgotten about their surroundings. We'll take advantage of that. I’ll try to infect Polso’s mind. Although it might not work because of our skill level differences and the same attributes, but it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

This wouldn’t work. I’m sure of it. It would be dumb to use lightning against Zeus wouldn’t it?

“He would definitely have a mental barrier.”

“Hmm. Then I think we can first combine our magic and strike him. Aether is good at breaking mental barriers right?”

“I don’t know about that. Osiris didn’t say anything about that.”

“He did. You were day-dreaming.”

My face heated up. “What the hell, Asher! I wasn’t…”

“He said that the Aether attribute, if used correctly, can break almost anything. But, you need a good mastery of the attribute. I don’t think you are even intermediate.”

“Yes, well that's because…. the time was limited. We only had a month’s preparation. How do you expect me to familiarize myself in such a short amount of time?”

Asher glanced at Polso and Ierda. They were ready to launch their attacks anytime. The air around us became hot from the creation of magic. The noise gradually settled down as Ierda and Polso began adding more magic power and strengthened their spells.

“Okay enough chit chat. Let’s decide what to do next.”

“I have a plan. I use my Seraphic Slash and then..” Asher burst out laughing before I could finish.

“ ‘Seraphic Slash’? What kind of chuunibyou name is that?”

I was a bit embarrassed at my lack of talent for naming things. But was it really that bad?

“Forget about it.”

“Okay, fine. Let’s go ahead with your plan. But the name..hahah.”

Okay I’m going to filter out the five minutes Asher was roasting about my lack of naming sense and the…..chuunibyou allegations.

As planned, I cast my Seraphic Slash and Asher cast his Mirage magic. We combined them both and a purple mix of magic was created. We cast it toward Polso since Ierda was already at a disadvantage and attacking her would be pointless. I ran toward Polso at the same time, so that even if the magic slash missed, I could use my Luminivine blade to strike Polso down.

My blade was filled with Aether and my body was covered in Aether aura.

However, Polso noticed the magic slash and averted it with his skill that he had built up. I swung my blade at him and he dodged. He touched my body that was caught up by momentum.

I felt sleepy. Everything felt surreal.

"Andreas..!!"

I heard Asher shouting from the distance. His voice gradually faded and everything blacked out.

I was back in the classroom in my old world. This was the place I hated most. Is this Polso’s power? The images of my classmates flashed. This was the place where I felt the most overwhelmed. Everyone seemed to be having it easy. Be it exams or socially.

I had always found it difficult to socialize with others since middle school. Adding to this, the exam stress, peer pressure, problem with concentrating all made it worse.

All these might be something every student would face at some point of their lives, and I might just be overreacting, but the anxiety was no joke.

Maybe it was because I was delusional that I had been hoping that there was a better world somewhere else.

But wait…this is not the time for me to be going on and on about my previous world. What's done is done. I'm never going to go back to that world again. I have a job to do in this world. Something Osiris had entrusted me with. After that…I would make this world my home. Then I can finally live my life stress-free.

The weakness of Polso’s skill is that once you find the ‘key’ to get out of the illusion, you'll not get affected again. But finding that ‘key’ was easy. You just have to convince yourself that your actual reality is elsewhere. You need to convince yourself that this is just an illusion. It would be hard for ordinary people because the illusion is sometimes better than reality. The illusion would be sometimes about sad memories and sometimes about happy memories. Whatever affected or changed you the most.

This was something Osiris had informed me about even before we came here. He taught us various strategies to counter and defend against each patriarch or matriarch. He even went out of his way to give advice on battle formation with solo, duo or all three of us at the same time.

I regained my consciousness and sense of self and looked around. My head was still dizzy and my eyes were unfocused and bleary.

But…what is this?

The fighting seems to have stopped for some reason. Ierda had a look of horror on her face . Why? Polso seems to be shocked too. Polso looked at me indifferently as if I were just another piece of garbage on the roadside.

There was the stench of blood in the air.

Finally, I saw it. My mouth dropped open, my eyes widened and my pupils dilated. The air in my lungs felt heavy. My mouth ran dry. I was sweating from head to toe and a cold sweat ran down my spine.

It was Asher. He was in….a frozen state.

“What the hell happened here?!”, I demanded.

No, actually what the fuck even happened here. I lost consciousness and I came back. Asher was alright when I last saw him. So why is he in this state now?

Ierda explained, “The kid tried to save you when you were affected by Polso’s spell. Then we resumed fighting. The kid was hit by my spell which was charged with more than seventy percent of my magic power and Polso’s illusion spell while trying to get you out of the firing zone and get you to a safe area.”

….

I walked towards Asher who was frozen and had lost consciousness. This guy…he tried to save me even though he knew he would get in the line of fire.

Why? I'm not even worth saving…

And these fuckers have made this guy in such a condition…

What should I do now? That's right..

I have to kill them.