CHAPTER 71 REALITY
//AN: This one covers some of the same rough stuff as last chapter along with implied rape. There's nothing explicit in the chapter, but it's still there.//
Keeping track of time was impossible.
Lurks had absolute control over everything I did, so I remained a prisoner within my own memories as she sifted through each one. Every moment playing before my eyes like a TV show, except I got to fully experience it in an immersive fashion instead of there being a layer of separation through a screen.
I couldn’t tell whether it was days or weeks, months or years that I spent there. After the first dozen I struggled to tell what was real and what was fake. I caught flashes of a room, finely decorated, with a large bed against one wall.
Hundreds of memories flooded my mind over an indeterminable amount of time. Sports competitions, watching movies, music, eating, laughing with my family, visiting friends in different states, nothing was left unmolested.
In between those memories I got flashes of the room I was kept in. Lurks was always there. And with my senses completely out of it from the sensory overload I couldn’t fully feel or sometimes even comprehend what she was doing.
Sometimes it looked like she was torturing me, but I couldn’t feel it as a memory filtered through my mind taking over everything once again. Other times I’d get overwhelming flashes of pain through what should’ve been a pleasant memory of a date with an ex-girlfriend.
Other times I noticed Lurks straddling me, she was particularly… energetic, in those moments.
Originally, while I no longer struggled against the constraints imposed upon my mind thanks to Lurks’ abilities, I still tried to keep my grasp on reality.
After the next one hundred memories, I began to embrace them instead. Living within the dreams of my past was much more tolerable than whatever was happening to me now. My mind struggled to cope with the knowledge of what Lurks was doing to me.
So I didn’t acknowledge it. On some level I was still perceiving every little thing she did to me. Every indignity, every violation, every bit of pleasure, and every bit of pain. But I did my best to pretend it wasn’t even there. That it wasn’t even happening, and I allowed the memories she showed me to help take away from the cutting edge of that defilement.
That was the only way I was able to even hold on to a fragment of my sanity.
***
One day I came to find that I was in control of my body. I didn’t know if I’d had control of it for a while, or if it had just happened recently. My mind felt clouded and completely overwhelmed.
I noticed many system notifications filling my mind, but I couldn’t comprehend them.
A flash of memory burned itself into my mind, I leaned over the side of the bed I was on and immediately ejected whatever was in my stomach.
The acidic liquid burned my mouth and nose as I heaved. It took a few minutes before I had nothing left to puke up, and so I just laid there, shuddering.
Tears started welling up in my eyes as I desperately tried to wipe them away. I slowly curled up hugging my legs to my chest as tears streamed down my face.
I don’t know how long I laid there before I passed out. I woke up to someone grabbing me and yanking me up by my hair.
My eyes instantly cleared and noticed Lurks as she held me up to look at her. I didn’t struggle, I didn’t cry out from the pain even though it hurt. I just waited.
“It’s time, heal yourself and get dressed. Then follow me.” She said, it wasn’t a command in my mind, but that didn’t make the order she gave any less inviolable to me. She tossed my tunic at me that I had been given by the elves. It was only when it hit my face that I realized I was naked, the thoughts not fully forming in my mind as I tried to dress myself with one arm.
I cast a single use of [Nature’s Touch] and immediately a lot of aches and pains I didn’t even realize were there disappeared. I then shakily stood to my feet and followed after Lurks as she led me out of the room.
I didn’t bother trying to remember the pathing we took, I just followed. We walked and walked and walked and walked and walked until we made it to a room.
“Go inside and wait here. Someone will come and fetch you when it’s your turn. If you win, I’ll let you go back to the cellblock. If you deliberately try to lose and let yourself get killed, I’ll intervene. I’ll let you fill in the blanks of what I’ll do to you.”
With that final threat she turned around and walked down a different path than the way we had come. I stood there for a few minutes before her words filtered through the haze in my mind and I turned around and went through the door she had left me standing in front of.
There were a couple of other people standing inside the room that looked at me when I entered. Several of them sneered when they looked at me before just turning around and ignoring me outright.
I went to a corner of the room that didn’t have anyone in it and sank down into it. I rested my head against my arms as they hugged my legs and just let the time pass idly. It hadn’t been hard for me to while the hours away doing absolutely nothing. After my ordeal with Lurks time became inconsistent in my mind, a few seconds feeling like hours and hours feeling like they never even existed.
It seemed that as soon as I had sat down someone was grabbing me and shaking me. I looked up at them and what they were saying finally reached my ears.
“It’s your turn, get up already!”
I slowly pushed myself to my feet, the short man in front of me just huffed indignantly before turning around and walking out of the room with a curt statement, “Follow.”
I followed.
I was led to a cavern roughly a quarter of the size of the main one. There were probably a couple hundred people milling around in here, in the center was an enormous cage. It was roughly one hundred feet in length and width. There were stands for people to sit in all facing the cage, soldiers occupied a decent portion of the room, but it still felt somewhat empty given the fact that this room could’ve easily held 10,000 people and there were probably that many in the entire camp if you also counted the slaves along with the soldiers.
In the cage I could see two men fighting each other. I say fighting, one was currently getting the shit beat out of him and was unable to fight back. People jeered and hurled insults at the fighters before the fighter that was winning snapped his opponents neck ending the match.
The soldiers cheered when they heard the sickening crunch of the guys neck ring out through the underground coliseum.
Up high at the top of the seating area I could see a cubby carved into the wall, up there I could see Drikith seated with several other people that I assumed to be the other cell-block leaders. I saw Larks up there, but I didn’t see Lurks. Larks gave me a knowing smile that made my stomach roil violently.
I quickly turned my gaze back to the floor, unable and unwilling to try and look anyone in the eyes right now.
A man got up in front of the cage and started speaking with a traditional announcer's voice. His voice was just a dull buzzing in my head that I ignored as I filtered out the completely unnecessary information he was providing. I kept walking behind the man that was leading me before I received another command.
“Stop.”
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I flinched instinctively at the voice I immediately recognized as Lurks.
“Look at me.” She ordered.
I slowly looked up, she was standing just in front of me, in her left hand she held the sword Illesea had given me. She then held it out to me and for a moment I stood there, uncertainty clouding my judgment. I slowly reached for it, my hand gently grasping the hilt.
Lurks let it go into my possession before turning around and walking away without another word.
I stood there for a moment before tears slowly filled my eyes again as I held the blade closely to my chest. Equal parts hate and relief filled my chest. The hate was irrational. I hated Illesea for bringing me to this world, for having a hand in my circumstances however indirect. I hated her for not being strong enough to fight off the Sentinels of Discord. I hated her for not knowing that I was suffering, for not saving me again from my fate.
The relief came in the form of an anchor that the blade provided. It was something familiar to ground myself to, something I could reasonably form a foundation on in my mind. I knew the blade would never betray me, that it would be by my side until I released it. That consistency brought my mind security and helped me relax slightly despite the circumstances.
And with that relaxation my circumstances finally sunk in. I was being prepared to fight.
I was going into that cage next and I was going to fight someone to the death.
My mind sharpened instantly, despite everything that had happened my instincts hadn’t been quelled. My self-preservation had been destroyed along with my pride. But Lurks’ words echoed in my ears, she had warned me that intentionally allowing myself to die would result in a punishment. I wasn’t interested in finding out what that was. In return, if I won, I wouldn’t have to go back to that room. That disgusting fucking room.
I needed to win. Every part of me was hinging on that. So I devoted every aspect of my minds to that. All six of them. I frowned slightly. But I didn’t have time to focus on the weird state of my mind right now. I quickly glanced at my missing arm. I allowed one of the mind processes to build me up an arm to use. I’d more than likely need it.
I allowed another to focus on bringing up my armor skill next. I’d need to be protected if I was going into a fight.
I quickly glanced through my class skills, but didn’t see anything else of use for the moment other than turning my passives back on, causing mana to start pumping through my body helping alleviate the sluggishness I was feeling.
Right before I realized I had a couple of new general skills.
General Skills -
Tier 1 [Identify] - Level 9
Tier 1 [Rest] - Level 1
Tier 1 [Mana Sense] - Level 25
Tier 1 [Electric Sense] - Level 25
Tier 1 [Sword Apprentice] - Level 18
Tier 1 [Wood Manipulation] - Level 6
Tier 1 [Accelerated Thoughts] - Level 21
[Fist Technique] - Level 3
[Mining] - Level 3
[Fruit Production] - Level 1
Tier 1 [Fatigue Resistance] - Level 7
Tier 1 [Erotic Arts] - Level 2
[Parallel Minds] - Level 10
My mind hitched a little as [Erotic Arts] brought out another traumatic memory, but I immediately compartmentalized it and focused on everything else. A lot of my skills had been leveled up, some even to the max of the first tier. [Accelerated Thoughts] had gotten a nice bump as well.
But I think the most important one was the [Parallel Minds] skill. It had been one I was wanting to get for a while. It was almost funny how ironic it was that I got the skill while being forced to hide within my own mind. Almost.
I’d count my blessings for the moment, and take time to fully understand the skill at a later date. I’d thought everything had been moving kind of slowly before, but seeing that my thought speeds had just increased 16% over what I last remembered cleared up the misunderstanding.
I could now process the things I was seeing more quickly, making it seem like everything, including myself, was moving more slowly. Which just wasn’t the case, it was somewhat good to know.
The announcer got louder causing the crowd to cheer, so I devoted a single mind to focusing on what he was saying. I had six and only two were actually doing anything so I might as well try to pay attention.
“Here we have two new contestants in their debut! The first, coming from day-block Alsen. A newly formed tier three! No, literally! He just finished tiering up right before this fight! Newly formed tier three level one! Gerney!”
A man stepped into the cage and raised his arms giving a confident roar. He was shirtless and extremely well toned. Identifying him gave exactly what the announcer said.
[Level 13]
Well, at least I knew he had only just acquired his third class, so I definitely held a significant advantage here.
Not that anyone else knew that, besides Lurks and Drikith.
“And his opponent is an interesting one. One that is unique in all the time we’ve been hosting these fights, hell, he’s unique in the entire time this camp has existed! I present, from night-block bel. The elf, Alex!”
He gestured over to me and I took that as my cue to enter the cage. Before I stepped into the cage I hid my level. I didn’t need people knowing what level I was coming in at and what level I’d be leaving at.
I was going to start manipulating every advantage I had no matter how insignificant it seemed going forward.
The man had a hateful look that seemed paltry and insignificant to the looks Lurks had given me. I couldn’t help but feel slightly sorry for this man, he had no idea what was happening. No idea how big of a disadvantage he was at.
My arm finished up as I stepped into the cage, along with my armor. My steps sparked giving me a flashy appearance, not that I was necessarily interested in showing off to these people. I was here to win and go back to my private room, where I would be left alone. Hopefully.
I looked at him impassively as he started yelling things at me from across the cage. Given that we were roughly one hundred feet away from each other it would’ve been hard to hear him over the announcer anyways, but I still just tuned him out and didn’t focus on his lips to see what he was saying. I just held his gaze, waiting.
“The bets have been placed, the fighters have spoken, or rather a fighter has spoken! And without further ado! Let them BLEED!” The announcer roared, signaling the start of our fight.
The man launched himself forward, it looked like he was some sort of pugilist as well given that he wasn’t holding a weapon. I found that interesting and short sighted honestly. You could’ve at least come in here with spiked gauntlets or something. Brass knuckles maybe. Coming in here without a weapon at all though? Even if your class was based on it, it seemed short-sighted honestly.
He was significantly faster than Fist was as he quickly ate up the distance between us. He was certainly fast. Faster than I would’ve thought. In no time he was standing before me, planting his feet, he curled his left arm close to his chest while raising it slightly to cover his head, his right arm rotated slightly as his torso turned and twisted opposite his legs that he kept firmly planted.
And then he took a single step forward, his torso rotating back to bring his arm forward with his full strength, and then his arm snapped forward coming at me with significantly more speed and power than he had initially let on.
His form was impeccable, his focus and determination were admirable compared to the few humans I had fought before.
But he was still hopelessly outclassed.
I sighed and took a single step forward. [Dodge] activated, slowing the man in front of me to a crawl. I stepped under his arm that was swinging at me, and as I passed him by I swung my blade through his chest.
The sword Illesea had given me had always cut through things cleanly and neatly. And as I became faster that just became more and more true.
Human bodies were no different in that regard.
Before the cutting prowess of a blade crafted by a tier seven elf, a human body that had only just made it to the third tier, didn’t stand a chance.
I took a few more steps away as a snap of lightning flashed off the blade as I poured some mana into the attack. I had been certain the blade would cut through him easily, but I wasn’t going to take any chances either. [Second Strike] activated and struck a second blow, mirroring my first one.
He took a few stumbling steps before his body fell apart into quarters. Arms, legs, and head were now each individual parts that had their own segment of his chest still attached. His limbs fell into a bloody heap in the cage, causing the entire room to go silent.
Eventually the entire room broke out into equal parts cheering and jeering.
Of course some would be upset that it had ended so quickly, they had come here to be entertained, not witness a one-sided slaughter. On the other hand some were excited to see such a proficient display of skill. They had loved seeing an arrogant contender get put in his place by someone he had viewed as weaker than him.
I agreed with that mindset personally, not simply because it was me he had been insulting, but there was just something cathartic about seeing prideful people eat their own words. Not that this man had a chance to even understand that he had lost.
I saw the notification in my mind signaling his death and nodded slightly to myself before turning around and walking towards the exit to the cage that I had come in through.
All I could think right now was that I hoped Lurks would keep her word.