Okay. Okay. I had this. One chimera, one winged creature, and some sort of telepath called a Mindscribe. The flying creature would be the most difficult to deal with, so I would have to rely on my party to deal with it. Even if the most they did was hold it off, that should work.

The chimera was going to be slightly easier. It made a lot of noise and smelled like death and sewage making it easy to track regardless of where it moved. The chimera also needed to be held off by my party. Luckily for me, one of them had already engaged the chimera.

I needed to deal with Mindscribe first. It had somehow invaded my thoughts, giving it the power to speak directly into my mind and bypass the magically induced deafness. Telepaths were not new to me, though even in my old world the power was rather rare. Luckily, a telepath’s strength was determined by the weakness of its prey’s mind and it had chosen me as its target. That would be its first and last mistake.

There was a short and painful stabbing in my head. I could feel myself falling to the ground right before I opened my eyes to an odd space. The space was not bright, nor was it dark, though there was no source of light. No furniture adorned the area and there were no actual walls or doors. Below my feet, an unexpected and unknown path seemed to stretch out infinitely into the far distance. The path was a soft, almost translucent white. Other than the maybe 10-foot wide expanse that looked like a path, I was surrounded by the Nothingness.

And I could feel myself as if I was somehow transported away in my physical body. That was, of course, not true. This was my Mindspace. Telepaths, who all generally had weak combat prowess, relied solely on invading the Mindspace of their prey to achieve victory. Although I had never experienced an invasion into my Mindspace, stories and warnings of Mindspace battles were always fairly prominent in popular songs and stories brandished by bards in taverns and celebrations.

Once the continent war had started in Ordite, telepathic assassinations had become commonplace at unexpected speeds. Yet, none had ever tried to kill me in a forced mindscape.

“Thiiiis is aaaan iiiiiinnntereeesting miiiiiind,” hissed the Mindscribe, a huge monstrosity taking corporeal form someway down the white road of my mind. “Whheeeere doessss thiiis paaath leaaad tooooo, I wondeerrr?”

“I’m sure I will find out one day,” I said casually, not a hint of fear in Lilliana’s small voice. “But you won’t.”

The cold, grating metallic sound erupted from the forming creature in a pitch so high I had to restrain myself from slamming my hands to my ears. “Ohhhh, Iiiii don’t knoow about thaaaat.”

As the creature formed, I tried not to cringe back in disgust. It was absolutely hideous. Each of its eight legs was thicker than my body and bristled with a thin layer of coarse brown hair. Its abdomen was a bulbous mass, housing the creature’s organs and likely a sac of deadly venom. Its eyes, however, were where its terrifying figure became hideous. Hundreds of eyes dotted the creature’s ball-like head looking in every direction. Each eye seemed to blink with a unique tempo, creating a terrifying wave of motion. Facing me were the arachnid’s four largest eyes, all focused on me and unblinking. From its mandibles swung strands of something white and gleaming.

“You are not a Mindscribe,” I muttered, recognizing the species. The arachnid creature existed, to some extent, on Ordite I realized with not a small amount of surprise. While the ones from my world generally were more humanoid than the full beast before me, I recognized its horrible visage. Its revulsive eyes. “All I see before me is some type of deformed Cave Crawler.”

“I haaaave gone by maaany names. Huuuumaaans raaarely livvvve to naaaaame meeee.” The moment the creature was fully formed, it lifted one of its heavy legs and slammed it forward. The white path trembled and I could see it had cracked under the arachnid force.

“You probably shouldn’t do that,” I said, grinning. “The more you damage the girl’s Mindspace, the stronger the presence of my own will be.”

The creature didn’t stop pounding its legs into the path, one at a time. I was pretty sure the creature, Vullor, could have moved more than a single leg at once. It was taking its time. I just watched as it attempted to destroy the remnants of Lilliana’s Mindspace. Based on what I knew, the girl’s soul was gone. She had died, leaving the vessel open for my own.

This mindspace, its emptiness, and its mixture with the Nothingness was likely a result of the soul swap. A remnant.

“I’m not sure you want to experience what happens after the path is destroyed.” In fact, I knew it wouldn’t. There was a reason no one had ever attempted to invade my Mindspace.

The arachnoid spat something at me, silver liquid glimmered as it erupted from Vullor’s mandibles. The stringy liquid latched to my arm, the one still in pain from the winged monster’s earlier stab, and began to smoke right before a searing pain erupted and pain flashed. Acid.

I put a hand to the wound and tore into the burning skin, using energy to cut off the dying flesh. The pain was sharp but quick as the heated energy cauterized the wound. The putrid smell of burnt flesh wafted over the area. I winced at the removal, still keeping my eyes on the creature. Vullor, on the other hand, chittered at my obvious pain and spit a few more globs in my direction. I raised an energy shield in response and the spray simply slipped off the invisible wall to the ground.

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It chittered again, legs still stomping and continuing to send spikes of energy down into the path’s foundation. A large crack finally spread from where Vullor’s eight legs plunged into the ground and the crack started to move, running through the center of the illusionary landscape which melted away as the cracks grew, revealing it to be not a path but a bridge.

It continued to break away, the Arachnid’s shrill laugh filling the space once more while its eyes turned to stare at me. To watch me fall into the expected madness and insanity. Each gleamed with pleasure for its incoming kill.

But there was no prey in front of it.

I stared back fully in control and smiling as we dropped through the bridge into the Nothingness below.

Before either of us had time to comprehend the feeling of falling into Nothingness, everything around us shifted. The Nothingness turned into a raging fire. The infinite path morphed into dirt stained with a deep crimson. A river rushed through the bloodied dirt, its natural clear color long since dyed with endless blood being poured into its stream from the eternal continental war that raged throughout the land. Two suns hung at their apex and rained down heat in dry waves while a single crescent moon held static between them. My suns. My moon.

“Whatttt… whaaaat is thiis?” Vullor shouted, its triumphant expression dashed as all its eyes spun around, taking in the Mindscape. “Hoowww can youuu have two Mindscapes?” Then one of its eyes landed on me. The creature’s entire body froze. Its four eyes centered on me while the others looked away as if refusing to look in my direction.

I knew what the creature was looking at. It saw me. Not Lilliana. Me. My Mindscape would reflect my true self, not Lilliana.

In the arachnid’s large eyes I saw the woman, the Queen, I had once been in Ordite. I now stood well over six feet tall, every inch of my body covered in thick, hardened muscle and flesh scarred from long periods of war. My eyes were a deep, bright red that stared back at me with a horrible cruelness and ferocity. A single scar etched my face, tracing its way vertically through my right eye. I remembered that scar. Remembered the King who had put it there.

Remembered him gurgling blood at my feet.

And there, centered on my forehead, was the marking of a Lunari. A crescent moon colored with a deep yellow. A black line crossed through the marking, identifying me as a Lunari who had turned her back to the Moon.

I grunted as the memories came flooding back to me, shoving them away and turning to the arachnid who still stared at me. I knew it wasn’t fully the change in my appearance that kept it frozen.

My Mindscape. My world. If the Cave Crawler could not overpower my mind and take control of the Mindscape, it was my prey.

A large grey sword materialized in my hand, its blade sharp enough to cut the air around it. I swung it down and it whistled as air parted to make way for its destructive power.

“Ah, welcome to my Mindscape, Cave Crawler,” I snarled. The feeling of once again being in my own body, even if as an illusion, was immeasurably satisfying. I raised my empty left hand and curled it into a fist, my old muscles spreading and then tightening with disuse.

When I spoke, Lilliana’s little voice was gone, replaced by my true voice, rich and commanding. There was a regal resonance to it, a timbre that demanded respect and attention. Even the wind stilled when I spoke, power radiating off me like an inferno.

I began to stalk at the stilled creature who was releasing screams of panic. I could see tendrils of energy pulsing around it while its muscles pulled, straining for release from my Mindscape’s authority.

With each step I took the bloodlust around me curled and reached out as if it had been sleeping since my transference into Graedon and it was finally getting to release itself.

“Whaaa… whoooo,” Vullor screeched, its large mandrils chittering in fear.

“I am Lilith,” I roared, the entire Mindscape, its very ground and air, shaking and pulsing with the power of my Will, “Ruler of all Lunari. Bane of the Empire.” I raised my sword, fueled with a storm of pride and rage. “Queen of Aedronir!” The large blade flashed down and cut the shrieking creature in two with a single wet schlick. Even when the two halves split, crashing to the ground, I refused to release the Mindscape. I watched the enormous spider’s flesh melt away, eaten by the acidic venom spilling over the body.

The first time I’d ever killed a monster, I’d felt so much guilt. I’d thought life itself, whatever its form, was something beyond my ability to understand or value. That had been beaten out of me within months as the King had forced me and the other Queen candidates through the Ma’johong desert.

Our lives were valuable. My life was valuable. The life of this monster was an obstacle in my path and its value amounted to how much its death would further the progress I made towards my goals.

My judgment was passed on the creature’s worth at that moment; not a single string of emotion pulled by slaying the monster. The Cave Crawler was nothing but an obstacle. Perhaps even one placed on my path by the Gods, if they truly existed.

I turned my eyes to the sky, the sky of my world. I knew it was just the illusion my mind had chosen, but I didn’t care.

“I will slay all who stand in my path and I will return to what is mine,” I screamed, my words echoing into the depths of Ordite’s endless sky.