I felt an extreme force tug violently at the walls of my mind. Brutal, savage, and utterly ruthless.
In the next second, the world around me spun, and I found myself seated in the exact same spot I had occupied moments earlier. The eerie, sinister room remained just as it had always been — the broken weapons, shredded clothes, and worn trails of blood still littering the floor.
The room was just as I remembered it.
In fact, it was perfect. Almost too... perfect. My expression darkened.
Just moments before the grim premonition, I had sensed energy signatures unlike anything a Dormant Awakened could possibly emanate. Only a moment had passed, yet the overwhelming sense of danger I felt had only grown stronger.
Something was wrong...
Could it be? My eyes suddenly widened. Without a second thought, I activated my photon absorption field.
For a second, darkness consumed my vision, all forms of light erased from existence. And then I felt it. The field I had activated sensed three energy signatures rapidly closing in on me, one of them mere moments from impaling me through the chest.
The sudden surge of darkness did not slow their movements in the slightest, which meant they were aware of my abilities.
With a grim expression, I gave a command to my Dark Soul Core, forcing it to accumulate a large amount of my soul essence before detonating it. Almost at the same time, I reached towards the sea of darkness within my Soul Sea, summoning pairs of swords that shimmered within the absolute blackness.
The sudden explosion of my Soul Core’s essence, combined with the interference caused by the photon absorption field, forcibly severed the invading force’s grip on my mind. As my vision returned, I heard a groan, followed by the sound of blood dripping onto the floor.
The illusionist Awakened had been injured when I severed his connection with my mind. However, it had come at the cost of a large reserve of my soul essence. Though I couldn’t care less about that right now.
No longer having to rely solely on my perception of energy signatures, I could see the pair of dual blades rapidly inching toward my heart, while another long, gleaming sword aimed for my throat.
Specks of light glimmered around me as I leaned back, trying to put some distance between myself and my assailants, despite knowing it was useless. There was no way I could easily dodge such an attack, especially at such a close range. However, I wasn’t trying to do that.
The specks of light around me eventually dimmed, and a pair of swords soon flickered into existence. I raised one into the air, holding the other before my chest.
In the next second, a terrifying force crashed into my arm. I expected the surge of energy to slam me into the ground, allowing me to evade the blade poised for my heart. However, as though the wielder had somehow seen through my thoughts, he softened the surge of energy and stepped to the side just as one of his pair of blades came into contact with the second sword.
The other, however, I could do nothing about. I could only accumulate a large amount of soul essence, hoping to somehow reduce the damage. The blade tore through flesh, ripping through my bones with ease. However, it could move no further. As blood dripped down the corner of my lips, my disheveled hair falling across my face, I rapidly retreated, coughing out a mouthful of blood as I did so.
If I didn’t possess an SSS-ranked soul core, which made my abilities: durability, essence reservoir, and strength, far greater than that of others of the same stage, I would have been dead moments ago. And yet, I was still far from being out of the perilous situation.
Drip. Drip.
Perhaps I could have shouted, alerting the guards stationed outside the cave room. However, somewhere within me, I knew they had already been killed. The three assailants wouldn’t have made it this far, otherwise. Besides... I could sense some sort of isolation field surrounding us, severing all forms of contact with the outside world.
As I assessed my enemies and hastened the pace at which I healed, two of the assailants rapidly moved toward me. With a pair of cold, inhuman eyes, they said nothing as they rained upon me, a fury of strikes. At the same time, I could feel an external conceptual force seeking to disrupt my mind and thoughts, thereby affecting my decisions.
The photon absorption field, even if it didn’t live up to an ability I had expected of an SSS-ranked Soul Core, still managed to affect their vision, if only barely. And the ability to see the movements of their shadows allowed me to somewhat predict their foot placement, the direction of their attacks, and even changes in their movement.
Against three True Awakened, I was somehow holding my own. However, my expression only darkened even further. I knew I wouldn’t last long at this rate.
Not only was my energy reserve rapidly diminishing, but worse still, one of the assailants possessed an ability that allowed them to accelerate explosively in an instant, almost rendering Blindspot Exploitation useless. And the other, more dreadful and horrifying assailant, was an extremely rare swordsman. In the few moments that the grueling battle had been raging, blood rolling down my skin, and grievous wounds running across my body, he had already begun to understand how Blindspot Exploitation worked, making use of feints and sudden change in directions to throw me off guard, delivering ferocious blows that left me stunned and aghast.
I could feel my head ringing and my vision blurring, a clear sign that I was nearing my limit. The illusionist was dealing more damage than I could withstand at this point.
"...!"
With a mad, almost deranged fire burning in my eyes, I surged towards the distant illusionist, paying no heed to the sword and dual blades that sought to tear me apart.