“This doesn’t feel right.” I say the instant I step onto the third floor. “Something is wrong, but I can’t tell what. The world just feels off.”

  “Oh you wimp, stand aside and let me go first then.” Liv shouts from behind me.

  I ignore her and proceed forwards into a long corridor that seems to have no end. My footsteps don't even echo, as the walls somehow dampen sound. The only sound is my breathing and the occasional clatter of our armor and weapons.

  “Stay calm everyone, this is likely completely normal.” Stephen reassures us.

  I laugh. “Yeah, wandering down an endless hallway that is eerily silent is completely normal.”

  At that moment, the world decides that everything has been far too normal. The passageway around us starts vibrating, and then it ripples. We are hit with a shockwave that sends us flying, we tumble backwards and get repeatedly smashed into the walls over and over again.

  Then a blood curdling scream fills the air.

  I feel tons of claws scratching into my body and I look around, all I can see is floating black eyes. Thousands of them. I scream and throw fire everywhere and burn them all to ashes. I manage to find my footing and stand up, but they continue coming.

  For every ten that I incinerate, twenty more fill the space. I try to hit them with my dagger, but it just passes through harmlessly. I cannot see any of my squadmates, only the eyes. They swarm me, and I can feel tiny claws scratching against my armor. Thankfully, they can’t pierce it. But my health bar is still going down, they might literally kill me with a million tiny scratches.

  The system doesn't display any name. Which means they are either normal animals, or some sort of skill. I think the latter is more likely, from what we have seen the monsters don’t even spare non-sentient animals.

  I cast every spell that I can possibly think of. Light, earth, air, darkness, fire. I even try to just throw a burst of arcane magic at them. But fire and light are the only things that deal any damage.

  I set myself aglow like a miniature star, which helps a little bit. But the relentless attacks do not stop no matter how many of the eyeballs I watch vanish. It is almost like they do not exist at all.

  An explosion shakes the world, and I am suddenly engulfed in fire from all sides. Yet strangely it doesn’t burn me.

  When the fire and smoke clears, all of the eyeballs are gone. I look around and spot my squadmates standing, covered in numerous scratches. Stephen is bleeding from the nose, his faceplate cracked slightly. Liv is swinging her sword around in panic. While Violet is merely leaning against the wall like a complete badass, completely unfazed.

  Moxie stands, stave grasped in both hands, I can see the sweat on her forehead. It seems like she just casually whipped up a new spell. She smiles widely and runs towards me. “Maka, did you see? Monsters made of light, so big flash grenades wipe them away.”

  I sigh and pat her on the head a few times. “How did you figure out they were made of light?”

  She creates a rune and it forms into a small prism. “Prism split monsters into many pieces, thus they were clearly just illusions.”

  “Well then what the fuck were those attacks?” Liv asks, sounding a bit ticked off – probably at being unable to kill the attackers at all.

  Moxie thinks about it for a second. “Illusion creates light, creating heat, creates shockwaves that hurt us.”

  Liv and I stare at her as she almost instantly unravels the entire mysterious attack.

  Violet scoffs. “It was so fucking obvious right from the start. If they were actual monsters the system would’ve told us.” She insults us with the cold hard facts. “You all truly are a bunch of ignorant fools. But I think we have something more important to figure out than the source of all of your idiocy… What the fuck created the illusion?”

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  “It was the queen.” Stephen answers confidently. “My identification skill is picking up nothing aside from one very strong monster on this floor.” He points down the hall. “Right at the end of this hall, presumably.”

  A shiver of both excitement and fear runs up my spine. “Well then. Seems like we have a monster to slay, don’t we?”

  We waste no time and rush down the corridor now that we know there is actually an enemy watching and waiting for us. A really damn creepy one too. A tension hangs in the air as we run towards the danger.

  After a couple kilometers, we hear another scream. The tunnel shakes again, but I manage to dig my blade into the wall and stop it from flinging me every which way. I watch as the others perform similar actions.

  Though Violet, the badass that she is, simply stands straight and somehow is unaffected. She looks really cute. Though perhaps that is just the fear response kicking in.

  The tunnel fills with the eyeball illusions again. But knowing what I now know, I focus on throwing only light spells, and they absolutely get decimated. I even manage to keep them mostly away from Violet. But she only ignores any that swarm around her, almost as if they aren’t there.

  I wish I had that level of mental discipline. Perhaps I should ask her for some training tips, or even some personal instruction. Well, once this hive is over of course.

  Between Moxie and I, we quickly clear away the illusion and proceed down the tunnel.

  After what feels like a dozen more kilometers, the end of the tunnel comes into sight. The tunnel opens up to reveal two large obsidian doors, inlaid with gold and other gemstones.

  “Well, it seems like the big boss really likes shiny stuff.” Liv remarks. “Maka, time for you to do your thing!”

  I step forward, only to be stopped by Lemon. Maka, I really do not like the energy on the other side of the door. It feels bad. Like, really scary too.

  I mentally pat her on the head. Well, that just makes it all the more important that we slay the monster, right? We will be fine, our mentors wouldn’t let us go in if they didn’t think we were capable.

  Be really careful. Don’t hesitate to use the ability if necessary. Losing a bit of your soul is a lot easier to fix than death.

  I am unsure if Lemon is an annoying child, or an overbearing mother. Perhaps this is the dragon form of puberty caused by all her recent growth.

  I can hear you, you know. Now let me out so I can bite your arm off myself!

  I ignore the nagging voice in my head and continue forward. I look back at my squadmates. Stephen and Moxie are standing by, rifle and stave at the ready. Liv seems almost bored as she mindlessly twirls her sword around like it is a toothpick.

  Violet is looking right at me, and our eyes meet. She doesn’t look away as she scowls at me. I quickly avert my eyes from her beauty and turn back to the door. It looms over me, daring me to reveal what hides behind it.

  I place my hand on it and push it. It doesn't budge.

  So, I give it an even harder push, and add in a bit of wind magic for good measure.

  The door swings open with a loud screech and a bunch of clanging noises. Cracks spiderweb through it when it abruptly comes to a stop, and several pieces of obsidian fall off of it. Whoever decided to make a door out of a glass must’ve been really stupid, or a monster.

  On the other side of the door sits a large hall, columns are dotted around to support the excessively high ceiling. Large fires burn on the sides of the room, fueled by aether. On the far side sits a small throne, dwarfed completely by the room. It is fairly simple in design, basically just carved straight out of a rock and with no other engravings or designs.

  The throne is occupied by a small humanoid figure, more so than the other demons. But its aetherium skin clearly marks it as a monster, which the system quickly picks up on.

  [Demon Prince Lvl 250]

  Energy rolls off the prince in waves as it turns to stare right at me. Even at a distance, I can see the hint of a smile appear on its inhuman face. I take a deep breath, and channel all of my fear into determination as I have been trained to do.

  I smile back.

  Then all hell breaks loose as I lock eyes with the prince’s dark black ones. My vision goes dark, and I feel like I am being flipped over repeatedly. Yet I can still feel my feet firmly planted on the ground. It must be an illusion of vertigo. I lose all sense of orientation and end up falling onto my ass, creating an echo as my armor smashes into the hard ground.

  The pain seems to do something, and the illusion disappears. Liv is standing in front of me, shield at the ready. “Hey coward! Why don’t you pick on someone who doesn’t fall on their ass every five seconds?” I appreciate her coming to my defense, but did she really have to add in the insult?

  I stand back up and the room descends into darkness as the fires are simultaneously extinguished. Then, the demon prince screams again.

  I can already tell, this is going to be a very annoying fight. At least the assassin demon was limited to only short times in stealth. But it seems like this prince has a whole host of skills it wants to try out on us.

  Oh well, I guess that is what we get for challenging the queen demon in its own domain.

  Nevertheless, we will have to slay it. It is a good thing that we are getting quite good at that.

  [Trace Clues has leveled up! Lvl 17 -> Lvl 20]

  Next Chapter: Flipping and Spinning

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  "Hail Ringbreaker. Hail Apostate of Rust. Hail Dragon."

  Raziel is meant to be dead. He shouldn't have levels, skills, or the ability to throw lightning.

  But he does, and he's only just getting started.

  | ?? A noir-inspired, dystopian space setting | ?? A Gunslinger with growing magical abilities |

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