章 55: Rouge et Noir (7)

"This is so unnatural! How are they moving like this?" Lucy who tried to maintain distance herself and the demons was more than taken aback when they kept closing the distance, despite the others pulling agro. It was as if the monsters knew of their strategy and actively fought against it.

"They have wings but don't fly, instead, they move around like humans! This is just insane!"

When it came to this observation, Ray and his team were not the only ones to notice it, Isaac and Ren's side also experienced the same thing. The fight was just so different from a normal monster encounter. Maybe it was because the demons also had human like intelligence, but that didn't warrant them to move the way they did. To say the least, it was bizarre.

The fight went on for about twenty minutes, completely exhausting them, luckily, they still had some potions remaining, but that would definitely not be enough. Linda for example, had exhausted her stash, mostly because she had to share with Ashley who still ran out of force in the end. With a quick sweep with its tail and a kick to the mid-section with plenty weight behind it, Linda was sent flying by a demon.

The kick sent her flying backwards a couple metres, enough for her to slam against the walls. She couldn't help but cough severally and uncontrollably, luckily there was no blood, she only experienced a loss of breath for some seconds.

She noticed her eyes become unfocused for a second, but then it returned back to normal, 'damn, I've become too tired, this isn't good.' She looked towards Ashley, but Ashley was also kneeling on the floor with a shield around her, probably the effect of one of her skill. Over her was a demon continuously banging on the shield, trying to break it.

Linda gritted her teeth and pushed the pain all over her body to the back of her mind, doing her best to ignore it, as she tried to stand up, using her sword for support.

Just then, the demon banging its fists at Ashley's shield stopped. 'What is it about to do now?' Linda thought to herself, but she couldn't focus on that for long as she looked at the system message she had just received.

[Your skill 'Ice Heart' has been strongly activated]

[Your skill 'Ice Heart' has completely resisted the illusions on your mind. Your abnormal status effects have disappeared]

The messages looked confusing at first, but Linda immediately understood what was going on as she looked at her teammates fighting before her eyes. Now that her eyes were clear, she could see Ray and Isaac clashing, while Ash and Lucy were running around. Damien had stopped what he was doing and was just starring at Ashley who was still within the protection of her shield.

'I understand now, so we've been fighting each other all along? No wonder the demons acted strangely from the very start.'

Even though she had this knowledge now, Linda couldn't think of a way to free the others from the illusions. Just like her who was extremely exhausted, the others seemed to be the same, but they were pushing themselves past their limits so they could stay alive, at least from their perspective it was so.

Damien was standing over Ashley, his arms completely turned into metal. Linda couldn't move fast enough to stop him from breaking the shield and seriously hurting Ashley, so she did the first thing that came to her head, to call out his name. It was a rather idiotic solution, but it was something that came instinctually and she didn't really think it through in such a desperate situation.

Ironically, Damien turned his gaze towards Linda. She could see a lost expression over his face as he looked at her, "Linda? What's going on? I feel…" he couldn't finish his sentence before falling face first into Ashley's shield which threw his body to the side. Under normal circumstances, this would be the perfect time to strike the enemy, but Ashley was too scared to undo her shield, so she remained inside.

Linda brought herself over to Damien, hoping his head had been cleared and he was no longer under the illusion. Her skill had helped her to achieve this, so she concluded that Damien also had a skill that had pulled him out of the illusion.

"Linda, what are you doing? Kill the demon!" Ashley screamed from within her shield.

Linda didn't bother paying any attention to her words, what she needed to do first was make sure that Damien was not out of it, it was better to have someone by her side to look for a means of stopping the madness around her since she was in no position to do anything on her own.

"He's not a demon, we're under an illusion, " she explained.

"What? An illusion?" Ashley couldn't believe it, but she looked around to see how the others were fighting the demons, and of course the object of question always remained the strange movements. She didn't say anything and just observed Linda as she picked up the demon before her to take to the side where she rested his back on the wall. What followed, Ashley could only describe as harsh, even though it was been done to a demon.

There was no other way for Linda to get Damien to wake up, so naturally, his face had to suffer some hits accompanied with her shouting his name to get him to wake up. On the next hit, Linda hit her hand on a hard metal surface, causing her to wince in pain. For Damien who turned that side of his face to metal, it was more of a reflex action.

Opening his eyes to Linda clenching her palm, Damien could piece together what happened. His face still hurt on both sides, but that was less important at the moment.

"Let me guess, you guys also got the objective to kill the red demons."

"We were tricked. We need to find a way to free the rest…" Just then, both of them received a different notification.

[You have successfully broken the illusion and unlocked the true clear condition]

-Clear Condition-

Kill the Black Demon and Retrieve the Black Obsidian Shard

. . .

Looking onward, they could spot a raised altar at the middle of the place on the ground below the two layers at the sides where they had been fighting. They were at the second layer from the top, so they were closer to the large ground space. Putting the issue of how they were going to reach the ground, Linda and Damien spotted something peculiar at the top layer surrounding the hollow space.

"I think we've found the way to break free of the illusions," said, Damien.