Chapter 278 Possible Future

Chapter 278 Possible Future

Having destroyed the ground below me, I moved myself to a patch of the flower field less affected by my attacks. The skeleton knight was still alive, unfortunately having read my attack and moved away in time which left it affected.

As for the other internal demons that were following Twigs, they promptly turned to ash alongside it. However, the battle was far from over, as the abyss spewed forth a never-ending stream of abominable creatures. The first wave seemed to consist of fodder, as the next group that crawled out were better formed. They were beginning to look like things I knew, like the skeleton knight.

"Elysia?" It clearly wasn't imitating her form completely, but one of the creatures that came out of the abyss was a kitsune that had the same demeanour and even held a spear in its hands.

I was now beginning to get worried about what else the abyss was able to do. If it could tap into my memories it might actually have some kind of consciousness. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be long until I found out.

As if someone had turned off the light in the room, everything turned pitch black. The flower field I stood in no longer existed, and even taking a single step was impossible. Just like when I entered this state, it feels like I am falling, but I no longer knew what kind of orientation I was in.

Soon the darkness morphed into the Ebonscale dungeon. Specifically, the large catacombs where I fought the skeleton knight. Emerging from one of the hallways was the skeleton knight with his great sword, and impaled on his sword was Elysia. This time, instead of being pure black beings, they were now detailed with clothes and everything.

"Tch, You can't fool me." It wasn't pleasant seeing a fake Elysia being skewered by a sword, but it was clearly a mental trick to try and retrigger my trauma.

As if the abyss heard my words, the catacombs began to shift, changing locations. A bright light flashed in my face, and suddenly I found myself in a city. It was reminiscent of my previous world, but it was much more advanced.

However, there were clear signs that this was still from the current world I was in. The four largest buildings I could see formed a cross, with a floating platform in the middle.

'This must be the capital city, but why am I here? I've never been to this place. Even my other self hadn't been here before.' As I was taking in the surroundings, the scenery suddenly changed. The sky was a dark orange, and the buildings around me had collapsed. Suddenly, the screams of people echoed in my ears, and flames were engulfing the city.

Looking ahead of me, there was a pile of bodies with one person standing on them.

"The Pope." In his hands was Elysia, slowly being choked out by his grip. I kept reminding myself that this wasn't real, but seeing it still shook me. It was very possible that I could be witnessing it for real, and it was this fact that scared me.

Not wanting to continue seeing Elysia get strangled any longer, I opened two small stardust gateways and put my hands in them. Opening up another 2 gateways where the pope was, I conjured ice spears inside the stardust dimension and sent them through the gateways, piercing the Pope.

The fake Pope dissolved into nothingness, and so did the pile of bodies.

'It looks like these are not actual monsters but just images for now.' It was most likely overkill to attack in such an elaborate way, but I didn't know if any of these images were actual beings.

'Let's see if I can force my way out of this illusion. It seems the blessing from the system doesn't work here. I suppose dreams don't technically count as illusions.' There were no signs of the system whatsoever, which included all the benefits that came with it. My guess was that the system is external and not attached to my soul, making communication impossible from where I am.

"How about we flood the place this time?" Taking the opportunity to push the elements as far as I could, it was time to try using water. I hadn't really used it as much as I'd like, but it was one of those elements where, in most situations, I could use something else and achieve the same result, if not better.

Jumping onto a wind platform again, I made sure to go high into the sky, as I intended to create a tsunami.

'This might be completely unnecessary, but oh well.' Raising my hands in front of me and closing my eyes, I tried to conjure up as much water as I could. I instantly felt the strain on my arms when trying to summon so much water, but I pushed through.

Once it became almost unbearable to keep under control, I finally opened my eyes to see how much I had conjured up. I witnessed a swirling ball of water that was trying its hardest to escape the confines of my mana. Its looks were deceptive, as it was only the size of an oversized beach ball, but as soon as I lose control, it will unleash a massive amount of water.

"Time to drop it." Having been let go, the water ball fell to the ground. As soon as it made contact with the ground below the condensed water burst out. In an instant, there was already a massive lake's worth of water shooting out throughout this fake city.

The force of the water picked up rubble and destroyed anything in its way until it hit some kind of wall. Soon the water hit the limits of this area from every side, indicating that I was in a box. Yet the water didn't stop there and kept rising, filling up the box.

"Shit, I need to break out of here before I drown myself." In hindsight, it was a stupid idea, and I probably should have used a different element, but I wanted to experiment at least a little.

'Water is definitely not my strong suit, I'm going to need more practice on how to use it more effectively.' Throwing balls of highly packed water is definitely not efficient, so maybe someone like Luna will be able to teach me later.

'Enough thinking! Time for escaping!' Conjuring up a spear of ice, I threw it up into the sky to see how high the barrier was, which wasn't too far from where I was floating. And so I quickly moved the wind platform up to where my ice spear hit the ceiling.

Creating a much weaker Starfire sword, I stabbed it into the barrier, causing it to crack. Light seeped through, showing that there was indeed space beyond it. After hitting it repeatedly, I finally shattered a portion of the barrier, allowing me to get out.

However, this had a chain effect on the rest of the barrier as cracks extended until *BOOM!*

The water that was trapped inside the barrier finally shattered it, creating a tidal they looped around. The weakened barrier could no longer contain the massive amount of water and started spouting it to the outside.

Getting myself out of the barrier, I found that it was suspended in the air just above the flower field. The monsters that were approaching me just before everything went dark were now coming out of the barrier itself.

'Okay, so it's more like a movie set made by the abyss than an illusion trying to trick my mind. Still, showing me something that hasn't happened yet... is it a sign of what's to come? It could have been my imagination coming up with the worst-case scenario, but something about it felt off.

'Ahh, enough about that. I should probably get out of this soul state.' I was overstaying my welcome as the merge was successful, and by the looks of it, I could be fighting this weird abyss forever.

'But how?' It occurred to me that I didn't have a clue about how to leave.

*Crack*

...

*BOOM!*

The water that was trapped inside the barrier finally shattered it, creating a tidal wave that flooded the entire flower field. Nothing was able to stop it as the water poured itself into the abyss, taking the monsters with it.

'I guess it wasn't that bad of an idea.' Indirectly causing the entire field to be ruined, it gave me a chance to try leaving.

'Alright, I got here by flowing mana into the cube thing, so maybe I just need to try and detach from it.' Sitting down on the wind platform, I crossed my legs and shut my eyes. Trying to reconnect to my real body, I tried to imagine myself leaving.

Slowly, I felt my body going limp, but before I could make any more progress, my body got grabbed. Opening my eyes, I saw a giant abyssal figure the size of a skyscraper grab me out of the air.

"What the fuck!?" I was confused at how such a thing appeared out of nowhere, but more urgently, my body started to get crushed by its hand.

"Argh! Bastard! It looks like it doesn't want me to leave."