bookcurios Chapter 357: Cage
Chapter 357: Cage
"Freedom?!! You fucking massacre villages from other empires, and you called that Freedom!!!" Jessica yelled at her evil second, her voice breaking under the weight of the atrocities committed by her own body.
"What can you do about it? Those who escaped already have their memories taken care of, they will simply place the blame on the demons..." The second shrugged nonchalantly, completely devoid of empathy.
Jessica stared at her in profound disbelief, not believing she was hearing those exact words from her own mouth.
"Put the Blame on the demons?! That can’t wash the blood away!!" She snapped, her hands trembling as a sudden, horrifying realization clicked into place. She froze, the pieces of the puzzle aligning perfectly:
"So Buck... Is that why he hates me so much?" She muttered in a low, heartbroken voice.
"It seems I didn’t do a good job, and one escaped... Or maybe he witnessed what happened in the shadows." The second sighed softly, treating the survival of a victim as nothing more than a mild clerical error.
"I should kill him, but because of Mirabella’s No-kill rule, I can’t... This competition is still important, and your mission isn’t yet done." She said, her tone dripping with dark purpose. She slowly spread her arms around, commanding the vast emptiness of the mental realm:
"You told Nadia you want strength, and she gave you strength... I don’t understand why you are now against it." She said, and casually waved her hand. The spatial fabric warped as a massive, magical screen appeared before them, forcefully projecting a traumatic memory. It showed a heavily injured Jessica, her clothes torn and bloody, desperately running through the dark, twisted woods of the Dead Forest, vicious wild black wolves chasing relentlessly behind her.
"Nadia saved you, and you asked for power... She just helped you accomplish your goal." She added, manipulating the narrative to justify the Master Teacher’s horrific human experimentation.
"You!! She didn’t! She turned me into her puppet!!" Jessica yelled, the sheer betrayal of her mentor tearing at her soul:
"If I’d known, I won’t have told her those words!!" She lowered her gaze to the cold white floor, her spirit crushing under the chains of her own naive ambition.
"Jessica... You can’t fight me, if you chase me away, you will lose everything... Your level will drop to Lv1, not only that, You will lose the mythic eye and will also endanger your life. In short, if you force me out, you will die." The entity took a smooth, teleporting step, appearing instantly before Jessica, and slowly raised her hand, her fingers practically dripping with malice:
"Just let go and give in... Give me back control. Okay, I won’t kill anyone after the mission is done, what do you think?" She asked, a cruel, mischievous smirk forming on her face, staring down at Jessica, who was still looking defeatedly at her feet.
"No... I won’t continue being someone else puppet! I won’t!" She stubbornly looked up, her defiance flaring one last time, but it was a fatal mistake. Her gaze met directly with the glowing mythic eye on the entity’s forehead, which instantly hypnotized her, bypassing her mental defenses completely.
"Hahaha... You are too weak to resist, your strength, your abilities, your level, it’s all originally mine. If I go, you’re just a weak human." She said mockingly, her absolute dominance secured, and smoothly shattered into thick black smoke, violently merging with Jessica’s core once more.
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[Arena.]
The battles fought within the spiritual sea transcend physical time. It has only been one second in the real world, and that was all it took to completely conquer Jessica once more.
She blinked a couple of times, the humanity draining from her expression, and her single blue eye vanished, violently turning back into an unfeeling, glowing silver.
"Surrender, I don’t want to kill you." Jessica said calmly, her cold emotionless tone completely stunning Buck, who was expecting a continuation of her psychological breakdown.
"You!! I won’t surrender!!" Buck yelled, his sheer, unadulterated hatred overriding his physical limits. He shot forward; even with the agonizing pain he was feeling from his shattered bones and internal bleeding, he still moved, throwing a desperate punch right at Jessica.
DING!
A sharp, piercing sound from a guzheng suddenly sounded from the Eagle Academy’s section. The physical sound waves instantly materialized, moved rapidly towards them, and lightly but firmly wrapped around Buck’s torso, gracefully carrying him backwards through the air, away from Jessica.
"This?!! Captain!! Let me go!!" Buck yelled, struggling against the acoustic binds, thick, dark blood flowing from his split lips and internal injuries.
"Are you stupid?!! You can’t even stand straight, and you’re still attacking!!" Captain Eve violently snapped at him from the spectator stands, utilizing her precise energy control to gently place the heavily injured Buck down on the medical deck.
"Help him."
The academy’s specialized mages quickly stepped forward, their hands glowing with restorative spells, and slowly started healing Buck’s catastrophic damage:
"Captain, we need to get him to a stronger healer..." Stellar yelled, assessing the terrifying internal injuries. Eve slowly nodded her head:
"Get with it." She said, dismissing them as her intense gaze remained entirely fixed on Jessica’s monstrous, unreadable form on the stage.
"Okay everyone." Davy yelled, abruptly descending from the upper sky.
"This winner of this round is Jessica!" He yelled, officially gesturing to Jessica, who simply turned her back on the bloodstained arena and walked away without a single word.
He moved his professional gaze over the deeply stunned, silent audience, and awkwardly coughed again to break the tension: "That was an interesting battle... Let’s see the next contestants!!"
He turned to the screen, reading the newly generated names.
"Hitachi from the dragon academy, and Nirvana from the sword academy!"
"....?!"
A collective gasp echoed through the coliseum. Everyone intensely stared at the two absolute monsters of their respective academies, as they stepped confidently forward, boots clicking against the restored stone, and stood silently before one another at the center of the ring.
"Okay you two, No-kill rule! You can start!" He said strictly, and instantly vanished from the arena, knowing the resulting shockwaves of this match would be devastating.
The two simply nodded their heads in mutual, deadly respect. Nirvana fluidly snapped her fingers, as her massive, heavy golden bangles materialized and rapidly appeared around her, humming dangerously.
"I won’t hold back, Hitachi." She yelled, a predatory grin on her face, and violently shot forward, her Bangles tightly following behind her like a meteor shower:
"Taking me on with your main weapon’s phantom energies... Don’t underestimate me." Hitachi calmly stated. The young master of the Azul clan didn’t even draw his sword. Instead, his celestial eyes spun violently. Instantly, under the absolute suppression, all the terrifying bangles flying behind Nirvana violently shattered into useless, mundane particles, harmlessly falling to the ground like golden dust.
".....?!"