Now that I think about it... the whole situation felt like a well-curated skit made out of mine and Cass’s memories.

Nexar’s right. Kael shouldn’t be defending a person she’d just met a few hours ago. And why was Mendy exerting just enough force for me to defend against, despite being the strongest hunter in the forest?

That must be it.

It’s Voidmirror(A+) . Selka’s divine gift.

The void mirror is deadly, sure. But it can be easily undone with even the novice aura output.

That’s where these chambers come into play. Perfectly rendering the target unable to use aura and hence suffer in Voidmirror.

I could be wrong and this could just be reality. But I should choose a solution that could answer the problem either way.

I pushed against the wall and slid from beneath the beast, squeezing between its legs along the rocky floor.

The rough stone tore at my clothes and gnawed at my skin. I could feel it peel off layers as I scraped across it.

Man... I was going to be in a lot of pain if anything touched the scraped part of my back.

The beast turned back toward me instantly. Its brown vertical eyes reflected the soft golden light from above.

Dude was majestic, for sure.

Wait, was it a girl? I couldn’t remember.

I lifted my arm upward, palm open toward the ceiling.

Cass’s eyes widened.

The next second, my legs buckled. My knees hit the floor with a loud, bone-cracking thud.

Holy fuck, I broke them. I broke them!

Pain flared up from my knees, the trembling spreading to various parts of my body.

My face now scraped against the floor, despite my attempt to resist with my arm.

But I grinned through it.

This settled it.

This was the pressure of a master’s aura. Master (I) at best. No way it was close to Sovereign level at all.

Cass wouldn’t have known I was calling my sword at this point in time. In other words, the Cass here had knowledge based on what she knew according to me, the regressor, and not her own actual memories. And her aura, which should have been Sovereign level, was now capped at Master I.

Understandable. Selka couldn’t replicate what was beyond her own capabilities, so it got capped at Master(I).

The beast lunged at me.

I couldn’t move an inch. I couldn’t summon my aura either in this cell.

The beast’s canines dug deep into my collarbone.

"Gghhh..."

Fuck you, Selka! How the hell was she manipulating my brain to feel this much pain?

The beast shook its head violently, its canines still buried in my shoulder. The motion tore muscles inside, ripping more flesh apart.

"Ackkk.."

I tried to endure it, but with the aura pressure and the searing pain, I was getting nauseous. My vision blurred at the edges.

Was it okay for Selka to kill me? Because from what I knew, if you died in Voidmirror, you died in real life too.

Then.

"BOOOOMMM!"

The loud sound echoed through the entire prison as the ceiling exploded inward.

Debris rained down on me, chunks of stone and dust filling the air.

Blood Raven.

It broke through the ceiling as it fell, landing upright and digging itself deep into the stone ground with a resounding thunk .

The room suddenly brightened as natural light poured in through the massive hole the sword had made in the ceiling.

Dust swirled in the beams of light like tiny stars.

Crimson aura crackled out of the blade, dancing wildly in the air, spreading throughout the cell like living fire.

"Wha.." Kael started to say as she drew her sword and blurred before me in an instant.

But before she could strike, her instincts flared. She brought her sword up defensively, positioning its glancing edge to intercept.

The next instant, she twisted sideways.

Screeeechh...

Blood Raven’s sharp edge slid against her sword’s surface. Fire sparks erupted into the air as the blade drove forward with my hand behind it.

I caught the katana firmly, struggling against the oppressive aura still pressing down on me.

I brought the sword down in a horizontal arc. The blade cut through Mendy’s neck cleanly, severing the head completely.

You could be an A-rank threat level beast, but without using mana, you were just flesh against an S+ rank sword.

The force digging into my shoulder disappeared as the beast’s body fell from its throat. Its head remained on my shoulder, canines still buried deep in my flesh.

Not good.

I still couldn’t draw out my own aura. The artifacts embedded in the walls were still functional.

Kael gritted her teeth and raised her sword, bringing it down in a powerful vertical arc.

I drew aura from Blood Raven’s pseudo circuits, the same reason it had responded to my call in the first place. Good to know the artifacts effect doesn’t work on pseudo circuits.

The crimson flare spread rapidly across the blade’s surface.

Clang!

Kael’s vertical swing met the crimson-flared edge of Blood Raven head-on.

"Kuikk..." Her sword bounced off Blood Raven as soon as it made contact, her arms shooting upward from the sheer force of the rebound.

Kael couldn’t use her own aura. Selka was already at her limit, maintaining the master-level pressure pinning me down while making it seem like it was Cass’s aura.

Not gonna lie, it did feel very similar to Cass’s actual aura. Any other prisoner would have completely fallen for it.

I focused on balancing the crimson flare on the blade, stabilizing it.

As soon as it steadied, I looked at Kael. She positioned her sword parallel to her line of sight, the pointed end aimed directly at me.

It was her signature sword style: ’Piercing Tempest.’

Except she would need aura for it to actually be a "tempest." I’d seen her wipe out entire battalions with that deceptively simple style.

I swung my sword sideways just as she took her first step forward.

Szwip.

The crimson flare left my sword, separating from the blade like a crescent of pure destructive energy.

The next moment, Kael’s eyes widened in shock.

I grinned as Ilya’s gasp echoed in the sudden silence.

Kael’s torso slid cleanly off her waist as the wall behind her exploded into smoke and debris.

Aura Slash. Significantly weaker than Aura blade, but just enough to do the job.

It could only be used when the user reached master-level mastery in aura control. Since I already had emperor-level aura mastery, I could use it easily... even if my actual aura output was still only at intermediate level.

Thud.

The wide-eyed Kael’s torso hit the ground while her lower half remained standing for a moment before toppling over.

That’s it!

The sensation came flooding back. The circuits inside me, which had been stubbed and suppressed until now, rejuvenated instantly.

The aura slash had served its purpose perfectly. It had broken the artifacts embedded in the walls.

Crimson aura crackled out of me as it flared and spread throughout the room, crackling violently against the quasi-liquid layering that surrounded everything: The Void Room.

The crimson energy tore through the layers like paper.

Then, suddenly, the pressure pressing down on me vanished completely.

I turned left.

Cass and Ilya were looking at me, dead in the eyes, before they vanished like dissipating fog.

Mendy’s head disappeared from my shoulder along with Kael’s severed body and legs.

The pain creeping through my body slowly started to fade away, like it had never been real in the first place.

So it really was Voidmirror, huh...

I felt genuinely sad for the prisoners who had been tortured by Selka in the past, and would continue to be tortured in the future.

Not everyone could summon their sword and break aura-insulating artifacts like I just had.

Most prisoners would break under the near-death experiences crafted by Voidmirror. And because of its nature, using the target’s own memories as illusions, they would gradually lose their will. They might even see people close to them in the illusion and reveal secrets they’d otherwise never tell.

Damn. Selka had one hell of a multipurpose divine skill.

I’d only ever seen her use it to trap large herds of enemies or hide her presence behind layers of illusions. This was my first real, firsthand experience of what it could otherwise do.

HE... HEY!

A voice suddenly rang in my head.

Then.

"Nnnnnn..."

A stun-grenade-like sound echoed inside my skull.

"Are you okay?! What are those sounds? And who are you talking to? What’s this about a wooden box?"

It was Betty’s voice, cutting through from the adjacent cell.

The iron door before me was closed. The ceiling above me was broken, along with the wall in front of me.

I held Blood Raven in one hand and opened my other palm before me. Crimson aura danced across it as I stared at the flickering energy.

I closed my palm, the crimson crackles dissipated into nothing.

Then I looked forward.

A woman suddenly stood between me and the iron door. She stood silently without a word, so did I.

She wore a veil covering the lower half of her face. Her outfit was a sleek purple top with slits on either side that extended down to just above her knees. Black stockings covered her legs up to her knees.

Her black hair was tied back in a high ponytail, secured with hairpins that looked suspiciously like they could double as hidden weapons.

The woman standing before me was Selka.

One of the greatest assassins in this land. The best one in Cass’s arsenal.

"It’s nothing," I met her gaze despite the veil. "I just had a bad nightmare."