Chapter 0091: Yue’s Demons (2/2)

"I'll be relieving you of this throne."

"U-Uncle? Why?" Yue says in a weak voice.

It wasn't the stab wound or the sword that hurt her. It was that her uncle was the one pushing that sword through her body.

With trembling hands, he pushed the blade deeper inside her chest as her screams filled the chamber.

They weren't screams of pain. They were screams of heartache.

Not giving up hope she asks in a hoarse voice, "Please talk to me, uncle…"

…

"But our dear uncle never said a word, did he?"

Suddenly Yue's vision changed.

No longer was there a sword stabbed in her chest, but an icicle.

Her eyes met the grinning copy's eyes as they burned with cold fury.

"So fucking persistent." She pushed herself away from the copy using gravity magic and pushed out the icicle, her wound healing an instant later.

"They all doubted Dienleed. But we were the only ones to believe in him till the end."

"I'm nothing like you." Yue increases her mana output to the point that it feels tangible in the air as her copy does the same.

"All that got was a sword through our chest. Cast off by all whom we trusted."

Yue saw another scene of her mother, father, and all her friends being slaughtered in front of her eyes as her uncle pushed the blade in deeper.

"You were betrayed! I was betrayed." The copy's face is marred with grief and sadness.

There was another flashback in front of her eyes. Aletia was being assaulted by countless wind bullets that were cast by the mages of her kingdom that she had protected with her life on the line.

The copy cast the same storm of wind bullets at Yue. Yue wordlessly blocked the attack while Aletia screamed in pain as they tore through her.

It was as if the copy was mirroring her past in hopes of making her relive those moments to break her mind and destroy the trust she had in Masashi and Mai.

Though there was a stark difference between the past and the present.

While Aletia was being utterly beaten down. Yue was pushing back.

While Aletia had no more hope left. Yue's eyes were bright and lively even though she was being forced to relive those moments.

While Aletia slumped down on the ground as the attacks kept hitting her. Yue stood straight, blocking and countering all of the copy's attacks.

"That isn't the past. No! That's also your future. The people you love so much. The people you trust so much. They will always betray you." The copy had tears running down her eyes as although a dungeon construct, it had all of Yue's memories and emotions. The grief that Yue was experiencing, the copy felt all of it just as much.

At this point, the flashback was more of a tangible construct, with Aletia's battered body seemingly present within the dungeon.

"The person that you love… Do you think he will ever return your feelings? You are nothing more than a convenient tool for him to exploit."

As they were both nearing mana exhaustion, the copy pointed at Aletia's weak-looking figure and said, "History will repeat itself."

"…Go fuck your history." Suddenly, there's a huge explosion of golden light that burst out of Yue.

It's so thick that it almost forms a liquified golden essence that's filling the air in the room.

Yue stomped on the frail figure of Aletia and it dissipated into nothingness. All the while the mana around her was growing more and more concentrated.

The copy was stunned at this sudden turn of events.

'Where is all this mana coming from?'

The trial worked on making people accept their faults. The more they accept and overcome them, the weaker the copy would get.

The more they deny their weaknesses and faults. The stronger the copies would get.

Right now Yue's copy was in the same state as before. Yue had neither run away from her faults nor had she overcome those faults.

She'd agreed that they were there but hadn't overcome them.

So right now Yue was at the same level of strength as her copy.

What flabbergasted the copy was all that extra mana that Yue just got.

The dungeon was fair in that it gave the same conditions for the participants and their copies. That extended down to their mana capacities.

The dungeon created copies with the same mana as the originals.

"How do you have so much more mana!?" The amount of mana that was blasting out of Yue was finally settling down as she controlled it all to return to her body.

"Secret!" Yue put a finger to her lips and said to the copy just as petty revenge.

It was pretty simple really. The dungeon was based on magics from Tortus. Masashi had something that wasn't from Tortus. The tattoo and all its derivative abilities.

Every time Yue would drink Masashi's blood she would receive TE into her bloodstream. Which would in turn strengthen her physique and increase her mana capacity.

Slowly her mana pool had become similar to Masashi and Mai's. With a blob of TE hovering in the center with all the mana orbiting around it.

What Masashi did for her before the fight was just to allow her the ability to convert all of that TE to Mana.

Though there was a downside to this. Her mana would no longer increase automatically like before until she got enough TE again for it to become a core for her mana to orbit around.

The benefit though was that her mana had expanded far more than its original capacity and it had become much denser too, which reduced the cost for each spell.

"Ready for round 2?" Yue started pouring mana into two black holes in her hands.

The copy didn't reply as it also prepared its defense.

After getting the big mana boost, Yue went all out to release her anger at the copy.

Spell after spell, she kept on casting in quick succession, not wanting the copy to get any respite.

The copy wasn't able to use mana so extravagantly so it quickly fell to a disadvantage.

"Do you really think that you'd be able to stay by his side forever?"

The copy tries to use words to get some kind of advantage.

Though effective, Yue had already gotten used to the copy's taunts and was easily able to keep going after a minor moment of stiffness.

The copy didn't even get a chance to properly breathe in the time that Yue recovered from the taunt.

"Fuck you!" She kept casting magic with higher and higher intensity. It was to the point that the copy's mana pool was finally unable to keep up with her seemingly unending mana.

At this point, the copy was getting thrashed around like a ragdoll by Yue. Only able to survive due to her cheat regeneration.

"Did you never think about the reason behind your uncle's betrayal?" The copy finally realized that it could no longer hold back against Yue's unending barrage of attacks so it brought out its last resort against her.

"Just die already!" You answered her with a fist full of a lightning dragon.

"Look inside yourself. You know it to be true." The copy formed back up again. It didn't attack since it had almost no more mana left and whatever was left was being used to maintain her regeneration.

"Why are you still here!" Yue made a new spell on the spot and conjured up a translucent fire that directly burned her spirit. She'd been experimenting with adding a peak element to fire for a while and finally succeeded in the midst of her heated state.

"Ahhh!" Even if she was a being without a real spirit, she was conjured through the use of spirit magic. An attack that directly burned the spirit was fatally harmful to her core.

Her scream reverberated throughout the huge room. She thrashed around in pain and held its head, trying to get some sort of relief.

Even though the copy was at its last vestiges, it still said the words that Yue had been dreading. She looked into Yue's eyes through her fingers that were covering her eroding face.

"You know… You know that there was some… thing after you… Whatever it was it's still ali-" Before she could say anything more she faded into particles of dust.

Yue was left standing there, frozen. Unable to accept the last words of her copy. Although she wasn't able to deny those words either.

***

With this, this story is officially on hiatus. All written chapters of the story are now public.