Nightmare System 21 A Glimpse

"I will, but tell them to not use the accelerating ability, it wouldn't be training for the Sons if your copies finished the fight in a moment, or if they ran out of mana right after and couldn't heal," Virgil said. He was right, h.e.l.l said he would in return help out Virgil after all.

"Alright," h.e.l.l replied, this was also a chance for him to see his weaknesses. He honestly thought h.e.l.l himself couldn't take on three Pseudos, but Virgil seemed confident.

"Well, since one of them is unarmed already, how about we make it four?" h.e.l.l added.

"Sure."

"Fantastic." Another copy was created by h.e.l.l, now there were two who held daggers and two who had no weapons in their hands. h.e.l.l also told the other two to summon Imp Needle in the meantime, trying to see what would happen, but it wouldn't come to them. It seemed creating the copies while he was holding a weapon was of high importance if he wanted to arm them with good weapons.

Pseudo h.e.l.ls stood before Virgil with burning eyes, itching for a fight. They were barred from killing Virgil, but they wouldn't do that anyway, he was a friend.

"Do you want me to make the first move?" Virgil said and plunged toward one of the unarmed copies with his claws. The copies were to prioritise defence rather than offence, they would only strike out when they found an opening. The first few moves of the fight proved to be great for the copies as long as they weren't too reckless, Pseudo dodged the incoming attack and three others all positioned themselves around Virgil, ready to strike out. It was another feint on Virgil's part, however, an expected move from him who already knew his rivals were faster than himself. He stabilised his foot on the ground after he lunged and threw himself at the other unarmed Pseudo who was bent on attacking with the elation of having found an opening to attack Virgil, not noticing it was a mock attack to catch them off-guard. The dagger-wielding Pseudos could only choose to save the unarmed one and stay on the defence once more.

h.e.l.l was on the side, attentively watching the fight with Porter. "What do you think?" h.e.l.l asked.

"Lord Virgil is highly experienced and incredibly strong, but I have no doubt my Lord is stronger, my Lord," Porter said, his eyes glued to the ongoing fight.

"I think my copies have a high chance of winning, but mostly because of their numbers. Your Lord may be inexperienced, but he is strong, nonetheless, Porter."

"Yes, my Lord."

"I want to see you fight one of my copies as well," h.e.l.l said and created another copy, unarmed. To someone like Porter, even an unarmed Pseudo was an impossible to overcome mountain.

"Yes, my Lord!" Porter said in fervour as he bowed.

h.e.l.l instructed his copy to go easy on Porter and to not use any other ability other than his healing.

"Porter, you will have insulted me if you don't use your fullest potential against my copy!" h.e.l.l commanded in a solemn tone. He could feel Porter was so loyal that he may not be able to properly fight against his copy.

"As my Lord wishes!" Porter yelled and followed the copy into one of the crudely made fighting areas.

…

"What news do you bring, Uriel?" Medusa, the Djinn Queen, asked the kneeling vampire in front of herself.

"Yes, my Queen," Uriel said and began explaining. Dmiria the Mind-Alterer has been killed."

"Fine, visit this new Lord and give him my blessing for the position. Kill the new Lord if he is unworthy, or if he can't appreciate his newly a.s.signed position," Medusa said and added: "I told you not to bother me with such trivial news, you should go to Ralio, my right-hand. He can handle these matters.

"My Queen, he said you should be informed of this nonetheless as it was something that concerns your subjects," Uriel said, still kneeling on the floor and added: "The trip would take me months even with a strong mount, my Queen, I would have left your side for half a month!"

"Dmiria's domain was your own before your promotion, isn't it so?"

"Yes, you are absolutely correct, my Queen."

"You may leave."

"My Queen, as I said-"

"I said you may leave!" Medusa said in a stern tone, shooing away the vampire.

"Yes, thank you, my Queen," Uriel said and left the room in a half-bow respectfully, not daring to meet the eyes of the Queen.

"Playful things," Djinn Queen mused to herself and laughed, gazing at her figure in the mirror. Her glistening red skin, luscious curves and bountiful chest could turn any men into her slave, even without using any of her abilities. Her face was the most significant part of herself she adored, it was perfectly symmetrical and perfectly shaped. Her face had a cute aspect to it that called men all around to protect her, and beauty that anyone would die for. "Truly perfect," she said, admiring herself in the mirror further. "The only one fit to rule the ma.s.ses."

…

Virgil had finally admitted defeat after persevering for an extended amount of time. It was as expected, as long as Pseudos kept their distance and awaited a chance, they won, only one of them dying in the process. It was around 10 minutes that they finally bested Virgil, not using any skills.

"Well, you fought well," h.e.l.l said with a half-smile. This meant that if h.e.l.l were to use only his base abilities, it was likely he would still be killed by Virgil despite the vast difference in speed. h.e.l.l learned some things as well, but it was unknown to him how Virgil fought most of the time. It seemed to him that Virgil kept making risky moves, but they always paid off, in the end. h.e.l.l figured it was the experience of a thousand battles and one that allowed him to make such decisions during the heated fight.

"If you can spare 2 for each Son, I'll be satisfied," Virgil said, perspiring.

"2? I can only help train 2 of them a day, then. Does that sound all right?"

"It does. I said I'd send Aurus and Anton tomorrow to supervise the fight, and you can help train Jack and Slinora in the meantime."

"That is fine, but they have to be up and early for me to help train them, you see, I'll have businesses to attend to, and keeping up such an ability for a whole day would require too much mana. I can help them train for 2 hours straight, no problem."

"We have a deal, then, my King" Virgil said with a giggle, and they shook on it.

He was already whole-heartedly ready to follow h.e.l.l after he lost to those copies, but after they shook on it and he verbally acknowledged having h.e.l.l as his master, something happened inside him. His loyalty toward h.e.l.l was raised a notch higher, and he felt the limits of his body rising to a whole new level. Even a slight increase in abilities would give someone like Virgil an absolute advantage.

"This is… this is cheating!" Virgil yelled. How is it possible that you can boost someone's abilities to such an extent?!" Virgil Maneya could never imagine, not in one million years that it would be possible to do such a thing. Sure, some G.o.ds could grant gifts upon others, but it wasn't to the extent of giving anyone under them such a great boost. Virgil looked into h.e.l.l's eyes in fervour almost surpa.s.sing the pa.s.sion for loyalty burning in the eyes of Porter, and asked h.e.l.l:

"Please let me fight 4 of them again, my King!" There was no giggle this time. It was somewhat hard for Virgil to accept h.e.l.l before, but after experiencing this elation, he was sure that even the teamwork of his Sons of Shadow would have trouble taking him down.

"You wanna try out your new abilities?" h.e.l.l asked with a smile. "Of course."

He called back the Pseudo who was looking down at a beaten down Porter. It seemed the tired vampire had exceeded his limits. That Pseudo also joined the other 3, and they were ready to fight against Virgil with an order from h.e.l.l. It seemed his copies had a personality too similar to himself when left to themselves, but it was also great that they seemed to be obeying his orders to their utmost as well. After calling a butler to take Porter away to his room to rest, h.e.l.l started watching the fight.

It was an incredible change to behold, Pseudos were only marginally missing Virgil each time, almost unable to hit him, and they weren't allowed to use any other skills other than regeneration, so it was way harder on them than last time. Virgil managed to kill three of them this time before going down with the dagger's poison, and the fight only lasted 3 minutes. It was evident that once Virgil felt more comfortable with his newfound strength, he would no longer lose even to 4 copies, albeit only in speculation. But h.e.l.l was also learning as he watched the fights. He had always used self-harming tactics as well as pure superiority in ability to take out his opponents, but what if his opponent was both superior ability-wise while also being a more experienced fighter? His fight against Player Killer was a great example of this, they had no way to fight back, and if it weren't for the fact that he was amused enough to let h.e.l.l and his friends survive, they would not be so right now.

"I thank you for your guidance, my King!" Virgil said with a smile after half recovering from the poison. He seemed to have recovered sooner than expected even after getting a high dosage this time. h.e.l.l was unsure if it was the effect being reduced because it was only the copy of the dagger or maybe if it was because Virgil had gotten stronger.

"Alright, mate, I don't like being formal all that much, so please continue calling me h.e.l.l."

"Yes, h.e.l.l!" Virgil said and added: "I'll do everything I can to explain to situation to have them follow you as well, I beseech you to also impart this gift to them!"

"No worries, but only if you speak like you did an hour ago."

Virgil tried his best to do so, but after trying to increase his abilities bit by bit over the centuries and finally thinking that he had reached his limit, his abilities went up by 60%. It was an unpayable debt he incurred as he received this blessing from h.e.l.l. His heart had gone through a thorough change in a matter of hours, h.e.l.l turning into a master from a potential foe.

"Of course!" Virgil said.

"Well, do send me anyone you wish trained tomorrow, only 2 at once as we mentioned before, however," h.e.l.l replied and left the fighting grounds along with Virgil. h.e.l.l to rest up for the day while creating a few more copies to supervise his base. He'd have also recovered his mana before acting tomorrow, and with the arrival of Aurus, he could start making proper moves as well. That man's teleportation sure was convenient.

…

"Morning!" Leon yelled as he knocked on his sister's room. "Wake up, sleepyhead!"

"Come in!" Leila replied after a few moments pa.s.sed. Leon went inside, but Leila was nowhere to be seen. Confused, he yelled:

"Leila?"

"Yeah?" Leila replied back from the wall next to Leon. The rooms had no windows, and it was dimly lit, allowing her to use her ability to hide within shadows.

Leon jumped up in fright, making a squeaking sound, his heart was beating in full-throttle. He composed himself with a cough after and asked: "Did you improve your ability somehow?"

"Kind of," Leila said, "check this out!" She seemed to have half-stepped into the shadow in the corner of the room, albeit slowly. Activating her One With Shadows ability on top of that, she was tough to distinguish, only looking like a large patch of shadow on the wall. It wasn't easy to see in this dimly lit room.

"What happens if I do this?" Leon turned on the lights and thought Leila could no longer hide as much as her skill seemed to be depending on using the shadows. But it was not so, although she was visible at the moment, it appeared neither skill would break.

"Am I visible now?" Leila said, feeling like a child completely failing to hide while playing hide and seek with an adult, embarra.s.sed. She could feel the light hitting her face. The technology wasn't as developed in this place, but they had found a way around it by creating a manbased system instead of electricity. Each room had a self-sufficient system, you could supply your mana to the light source, and it would be on for hours. The mana requirement was next to nothing and considering the superior night vision of the vampires, they had very little need for anything more.

A similar system was also used to expand the mana capacity of vampires. Raising one's mana was an arduous task that went through utterly exhausting one's mana and using it even further with one's life force to the point of collapse. Of course, this would be an unimaginable technique for humans who raised their mana capacity with other methods. This was the most efficient one for vampires. After all, they could barely die unless they somehow exhausted all their life force. Everyone had a limit to their mana, so a fast way to be done with It at the cost of self-harm was the optimal choice for them.

"Have you been getting used to your new… situation?" Leon asked with a half-smile.

"This is weird… but… I have been feeling amazing ever since I turned."

"What do you mean?"

"It just feels so right. I don't know how to explain," Leila sat on the bed and added.

"Well, as long as you're happy, I suppose,"

"Thank you for worrying about me, but I am fine."

"So be it," Leon said and asked: "Did h.e.l.l tell you about the cla.s.s advancement?"

"Level 42, yes."

"We'll want to get some exp for that, and with this level of creatures around, we should soon get there," Leon said with a concerned tone.

"I think the increase in the difficulty is because of h.e.l.l," Leila blurted out after a moment of silence.

"What do you mean?

"Truly listen to his ramblings. He sometimes thinks aloud or talks about his past stages. There are a lot of inconsistencies with how we came to know the system," Leila said in a quiet tone, only enough for her big brother to hear it, as if she was afraid of their butler for the day could listen to it also.

"I remember him talking about some wheel, but…"

"There is more," Leila interjected.

"What is it?"

"What does the system say when we enter a new area? What do you hear?"

"Nightmare System – Stage 2-Level 1," Leon said and continued: "it follows up with the stage's level-"

"That's right!" Leila interjected once more.

"What h.e.l.l heard was specifically the 'Impossible Nightmare System', right? Why is it different? Also, the fact that he wasn't offered a choice to become a player, but he was forced to," Leila enthusiastically said, raising her voice unknowingly.

"We can always ask h.e.l.l directly, I am sure he would answer to any questions we have, he isn't a very secretive person as you know."

"That's true," Leila said, and as soon as she finished her sentence, the door was knocked.

"Your meal, revered guest," the butler said from the other side of the door.