The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 7 - Chapter 30 - Endless Illusions
Added 2025-06-16 17:16:56 +0000 UTC----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Wolf
Time passes by quickly as I recover my energy before moving out of the ice I frozen myself with. Then I move on to try breaking through all the illusions around me again. Devouring them one by one and leveling up in the process quite a lot.
And I make sure to keep an eye on the chat just in case I’m stuck in an illusion again.
But I don’t find anything unusual. So I continue making my way through the floor bit by bit.
Ever so slowly, I watch my level rising. As I slaughter the monsters and clear out all the illusions on the floor.
Just like before though, I never find any scepter. No matter how long I search the floor.
And also just like before, I get a bad feeling.
Except this time I feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
Another illusion?
I try to devour absolutely everything here. But it doesn’t work. Nothing at all happens other than everything freezing.
Just how strong are these illusions that I can’t even devour them?
Then again, it’s probably more a matter of not being able to find the illusions to devour. Rather than not being strong enough to devour them.
Still, I start to see cracks in the grass. Not very many, but some.
And those cracks grow even larger when I realize something.
The System Menus to enter the viewing rooms.
They’re not there.
It’s like the illusion is trying to block me from entering a viewing room. Probably because it would shatter the illusion.
But the mere act of doing that makes a rather obvious hole in the illusion.
One large enough that the illusion around me finally shatters.
Revealing my surroundings. Which seem to be some sort of dark cavern of some sort. With a very odd looking cavern walls.
Kind of like rubber.
And there’s some sort of pink liquid inside of the cavern.
One that kind of tickles as it tries to dissolve me…
My thoughts pause for a moment before I immediately rush to freeze everything around me. Making the balloon I realize I’m in pop.
Killing the monster whose stomach I was inside of in an instant.
That explains why I felt the hair on the back of my neck standing up.
I was inside of a monster’s stomach.
And now after killing the monster and popping it, I find myself in some sort of large stadium of some sort. One filled with thunderous applause from an audience watching.
Almost immediately though I get the feeling that I’m in another illusion. All because something about the System’s menus and the audience watching feels off.
And that sensation makes cracks begin to form again. Following which I break out of the illusion moments after having my Domain devour everything in it. Just like the previous illusions.
Then I break out of the illusion to find myself in another new location.
One in the form of a massive, endless staircase.
And this one isn’t immediately obvious that it’s an illusion. But at this point I have no idea what is or isn’t an illusion.
Which is rather disturbing in its own right.
Regardless, I proceed to fly over the stairs upwards without bothering with climbing them. And while I do this I make sure to devour everything as usual. Gradually increasing my level again.
I also make sure to search for any signs that this could be another illusion. Signs of which I find after about a week of climbing the stairs.
After finding those signs, the illusion once again breaks. Leaving me finding myself inside of a large cube.
And at this point I’m pretty sure I’m in another illusion.
I’m not sure how many illusions are stacked on top of each other, or if my real body outside of them all is safe, but I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever break out of all these illusions.
So with that thought in mind I break out of one illusion after another. Over and over again.
Numerous large cubes floating in space.
Dozens of planets all colliding with each other.
Large black holes in space.
A frozen wasteland.
An enormous library full of books that are far larger than I am.
And so on.
One illusion after another. Each of which I break out of anywhere from within a minute of entering the illusion all the way to over a month after entering them.
All while a bad feeling fills the back of my mind.
Just something gnawing at me.
Like I need to hurry or something bad will happen.
Making me believe that there’s probably something going on with my real body.
Please let me get out of these illusions as fast as possible…
But despite my wishes, I realize something else is wrong when some of the illusions begin repeating. And on top of that I realize there’s one particular monster in every single illusion regardless of the illusion itself.
My thoughts flash back to the message a certain annoying Progenitor sent me a while back.
Balloons are important.
To top it off, there have been numerous illusions where I ended up appearing inside the stomach of a balloon.
I frown at these realizations before focusing entirely on the balloons.
There are a few possibilities that I can think of.
Killing just the balloons and leaving everything else in the illusions alright. And doing the opposite and avoiding killing just the balloons.
Most likely the former though since I often appear inside the balloons stomachs. Making avoiding killing them incredibly difficult.
Unless I realize it’s an illusion without killing the balloons.
Since I don’t seem to be making much progress simply breaking out of these illusions, I go ahead and begin trying out this new plan.
Starting with doing nothing but killing just the balloons in every illusion.
Making sure not to touch anything but them while in the illusions.
I hope this works…
