The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 7 - Chapter 20 - The Maze of Illusions

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Wolf

If the obvious illusions spread across the floor weren’t enough evidence pointing me towards the first clone after Beelzebub being Loki, the messages I see passing through the chat make it clear.

[Poor Mikaela is being bullied by Loki.]

[Poor Mikaela.]

[I wouldn’t want to be him right now]

[Just shows up at the start of the floor theme and starts commentating while sitting on Mikaela’s shoulders lmaooo]

[Loki is funny.]

Yeah… I’m actually not too surprised. Considering what Fenrir has told me about Loki.

Which is sad in its own way.

I scratch the back of my head before moving my head to the side to avoid the scythe of some floating grim-reaper-like monster with scythes as hands. Then I send my fist flying straight at it, blasting a hole in its center with a single punch.

Honestly, this floor theme is going to be a pain.

It’s not necessarily bad, but it will be annoying. Since Loki is a prankster, just like what’s told in his mythologies.

Fenrir said before that if he ends up in the dungeon, he’ll probably try to mess with me a lot. But he’ll also train me to be ready to fight his clone by the end of the floor theme as well.

So at the end of the day, this should be beneficial to me. Since he isn’t one of the Progenitors out for my head like Phoenix is.

Even if this is going to be a massive pain in the ass along the way.

I let out a sigh before grabbing the head of another monster trying to sneak up on me through the laced illusions and crushing its head in my bare hand. Then I stretch a little and transform into my hunter form. Only to begin rushing around, slaughtering the monsters with my Domain stretches out.

Fortunately the illusions here aren’t powered by his Domain. Not entirely at least.

So my own Domain easily devours the illusions as it spreads outwards.

And on the topic of Domains, I find myself glancing at the corner of my interface, where I see a message from Fenrir. One detailing what Loki’s variant does exactly.

His variant element lets him affect reality with his illusions. Meaning he can actually hurt things with his illusions, even if they’re still illusions.

Unlike other illusions which can’t actually harm a person.

It’s actually kind of terrifying.

It also means that if this were his own Domain, all of those illusionary fake monsters flying around would be able to hurt me. But since this isn’t actually part of his domain, they can’t.

And from my experience with Beelzebub, I won’t be dealing with his variant element until the later floors of the floor theme.

But still. The fact that I’ll have to deal with it eventually is frightening.

Just the thought of how many things he’ll be able to conjure with his illusions and attack me with.

I grimace as I continue devouring the monsters and elemental energy around me on the floor using my Domain. Just absorbing everything and adding it to my own physical strength.

All while flying through the floor.

And at some point along the way, I accidentally kill a mini boss without even realizing it was a mini boss until the exit appears. But despite that, I continue killing monsters across the floor without hesitation. Just to get stronger before continuing further.

It isn’t until I finish off the very last monster I can find that I finally try to enter the exit.

Only to find myself appearing somewhere else on the same floor. Making me realize the exit was a fake.

“Damnit,” I mutter with my eyes narrowed as I look around my new surroundings. Only to find even more illusions layered on top of the place.

With even more monsters as well.

I feel a vein throbbing in my forehead as my irritation rises. Especially when I see that the illusions have more layers now than in the last part of the floor.

So without any further hesitation, I begin slaughtering the monsters in this part as well. Occasionally revealing more exits to the floor in the process.

Exits that I once again find to be fake after finishing off the monsters and entering one.

Then the process repeats again. And again. And again.

Sometimes with me appearing in previous areas that I’ve already cleared out. Ones just littered in exits all across the place from ‘mini bosses’ that I’ve killed.

It doesn’t take me long to realize it’s a damned maze. Except one made with fake floor exits.

At some point I even begin to wonder if I’ve actually killed a mini boss despite killing more monsters on this one floor than I’ve killed in the last four floors before it.

And to make matters worse?

I find that vein throbbing in my forehead again when I read the messages in the chat.

[Loki is laughing his head off right now.]

[Yep. Loki is enjoying this.]

[I wonder how long he’ll keep running around between exits?]

[Loki is a prankster confirmed]

Loki isn’t even hiding that he’s enjoying messing with me.

I grit my teeth as I continue moving around hunting monster after monster while passing through one exit after another. Going through them all to end up on different parts of the same floor over and over again.

Until after entire weeks of this, I finally make it to some special looking place that is just one massive cube that I’m inside. With a single enormous monster at the center of the cube that doesn’t seem to be an illusion.

But the monster itself is… unusual.

It’s a balloon.

Literally just a balloon spanning thousands of meters in diameter.

I stare blankly at it for several seconds before the balloon in question turns around and faces me. I think.

Then it suddenly opens a mouth filled with razor sharp fangs and lets out an ear piercing screeching sound similar to that of a balloon letting out air. Except without the balloon getting smaller.

Huh?