Chapter 78. Crimson Mirage
Dominic stared, mouth agape, at the thing the crimson light had revealed. His entire body had gone rigid. The moment he laid eyes on it, it felt as though every ounce of strength was being drained straight out of him. His mind grew sluggish, thoughts slipping away. And it wasn’t just happening to him every student present was experiencing the exact same thing. All of them stared at it, mouths hanging open, no thought of fighting left in their minds. In fact, no thoughts at all seemed to be forming. They simply stood there, staring at it like lifeless puppets.
Elizabeth’s whole body had gone cold. Her grip on her sword was slowly loosening; she could barely hold onto it anymore. Thinking felt almost impossible, as though something deep inside her was urging her to simply give up as if some part of her already understood that she could never stand against this thing, and was telling her to quietly accept the inevitable. She stared at the creature the crimson light had revealed, gripped by pure terror.
Its entire body was covered in reddish skin. Its head resembled a goat’s skull, crowned with two long, curving horns. Its mouth was framed by mantis-like mandibles, and where its eyes should have been sat eight enormous, horrifying eyes the centers a sickly yellow, surrounded by pure black, with red streaks marking each pupil. The back of its head was covered entirely in something resembling a lion’s mane. Below its neck, its body took a roughly humanoid shape, with sixteen arms extending from either side eight on each. From beneath its waist extended two powerful hind legs, shaped like a lion’s. Its entire body was covered in turtle shell-like armor.
The creature sat crouched on the ground, resting its head against one hand, its elbow propped on its knee. It watched them with an expression of clear delight, as though it were watching some entertaining game unfold and thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.
But the real problem was that what Elizabeth was looking at wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to her. She was certain she’d seen this, or read about it, somewhere before. It felt as though she’d known of it since childhood yet in this moment, she couldn’t recall exactly where. Her ability to think had been reduced to nothing.
Right then, the massive abomination before her swept its eight eyes over every student present, taking them all in. Then it let out a long sigh, and Elizabeth heard it speak.
"To think dominance took hold of them this quickly. I need to deactivate it, or this won’t be any fun."
Elizabeth watched as the creature raised one hand and gave its wrist a small flick. The instant it did, she felt strength slowly returning to her body. Her mind began to clear, thoughts forming again, one by one. And she realized her body was responding to her once more she could move again.
The moment her ability to think returned, she gripped her sword tightly and stared at the creature seated before them with pure terror because in that very same instant her thoughts came rushing back, she recognized exactly what she was looking at. And she wasn’t the only one. Every student present, as their minds cleared, recognized it too, in that same instant.
There wasn’t a single person in the entire empire who wouldn’t recognize this creature. Even the youngest children knew its name. Not just within the empire there wasn’t a soul in the Demon Kingdom or the Dragon Kingdom who didn’t know it either. They’d grown up seeing its image, hearing its story told and retold since childhood. It was referenced in every sacred text in the world, and every religion on this planet celebrated the day of its death the day a true evil vanished from this world forever, the very being that had once unleashed devastation across the entire planet thirty thousand years ago. Nearly ninety percent of all life on this world had died at its hands.
The Herald of Ruin. Xath’rael, the Beast of the Crimson Void.
The moment the students recognized what sat before them, nearly every one of them gave up entirely. What could they possibly do? There was nothing they could do against this thing. Even gods struggled to stand against it. And what were they, compared to that? There was nothing left for them to do but wait for their own deaths.
Lyra, who had only just regained control of her body and her ability to think, felt one thing become suddenly, painfully clear in her mind something that had been circling in her thoughts since before the battle had even begun, a question she hadn’t been able to voice. Something had been holding her back from asking it. It was such a simple question. And yet it was the very question on which everything happening here now rested.
***
Outside the forest, the professors, who only moments earlier had been celebrating in triumph, now watched a ring of crimson light swirling around the clearing on their screens. That light had unveiled something and the moment they laid eyes on it, they recognized, for the first time, a form every single one of them knew. A form the entire world knew this creature by.
But the instant their eyes fell on it, they too felt their bodies freezing, their minds growing sluggish and slow. Yet the effect didn’t take hold on everyone. Eric was entirely immune to it. It barely touched him at all only a faint ache in his head, nothing more.
But once Xath’rael lifted its dominance and everyone’s ability to think returned, a single question began circling through the minds of Eric, Marcus, Ronald, Edmund, and several other professors at once one they hadn’t been able to ask until now. Their thoughts immediately snapped to a single, troubling realization.
That question was: how had every single student managed to gather together in one place so quickly?
The question had been nagging at Eric’s mind for some time, yet somehow he’d never been able to voice it as if something had been actively preventing him from asking it. It was such an obvious question. But he hadn’t been able to ask it, because he would never have simply stood by and watched something like that happen without doing anything about it. He would have tried to intervene. And yet he hadn’t done anything at all.
The second thing that struck him as deeply strange was his own decision-making. The moment he’d seen the barrier form, his very first instinct should have been to break it apart immediately. Even if it was a Rank Ten barrier, if he and the other professors had thrown their full strength at it from the very start, they could have inflicted real, lasting damage and even without fully breaking it, the smallest crack would have let him slip inside in an instant to try to protect everyone.
But instead, what had he actually done? He’d ordered a handful of junior professors to attempt to crack the barrier. Of all the possible decisions he could have made in that moment, it was easily the worst one available and it was completely unlike him to ever make a decision like that. And yet he had. Something had forced him into that choice. No other option had even occurred to him as worth considering. Something had been blocking him from even entertaining any other possibility.
The instant Eric pieced all of this together, and replayed in his mind the sight of that crimson light sweeping across the entire clearing, his eyes went wide. He understood exactly what had been happening. A single name left his lips.
"Crimson Mirage."
***
The instant that question crystallized in Lyra’s mind, it slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it.
The moment Elizabeth and the other students heard it spoken aloud, the same thought began circling through their own minds as well.
None of them could possibly have gathered together in this vast forest within the span of a single minute. Every team of students had been scattered across enormous distances from one another throughout the forest there was no reasonable way they could have converged in such a short window of time. Not even given an hour would it have been possible for all of them to end up in the exact same place. And yet, somehow, they had all arrived here together in what felt like an instant, as though some unseen force had summoned every one of them to this exact spot at once.
Xath’rael, still seated cross-legged with its head resting against one hand, let out something like a laugh at the question, its mandibles twitching with amusement.
"Ha, ha. Impressive. To think you’d arrive at that question so quickly. Truly, the children of this generation are something else. Yes, you’re right. Within this forest, none of you should have been able to arrive at this location within such a short span of time. What you all just witnessed was a small spell I used. This spell is called Crimson Mirage."
Every student present listened with wide-eyed astonishment. None of them had any idea what Crimson Mirage actually was, but they were certain of one thing it was something far beyond anything they could comprehend.
Xath’rael looked out over the students, and seeing that they clearly hadn’t understood much of what it said, let out a long sigh. Then it continued.
"Looking at all of you, I don’t think any of you know what Crimson Mirage is. In my previous life, I wouldn’t have bothered explaining it to you at all I would have simply killed every last one of you on the spot. But after spending thirty thousand years in the Nether, I find myself genuinely in the mood to talk. So I’ll tell you about it. Consider yourselves lucky to receive a lecture from me before you die."
It paused for a moment. Then it spoke again.
"Listen..."