In the darkest corner of Pandemonium, I schemed with the people who had earned my trust.

"You must lead her here, through the swamp and its many dangers," Elfrafim suggested as we pored over the maps and notes.

"She isn't Haell," Dad argued. "That wouldn't be fun for her."

"A swamp isn't my favorite terrain either," I clarified.

"How about here, then? There must always be a great view. It is essential," Mom advised.

"And do not forget the food," Dad reminded. "That's the most important part."

"But wait, there's more!" Elfrafim slammed her hands down, scattering the papers across the table, before grabbing one in particular. "If your destination is there, then you might as well go through here, circle around there, fly through those, before finally making a heroic fall!"

"You suggest a whole trip," I said, carefully without emotion.

"It must be a day at most," Mom was less reserved.

"And who decided that?" the elf challenged.

"We did," Dad informed.

The discussion would continue to last through the night.

~~~

The teleport ended with a pop, and I landed on the wet ground with Moonwash in my arms. I set her down and quickly looked her over, but couldn't really be sure with her black and white armor in the way. At least that wasn't twisted or bent in any way.

"Are you okay Moonwash? Did the teleport chunk any important bits? Or any bits at all!"

"No. I'm completely fine."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay, good." I smiled and wiped off the blood from the recently healed wound on my cheek. "Well, in that case; Welcome to the Gater Swamp!" I gestured at the place I had ultimately chosen to have our date in. A humid landscape of wet ground and muddy water. Where gators and other nasties hid in the near mud, and a thousand Level 1 insects lived and died in a constant dance atop the water and below the trees.

Speaking of trees…

"Is that a funleaf?" my beautiful girlfriend asked. Her tone remained even, as it always did, but I just knew and could somehow tell that she was absolutely excited.

"It sure is," my grin widened. The funleaf was an incredibly rare and precious plant that was half mushroom and half tree. The canopy was completely covered by leaves, but its limegreen trunk and branches were halfway between wood and mycelium. The organism's whole body would often actively move and sway around like it was doing right now… and I could feel the ambient mana being affected somehow?

Its highly limited sap was highly coveted for its… recreational uses. But more interesting to us, to me, the description of the dream-like state it was able to induce upon its users sounded very similar to how I perceived the world just before I last evolved.

A connection to the Greater Magic. The ability to perceive the world, in ALL its glory.

"I collected this as carefully as I could when I found the place a week ago," I spoke and handed Moonwash a vial of constantly shifting black and white sap, like oil and water, with no clear winner between who should be on top, and who was the bottom.

"Thank you," she accepted the gift and stared blankly but very deeply into my eyes. The one problem with the funleaf was its very short lifespan. It would only appear rarely, in places like this, and then die within a year. Already, the mushroom tree's canopy looked older and weaker than when I last saw it, no matter how it loved to dance. A quick consultation of my memory showed that the plant was indeed aging rapidly.

"I love you," we both said at the same time.

I laughed. She smiled.

We pushed our helmets together, and then shared a deep kiss.

~~~

The rest of the date went terrifically well. We figured out how to traverse the swamp on hoof, or foot in Moonwash's case. We observed the many new plants in their habitats, and not just the funleaf. I slew and caught a bunch of new creatures, from a gator that shot out of the swamp, to an even bigger gator that I had to scramble to protect Moonwash from. I did not let it escape back into the bubbling marsh, and Moonwash killed the level 40 creatures with her raw capacity for magic spells.

Interestingly, it was actually trickier to spot hidden creatures in the water with my dimensional scanner, compared to how easy it was in the open air.

"Are you having fun?" I asked her at some point.

"Yes. A lot," she said, and I knew she would be honest about that.

I was right to trust my instincts. I was glad that I actually went with the idea of taking Moonwash to the swamp in the end, despite some protests from my parents. This was a terrain that we had actually neglected to explore… when we still traveled as The Harvesters.

Alas, as the morning passed and the afternoon wore on, I eventually picked Moonwash up and flew away, leaving the swamp altogether. I oriented myself based on the Barrier Mountains, and then I looked for the place where we would have our meal. I spent a few more minutes of flying, and my girlfriend enjoyed the breeze and the sheer sensation of movement as she clung onto me tightly. Finally, I found the secluded waterfalls that I had in mind. It wasn't very tall, but the pond and then the river at its base were surrounded by lush beautiful grass, followed by trees more vibrant and green than was typical for this rainforest.

I slowed down, descended, and then set my girlfriend down on the soft cushioned ground. We killed a few oztriches to clear the area, and then harvested them for their most valuable parts. Oztriches were medium-sized flightless birds adapted to the rainforest terrain, with a randomly shaped crystal on their beaks, and the ability to use magic vaguely affected by whatever form their crystal focus had taken. The element they could wield the most was wind, followed by nature, and then very rarely, some other element would pop up, including some very rare and weird ones. Allegedly.

Unfortunately, this flock only had the common wind and nature element oztriches. It was a good enough meal, however, and I was glad that they came back here after I'd killed some of them a few days prior.

My girlfriend and I prepared and cooked the meat while listening to the soft and gentle sounds of nature.

We then swam a little, and bathed underneath the waterfalls.

What a wonderful day.

~~~

I ran across the grass, colorful in the way of purple and pink. I had found one more Level 80 marasa(clone illusion monkey), whereupon Moonwash had floated the idea that the creatures might actually naturally mature to that level, or maybe they just had an easier time getting there than other species. It wasn't impossible, as the intricacies of our Status yet remained a mystery.

Alas, this wonderzone of The Lost Reflections was starting to get stale, at least in the fighting department. The 'invisiboy' kept on avoiding me, if I was even coming across the same one. I had a feeling that it might not be, and that all of them had decided to stay far away. That would be a bummer. I just wanted to fight and kill them! Was that so much to ask?

I did still find some weird and outright unique shit here that could never be found anywhere else, from large beautiful clearings with a literal golden radiance, to patches of thick colorful vines. And then there were the more fantastical things that I loved to find, like dance troupes made of tiny ants, or strange twisting architectures, but in a way that was very beautiful, if headache-inducing.

It was… a truly weak place.

That was a very weird conclusion to reach, given that I had yet refused to take Moonwash here when it was absolutely what she would've preferred. But while Lost Reflections was definitely more dangerous to the lives of common adventurers or even me, there was something here that was missing. A true center, an origin point, like the bottomless watery pit of The Bottomless Oceanlake, or the crystalline mountains riddled with holes of The Singing Vortex. The other wonderzones I'd been to had all possessed a center full of greater wonders and dangers, whereas I'd been roaming the most dangerous areas of Lost Reflections for years now, and I had yet to find someplace that I could say for certain was the center of all this. There was no credible mention of anyone ever having found such a place, and it had therefore been a topic of great debate. Naturally, few could even venture quite so deep in Lost Reflections, hence many argued that the center had simply not been discovered yet. Some concluded that there was unlikely to be a center to this wonderzone, when it had remained unfound for centuries, by both the countless generations of old, or the new societies brought about by the arrival of Angelore and Edengar. Others yet believed that if any wonderzone were to conceal its center for this long, then it would be The Lost Reflections.

We really, truly, did not know anything about wonderzones. People assumed that the world of Varyala just naturally made it, like how we had forests and mountains and lakes, but we did not actually know for sure. That was all conjecture.

We didn't know if it was a rule that a wonderzone must have a center of some kind. We didn't know if there could be any exception. Of all the dozens of wonderzones I knew of, only a meager handful might not have a center. We did not know if maybe the area with the highest density of ambient mana and powerful monsters was already the very center of Lost Reflections, despite being… far less flashy and amazing than the heart of other wonderzones.

I did not know, and that was what I was here to find out. A final mission, that might ultimately be in vain. But this place had been kind to me, so I did not mind staying for a little bit longer.

~~~

A giant spider suddenly fell on top of me! It had concealed itself perfectly along the canopy, and was surprisingly faint even to my spatial senses for something that was only Level 20!

Sadly for the creature, that wasn't enough to escape my ire. The spider had chosen death, and I delivered. I took only the fangs and the legs of the daddy-branch-legs, and then moved on with my day.

A bounder attacked me not too far away! This time, I did not see the attack coming at all! I only began to react once the camelion's head was already shooting towards me. My nerves fired fast enough to hurt. I managed to twitch and turn and save most of my body, but not all of it. That massive maw clamped down on my swordless left arm, and tore the limb off my body. Even my deathmetal armor was not spared, crushed and sheared by the creature's massive sharp teeth.

I snapped my wings out, used my full intimidation package, and then slammed all my magic onto the ambush creature. It roared and reeled back, before coming back up for another bite, but I was already gone. I was flying away. Round and around my prey. The stump where my arm used to be had already closed, and now I pulled from the dimension of blood I kept inside me. I sacrificed the vital fluid as fast as it rushed through my veins. It was consumed for nutrients by the Blood Eater. The camelion abandoned all pretense of just being a rock and jumped up to snatch me from the sky, but I rapidly evaded with flesh-breaking snaps of my wings and tail. New flesh tore itself out of my stump. Bone regrew from the old, piercing right through the wound that had just closed. My missing arm was rapidly reconstructed, according to the information recorded in my memory core. The skeleton continued to extend, eventually ending in the smaller, more articulate digits. Ligaments twisted around them, nerves snaked through, and then the bulging muscles completed the powerful shape. Similarly colored red skin came last, and what I had lost returned, just in time for my fucking prey to have landed and try another lunge.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I dodge it again, much easier this time with proper balance to my flying form. The camelion could barely reach me at this height anyway. Its lips were already torn by my vengeance, but my revenge was not over. Something as big and meaningful as a limb, I could feel it even from within the guts of my enemy.

"Retribution of The Abscised!"

I detonated the arm from inside the creature, and the camelion shrieked, writhing on the ground, and dispelling any remaining notion that it was a mere piece of rock. The effect was largely diminished, because I had not immediately detonated the arm before it could be swallowed, hence a far weaker connection. But in exchange, it had gotten inside the monster's most vulnerable place. Fire burned through the flesh of its stomach, decay rushed through its many organs, and blood behaved erratically, bleeding through all its internals and coming out of the creature's mouth in a great vomiting howl.

I wasn't done.

With an exercise of my will, a ritual unnamed, the blood of mine on the creature's face exploded into different effects. From excruciating hellfire, to face melting rot, and finally a rush power that pulled the blood straight out of the camelion's existing wounds, uncaring for what cuts it widened in the process. My blood magic had grown in power and versatility, and now it was also useful in my favorite mini-ritiuals!

I wasn't done.

The Level 80 camelion thrashed. It lunged after me again, but at this distance, it had already been established that I would not be caught. Something formed in my hand, a power from years past, now refined into a higher form. I evaded a few more attempts, until finally the separate elements had merged. I pointed my palm at the camelion, and from it a black flame blossomed.

It was the curseflame of before, now with genuine and authentic curse.

…It didn't actually have any new effects just yet, only adapted to my new elements. But it was far stronger than before, simply due to my sheer level. And there was no need for trickery beyond that.

I launched the black projectile once the camelion came lunging in again. The magic scored a direct hit on its face, and the monster whined pitifully while still suspended in midair. The curseflame spread, traveling through its body, and consuming it whole. I landed right near it, and then deflected its panicked, uncoordinated attempts at trying to bite my face off. I hardly felt the heat of my own curseflame, even from this close. It was all directed towards the dying animal's flesh.

I swung Devilcalibur, and made a butchery of it while it still lived.

The harvest continued until it was dead.

I teleported back home, with what parts I could still salvage.

…The skin was the most important part of that creature, and I did not leave a single piece.

Oops.

That. Fucking. Sucks!

~~~

[Demon Flesh / Demon Bones / Demonic Musculature has reached Level 44!]

Another day, I found myself in Lost Reflections again with renewed interest after having found and killed a Level 80 variant of the camelion. I thought it might not hurt to keep at it for a little while longer. I closed my eyes and ran in a straight line, just barreling through the trees in front of me and then healing the damage done afterwards. It was a good way to train my dimensional scanner, which had already reached Level 46, and I was hoping, a good way to disregard any illusions that may be concealing the center of this place.

"BWUH–!"

"Waaaa…"

"Woooaahhh!"

I heard the startled cry of an adventurer when I passed them by. Another party saw me, and then one particular centaur swordsman swung their blade only to be swatted away by my fist. I didn't even open my eyes to get a look at them, unwilling to break my streak of running from one end of the wonderzone to another.

They were lucky.

I felt the ambient mana thinning in the darkness of my mind, and I finally opened my eyes to the world again when I felt that I should be nearly out of the wonderzone. Sure enough, the majority of trees around me were back to their normal green and brown, with only a fraction remaining the colorful purple and pink of Lost Reflections.

I doubted the center of the wonderzone would be past this, where the ambient mana was thinning and the landscape was mostly past its influence. Then again, that's what a twisted illusion place would want you to think…

I checked upon having that thought, but sure enough, it wasn't the case. There was no hidden treasure palace. So I flew some distance away like before, and then started running again from one random end of the wonderzone to another. I ignored all the monsters that barred my path. I didn't give even the level 40 camelion the dignity of dying by my blade. This pass was another dud, so I did another pass from another random direction. I went back home after another failure, before coming back after a good morning's rest with Moonwash.

Come rain or shine, my journey continued. I came across another marassa… and I had to actually stop for it. My eyes snapped open, I drew a deep line on the ground to remember in what direction I was going, and then I pulled Devilcalibur back out to face the many monkeys. Only one of them was real. I knew which one it was, so I shouldered through the illusions, and then tackled the true ape.

I beheaded the fucking monster, and then hugged its still bleeding corpse tight… like a fucking crazy person, but that was because I had to teleport back and bring home the loot! That was why I even stopped for this creature in the first place. It had many stubs on its head that were all magical focuses. Dozens for this relatively low level one I found. Each focus could be used for a new wand, but that wasn't actually the best use of them. Used by themselves, each focus was way weaker than a Level 40 one should be. I might as well just hunt for the horned hares. But, when the marasa's foci were used together for one staff, they could be used for multitasking like no other. If made by a master crafter like Moonwash on top of that, then they could even retain their ability to learn simple patterns, and help you out with your casting! I'd never heard of any other focus capable of that feat!

~~~

I ran like hell and back, again. I was this close to finally stopping my search. I detected a particularly dense patch of forest that I could not see. I did not let it deter me from continuing to go on a straight path. Many creatures gathered here, but I didn't let them bother me. That was until I felt something very familiar, yet a little off. I snapped my eyes open just in time, only to see nothing. But I trusted my instincts, thereby tilting my head sideways just fast enough to avoid the single impaling claw thrust out at me.

Invisiboy.

We meet again.

Why are you not running today?

You fucking coward!

Devilcalibur immediately swung forward in retaliation, but my enemy jumped back. I tightened my grip on my greatsword, and then pressed the attack. This time, I'm not letting you go. A furious clash followed, where my armor bent and then broke in many places. I tightened my stance and protected only my vitals. I could not perfectly perceive my opponent, so this was the solution I came up with. I'd been thinking, dreaming of this confrontation for a long time. This time, I would be ready. You will not fucking escape.

I made a particularly wide slash, allowing myself to be punctured in both shoulders, but those wounds were swiftly healed. In exchange, I managed to get a decent hit on the invisiboy's torso, drawing transparent blood and surely mangling the flesh where I could not see. My magic exploded out of me in a twister of hellfire and curse, and I immediately prepared myself to chase. I was fucking faster, and I had not forgotten. My enemy tensed for only a moment, before pressing the offensive, instead of running like I expected from the fucking coward. I was admittedly surprised, thereby allowing a stab to pierce through deeper than it should because of my fucking stupidity. But this was no time for self-rumination. It didn't matter why this invisiboy was acting differently. It was doing what I wanted it to, but didn't dare hope it would. This was a great development, so I redoubled my efforts while the curse and hellfire did their job to chip away at the Level 80 monster.

Wounds piled up upon both of us. I could feel its blood flowing freely out, if less than mine, but I had far more blood inside me. I was fine. The monster was not. It was slowing down, precisely because it had foolishly decided to stay and try to weather my magic storm. This curse was not like the one I usually used, but instead it was one whose origin traces back to when I was but a lowly imp. It was a curse of weakening.

It widened my advantage, until finally I was clearly winning the clash. I expected the monster to finally run, but to my surprise and glee, it chose to stay. Until the end. Even when its hand spikes had shattered. Even after I'd carved a hole that went right through its torso. Especially after I smashed its head in.

The invisiboy fell, and then disappeared altogether.

…

…The invisiboy fell… and then… disappeared… altogether?

THE INVISIBOY FELL AND THEN DISAPPEARED ALTOGETHER!?

WAT?

WHAT!?

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!?

Not in my spatial senses nor in my mundane ones. Not in the magic, except for a weird sensation of something in the ambience disappearing. I dropped down to the ground, and started patting it down, only to find that the body was well and truly gone. I couldn't grab hold of the single trace. Even… Huh…? EVEN THE BLOOD WAS GONE!?

My aura escaped me as I exploded with rage and regret. Disappointment so deep it bordered near despair. I realized that I was panicking more than I should, so I calmed the turbulent waters of my emotions as much as I possibly could. The invisiboy had suddenly disappeared, and I didn't know why!

BANG!

My hoof cracked and cratered the earth. I ran for the nearest 'intact' tree, and butchered the burning and rotting thing. I vented out my frustration for a moment longer, until I could finally think. I just stood there for a few seconds more of complete incomprehension.

And then my mind finally worked. I searched through my memory core for my entire recollection of that battle. Everything was as it should be, save for the weird and uniquely… 'brave' way the invisiboy acted. I won, and then the body left behind did indeed just… disappear. My eyes could not see it happen, and the impressions my dimensional scanner gave me were vague. The blood and gore that I'd separated from its body also disappeared upon the creature's death.

So…

Was it a creature that naturally evaporated upon death?

That would be… so frustrating. For me. I'd worked so hard. I was looking forward to grabbing the elusive Materials of the creature for too long!

…

Hmmm…

…What if it was an illusion all along? What if there never was an invisiboy? The feeling of the creature's disappearance was vaguely similar to the 'end' of an illusion, from what little I could sense.

But… that would be absurd! IMPOSSIBLE! I'd gotten injured! I injured the damn thing in turn, but only with a lot of resistance! Devilcalibur clashed and was rebuffed by those spike-for-hands it had! There was no way an illusion could do that!

I mean, sure, I knew that illusions could actually replicate tactile sensations. It can push, it can shove. But there was just no way, absolutely no way, that an illusion could have gotten through my defenses so much. Not my armor, not even my flesh.

This was an entirely stupid theory.

…

So… what else? Was the dissipation on death really just a function of its Mutations?

Or maybe… maybe… maybe it was a mix of the two options?

What if it was a… living illusion of sorts… hence why it was so good at hiding, even when we're already actively fighting?

"ARGH! THIS IS USELESS!" I exclaimed, scratching my helmet hard in lieu of my actual head. I was getting nowhere. I simply had no way to prove anything.

There was nothing I could do. It was over. My prey was gone. I had to move on.

I finally recollected myself. I moved my body to make sure nothing else was amiss. All damage to my flesh was healed. My armor fared a lot worse. The red deathmetal bore the lethal scars and wounds which showed that what had just happened was clearly no illusion. The blood that stained it was all mine… because all of the invisiboy's blood had disappeared, but also because it would not have been visible either way.

Should I go back? I considered. I was so excited to bring back the invisiboy's body, but that… Tt still made me so mad just thinking about how I'd missed out on so much unique first-time loot! Calm calm.

But maybe, there was still a way to get something. Why did the invisiboy attack me so aggressively, when its whole species had long decided to avoid me like the plague. A plague that could take out Level 80 creatures. Fucking terrifying.

Was it protecting something? I looked at the vast swathe of destruction we'd left behind, and then the normal purplish trees beyond it. I wondered what could be out there, what could the nigh imperceptible monster possibly have been guarding.

I scrunched my eyes, until finally I exclaimed, "AN EGG!"

A few animals that remained in the area for some fucking reason fled from my voice, when they had stayed for the battle that happened. I tried to deduce where I was going previously, and eventually succeeded(probably) by reviewing the whole battle again through my memory core. I then kept going in the general direction in search of some kind of nest. It was a little fucked up to steal the egg of the fallen and disappeared invisiboy, if it even laid eggs, but they were nature's snacks for a reason. My armor clanked differently with all the damage it'd accumulated, and I should've really turned back by now, but I may never find another chance like this. Maybe the young invisiboy could be restrained and harvested if we knew how, or maybe it could be trained as a pet—

…

…

"Huh?" I blinked.

One moment, I was in the colorful forest of Lost Reflections.

Another beat, and I was suddenly in a different place altogether.

A landscape of diverse monuments spearing through the earth.

A sleeping mountain of shifting purple scales.

A shadow so incomprehensibly massive it blocked out the rainbow sky.

A Dragon.

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