I wonder how Luca is doing right now. I doubt they're going to let him go after all the mess he made… Haaa, I even warned him; he got too greedy.
I was currently in the middle of my training routine; my brother was watching over me from a distance, scrutinizing every movement I made.
I was imagining fighting an endless horde of enemies, keeping my father's words at heart, and keeping movements to a minimum; the less I move around, the worse it'll be for my enemies to get to me. As corpses will inevitably pile around me.
Follow your attacks with your hands; it's best to always give a false lead to your enemies. That's how you can easily spot the troublesome individuals first.
The words of my father echoed in my hand. His knowledge was far beyond any of the teachers he ever paid to teach me; he could read through most enemies, he knew how to space himself from his opponent, he knew how to bait them, and most importantly, he was extremely fast at analyzing his opponent's powers.
"If you use a simple pattern of attack, even to your detriment, the enemies will inevitably start thinking of that as being a drawback of yours, for example, if your flames can only come out of the palms of your hands, then they will try to avoid them, and won't expect to be attacked from any other side, they will overfocus on your hand and forget to pay attention to you."
I was slowly turning around, flailing my hands in circles aiming at the ground so that flames spewed out of the palms of my hands would bounce and create a spinning, deathly ring all around me.
Set the smoke up; don't be scared of your own power. If they can still clearly see you, they can easily shoot you down.
In the scenario in my mind I could tell most soldiers would start trying to shoot randomly; with vision unclear, they were surely going to start thinking of ways to counter me. Surely some of them had something to use against me, so I started weaponizing the smoke, emitting more and more, covering everything in that smoke.
I created creatures made of fire lurking in there, patrolling the nearby area to get rid of anything that got too close, and lastly, a surprise attack coming from underground: a bunch of spears emerging from the ground ready to impale any soldier with senses good enough to track my position in the thick smoke.
When I turned around, Ilay didn't seem impressed by my showcase of skill, so I started showing off some new untested attacks, like making armor out of my ability or creating special spheres that, constantly spinning, once compressed, began releasing high quantities of heat.
"Stop, you don't know what you're doing anymore; we can end the practice here." He immediately shouted.
"W-what? But I still have a lot to show off." I complained.
"You're shooting blindly, I can tell. You're trying desperately to grasp the root of that power, and while it's not wrong to do that, I think you should first master how to use its current powers before you try to change it." He then explained.
"I know you're trying to do what Father is doing, but he took years and years to know and master the techniques he's using. There's no need to rush it; take it slow. You have plenty of time ahead of you." He concluded, trying to cheer me up.
Haa.
Now it was Ilay's turn to show off his skill, so I sat down in his seat as he got up and prepared himself to start activating his powers when we both felt something ominous approach us.
A smell so powerful and intense it overwhelmed our senses, it covered any other smell and made shivers run down our spines.
As we turned around, I saw a massive ray of light coming out of Luca's house, followed by a large wave of demonic energy being released in all directions.
I tried making a wall of flames to defend us, but it was useless; there was simply too much energy. It quickly overwhelmed any defense I tried to put up, shattering everything in its path. Not even Ilay was able to stop that wave of energy.
When it hit, the reality around us started to warp; everything was slowly distorting until everything turned black.
"Ilay! Where are you?" I shouted at the top of my lungs.
I could feel the terrain around me tremble, then the light suddenly switched back on, and I found myself submerged underwater. The entire floating city was.
What the…
I wasn't floating, nor could I swim; the water wasn't real, but it all looked so realistic that I immediately tried pushing away the water using my flames.
The illusion wasn't stable, because a second after we found ourselves back in the skies, the crystal at the center of the city was destroyed and quickly plummeted towards the ground. The floating metal guardians, the protectors of the city, were destroyed.
Some of them were missing a few limbs, some had their chests torn open, and some had their heads split open. The projection surrounding their bodies that made them look angelic was malfunctioning, exposing their true body of metal.
They were desperately holding on to the chains of the island, trying to keep it floating above the clouds, but didn't have the strength necessary to lift such a giant place, and if they had it, they were too badly damaged to do so anyway.
What is this? Why is the city plummeting towards the ground? What is this illusion, and why does it feel so real?
I could barely keep my feet on the ground; the wind blowing against my face was making it hard to keep my eyes open. I wanted to jump away and fly over the whole island, waiting for the illusion to wear off, but when I tried to, an invisible hand grabbed me by my right ankle and slammed me back towards the ground.
Then the island was hit by yet another illusion; this time it was the middle of the day, a solar eclipse could be seen, and weird demonic tendrils were slowly reaching out to this island from the moon.
Another one?
I braced myself for the worst, but nothing could've prepared me for what I was about to see.
Many small meteors were falling onto the floating heavenly city, and from them weird demonic humans emerged. Their bodies seemed made out of dust and a dark smoke; they didn't have any facial features and had red glowing orbs instead of normal eyes.
They were dressed in dark military outfits, holding what seemed like many hunting rifles instead of the usual assault rifles soldiers should be equipped with.
One of them even landed close to me. I saw that this one had a mask covering both his mouth and nose, yet I could still see him vividly smiling behind such a mask.
With one hand he suddenly raised the weapon and shot at me. Believing this was only an illusion, I didn't bother to put up a defense, but the bullet grazed my arm, leaving a wound behind.
Blood? an injury? No, this is an illusion… What the hell is this then? Not an illusion? How?
The illusion was starting to change; it was slowly turning real.
I have to get out of here.
I immediately summoned the demonic crown to create a wall to block the next shot. The invisible hand from earlier then pulled me away from a sneak attack; another one of those shadow soldiers had tried to shoot at me from behind.
"Get out!" My brother screamed as he stomped his feet into the ground; he was slowly returning to be visible to my eyes.
He had already undergone full transformation, so the situation was a lot more severe than I gave it credit for.
His dark skin had turned bright red, his braids had grown significantly longer and had hidden blades hidden within them, he no longer had eyes, and weird mouths were appearing and disappearing all over his body.
I had no time to keep admiring his new form, as I quickly had to use my powers to teleport myself away from the battlefield, back to the roof of the house. Since there was a mirror placed right there, I did it in an instant using the teleporting ability I had.
I tried charging the flames for a ranged attack, but I was shot; the bullet pierced my right hand.
What? How can they still keep track of my position when they're fighting—
Another bullet grazed my left ear, and before I knew it, I was lying on the floor of the roof, crawling away, hoping those demons couldn't shoot me through the walls.
Fuck!
The wound hurt, a kind of hurt I had never felt before. I wasn't used to being injured so badly; I could barely think about what to do next. I wanted to call for help from my brother, but I knew that doing that would've spelled my death.
Focus, focus, please for the love of god, focus.
My crown was slowly fading away as the pain didn't allow me to keep the focus on the demonic ability; the burning sensation etched into my hand was growing more and more powerful. To prevent myself from screaming, I put the collar of my shirt in my mouth and bit it as hard as I could.
Focus on the root, the root, the teleporting ability.
I closed my eyes and began detecting every window, every mirror, and every possible reflective surface I could teleport to to run away.