Sirwen quickly shouted as Jaehwan readied his sword. She pondered what to say, but she ended up saying what she shouldn’t have.
“How about you become my [Product]?”
Jaehwan thrust foward.
The attack destroyed everything thing in its path, but Sirwen teleported right before she was struck. Jaehwan’s eyes narrowed.
“Whoa, I almost died.”
She was on the roof of the building on the left. She shouted at Jaehwan.
“Hey! Can you stop that for a second? You know what situation you are in, right?”
Jaehwan’s expression became grim. There was a reason why Jaehwan was using full force in doing things. He felt terrifying energy approaching from far away, from the direction of the Palace of Reincarnation.
‘The Lords have found out.’
Some of them were probably the Greater Generals that he had heard of before. Sirwen continued, “Darkness is after you. I don’t know who you are, but you must know what it means to be chased after by a Lord, right?”
Sirwen continued quickly, scared of any further attacks. “But I can hide you! I’ll make it so that Darkness can’t touch you! You know about the decree, right? Lords can’t touch [Nightmares]… no, I mean me. If you become my property, no one would dare to touch you.”
It seemed that what she said was true. However, Jaehwan’s reply was the same either way.
“No.”
“…I see.” Sirwen nodded, having already guessed the outcome.
“Oh, well. I guess I’ll have to take you in by force!”
She disappeared. Jaehwan heard Chunghuh’s warning. “Be careful!”
He then felt the land changing, sucking in stones and rocks. Then it all became sand, which turned into snakes made of sand which started charging quickly at Jaehwan.
‘Is that a skill too?’
Jaehwan had never seen such a thing since he entered <Chaos>. He did see Beastlain do something similar with the Tower’s control panel, but it wasn’t on this scale.
“It’s magic! It’s their power!”
Jaehwan stabbed the snakes as he heard Chunghuh’s shout. But the destroyed snakes that weren’t alive in the first place quickly reformed themselves to attack. Jaehwan chased after Sirwen while being chased by the snakes. Jaehwan then felt his body becoming heavy all of a sudden.
All the buildings around him were being crushed down towards him. He tried to dodge it, but the debris was being pulled towards him as if Jaehwan was some kind of a magnet.
Magic.
It was a power that only [Nightmares] could use.
‘She’s distorting gravity!’
All the rocks were stuck against Jaehwan. The [Nightmare] was planning to imprison him within a cell of rocks.
‘I won’t let you do that!’
Jaehwan used all the Spirit Power coming out from his pores as stabs. The spirit energy that was released like a porcupine destroyed all the rocks. Then, a snake jumped at Jaehwan, swallowing him. He was sent down into the stomach, and in the next moment, the snake exploded as Jaehwan jumped out from it.
“Impossible…!”
Jaehwan quickly jumped between the rocks to run to Sirwen.
“…Changing imagination into reality. You’re a monster.”
Sirwen smiled, even with her arms and legs that had been penetrated. It was done. Gravity turned back to normal and the snakes were destroyed.
“You should surrender.”
He had no intention to kill her. He knew she wasn’t trying to kill him. And besides, she was a [Nightmare]. If he could take her alive, she might be a valuable asset on the way to the <Depth>.
Yet Sirwen’s expression looked strange..
“Surrender?”
Sirwen wasn’t surprised. Before Jaehwan realized something was wrong, Sirwen disappeared and warped behind Jaehwan, hugging him strongly. Then she melted away, altering the surrounding environment. Something had started from that hug.
‘….Unique world? No. It’s a hallucination.’
Jaehwan then realized he had faced this before.
Eight Gates of Hell
It was the hallucination skill he had faced before. He calmly took a step into the world. It was a world that felt real, but it wasn’t much to Jaehwan as he had cleared this place before. All he needed to do was to kill those who approached and destroy all the gates until it ended.
Jaehwan quickly destroyed all the gates up to the fifth one.
-Whoa, you know about this skill?
There was surprise in her voice, but she laughed before she spoke.
-But it will be different from the fake one you know.
Her next sentence faded away as it echoed.
…Eight Gates of Hell made by a [Nightmare].
Jaehwan was now at the 7th gate. However, the 7th gate was actually the last in the skill. The 8th gate remained as a kind of reward for the one who managed to go through everything. So if the 7th gate was completed, the skill would terminate automatically. Jaehwan did not know that after this skill had been created, no one had gone past the 7th gate.
The 7th Gate – Hell of Self Reflection
As he walked in, he saw the backs of many figures. It looked familiar and strange at the same time. But when they turned around, he realized why he felt it that way.
Thousands of ‘Jaehwans’ were looking at him.