novelzi Chapter 573: Arcadia, The First Planet In All Creation (LI)
Chapter 573: Arcadia, The First Planet In All Creation (LI)
The space around Aestrea began to convulse violently.The luxurious hotel room, the city skyline, the bed, and even Vespera’s decapitated body started to fracture like shattered glass.
Reality itself warped and twisted as the illusion collapsed in on itself.
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
Aestrea stood calmly in the center of the chaos, unaffected. The world around him folded and dissolved until he was once again standing at the summit of the fifth tower.
The platform was now empty.
In front of him stood a tall, entirely black figure. It had no clear features, just a humanoid shape made of pure darkness, like a living shadow given form.
It was staring directly at him.
"You... how did you know?" the black figure inquired, its voice trembling with disbelief and something close to fear.
The voice was quite familiar.
It was Vespera’s voice.
Aestrea stared at the figure for a few seconds, then laughed lightly. He took a slow step forward, his red slit eyes glowing softly.
"How did I know?" he repeated.
"You really thought this little game would work on me?"
He tilted his head slightly, studying the black figure like it was a puzzle he had already solved.
"Let me walk you through it. From the very beginning."
Aestrea raised one hand and began counting on his fingers.
"First, the moment I entered the tower. The warning said my powers would be sealed and I’d become a ’mere mortal.’ That was the first red flag. If the Creator truly wanted to test me, she would have designed something that actually challenged my mind, not just stripped my strength. But more importantly, why would the Tower still be able to seal my power after I’d already absorbed three Divine Trumpets? Those Trumpets are fragments of her own authority. The fact that the seal still worked told me this wasn’t a fair trial. It was a mere trap designed to make me doubt myself."
He took another step closer to the black figure.
"Second, the first challenge, ’discovering your inner you.’ You dropped me into a perfect replica of my first life as an actor. You even gave me the same name. That was clever. You wanted me to question my identity, to wonder if I was still the God of Karma or just some celebrity playing a role. But you made one critical mistake."
Aestrea’s smile grew colder.
"You made the people around me too perfect. Too convenient. Elara was beautiful, talented, and emotionally attached in exactly the way that would test my ability to maintain distance. Vespera, or rather, you, appeared as the powerful, seductive CEO with a mysterious history with me. Even Veronica was written as the perfect ’good girl’ option. It was all too clean. Real life doesn’t hand you three beautiful, powerful women who are all conveniently obsessed with you in different ways. That smelled like artificial writing."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"Third, the previous challenges, specifically the arrays. You used the demons and angels as bait. Weak guardians. Why would the Tower, which had previously used a Primordial Chaos Divine Dragon as protection, suddenly use such low-level beings for the fourth tower? Because they weren’t the real defense. The arrays were. And the arrays were specifically designed to counter someone who had broken the rules of this world using the Trumpets. That told me the Tower, or you, already knew what powers I had obtained. Which meant the illusion wasn’t just testing me. It was trying to trap me."
Aestrea’s voice dropped lower, more dangerous.
"Fourth... and this was the biggest mistake. Vespera."
He stared directly at the black figure.
"You played her too well. The possessive behavior, the way she always tried to claim me, the way she called herself ’Mommy’... it was almost perfect. But here’s the problem, I already have someone who calls herself that. Elleonora... the real one. The one who actually waited years for me. When you used the same pet name, the same desperate clinginess, the same mix of lust and emotional need... it was too similar. Too on the nose. You were trying to recreate the emotional bonds I have in the real world to make this illusion feel authentic. But you overdid it... real people don’t mirror each other that perfectly."
He took one final step, now standing right in front of the trembling black figure.
"And the final piece... You let me kill you."
Aestrea’s red eyes glowed brighter.
"In a real illusion designed to trap me, the characters wouldn’t have allowed me to murder them so easily. But you let Vespera get close. You let her lower her guard completely. You wanted me to feel in control, to think I had broken free of the illusion by killing her. That was the final trap. You were hoping I would believe I had won... and stay trapped inside the illusion forever."
Aestrea’s voice turned ice cold.
"But I’ve spent lifetimes being betrayed, imprisoned, and manipulated. I know what a cage looks like when it’s dressed up as freedom. So I tested it. I killed her. And the world broke."
He looked at the black figure with pure contempt.
"That’s how I knew."
The black figure was silent for a long moment, but it was visibly shaking now.
Aestrea tilted his head.
"Now... are you going to tell me what the real challenge is? Or do I have to keep tearing your little puppet show apart piece by piece?"
Then, slowly, it clenched its fists tightly, the darkness around it thickening like ink in water.
"The real challenge..." the figure hissed, its voice trembling with fury and something darker, "is to defeat me!"
In an instant, the space twisted violently.
The black figure spread its arms wide, and an overwhelming wave of energy erupted from it.
The entire summit of the fifth tower warped and shifted as the Domain of Illusions was fully activated.
WOOOOOOOOONG!!!
The air shimmered and fractured.
The shattered platform beneath Aestrea’s feet dissolved into an endless, shifting void.
The sky above turned into a swirling vortex of distorted memories and false realities.
Illusions began to manifest all around him; phantom versions of his lovers appeared, with their faces twisted with pain and betrayal.
Phantom versions of his enemies rose from the shadows, laughing and mocking him.
Even phantom versions of himself in many different states stood in the distance, staring at him with hollow eyes.
The Domain of Illusions didn’t just create fake images.
It dug into his mind, pulling out his deepest fears, regrets, and insecurities, and made them real.
The ground beneath him shifted into scenes from his past lives, the moments he had lost everything, the people he had failed, the times he had been betrayed.
"...Fucking hell," Aestrea muttered, his red slit eyes narrowing as he looked around at the chaos.
"You abandoned us."
"You were never strong enough to protect us."
"All your power, and you still let us die."
The illusions lunged at him.
The illusions lunged at him.
A phantom Luna, her eyes glowing with grief, swung a blade made of frozen moonlight.
Aestrea summoned the Heaven Swallowing Sword and Midnight Sword into his hands, quickly blocking the strike.
CLANG!
The impact sent sparks flying as he pushed the illusion back.
But another phantom, Elleonora, her form twisted with rage, attacked from his left, firing arcs of arcane energy.
Aestrea spun, slashing with the Midnight Sword.
The blade cut through the energy beam, splitting it in half.
He followed with a thrust from the Heaven Swallowing Sword, piercing the phantom’s chest. The illusion screamed and dissolved into black mist, but two more took its place.
"Tsk!"
Aestrea moved like a storm of chaos.
He dodged a barrage of illusory spears from phantom versions of his enemies, then countered with a wide arc from both swords.
SHIIIIIIING!!!
The dual blades cut through three illusions at once, their forms shattering into fragments of false memory.
Golden and black energy exploded outward as he activated Authority of Ruin, decaying a group of approaching phantoms into dust before they could reach him.
But the domain adapted.
The ground beneath his feet turned into quicksand made of his own regrets.
Aestrea felt himself sinking as visions of his failures played out around him, the moment he lost Luna, the times his lovers had suffered because of his choices.
The illusions pulled at his legs, trying to drag him down.
He used Authority of Gravity to stabilize himself, then Authority of the Abyss to open a void beneath his feet, swallowing the sinking ground.
He leaped upward, landing on a floating platform of crystallized chaos he created mid-air.
"You can’t fight your own mind forever, God of Karma! This is your prison! Your failures! Your truth!!!!"
The black figure laughed from everywhere and nowhere.
Aestrea didn’t reply and charged forward at full power.
Shing! Shing! Shing!
He cut through a wave of phantom enemies, versions of Chronos, Nyarlathotep, and other beings he had faced.
The Heaven Swallowing Sword devoured their false essences, while the Midnight Sword cut through their forms with razor-sharp efficiency.
But the domain kept spawning more.
A massive illusory version of the Primordial Chaos Divine Dragon appeared, roaring as it breathed black-violet flames toward him.
Aestrea met the attack head-on, crossing both swords in front of him and unleashing a condensed version of the Eighth Move.
『 Eighth Move! (✹ ✧ Eternal Karmic Eclipse ✧ ✹) 』
A silver pillar of karmic chaos erupted from his blades, colliding with the dragon’s breath. The explosion lit up the entire domain, shattering the illusory dragon into pieces.
He used the momentum to spin and slash at a group of phantom lovers who were reaching out with accusing hands.
SHIIIIIIING!!!
The illusions dissolved, but more took their place.
"Fuck..."
’It brute force doesn’t work, I’ll have to think of a plan,’ Aestrea groaned inwardly, taking the opportunity to take a deep look at the whole domain.
’...Or I could simply force my own Domain as well...’