"Save me? I work here, now stop before you get me in trouble," the woman shouted, before pulling her hand back.
"And my name's not Ghost, it's Athena," she continued.
~Athena? Th-that's not right that's- that's my wife's name,~ Lucius thought to himself, it felt like something inside his mind was unravelling, but before he could figure out what it was, he heard a large number of footsteps approaching.
"We have to get out of here," he warned, as he heard the footsteps come closer.
" Are you crazy, what are you talking about?"
"You don't have to work here, I can see that they're hurting you. Why do you still want to stay?" he asked, his mind felt foggy, but he was certain that he was doing the right thing.
"And then what? How am I going to feed myself? Or do you expect me to sleep on the streets like you? And- and even if I wanted to, you think that they'd just let me go?" she asked, fighting back the tears that crept on the rim of her eyelids.
"I'll sort it out, I'll- I'll protect you," Lucius replied, as a horde of guards appeared from the corner. He prepared himself to fight them, he wasn't sure how he would do it, but he would.
~It's not as if my life is worth anything anyway,~ he thought to himself as he resolved to die.
~I wasted my youth fighting for nothing, at least, for once, I'll fight for something I care about,~ he thought to himself. Right now it wasn't just Athena behind him, it was his wife, his son, and all the faceless names of the children he cared for.
"Stay back, this'll g-" Lucius was about to say before he felt something cold stab at his back. The pain travelled across his body, effectively paralyzing him.
"Protect me? You couldn't even protect your wife," Athena's voice whispered into his ear as he fell to the ground.
No, that wasn't Athena's voice.
The world around him began to fall apart until only darkness remained. In place of where Athena should've been stood an undead creature.
"Another step closer," the creature said as it walked around Lucius.
"Whatever it is that seals your memories cannot prevent you from accessing them. Soon we'll have what we want," it continued, before picking Lucius up by the horns.
Lucius moved to defend himself, but found that he was unable to.
"Didn't I tell you? You have no power here, only us mind eaters do," the creature said, before gesturing to the infinite darkness behind it. Hidden in the shadows were a thousand glowing eyes, each of them staring at Lucius.
"W-why?" Lucius asked the memories of all the cycles he had gone through suddenly hitting him. This wasn't the first, second, or third time he had been in this- illusion of the real world. No, hundreds of cycles had gone past.
Each cycle destroying him in some way. At first, it was easy for him to figure out that everything wasn't real, but the more information these creatures got out of him, the more realistic the world became.
It was the ultimate form of torture interrogation, each time he fought against an enemy he didn't know existed.
"Why? I don't know either. My lord seems to think you're special," the creature said in disgust, pulling Lucius closer.
"But I don't see it. Even with your full power, you wouldn't be able to harm our weakest soldier," the creature continued before letting go of him.
"It'd be best for you just to give up whatever secrets you're hiding. You'll be reborn in a stronger form once my lord adds you to his commune. You'll be granted access to abilities you've never dreamed of," it continued.
"W-What are you talking about? As if I'd let that monster take over the forest," Lucius spat.
"That monster will save the world. But I don't expect a low-tier creature like you to understand that" the creature said, and with that, Lucius was in yet another illusion.
~Save the world?~ Lucius thought to himself as his memories were wiped once again.
**
"Monster, what business do you have with our forest?" the Zeldrave king asked as it carefully dropped Alpha onto the ground.
"How did you survive that?" the necromancer asked, staring at the three spots where its bolts had hit the Zeldrave.
"I asked you a question," the Zeldrave king asked as he got to his feet, before approaching the necromancer.
"That's a mystic mantle, huh? A guardian class then?" the necromancer whispered to itself, staring intently at the Zeldrave.
"Stop muttering!" the Zeldrave king shouted, before sending a stream of white liquid towards the necromancer.
At that moment a wall made of bones appeared to block the spell, however, a large gash still appeared on the necromancer's back.
Instinctively it turned around to see what had attacked it, but found nothing there.
"Pay attention to the king when he speaks!" the Zeldrave king shouted, before throwing a punch towards the necromancer's face.
Yet again a wall of bones moved to halt the attack, yet oddly enough another gash appeared on the necromancer's body, this time on the back of its head.
"What is going on here? Physical attacks aren't supposed to get past 'The gates' even if this vessel is weak," the necromancer shouted in anger as its wounds began to heal.
"What trickery are you usi-" the necromancer was about to ask, before its wall appeared yet again, this time to its right.
A load boom resounded from behind the wall, where the Zeldrave had struck out its tail to pierce the necromancer.
Like before, another gash appeared on the necromancer's back.
"W-What are you?" the necromancer asked pure confusion in its voice. Its hand was still on Lucius's head, heavily restricting both its movements and the variety of spells it could cast.
"I am Avankor Zeldrave, the 100th Zeldrave king," the Zeldrave king replied.
"And the fool who has been stabbing you in the back is Shavak, the backstabbing king of the Chames," Avankor announced.
