Oliver stumbled alone through the dimly lit corridor. Just a few minutes earlier, he had been screaming and running for his life, but now he was too exhausted to run or even scream. The corridor was like a maze, with no exit in sight. He began to wonder if, having ended up somewhere like this, he would never escape no matter how hard he tried.
"Heave-ho."
Oliver simply found a corner and sat down, staring around him with an utterly hopeless expression. Hell? It really was a bit like he'd imagined. He never thought he, Anderson Oliver, would deserve this kind of fate in his early twenties. Had he really done too many terrible things in his life? If he'd toyed with fewer girls, would he still have ended up in this predicament?
"Ah, I really hope an angel will come down one day and save me from this nightmare. I swear I'll never get involved with women again..."
Oliver silently made his vow, and the very next second, the wall he was leaning against collapsed. A towering black figure came hurtling through backward, followed close behind by a silver-haired beauty who looked just like an angel.
"Did my prayer come true?"
Oliver rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Then he realized that wasn't an angel at all. It was Cecilia, the classmate he'd been relentlessly pursuing just a little while ago.
"Grrroar!"
A furious roar rumbled from beneath the white bone mask of the towering Hell Guard. It swung its double-headed battleaxe through the air, bringing it crashing down on Ling Ying amid a sudden flare of sickly green Will-o'-the-wisps. Several Shadow Thorns shot through the air, pinning the axe in mid-swing. Ling Ying seized the opening, stepped forward, and drove Doran's Blade into the Hell Guard's chest.
There was no scream, nor any further struggle. Its massive body dissolved in an instant, then turned into a cloud of black mist that flowed into Ling Ying.
"Thanks for the meal."
Ling Ying gave a bewitching smile, a glimmer of black light flashing in her eyes. Just as she'd thought, Shadow Power rarely struck back against forces of its own origin. Perhaps Shadow Creatures simply didn't kill their own kind. They were all pawns of a higher being. And Ling Ying, a Void Creature who had mastered Shadow Power, was like a tiger among sheep. After all, the Void accepted everything.
Ling Ying turned around and saw Oliver crouched in the corner, staring at her in a daze.
"Wow! Cecilia! I'm so glad to see—"
"Don't move!"
Ling Ying's sudden bark nearly made Oliver pull his head into his shoulders. He stood rooted to the spot, trembling and afraid to move. Ling Ying approached slowly with her sword in hand, constantly watching for any changes around them. This time, though, there didn't seem to be an ambush. She reached Oliver without incident, but didn't lower her guard. Keeping her blade pointed at him, she said sternly:
"Recite the first paragraph of the first love letter you wrote me."
"Huh?"
"Recite it now! Or die here!"
"Ahhh... I... I... No, I mean... Ah, Cecilia! You're like a ray of sunshine that drives away the gloom and lights up the left side of my chest, warming the right side. You're also like a refreshing glass of soda, making every day of my life bubble with happiness..."
"That's enough. Stop."
Ling Ying waved a hand, fighting down a wave of nausea.
"I believe you're really you. Hurry up and get up. You're a grown man—don't start blubbering at the drop of a hat."
"Cecilia, I... I... Sob..."
Having narrowly escaped death, Oliver seemed overwhelmed by his feelings. Tears instantly streamed down his face. Considering how he'd acted earlier, the sight was almost too ridiculous for words.
"Stop crying, or I'll leave you here."
"Ah... No... Don't! I won't... Aah!"
Oliver's voice suddenly turned into a long, drawn-out scream. Ling Ying didn't even turn around. Holding her sword backward, she thrust it behind her, and the shadow of a battleaxe vanished above her head. Another Hell Guard met the same fate as its companion, becoming nourishment for Ling Ying.
"Tch."
Ling Ying licked her lips, then sized Oliver up.
"Hmm, you look more or less intact than I expected. Hasn't anything weird come after you?"
"Huh? N-no... After that Three-Headed Dog scared me off, I've just been wandering around in circles here. Nothing chased me."
Oliver swallowed hard as he spoke. Clearly, watching Ling Ying swallow such a huge creature had left him in shock.
"So the attacks were all focused on me?"
Ling Ying's brows lifted slightly. If she were the Space Mage, she wouldn't necessarily spread the attacks evenly, but she would at least strike both of them at once. Spatial magic was an advanced form of magic, after all, and any mage capable of using it would have fine control over their magical domain. If they were both targets, as Oliver claimed, he shouldn't have come through unscathed.
Ling Ying glanced at the wall she'd just smashed through. It remained damaged, just as before. Repairing such a small area should have been easy for a spatial mage. Or it could have prevented her from breaking through the wall in the first place. Yet not only had Ling Ying easily damaged the structure of this space, her opponent hadn't even been able to repair it.
Ling Ying suddenly seemed to realize something. From the start, this so-called Space Mage had never used the space itself to attack. Instead, the Shadow Monsters that had appeared from nowhere had done all the fighting. That was clearly abnormal. Unless... it couldn't control this space at all. Everything was just an illusion meant to confuse her.
An illusion? Ling Ying had a sudden revelation. She turned Doran's Blade and made as if to strike the wall beside her. But her blade stopped halfway. Ling Ying quickly sheathed it, then vanished into black mist. Almost at the same moment, a massive Demon Claw descended from the ceiling, crushing half the corridor.
"Waaaaah!"
Oliver's scream rang out from among the collapsing ceiling. Ling Ying paid no attention to his condition. Her gaze fixed on a shadowy black figure standing atop the giant claw. "Standing" wasn't quite right, since its entire lower body was fused with the claw.
"Couldn't wait, so you came out yourself?"
Ling Ying's voice dripped with scorn. The shadow on the giant claw was no longer as composed as before. Facing Ling Ying, it shouted:
"Why do you have power bestowed by the Master?!"
"Master?"
Ling Ying opened her mouth to say something, but the shadow suddenly shook its head hard and ended the exchange by talking to itself.
"Forget it! It doesn't matter. You're going to die here today no matter what! You have to die!"
The shadow moved. The giant claw beneath it suddenly rose, then came slamming down at Ling Ying. She didn't dodge or evade, even as the claw was about to crush her. Suddenly, black mist surged up from beneath her feet and condensed into a towering figure in a black robe. It swung a scythe wreathed in dark purple flames, easily blocking the claw, despite it being much larger, and stopping it dead.
"I have to admit, your lackeys are weak, but at least... they gave me some ideas."
As Ling Ying spoke, the Black Robe suddenly wrenched himself free from beneath the claw. Then, moving with a nimbleness that seemed impossible for his size, he became a spinning top, slashing his long scythe through the air again and again. In an instant, he had sliced away three of the claw's five fingers. The figure above the claw staggered as though it had lost its balance. Ling Ying's summoned Black Robe seized the opportunity to hurl his scythe. Its razor-sharp blade cut straight through the enemy's neck, sending a fine head flying into the air. It rolled away through wisps of black mist and disappeared into a corner of the corridor where Ling Ying couldn't see it.
"Very good."
The whisper came again, now edged with gritted teeth.
"But you can't kill me..."
"Because this is your domain, right?"
Ling Ying cut it off, then gave a disdainful look.
"Stop fooling yourself. Your Shadow Power might be real, but this so-called hell of yours? Just like all those things you tried to use to numb us, it's nothing but an intangible illusion. We never actually left the building, did we?"
"You!"
The whisper fell silent, which only made Ling Ying more certain of her guess.
"How did you know? No, no..."
The whisper grew almost hysterical, as if it couldn't accept that Ling Ying had seen through the truth. Then it suddenly broke into a deranged laugh.
"So what if you figured it out? As long as this space continues to exist, you can't kill me. And if you can't kill me, you'll never get out of here! Hahahahaha..."
"Wrong."
Ling Ying shook her head, then suddenly slammed her sword into the ground. A surging wave of flames burst forth and spread rapidly in every direction, devouring half the corridor in an instant.
"An illusion, no matter how clever, is still just an illusion. It's powerless before real flames."
"What are you trying to do?!"
The whisper seemed to understand what Ling Ying was about to do. For the first time, its voice held a hint of panic. Unlike it, Ling Ying calmly leaned on her sword and waited, the bright flames reflected in her slit pupils.
"Your lousy illusion can't keep me here, and I don't need you to get out. Let's see if your illusion can swallow me whole."
"No! Stop! You demon!"
The whisper seemed to have completely panicked. Its shrill screams could shatter eardrums. Ling Ying remained perfectly still as the scorching flames burned and raged around her. Vivid purple tongues of fire licked every corner of the space. Several minutes later, the screams abruptly stopped, and a thin figure fell from the air. Ling Ying immediately raised her hand and thrust her sword. The blade shot forward with a high-pitched whistle, piercing the figure's chest.
"Chhk..."
As Ling Ying thrust her sword, the entire space began to tremble. Countless shafts of light pierced the dark corridor, making the whole place seem bizarre and unreal. The next instant, the illusion shattered into fragments. The real space it had concealed gradually returned to Ling Ying's view. Just as she'd thought, they had been wandering around the corridors of the Administration Building the whole time. It had all been an illusion.
Ling Ying turned her gaze to the figure impaled by her blade. It was a beautiful woman who could easily have been called a knockout. But all that beauty was ruined by the hideous, contorted look on her face. And she was unquestionably dead.
Ling Ying studied her face for a while, finding it vaguely familiar. Oliver crawled out from who knew where and stared at the girl in shock.
"Claire? No... How could this be..."
"Claire?"
Ling Ying frowned. The name seemed vaguely familiar, but before she could think back on it, she turned her attention to the surging wave of flames she'd released and extinguished it with a flick of her hand.
"Looks like I'll have to trouble Caitlyn again."
Ling Ying looked at the corridor, which had nearly melted from the heat, and grumbled silently to herself.
At the same time, a slender figure in a school uniform sat on the edge of the academy's Bell Tower, swinging her legs leisurely. Her waterfall of black hair draped over her shoulder, reflecting the last glimmers of the setting sun. She was a female student at the academy. At least, that was what she appeared to be. Just then, she was surveying the academy grounds with one crimson eye. Several groups of students who had just finished class were walking across the plaza when a glimmer of fire in the distance, at the Administration Building, caught her attention. She turned her gaze toward it. As she watched, the fire grew and soon surged into a raging blaze. The unusual sight caught the attention of the people in the plaza, though most of them only pointed from a distance. Only a few teachers and students called to one another, grabbed fire extinguishers, and rushed toward the building. Three figures in particular drew her attention from above.
"Senior! Hurry! Cecilia's still trapped inside!"
The Blonde Girl ran ahead, shouting between ragged breaths. Two male students followed close behind, carrying some strange equipment. They seemed to be planning to rush into the fire and rescue someone. But just as they... the flames suddenly went out, along with all the light. The bizarre turn of events left everyone present at a loss. The figure atop the Bell Tower, however, gave a knowing smile.
"You lost. As expected, you were nothing more than a stray dog I picked up on a whim. Even after I gave you power, this was all you could manage."
The girl leaped to her feet from the edge of the Bell Tower. She glanced at the dozen or so stories beneath her, leaned forward, spread her arms, and plunged toward the ground.
A moment later, the figure vanished in midair. Only a rose with pitch-black petals landed on the ground. Unnoticed by anyone, the Black Rose faded and dissolved, disappearing just like the figure.
"Piltover really is interesting."
Before you continue