Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

Eren was seen standing against the hive of cave entrances.

The butcher felt that there was a thin layer of barrier that prevented him from taking the old path he had taken. Meaning he couldn't use his experiences from the previous path to find Sage's location.

"Hmm. Back to square one, huh?"

Eren mumbled to himself as he chose a different route than before. Unlike his first attempt, Eren decided to make conscious efforts in finding the Sage instead of programming himself to defend himself against Sage's assassination.

Eren knew setting up a priority like this was bound to make him more prone to being assassinated by Sage's shadows. However, he wasn't afraid to visit the Nightmare Domain anymore. There was some part of him that was even looking forward to it.

The same cycle repeated itself.

Eren was killed by Sage Loxley's anelace once again. When he got inside the Nightmare Domain, it was shown that he needed to spend a little over two weeks inside it to qualify for his re-entry into the Sansara World.

"Time is the most reliable teacher. Patience is the most valuable lesson."

Eren said to himself and sighed as he looked around, finding himself in a familiar setting. In the next moment, lightning struck and he disappeared from his position. A few wraiths cried in the distance as a storm of lightning and fire appeared in their midst.

***

This was Eren's sixth revival inside Sansara World.

This was the furthest anyone had gone in claiming Sage's legacy. Nobody dared to face the Nightmare Domain as many times as the butcher did.

Most of the rankers already had mental scars on their psyches that wouldn't heal anytime soon after being judged by the Life and Death Altar. A majority of them failed to survive the default period. And those who did lost interest in Sage's test for some reason.

The fear of death was instinctual. It could be suppressed but not completely eliminated. Nobody wanted to feel the moment of their last breath time and again just so that they could stand a chance to inherit Sage's legacy.

Eren would have won by default at this point. Some participants, however, decided to sit on the fence outside the hive of caves after being revived. So fortunately or unfortunately, Eren kept on getting assassinated.

Eren walked into a different cave entrance this time.

The passage led him to a spacious underground space that was illuminated by radiant stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Exuding light green radiance, they breathed new life into the visual setting that had become too monotonous for the butcher to notice the difference.

***

Eren had learned a lot about Sage Lufthansa at this point. Especially the way he attacked. He used puddles on the ground as teleportation channels to launch his assassination attacks.

Lufthansa did not have an awakened soul sense. As a result, the vestige of his soul couldn't use spiritual spells. But it turns out that he doesn't have to. He used puppets to launch sneak attacks on all the participants all at once. Those were the shadows he was talking about.

These puppets were an alchemic invention and could be operated using an array mechanism etched onto them. They were the same size and shape as the original Sage Loxley.

The puppets didn't have facial features. They would mimic most of their users' movements and carry out their plans based on their intentions. After recording several movement patterns, they were able to move on their own. Users could also manually operate them by sending their consciousness into them.

These puppets would emerge and leap diagonally from puddles of water, attacking their opponents in one swift motion. They were just copying Sage Loxley's movements and acting on his wishes.

When Sage Loxley used to carry out such attacks with his original body back in the past, he would jump out of the water bodies and kill his enemies in the same manner. And his jumps would make him look as if a crane was taking flight.

Teleportation through elemental bodies like puddles of water using space-element attainments as a foundation. Then using the Ability to jump diagonally out of the elemental bodies and assassinate the opponents.

Yuffie Loxley was given the title of Lufthansa because of his unique Ability, which meant a crane taking flight. Whenever such a diagonal jump was taken which resembled a crane's flight, it only meant downfall for Loxley's enemies.

This was Sage Loxley's unique Ability which he could share with his puppets as well. Almost nobody was able to save themselves when Sage Loxley decided to kill them using his powers.

This was the reason Eren was wary of the puddles of water. At first, he thought that the puddles were created because of the distant underground river. But he soon came to realize that the sound of flowing water in the distance was fake. However, the butcher eventually noticed that it was repetitive.

The Sage was basically making the participants understand his Ability by introducing the repetition of the following river's sound. It was his way of "giving a handicap to the younger generation".

However, there was one problem with Sage's generosity. He didn't take into account the participants' condition at the time of being assassinated by him. Their psyches were so overwhelmed by fear and pressure that they didn't pay attention to the underground river's sound, which kept on flowing sonorously in the distance.

Eren was wary of puddles of water. However, he didn't completely avoid them. He knew the puppets were too fast to be intercepted before they attacked him. Their jumps were too sudden and their attacks were too precise to be parried effectively.

Thus, Eren wasn't counting on intercepting the puppets before they made a move on him. Instead, he was trying to catch them after they had attacked him. He needed to use his own body as bait to catch the puppets in action.

Eren looked at the luminescent stalactites as he walked further to get to the other end of the underground passage. Just when he was supposedly relaxing a bit by exhaling a breath, the attack occurred.