[Nightmare]

Helix stepped into the arena with a personal wooden sword.

He unsheathed it carefully and inspected its weight.

Instead of rushing in, he tested his new level and stats after fighting the Level 79 Markov.

Tilo watched the young man patiently with a satisfied glint in his eyes.

He enjoyed watching Helix strike the sword in the air twenty times in each direction.

It was a sign of his growth.

"His slashes are really slow." Riley commented.

"True. It's surprising." Charlotte replied.

"It's because he leveled up right before we got here." Marie explained.

"Tyrene was telling us about the importance of muscle memory last night, remember?"

"Oh yeah… gaaaaaah! I'm so excited!" Charlotte cried.

"We get to watch Hellie fight!"

Marie and Riley's faces lit up with anticipation.

"Do you think he'll use his Nightmare?" Riley asked.

"Hmmm. It's hard to tell." Marie replied.

"The strategy he helped me formulate was shockingly effective despite its simplicity.

I think that he'll perform a minimalist approach."

Charlotte corrected her glasses.

"I see…."

"Charlotte, why do you wear those glasses?" Marie asked.

"They're not real."

Charlotte shot her a mocking glance.

"Why? It's because Hellie showed interest in my quirky style when he met me." She shrugged.

"After Helix shattered my expectations with his cunning strategy, I took an interest in him.

I have worn the glasses every day since.

They make me stand out, so I'm easy to notice."

Marie's eyes went wide.

"Hmmm? Is it surprising I'd work to get his attention, Ms. Blushy?" Charlotte asked with a grin.

Marie glared at Charlotte with a murderous gaze.

Charlotte gazed at Helix, who was still swinging his sword.

"You have your eyes in the wrong direction." She commented.

Marie's eyes widened again before instantly turning back to Helix.

"Alright, master. I think that I'm ready." Helix smiled.

Tilo walked forward.

"I'm not letting you casually attack me today." He announced.

"I didn't think you would." Helix sighed.

"Good man." Tilo smiled.

"Whenever you're ready." Helix announced.

Tilo's olive-green eyes clashed against Helix's pitch-black gaze.

"Ten!" Tilo began.

"Let's goooooo!" Charlotte cried.

"Nine!"

"Get'em, Helix!" Marie cheered.

"Eight!"

"I'll be watching." Riley called out sweetly.

"Seven!"

"Thanks, guys." Helix chuckled.

"Six!"

"Five!"

"Four!"

"I'm stoked!" Charlotte cried.

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

"Go!"

Helix disappeared, leaving the women bewildered.

"Concealment Spell—"

Clang!

Two swords collide against one another at a frightening speed.

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

It took Marie, Charlotte, and Riley a moment to process that they were watching a regular sword fight.

It wasn't too fast for their mind to process.

However, they didn't prepare to watch Helix fighting at such a frightening pace!

"Is he faster than you, Riley?" Charlotte asked.

Clang!

Clang!

"I… don't think so." Riley shook her head.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

"But the sword skill he's showing isn't even in the same class as mine."

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Clang!

"Interesting." Charlotte commented with narrowed eyes.

"Why…." Marie muttered.

"Is watching this fight making me dizzy?"

Charlotte cocked her head.

She was commentating with Riley, so she wasn't as attentive.

Clang! Clang!

Charlotte brushed her straight blonde hair out of her eyes.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

"What…." She muttered.

Clang! Clang! . Clang!

"This does feel…." Riley commented nervously.

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

Clang! .. Clang! Clang!

Marie dropped to the floor.

"Marie! What happened." Charlotte asked frantically.

However, when she moved to Marie, she too lost her sense of balance.

"Tch!"

Tilo clicked his tongue.

Clang!

"I knew it!" Tilo declared while gritting his teeth.

Clang! Clang!

Clang!

"No wonder I'm trying so hard!"

Helix didn't flinch.

He continued staring at Tilo with his pitch-black eyes.

The sight was burrowing into the man's soul.

Every so often, his eyes trembled, and Tilo felt a split second of fear.

Riley sat down on the floor and closed her eyes to regroup her senses.

"What the hell is going on?" Charlotte asked in confusion.

"Every time I look back, it looks like a normal sword fight.

However, if I watch too long, I feel like I'll throw up."

"Same…." Marie replied in a daze.

"Enough of this!" Tilo cried out.

The man used his ungodly stats to knock out Helix at full speed.

However, his hand smashed into a torrent of aggressive wind.

"What the hell!" He cried.

Helix slashed at Tilo's stomach.

"Tch. I need to start taking you seriously!"

"[Reflection]!" Tilo yelled out with a magic circle in his palm.

A wave of light enveloped the area and reflected the group's images as a mirror reflection.

Helix stared at himself with a queasy stomach.

"Haaaaaaah. Fair…." He chuckled.

Helix jumped back ten feet and threw a Negation circle.

However, another disc shot from the mirror smashed into his spell, sending it flying backward.

"Damn!" Helix cried as he threw down another circle.

A blast shot into the area.

Helix had barely activated the [Charge Barrier Circle] in time for the blast to prevent him from flying backward.

"I don't have any choice." He muttered as he gritted his teeth.

"[Summoning]."

His Nightmare turned all the walls 10 feet high in the area into a Mirror.

"Goddamn, kid! Are you trying to make us all lose our stomachs!" Tilo yelled.

"I'm doing just as bad! Suck it up." Helix taunted with a strained voice.

Tilo's mirror wall was now creating infinite copies of their movements.

However, since the back wall was a mirror, Helix could see Tilo.

Everyone was looking at a copy of a copy of a copy.

While Tilo was trying to figure out how to move with distorted senses, Helix was running at him.

He took the confusion to run into Tilo's mirror wall without trying to find the man's location.

Clang! .. Clang! … Clang! Clang! … Clang!

"I can't watch this anymore!" Charlotte groaned.

Marie persisted.

"I… get it… now…." She gritted her teeth while spreading to the floor.

Her eyes were barely open.

Riley was in the same position, and Charlotte supported the match by listening.

BOOOOOOOOM!

Suddenly the mirrors disappeared, and Helix flew across the room toward the women.

"Gahhhhh…." Helix groaned.

He rolled half a dozen times before landing twenty feet in front of the women.

Helix tried to stand, but his arms gave out, falling to the floor.

He tried reaching into his leather pouch for another disc, but a disc hit him in the shoulder.

"Gahhhhhh!"

Helix was pressed against the ground with an overbearing pressure.

"Yield! I won't go easy on you if—what!?" Tilo cried.

"What the fuck—"

BOOOOOOM!

Everyone's ears started ringing, and their vision went hazy.

A flashbang spell enveloped the entire room with white-hot light.

"Hah!"

Thud.

Silence washed over the room.

"Is… it over?" Charlotte asked.

She was the only person that still had her senses.

Her eyes were closed during the later part of the match.

As a result, the flashbang didn't wreck her eyesight like the rest.

"Haha. Hah. Hahahahaha!"

"Helix? Why are you laughing?" Marie groaned.

Charlotte was slack-jawed and unresponsive.

"It's over, and I still can't believe it. Hahahaha."

Marie slowly opened her eyes.

"Good job, Helix—"

"Guuuuh. Why is everyone so quiet?" Riley groaned.

"Did you see that!? Can you believe—"

"Helix?" Riley whispered as she opened her eyes.

She finally understood why everyone was so quiet.

Helix was on the other side of the room.

The body in front of them was a white, summoned dummy.

"This boy somehow managed to claim victory—

By putting his voice on top of mine! Hahaha!"

Tilo bent over with laughter.

He thought he was going insane.

The man was laughing, but it wasn't his voice laughing.

It was Helix's voice.

Helix created the illusion he was in front of the man, causing him to punch a dummy he summoned from a magic circle by reflex.

He immediately released his Nightmare and hid behind an invisibility circle.

The man couldn't differentiate between the dummy because he was immediately disoriented by the sound of Helix's voice next to him.

Helix threw a flashbang circle near the man's feet, and Tilo's confusion masked the sound.

Once the man understood he had been duped, he tried to escape, but the flashbang went off.

Tilo only found where Helix's real body was because he got decked in the face.

Once he put it together, he was dumbstruck in disbelief.

"Haaaaaaah. If I had to go through one more form of disorientation, I might have passed out." Tilo chuckled in his voice.

Tilo's eyes trembled when he found his voice to be his own.

That meant—

The man kicked the magic circle in front of Helix's unconscious body.

"Are you okay?" Tilo asked in confusion while kneeling before Helix.

After verifying he was breathing fine, he started chuckling in madness again.

"What are you hiding—hahahahaha!"

Tilo dropped to the floor and rolled around on his back merrily.

What he saw caused a wave of madness to wash over him, and he had never enjoyed embracing insanity.