Ignoring the illusion to the best of his abilities, he activated his hunter's tracking skills, finding a small trace of the frog. Rushing to follow the scent like a dog, he increased his speed as the illusion tried to keep up with him. Images he was too familiar with popped up over and over, making his aura slowly uncontrollable.
"God damn it! I've already acknowledged this shit isn't real! Why is it still active?! That bastard running away!"
'You're just not thinking straight!'
"Shut the hell up! What am I supposed to do then?!"
'You're contradicting yourself in the same sentence, give me control again.'
"Have it!"
Switching in less than a second, Lucas completely let go of his aura, letting it consume his mind. His dome dyed crimson as the world around him started to suffer from his mere existence. Letting it infect the world, he didn't block out the images that flashed in front of his eyes.
An illusion is cast on someone to trick their mind into thinking something is real. It's a great tool to confuse someone or in the most extreme cases, make someone belief in their own death. The stronger the illusion, the more powerful it's hold on the unfortunate victim.
Lucas, on the other hand, had to relive his trauma on an almost daily basis. Each battle, each trial, each hurdle let him get in touch with his aura, one fueled by hatred, anger, despair. A small part of him wanted to move on from his past, but he just couldn't. Not because he was unable to move on psychologically, but because his own emotions were carved into his very own Mental Sphere.
While mostly a place to keep knowledge, memories, and runes, Lucas had scratched his own personal rune into the top of the dome, influencing him every time he felt it. An old scar that couldn't be healed, couldn't be fixed, one that would haunt him indefinitely. The emotions he experienced as a kid were locked in that rune for as long as he would live.
And while it put a huge burden on him, it also helped him thrive in battle. This time was no different. By letting his aura infect his own mental sphere, images of his past became manifested in the real world through his vision only. Perhaps an illusion, a mirage or madness manifest, the illusion supported the visions further, making it more realistic. Assaulted were his senses as he relived the past so vividly.
Then suddenly, Lucas retracted his aura as much as he could, converting it all into a massive sphere of energy inside him. A small whirlwind started to suck all the mana around him towards his core. The illusion that had fused so much with his aura to create believable images was too intertwined with his own aura.
Having essentially sucked all the energy in the surroundings into his own body, the illusion was easily broken, making him escape from the caged illusion. Seeing the normal dead grass and trees around him, part of him felt relieved.
'You fucking moron! That ball of energy will explode at any moment! We can't handle that! Do something with it already!!'
Part of Lucas was more than correct. The amount of energy and power that was condensed into a small sphere would explode at any moment, blasting him into pieces. Lucas remembered all the moments he used his aura in his attacks and how much it boosted the attack power due to the intense emotions fused in them.
"Our aura isn't just for attacking," Lucas said, as if he made a realization. All his aura did was empower the spell he used, meaning it didn't have to be an attack at all. Crouching slightly, Lucas poured all the energy inside the sphere into a flight spell.
The moment he activated it, he jumped slightly before blasting himself through the sky. He couldn't keep his eyes open and had to keep his mouth shut as he moved past the sound barrier.
Yoktur had a massive head start and could've gone anywhere. Luckily, the sphere of energy was far from depleted as he activated a search spell so wide it covered a radius of tens of miles in an instant, getting bigger and bigger as he poured more energy into it.
It didn't take long before Lucas got the frogmen into his sights. He was still quite a distance away, but Lucas flew faster than Yoktur could dream off. Rushing through the sky, he eventually caught up, but his sphere of energy still wasn't depleted. If he didn't use it soon, it would destabilize and explode.
Flying low to the ground, Yoktur felt relief after he saw Lucas get stuck in his final illusion.
'Finally caught that bastard in a decent illusion. Let the plague of horrible memories haunt you, you deserve it,' Yoktur held a firm belief that his final illusion was incredibly tough to escape from. Once trapped, you had to face your worst memories or anxieties that came to life. Some might be able to break through them, but most go insane or berserk, hence Yoktur ran away.
He had seen but a fraction of Lucas' power, but it was already above his paygrade. At least he created a large distance between them. When he suddenly picked up a loud boom in the distance behind him, a grin appeared on his face.
His plan worked, now he just had to run away and lay low for a while before accepting his next contract. 'That bastard really didn't give me enough for this job. I'll have to haggle it out of him, damn it.'
Continuing his escape, he suddenly felt a massive presence catching up to him. It was still far away, but the amount of energy that flew towards him was simply too big for him to handle. Hiding was useless as he felt the willpower rush through his body. Trying to push it out, he struggled for a while, even having to use his own aura to escape his grasp.
'What kind of monster is that?! He caught up already? How in the hell?'
As he kept increasing his speed, he suddenly felt his body pushed to the ground. He had experience Lucas' aura, but this felt like something different all together. His aura was meant to slowly corrupt someone's mind, but now, his vision tainted red in an instant.
Pushing the red aura away with his own light blue aura, he still felt the need to stop. His bones weren't handling things well as he suddenly felt someone's foot on his back pushing him to the ground. Crashing on the ground, Yoktur lost track of his surroundings as he was aggressively turned over. His limbs were being spread out and dark blue chains locked them to the ground.
Stuck on his back, Yoktur's world finally stopped spinning, 'What in the? He conjured these up around my arms? How did he?', but before Yoktur could even think about it, he felt a hand grasp his throat, pushing his face upwards.
He felt the weight of Lucas sitting on his chest, the heavy breaths coming out of his mouth, spreading the warmth and wetness on his own face.
"All your gateways have been pointed away from me, so don't bother using any magic. Now, you take care of it, I'm tired," Lucas rambled something to himself, throwing Yoktur off even more.
'Is he talking to himself? Has he gone insane from the illusion?'
"Look, I give up, I'll tell you whatever you want to know, okay?!", Yoktur's face was all panic, enough to convince most.
"Alright, you fuck, we've got plenty of questions, and if you dare to not answer or tell us a lie, I'll rip a limb off, like this," Lucas reached behind him as Yoktur's raised tail was preparing a spell. Severing the tail from his body, Lucas burned it to a crisp before throwing it away.
Yoktur screamed his pain out as his plan to attack Lucas from behind backfired. The searing agony that came from his tailbone was more than unpleasant.
"First question, did you kidnap Asta?"
Yoktur knew this wasn't going to end well, and since his contract never stated he couldn't reveal any details, he wasn't going to keep his honor. "Yes, I was hired to take someone through a portal."
"No way you created that portal, you're not smart enough."
"I didn't, okay? Like I said, I was hired to just grab someone through a portal, nothing more, and no, I don't know who hired me."
"The hell do you mean?", feeling the grip around his neck grow tighter, Yoktur knew not to make any more mistakes. "A demon with long horns and a high Rank paid me to do it. Names or other details were never exchanged, I'm just a mercenary, I don't ask for those things."
Lucas nodded slightly in understanding as he seemed to talk to himself. "That makes sense... No? That wouldn't work anyway... I guess... Hey, do you know where they kidnapped Asta to?"
Yoktur felt more uneasy by the second, being at the mercy of someone so unstable was nerve-racking.
"No, when I pulled him through the portal, he was still somewhat awake and fought back. I tried to catch him in illusions, but the guards from that demon helped out."
"Describe their guards, especially the man who opened the portal."
Yoktur had to think back on it, since it was quite some time ago. "The guards had these flashy outfits made from black and red. There was this guy who looked extremely tired who waved his hand to open a portal. But I don't remember a whole lot else."
Lucas started to talk to the open air as he debated whether to continue or not. "Why the hell would I ask that?....Fine, whatever," directing himself to Yoktur, "Were the children and women in your village or illusions?"
Yoktur knew Lucas was unstable, so at this point, he wasn't thinking about telling the truth but the answer that would appeal to him the most.
'He held back during our first confrontation, he was worried about hurting the others. Telling him they were real would upset him, or he might go back and find them. If he knows they were illusions he might become relieved and release me or get angry with me. Damn it, there's no telling what this fucker might do!'
Taking a leap of faith into the kindheartedness of Lucas, he revealed the truth, "They were all illusions I keep to not feel alone. I get depressed after long periods of isolation and considering my form, not many demons welcome me."
Trying to forge a story for Lucas to sympathize with, he skipped over the details were the illusions were a great distraction for an ambush and could fight back like what happened to Lucas.
Lucas nodded slightly, "There, you happy?....Wow, you know, you always say I'm the worse one, but you're just so full of shit," Lucas talked to himself as he quickly broke Yoktur's neck. His life flashed before his eyes before the world turned dark.
Lucas repositioned himself and plunged his hand into Yoktur's stomach to grab his core. Standing up, he burned the body and placed the core into his second ring. One was meant to store items, the other was more recent but could contain mana for him as a separate core.
After modifying it further in the capital, it was capable of holding a small crystal, which was the perfect size of a core. He didn't need to use it a whole lot, only once during the fight with Kinetsu, but having two cores of his Rank would surely help him out fighting stronger foes.
Not that he could handle Rank 4 mages, even just escaping from those monsters was hard. The walls between the Ranks only grew taller the further along the path he went. At Rank 0 to 2 he managed to kill someone higher than him, but now, he didn't see the possibility.
Unless he used a sneak attack to kill his opponent before the fight even got started, he might've stood a chance, but in an all out battle, he would be prey, although a tough one at that. Lucas always felt a sense of defeat and anger when he looked at the mages above him.
They could snuff his life out if they ever wanted to, with just a snap of their fingers. It infuriated Lucas the more he let his brain ramble on, so he hurried to change his focus.
'We were set up.'
"You just realized that now, buddy? I never trusted that old fogey to begin with."
'We were inexperienced with illusions, and we would be in an emotional state, unable to think fully rationally. Our death was meant to happen in that fake village.'
"Well I ain't dead yet, so hold your horses and let's get back at those fuckers."
For once, both parts of Lucas agreed on something, sadly, going after the most protected guardian under the Duke wasn't exactly an easy task. The Duke was Rank 5, Lucas didn't even want to imagine fighting against him. The mere idea of it brought a heaping sense of despair with it.
Not trying to fall into fatalism, he steadied his heart as he went over what he knew. The only conclusion that came to mind was that he was meant to die here, which meant everything was a set up to begin with.
But Lucas didn't like being taken advantage off, not in the slightest. Then again, going against Lord Alastor, who was Rank 4 or the Duke who was even scarier, his choices were somewhat limited.
'We don't stand a chance against those two, no plan we make will be beneficial in the long run.'
"Hah! Have you forgotten that already?"
'What?'
"Not all of those fuckers are above us."
Part of Lucas realized his situation even more clearly and hurried to get to work. A single plan that had a good chance of working popped up in his mind. Flying high up, he was surrounded by endless forests.
"Uh..."
'...'
"Hey."
'Yeah?'
"Which way?"
'...'