Moving closer to Melissa, the strange white glow in her eyes became totally obvious.
Her pupils were gone, leaving just blank voids.
She was trapped deep in a trance, but under whose control?
My mind spun with frantic questions.
The red glow deep inside the cave increased steadily, almost like it was calling out to me specifically.
'Waking her right now is a terrible idea,' I thought to myself, studying her rigid posture.
Interrupting someone while they are under a mind-control spell will put them into a permanent coma.
Her brain would simply shut down.
Leaving her standing there like a stone statue was the only safe option available.
Stepping carefully past her frozen body, my boots carried me quietly into the dark tunnel.
The interior of the cave was surprisingly neat, totally unlike the chaotic, overgrown forest outside.
The stone walls were smooth, covered in faded drawings that looked like the ones I studied in my last life.
In my last life, the dark mage who hijacked the system only let the simulation beasts out to break the minds of students.
But to pull off an attack on this specific level, right inside a secure academy network, it had to be her doing the lifting.
Anasthesia.
She was the leader of the demon cult, and she never left things to chance.
Walking deeper inside, the wide tunnel slowly started to thin out.
The stone walls closed in until the gap was incredibly narrow.
My shoulders had to scrape hard against the rough rock just to slide through the tight space.
Pushing past the bottleneck, the area suddenly expanded into a wide, circular room.
Small mana lamps flickered along the curved edges, casting shadows over complex ritual circles painted onto the ground.
A bald guy stood right in the centre, his face was covered in ugly scars, and he wore a robe.
"It's you," I muttered.
Stepping fully into the open space, my feet stopped right at the outer edge of the circles.
One of the mad cultists somehow bypassed the academy's strict illusion barrier and broke inside.
Since a physical body couldn't enter the digital trial, this entity staring at me had to be his soul.
That meant he willingly sacrificed his life on the outside just to pull this invasion off.
He didn't have any pupils either.
His scarred hands were locked together in a tight praying position right in the middle of the glowing rings.
My sword came up fast.
A hard slash aimed right at his neck connected with an invisible barrier, sending a painful shock right up my arm.
Shiing.
'As expected,' I snorted internally, shaking out my numb wrist.
His body twitched strangely, and then his dry lips parted.
"You are not supposed to be here."
Yeah, that is the same old script everyone reads to an anomaly.
Hearing that tired phrase in my past life got old very quickly.
Bringing my blade up again, my arms swung down hard.
The steel hit the barrier over and over, ringing loudly in the cave, but the attacks didn't even leave a single scratch on the energy shield.
"Living a life that is not yours," the bald cultist whispered, his voice echoing loudly in the cold room.
"Aren't you tired of doing it all over again?"
"Huh?" I stopped swinging, my eyebrows pulling together in confusion.
"Your eyes ache for the truth."
The bald guy snapped his fingers.
My vision instantly turned white, forcefully dragging my consciousness out of the cave.
Blinking away the bright light, the entire scenery changed.
I was standing still inside a small room entirely covered in tall mirrors.
The glass in front of me reflected my current appearance perfectly.
It showed Shane, a normal cadet with messy black hair and dull orange eyes.
'What is this idiot trying to do?' I thought, glaring at my own reflection.
Turning my head, the mirror on the left showed a completely different reality.
It showed the future that I remembered. A hardened warrior covered in broken armour, a scarred face, and a shattered sword gripped tightly in a bloody hand.
Then, a tall mirror on the right caught my attention.
It showed a totally new reality.
My face stared back at me, but it was twisted and wrong.
The reflection had six eyes and multiple long arms stretching out like a true demon from the seventh layer.
'What is the true reality?' a hollow voice echoed from the ceiling of the mirrored room.
'Are you really what you think you are?'
Trying to get inside my head and break my spirit?
What a cheap, pathetic trick.
Pulling my fist back, a hard punch shattered the glass in front of me.
The mirror broke into seven large cracks.
Each broken shard reflected a different familiar face from the academy.
Zephyr, Mia, Lucien, Sianna, Luciana, Kiara, and Melissa.
But there was a detail hidden in the glass.
The reflection of Melissa had six eyes too, staring right through my soul with a twisted grin.
Before my mind could fully process that creepy image, the shattered mirror shifted entirely.
The academy faces faded, replaced by the one thing that could actually hurt me.
It showed my sick sister lying in a small bed.
She was coughing up blood while my parents held her small hands, looking helpless and defeated.
My heart tightened painfully in my chest.
The guilt of failing her in the past hit me like a physical punch to the gut.
"Fuck this," I shouted at the empty room.
Closing my eyes, my rising anger completely washed away the sudden sadness.
"Stop playing these stupid games," my voice bounced aggressively off the glass walls.
"I already killed your demonic king once before. And. I will gladly do it again."
Raising my legs, a solid kick completely shattered the mirror, showing my suffering family.
Reaching down into the pile of broken glass, my fingers grabbed a long shard.
Without giving the cultist a single second to react, my hand brought the glass right up to my throat and drove it deep into my own neck.
Gasp.
My eyes snapped open, and my lungs sucked in a huge breath of cold air.
I was standing right back in the dimly lit cave room.
The bald cultist was still sitting in the same praying position inside his glowing rings.
The sharp pain in my neck was just a phantom memory fading quickly into the background.
'Enough playing around with this freak,' I thought, my patience completely gone.
Raising my sword high above my head, my breathing slowed down and steadied perfectly.
All my focus locked onto the invisible barrier protecting the cultist.
[Dimensional Slash]
Even though the skill was not completely mastered yet in this new body, mimicking the exact posture and mana flow from my past life could definitely cause enough damage to break this shield.
The energy pooled around the iron blade, making the surrounding air tingle with intense pressure.
But before the attack could swing down, a deafening roar echoed from the narrow gap in the tunnel behind me.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Loud Footsteps shook the entire stone room.
The vibrations were so strong the lamps flickered wildly, casting crazy shadows on the walls.
Turning my head slowly, a terrifying sight waited at the entrance.
A huge two-headed cyclops, its four red eyes glowing with pure hatred, pushed its deformed faces through the thin gap in the rock, staring directly at me.