Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1119: Reflections

Chapter 1119: Reflections

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Sause felt much of his flesh get seared off relentlessly, but much more of it was also chewed off to the bone disturbingly quickly!

The pinkish flame was rather atrocious in its burn. It melted the snow on the mountain quickly.

The principles behind it were too bizarre, as was the fact that he (Sause) was restrained by some odd force from the false Null Devil King, acting on something deep within him.

Sause roared in agony.

The Null Devil King who was with him within the buzzing of locusts and the heat, scoffed and walked past him on his way to the shrine of red jade.

The BoneTender had made a great effort to gain full control of the Null Devil King's body. The four days he had spent fighting Jerthrax helped him familiarise himself with the King's powers, mostly his physical prowess, but they only just barely allowed him to grasp using the Forcemancer Class.

The art of Forcemancy revolved around entangling concepts like the elements, with sensations - like emotions or moods - and animate creatures. The art had many variations of course, some of which focused more heavily on the elemental part, but true Forcemancy was all-encompassing, which is why the Null Devil King's Class didn't have a prefix at all, like the Forcemancer Class Replicus had been offered back in the Tremur Forest.

Forcemancy was considered a primal Class in the Null Verse.

Quite like how history unfolded in Aigas, where in the Age of Patkmas Yugji - in the First Grand War – humans gained inspiration to create powerful Classes and abilities from the beasts and phenomena in Sacred Forests, the Forcemancer Class also had environmental roots.

(A/N: Refer to Ch.230&300).

The false Null Devil King - the BoneTender - had just now entangled fire with the universal sensation of hunger, giving it its pink hue, and then moulded this fire into locusts he conjured through the power of the Class. As a result, the locusts, driven and empowered by ravenous hunger, were capable of devouring anything thrown their way, be it an essence or concept, which was why Sause wasn't able to expel his Territory.

The more in-tune with the Forcemancer Class one was, the stronger the creatures they could manifest to merge with an element and a sensation, but these creatures couldn't be too complex.

At the moment, the BoneTender was capable of creating simplistic creatures and fitting them with simplistic sensations. Thankfully, because the summoned creatures were extremely durable, this Class was very effective even at a rudimentary skill level.

This was how the Null Devil King had remained unscathed after Jerthrax used his dark, all- devouring breath earlier.

(A/N: Refer to Ch.1069).

While the Null Devil King dealt with Sause, however, Aurolio had already been on his way towards the shrine. He had reached the walls and was scaling over them. Stylla had used the chance to head for the shrine too, and she flew ahead to see what else was within it besides the faceless statues.

However, both she and Aurolio suddenly stopped when they felt a sturdy tug from behind them.

Surprisingly, even the nonchalant BoneTender stopped as he felt the same thing.

Attached to all three of these individuals, were thin threads of different colours, their origin coming from somewhere deep within the swarm of burning locusts!

These threads only lasted a second longer than expected, however, as they too could be chewed through by the locusts.

Yet... that second had proved more than enough as a window of time to act for Sause.

Even though he couldn't move his body, the Giant wasn't completely helpless.

A spark of gold shimmered dully from his prison in the pink conflagration and loud chatter of wings, and in the next second, Sause appeared before Stylla, Aurolio and the Null Devil King! However, he didn't stand before their physical forms.

He stood within the Reflections of their Souls, forcing them to interact with him!

Aurolio was stunned.

One moment he was just a second away from peeking beyond the wall of the shrine and in the next, he was standing in a pitch-black void littered by suits of armour and weapons, some new and some worn. The boundless darkness covered everything, and it seemed to whisper to him endlessly.

This was the Reflection of his Soul, and Sause stood right in front of him, a dark look on his face.

"You are too greedy," he said, and he dropped his fists onto the shocked Deathform, flattening him into the dark, undefined ground!

There was figure that was rushing their way, but it was too late. Sause had made sure that it wouldn't make it in time.

Stylla found herself in a large, luxurious hallway where countless people with the same kind of faces passed by her, some going ahead of her, some behind her. The current, thralled version of her couldn't have known that all these people were her father, her sister, her brother and her mother, but she couldn't have bothered with them either.

This was the Reflection of her Soul, and Sause stood right in front of her, a curious look on his face.

"I pity you. You fell prey to quite the troublesome foe," he said, and he crushed Stylla under his foot.

The BoneTender found himself in a familiar place, a cove preceded by a giant body of white waters that housed creatures with long bodies covered in robes and great balls of fire for heads, quite like how the BoneTender looked in his original form!

He had taken the Null Devil King's body, after all, and the only one to have ever seen how he looked and 'lived' afterwards, was Yuyui.

The cove the Bone Tender laid in held a great many treasures, but none of them, even to the BoneTender's current thoughts interested him.

'No! Why am I here?!' the BoneTender asked.

How could he be in the Null Verse right now?

Wait. He wasn't!

Just as he rationalised, he found a Giant standing right before him.

"So, this is what you actually look like, ahaha," said Sause with blatant mirth. He was delighted to see how confused the BoneTender was, along with the fact that he had a soul that he could reach.

Rarely did living beings ever find ways to protect their souls of their own volition. It was hard for most creatures to even interact with their souls. The BoneTender was not so different.

Sause rushed to attack immediately. He wanted nothing more than to crush this glorified blanket into nothingness before his physical body could be destroyed.

However...

THRUM...

THRUM...

The BoneTender's Reflection of the Soul trembled suddenly.

Sause shook.

He had begun to think that the BoneTender had a powerful guardian in his Reflection of Soul,

but after seeing the Null Terror tremble in fear as well, he knew that wasn't the case.

Even if there was no face on him to ascertain the emotion that he felt, his body gave away a

lot!

"It can't be!" the BoneTender suddenly screeched and rushed deeper into the cove!

Sause was stunned. He looked back.

THRUM...

The white sea and the cove shook again. The BoneTender shook along with them as he

screamed, "No! We... w-we had an agreement!"

What was going on?!

An instant later, Sause found himself forcefully pushed back to his flesh body.

He looked miserable. Barely half of his flesh remained, and all of it was blackened, crusty,

flaky and smoky!

However, the locusts that had been feasting on him drew away.

If the flesh and bones around the Giant's neck were still intact, he might have voiced his

confusion.

Stylla dropped to the ground, convulsing. As did Aurolio.

Sause's expertise with the soul was nearly unmatched. In a desperate attempt to both save his life and stop anyone from reaching the shrine, he had used illusory threads, a product of his Class, to expand the influence of his soul on the Null Devil King, Aurolio and Stylla.

His uncanny use of these threads had shone brightest back in the Labyrinth of the Yoke, when

he used them to find Reon, Benzard and Skullius, but their functions were more diverse than

that, evidently.

Unfortunately, his gamble at the moment, hadn't paid off as much as he would have liked.

While he had managed to stress the BoneTender enough to force him to release the locusts he had thrown at him, the bloody Null Lifeform was still standing!

He was trembling, shaken, but he still had his senses and consciousness intact.

He looked back at Sause with his hollow sockets.

"W-was it you? What... what did you do?!" he barked.

Sause frowned. He didn't know what exactly he was being accused of.

However, something happened next that made him frown even deeper.

Above the hysterical, false Null Devil King, a relatively short figure in a starry armour suddenly appeared!