I blinked through heavy lids. The ground. Black glass? After shifting, a pair of legs came into view. Legs… My eyes trailed upward. Thin chest, covered. Neck wrapping, fur? Round eyes with amber light from within.

They were pretty.

Amber… Why is that familiar?

Below the mesmerizing eyes, the creature smiled and gave a light shrug.

I shot to my feet and pounced. My claws wrapped around the man's throat, and I stabbed my tail into his arm, pinning it to the floor. He attempted to pull free, and I slammed my head into his, eliciting a sharp crack.

He froze, eyes going wide as I reared back for a second headbutt. But I stopped when, instead of blood, there were cracks across his skin.

What the-

The cracks split wide open and shattered. I dropped, no longer supported by a physical body underneath, and pushed away from the cloud of white fog that seeped away.

"More than a decade doing this kind of work, and you are the toughest nut I've ever had to crack. Even with the modified neurotoxin, your mind managed to defend itself. Nasty work, whatever kind of passive skills you have running here."

I spun around, prepared to charge, but there wasn't anybody there. Only a blank wall of existence. Akin to the void but without the glaring emptiness that threatened to eat your soul. It looked both far away and yet close enough to touch. I scanned the surroundings; the same expanse of blankness continued to what felt like eternity, marred only by the crystalline floor.

"Over here."

Slowly, I turned right and saw a twisting cloud of fog. From the bulging center, four limbs spiraled outward and solidified into a pair of arms and legs. The rest of the cloud followed suit, ending with a strange, elf-like man. His eyes were too big, too round, a sort of pure black with the amber light from within and no sclera. Dense fur sprouted from his neck and wrists, while he casually waved with webbed fingers.

I narrowed my eyes on the dangling threads of gold sprouting from the nothingness and tied around his wrist. It intertwined with his fist, which he kept clutched and curved, facing away from me.

"So, were you a plant from the beginning, or is this guy dead and you were wearing his face?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I have no idea what happened to the original guy. Either dead or given a severance package he couldn't refuse before he skipped town. I didn't ask when they gave me the skin cloak. In most cases, it's better to not know than risk being a liability."

"What did you inject me with?" I said, eyeing his hand as he attempted to pull free from the thread. "And where are we? If you wanted to kill me, you had me. All you had to do was slit my throat. Why prolong this, commit the same mistakes as last time?"

He shrugged, and a wave of fury roiled inside my gut.

"Modified neurotoxin. It's meant to impair and soften your brain enough without outright killing you. Nasty stuff, but effective for my skill set." He smiled, and I had to grind my teeth to prevent myself from charging. "As for where we are, that's complicated. You see, normally, my skill requires me to delve into the mindscape of my targets. The relic those rich bastards gave me modified my skill and supercharged it. Made things wonky, but what can you do? About your last question, don't ask me. You pissed off the movers of the city enough that they pulled out all the stops. Honestly, if it wasn't for the absurd amount of gold and the contract-bound guarantee that I would be spared from any repercussion, I'd have declined and moved kingdoms. Hells, probably continents. You really made the wrong people angry after beating up their darling children."

The last bit was said with a damning smile that revealed sharp fangs for teeth. They weren't vampiric like mine by any means, but they did their job in pissing me off.

"You know, even if you have the king's fucking royal pardon, if I die, my friends will kill you."

He started to shrug but stopped as he caught my snarl. He winked instead.

"That's the beauty of this plan. Nobody beyond the arena master and the people who hired me know what's happening inside the barrier. The only thing your friends and the crowd will see is me and you having an extended, drawn-out battle. I wasn't lying when I said you made the wrong people angry. They used a one-time-use, tier-three illusion relic to cover my behind."

That-that sounded almost smart. So far every obstacle they had thrown my way was little more than someone pointing a sharp stick at me and demanding I kowtow. I shook my head. It shouldn't have been too surprising. They managed to rope the king into this shitshow. A random artifact siitting pretty in someone's vault wasn't that impressive.

"You avoided answering my question," I said. I moved closer, testing his reaction. "Where are we?"

My mana senses picked up nothing. There wasn't even ambient mana surrounding us. It was truly a void.

He shrugged.

The headache hummed, walloping my brain and my chest tightened like a giant decided to squeeze my ribcage.

"Who knows? Like I said, this isn't what usually happens."

I moved closer and he twitched. His fingers tugged at the strings and he tried to saw through it wiith one of his claws. The golden thread stayed stubbornly latched onto his wrist, tightening for his efforts.

"What's your name?"

"Vell."

I slammed my foot down, earning another desperate twitch. "You'll tell me that but not where we are? Really?"

"Really. Knowing my name won't matter, kid."

Implying that where we are matters, so he won't tell me because it'd be bad for him.

Another step. Another twitch. Less subtle this time, he pulled with his shoulder, leaning to the right.

"Or you're lying."

He smiled, and my tail struck the ground. The echo faded as abruptly as it started. Artificial. It wasn't right.

"I don't lie to people. Not my style. Makes it hard for my skills to work, even. You'd be surprised how little it matters. You tell people the truth to their faces over and over again, they still don't believe you. Always the stubborn ones, too. They never listen."

I picked up my pace, taking two steps for every one. He didn't try to hide it now. Vell grabbed onto the thread and tried prying it loose, all the while giving me that damn smile.

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"If that's true, what was the clicking?" I growled.

He paused, his smile slipping away as he cocked his head. "Clicking?"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about."

He started to shake his head but then stopped. A dawning look of realization crossed his face, and he seemed almost confused.

"Are you sure it was clicking?"

"Of course it was fucking clicking! What the hell was that device you used on me? What was its purpose?!"

Vell released his wrist and turned to face me. His smile reappeared, and he shrugged.

"Aaaagh!"

I charged, fist aimed high. Even as I cleared the distance between us, he couldn't escape. His feet exploded in a cloud of mist, and he jumped backward, avoiding the hit. I wasn't finished. My tail chased him, stabbing at his chest.

This time, a bubble appeared with a wave of his hand and expanded outward. My tail still pierced through, the sharp point easily parting the thin membrane of the bubble, but it slowed my momentum.

The bubble popped, and he flipped, smashing a foot into my chin.

"Need to be faster than tha—"

I grabbed his throat and slammed him to the ground. He smiled!

His form burst apart into a curtain of mist that rose into the air and faded away.

"No need to be so aggressive. I was even answering your questions. Why did you have—"

I slashed with my claws to my right, impacting something solid. Like the bubble, it slowed my attack long enough for him to move out of the way.

"Seriously, there's no need to—"

"Shut up!" I shouted.

I chased and chased. Every attack cut through mist or was slowed by a fucking bubble! He kept dodging around, favoring one side.

Finally, I swept a leg and jumped for another choke. He had already used the bubble—now was the chance!

My fingers touched thick skin, and I tried to crush the bastard's windpipe. Predictably, his form held long enough for him to make a gurgle as I cut the airflow. Then, his body broke apart into another curtain.

"I can do this all da—" he coughed. Finally, that smirk was gone, and he looked down at where my tail punched through his stomach. "Well, fuck. That's a surprise."

Before he could try something else, I grabbed his throat and punched my thumb into the base of his neck. It was surprisingly difficult to cut through the thick meat, reinforced beyond what I normally faced in the arena.

I was tempted—so very tempted—to tear his throat out. But that would have made getting answers impossible.

"Nice trick. Shame about the cooldown," I growled. "Activate it again, and I'll aim for something lower than your stomach to pierce."

He held up his hands, spreading his fingers wide. His left side unable to rise as high as his right–the golden thread had wound over his bicep and curled, stopping short of reaching his shoulder.

"Alright, you caught me. I'll behave," he chuckled.

I increased the pressure around his throat. "I have a really bad migraine right now. Careful, I might squeeze too hard."

"U-understood," he managed.

I eased, but only enough to allow him to breathe without hampering his speech. It wasn't comfortable, the crushing pressure forcing him to take short rapid breaths that jostled the tip of my tail lodged in his stomach. Igas had used it once, to give me a lesson after I made the mistake of asking him to show me something useful.

"Where are we?" I demanded.

"Couldn't tell yo-" I counted till ten then eased. He sputtered and licked his lips, pulling free the lone drop that had started to spill down the side of his mouth. "I can't tell you."

"Why?"

"I don't know where this is. I told you. I don't lie. This isn't what my skill is supposed to do."

I adjusted my tail, allowing it to shift half an inch. The man took it like a champ, merely wincing without looking away.

"What was the device? What were you supposed to do with it?"

"No clue. Wait!" he shouted before my tail could accidentally slip deeper. "It's super enchanted. Tier four, single use. It boosts a single skill. Evolves it temporarily, that's it."

"And what was the point of your skill?"

Again, he paused, and I gave him incentive to continue. Somewhere in the back of my head, a part of me realized this could have been misconstrued as torture. That part, I crushed into a box and tossed away—it was completely useless for the present situation.

"It's called Mind Scavenger! It allows me to go through your memories and take them.

They wanted your memories, to keep you alive, but leave you a vegetable."

That's it? That's their grand plan?

"How did they get the king's approval?!"

"I-I don't know," he choked as I squeezed harder.

Don't let them break you. The force around my chest tightened and I could hardly breathe–no better than the asshole in my grasp.

"So that's what she meant. They weren't going to kill me, they wanted to shatter my brain. To break me," I chuckled darkly. "That's it? Really?"

Something soft hit my shoulder. I looked down and found a gilded tube topped stuck in the meat. It hung there, glowing with a flashing rune on it's surface. I looked up and met the man's eyes.

He smiled and shrugged.

In an instant he was on the ground. I raised my fist and socked him once, earning the satisfied crunch of bone. I did it twice, then a third time, feeling something soft pop and ooze. For the forth, I missed, hitting the crystal floor. The fith didn't matter, it too missed.

But the sixth, I aimed, batting aside the weak attempt to block my assaultt. The sixth, I raised high, cocking back.

"Cy-cyrus? St-stop, please," pleaded a voice that shouldn't be.

I froze, a split second in time.

Below me, blue skin, a bloody horn with deep purple bruises. Wet tears belonging to eyes that haven't looked at me with that particular expression in over half a year.

"Cyrus, pl-please st-stop. You're hurting me," Sam begged.

The thunder in my ears stopped and I reached for her cheek, freezing before touching her skin. Then my fist smashed through the lie! Again, and again, and again!

How dare you! How dare you!

How dare yo-

Click.

My body froze as black threads sprouted from the ground like an eldritch horror. They wrapped around my limbs, ten strands thick before digging into my flesh and carving up my throat, locking my head into position.

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