Kaelen woke on the floor of his chambers, gasping, his hand pressed to his head as memories erased themselves. The beast had branded new memories in his head and the pain of removing them made him almost bang his head on the ground.
Lysander Valtor stood over him, looking at him with curiosity, his hand still extended from where he had just… snapped his fingers? The duke's expression was unreadable, but his eyes were dark, focused, fixed on his face.
"You are quite interesting," Lysander said. "You managed to bring a beast out of a dungeon rift undetected. That is some kind of talent."
Kaelen could hear some sarcasm.
And in the corner of his vision, the system flickered:
[Illusion: Dissipated]
[Source: Unknown — Anomaly Detected]
[Threat: Neutralized by external intervention — Lysander Valtor]
Kaelen pushed himself upright. His head was pounding. His mana pathways ached.
"What was that?" Kaelen asked. He had never felt with a beast that relies on mental manipulation instead of physical fighting.
"A resida, it attack using illusions. The one you met was somewhat special."
"So I did not kill the dungeon Core." That made him relaxed at least he could keep on with a weak persona.
"Core?"
"A young girl, we found out she was what was holding the dungeon together ."
Kaelen's hand pressed against his head again as memories flowed back.
The memories were shifting, rearranging themselves. The girl had said You're not supposed to be here. She had said You're going to ruin everything. And then he blacked out...no he suddenly got angry for no reason. His team mates began fighting then the dungeon collapsed.
The system flickered:
[Reassessing: Gatebound Entity — Status: Unknown]
[Probability of Survival: 67%]
[Warning: Entity may have adapted. May be capable of illusion and influence.]
Just as he was spiraling someone gripped his face.
So she made an illusion and infiltrated the mansion as a non existent brother of the mansion .
"Not exactly non-existent."
"hmm?" could he read his mind.
"Aliar verant, he was older than you, the first son of the house."
"I have never heard of him,"
"Hmm, his death wasn't exactly pleasant."
" W...
"Ignore him , I need to know how you managed to fall for such a low level illusion, even children would not fall for it."
"I was not the only one." He said.
"It just needed on anchor and you happened to have a weak mind."
Lysander crouched down, his face level with Kaelen's, he then rapped his forehead and a golden light flowed.
"I noticed it last time but your mental Barrier's are low you should add mental training to your training schedule."
"Yes...I mean what training schedule?"
"Really,"
Yes really, the thought that someone has been with him all along even when he was taking a birth was now hitting him.
"How did you know something was wrong?"
"The bond or whatever we have between us It was crying, to be honest I was planning to ignore it but it just would not stop. It was annoying and it kept passing your anxious emotions to me." He paused then smiled, quite alluring. "It said I doesn't trust you to figure out something is wrong and you might get your self killed. It thanks you are stupid."
Kaelen's jaw tightened, he knew quite well their was no it The thing he was referring to was the physical manifestation of Lysander's emotions.
So Lysander thought he was stupid.
"It wasn't just me," he said slowly. "The whole estate. Everyone was… different."
Lysander's eyes narrowed with a smile. "And like i said it needed a weak mind as an anchor to enable it to cast the illusion, that's why the first class children learn is is mental closure."
He went through his memories and it was true.
"You mind is practically a brothel for mentalists."
"..."
---