WorldCrafter - Building My Underground Kingdom-Chapter 258: Crude

Ben swung his dagger down.

The dark edge tore through the air.

The force of the strike carved a deep crack across the chamber floor.

But instead of meeting flesh, the blade passed through Belial’s body without resistance.

Belial’s figure shattered into a cloud of swirling shadows.

"Another illusion?" Ben cursed.

He pivoted and scanned the chamber.

A soft, mocking chuckle echoed around him.

Multiple images of Belial appeared in a loose circle, all smirking, all adjusting their monocles at the same time.

Each clone looked the same and gave off the same aura.

"Strength is meaningless if you cannot even touch your enemy, Sir Ben," the illusions said together.

Their overlapping voices created a disorienting echo.

Ben clenched his teeth.

Frustration boiled inside him. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"Cheap tricks will not save you, Belial!"

He charged forward and swept his blade in a wide horizontal arc.

The dagger passed through three illusions at once.

All three evaporated instantly, but two more appeared right after.

At the same time, a sharp pain exploded in his side.

A heavy blow struck deep into his ribs and sent him staggering.

He swung his dagger instinctively toward where the pain came from, but the blade met only empty air.

Another Belial, real or not he could not tell, stood several meters away with his hands tucked behind his back.

"Your anger blinds you," Belial said in a calm voice. "This is the power of my authority, the Labyrinth of Mirrors.

Within my illusions, truth and lies blend together.

Reality becomes my playground."

Ben growled.

Dark aether surged out from him in a wave and smashed the nearby illusions.

They broke apart and vanished.

For a brief moment, the chamber looked empty.

Then a whisper brushed against his ear.

"Too slow."

Ben spun around.

He saw Belial’s heel closing in on his face.

The kick landed hard and sent him flying across the room.

He crashed into a stone pillar and shattered it on impact.

Blood dripped from his lips as he pushed himself up.

His eyes were still fierce.

Dark energy rose around him, spinning into a vortex of shadows that spread across the entire chamber.

"Devourer Domain."

In an instant, Ben seized control of the darkness.

Inside this domain, he could sense every fluctuation of energy.

Illusions and reality both became clear to him.

At least, that was how it should have worked.

Belial frowned.

His eyes showed a hint of respect, but his tone stayed casual.

"Ah, this domain is strong, but it is nothing more than a cheap imitation.

You wield Dark Aether, but you barely understand it."

He did not wait for Ben to answer.

He snapped his fingers.

The shadows in the domain twisted and bent.

The space around them warped again.

New illusions formed inside Ben’s own domain, blending into it and becoming hard to tell apart from reality.

A maze of images rose up around him.

Even here, inside his own realm, Ben’s senses began to fail.

"How?" Ben growled.

Confusion and anger mixed in his voice.

Belial smirked as he walked through the illusions.

His figure appeared and vanished from different directions, always just out of reach.

"Within my labyrinth, even your senses belong to me," he said.

A flurry of phantom strikes hit Ben from every angle.

Each impact felt real.

Shallow cuts and bruises appeared on his body.

His strength slowly drained away.

He swung his dagger again and again, but his blade only sliced through air.

His attacks never found Belial.

Pain and disorientation pressed in on him, but his resolve did not break.

He had walked through too many dangers to fall to illusions here.

He forced himself to breathe slowly.

He shut his eyes.

If his sight could not be trusted, then he would rely on instinct and feel alone.

Dark aether condensed around his fists.

It hardened into sharp spikes.

His body blurred and vanished, moving at his fastest speed.

He appeared behind one of the Belials and thrust his fist forward.

This time his strike hit something solid.

Belial’s eyes widened slightly.

Blood dripped from his shoulder where the spike had pierced through.

Ben let out a short, hard breath and smirked.

"Found you."

Belial laughed softly.

A dangerous light flashed in his eyes.

"You sure?" he asked.

His body erupted in a burst of colored light.

It exploded outward like a cluster of bright fireworks.

Ben staggered back and raised an arm to shield his eyes from the blinding flash.

Belial’s laughter echoed around the chamber, amused but cold.

"This is how you wield true authority," Belial said.

His voice rang with arrogance.

He lifted his hand in a smooth motion.

The air around Ben shimmered and twisted. "You are drowning."

At once, Ben’s senses were overwhelmed.

It felt like he had been dropped into the depths of an ocean.

Heavy pressure closed in on every part of his body.

His chest felt tight, as if something pressed down on his lungs.

His breath came short and strained.

’This does not make sense,’ Ben thought.

His eyes were wide. ’I should not run out of air, even underwater, even for years.’

Even if he truly sank into an ocean, his body should not react like this.

Yet his instincts screamed at him to gasp and inhale.

Cold panic crawled up his spine.

He struggled hard.

He swung his dagger and his free hand through the water-like pressure.

The resistance felt thick and heavy.

The illusion wrapped around him like real liquid.

His vision darkened at the edges.

His mind started to slip as the false sensation of drowning grew stronger.

Belial walked toward him at a relaxed pace.

His hands were still behind his back.

His figure wavered through the watery distortion, his monocle catching the dim light like a small star.

"You see, Sir Ben, authority is not about brute power," Belial said.

His voice was calm, almost gentle. "It is about absolute control, bending reality to your will."

Ben’s consciousness flickered.

A strange, deep fear rose in his chest.

At the same time, anger and stubborn defiance burned inside him.

He was a sovereign.

He refused to lose here, swallowed by someone else’s illusion.

He gathered what remained of his strength and focused inward.

"Authority or not," he growled through clenched teeth.

His voice sounded warped by the false water. "I will not let you toy with me."

He forced dark aether to surge through every part of his body.

Then he pushed it all outward in one violent burst.

His form exploded into shadows.

The eruption tore through the illusionary ocean around him.

The crushing weight vanished in an instant.

Ben dropped to his knees on the solid chamber floor.

He sucked in air again and again, even though he should not have needed it.

His body still remembered the fake suffocation.

Belial took a small step back.

His eyebrows rose in real surprise, but the smirk remained.

"Impressive resolve," he said. "But how long can you resist my authority with brute force, Ben?"

Ben pushed himself up, legs unsteady but holding.

His aura flared around him again, dark and wild.

He wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand and stared at Belial.

"As long as it takes," he said.

Darkness swirled around him, ready to move.

He snapped his wrist and threw his dagger straight at Belial.

Belial only smiled.

He did not even try to dodge.

At the same time, Ben leaped forward.

His figure blurred.

He appeared above Belial, but now his weapon had changed.

In his hands, he gripped his pickaxe, ready to strike.