A moment before Aurora was impaled on two fangs, she realized what made the surrounding area feel so familiar. It was an illusion.

Looking around, despite literally being lifted up in something’s mouth, whatever was biting her was completely invisible. Aurora frantically forced a hastily composed spell out of her mind’s eye, and condensed, inky black Void mana erupted from her torso, flowing through the mouth of the creature.

Her mana partially eroded the creature’s mouth, along with a portion of the illusion concealing it. And with an ear-piercing screech, the creature released Aurora from its jaws, backing off. The only glimpse Aurora managed to catch was of its solid black fangs, and a somewhat hairy mouth, before the creature reformed its illusion, concealing itself from sight.

Clutching a hand to her chest, there was one hole dead in the center, along with another in her stomach. But yay for a body similar to elementals! No blood! Only the slight issue of some of her energy leaking away every second… Okay, it wasn’t that much better, but at least she wouldn’t die just this second.

Aurora felt her body eroding some sort of mana-based venom the creature injected, Void energies completely preventing it from spreading. Though the toxin also drained more energy from her body - but not her mana pool - as it was rapidly broken apart, and rendered harmless. But with energy leaking from her body, both Aurora’s hands slowly grew… less consistent. Her fingers began to blur together, as the outline of Aurora’s hand became less defined.

With an energy-composed body, Aurora didn’t exactly feel pain in the same way as before. Rather than hurting, her wounds gave off what felt more like a dull, throbbing sensation, alerting her that something was wrong in that area, it wasn’t correct. Which was concerning, because her hands were throbbing, along with the rest of her body as more and more energy leaked away.

And even more unfortunate, the creature’s illusions hid its essence entirely from view, rendering it completely invisible. Hopefully it only had an illusion affinity, though the venom it had might be from something else. With her sword gripped in one hand, Aurora composed another Void spell in her mind’s eye, the recent levels she gained helping to mitigate the mana costs; her mana pools had grown significantly.

The creature didn’t attack as Aurora forced the spell into existence, as fast as she could. And the spell formed. Small, condensed black bullets, way smaller than peas, launched out in all directions. And shredded through the creature’s illusion, its mana that permeated the entire cavern. Small, tiny holes formed in the creature’s delicate veil. And Aurora grinned like a shark, despite her injuries and hunger, as the creature let out an ear-piercing shriek. From directly above her.

Throwing her entire body into a roll, Aurora rolled to the side as fast as her level thirteen body allowed, her grin completely gone. Despite her efforts, the creature, which had been hit by several of Aurora’s projectiles, landed on the area where her calf would normally be, ripping out another large chunk of energy from her leg. With that, her arms and chest began growing less distinct even faster, as the hunger grew.

Frantically pulling herself away from the creature, her back and tails dragged along the rough stone floor, Aurora hastily formed and forced an energy slash into existence. Swinging her blade in an arc, a thin line of energy flew out of it, the air dimming as it passed, despite already being pitch black. It ate through the illusory veil as it passed.

And, as the energy slash reached where the legs of the creature should be, based on the holes in its illusion, the spell just… continued flying onwards. And slammed into the stone wall. And then the creature arrived at Aurora.

With the momentum of its sprint, something stabbed down at Aurora’s face, the wind whistling around it. Just in time, the flat portion of Aurora’s blade slid in front of the invisible… something. Whatever the creature used slammed into the center of her blade, snapping it in half. The portion of the sword that broke off detonated in an explosion of Void mana, helping redirect the creature. So instead of piercing through her head like a tomato, the creature only grazed Aurora’s face. And that small graze instantly ripped off half of her lower jaw.

By this point, every fiber of Aurora’s being, from her essence to her soul, was screaming at her to feast on the creature, to the point where her consciousness started to feel a little fuzzy as well, as though she was severely sleep deprived. With energy leaking from the gashes and tears in her body, rational thoughts slipped further and further away from her mind. “Shit… that’s… not good…”

Pushing herself backwards with her hands and one functional leg, Aurora began throwing her Void mana pool into every spell her delirious mind could come up with. She was expending mana at an absurd rate to maintain distance between herself and the creature. 

Aurora could piece together that there was a significant level gap between them, given how the creature had not only utterly dominated the fight in all aspects so far, but it was far stronger, and moved far faster than Aurora could. Throwing Void bullets, energy slashes, and more at the creature while moving back to the entrance to the cavern, from where she entered, as fast as she could. And despite not being that far, one could only go so fast, dragging themself along the floor.

The creature dodged the majority of the spells thrown at it, and only a few actually made contact. It was almost as though it was… no, it simply was having fun.

The few spells and projectiles that did pierce the illusion over the creature allowed Aurora to see its general location, as she forced it to back off, or at least move out of the way, every time it got close. 

As she crawled away, Aurora even tried using her i*?u$i•n mana to trick the creature into chasing a false copy, which demonstrated putting up a final stand. Though that only delayed its relentless pursuit for a mere moment, and was swiftly shattered back into mana, which dispersed into the surrounding atmosphere. Though… it took significantly longer than before Aurora’s transformation. 

But her illusion did allow for Aurora to close the remainder of the distance between her and the one way she could see out of the cavern, the way she entered. Though at the price of her entire Void mana pool, Aurora only had around a tenth of her maximum capacity left. And with that rapid expenditure of energy, her hunger only grew, her consciousness fading.

Finally reaching the exit to the cavern, Aurora slowly crawled towards the exit, firing off spells of Void mana like mini-shotgun shells, energy bullets keeping the creature, which was still invisible, at bay. Quickly glancing at the tunnel behind her, Aurora left the cavern.

And then her tails collided with a cold, stone wall.

Firing off another burst of Void mana, her Void mana pool precariously low, Aurora, with everything her fading consciousness could muster, looked back at the gap in the rock behind her, hastily bringing her hand that wasn’t holding a sword back. Firing off a brief pulse of Void mana. It ate into the creature’s illusion, revealing, for just an instant, a solid wall of rock. And her mana pool was at 1%. And her hunger only grew.

It had concealed the exit with its illusion, without Aurora noticing. With her back to a wall, Aurora was facing a creature far beyond her strength, with the majority of her mana pool gone. She tried to construct another illusion, with a focus on concealing her presence, along with tricking the creature to think she was still standing in one place, but her mind couldn’t quite get it right. The only change was the air shimmering slightly.

And immediately, the illusion the creature cast on the entire cavern pushed down on hers, and Aurora’s incomplete construction shattered back into fragments of her corrupted illusion mana.

As the creature launched itself back at Aurora again, she saw some fuzzy brown hairs through the holes she had poked in its illusion, as the illusory veil was rapidly being completely. And seeing those small bits of the creature flying at her, with her back against the wall, Aurora slightly thrust her sword, with only half of the fragmented blade left upwards. The creature threw itself straight onto her blade, but, with just a twist, it ripped Aurora’s shoulder off after biting into it, along with her right arm. 

The invisible creature hastily yanked its mouth away, letting out an ear-piercing screech as it flung itself to the other side of the cavern, Aurora’s right arm falling from its mouth as it backed away.

Aurora’s entire body was looking less defined now, and even her facial features were blurred together. But as the creature, which had leapt away, let out another ear-piercing screech, Aurora realized she was disarmed, completely. Not only had the creature removed her sword arm entirely, it didn’t even leave the broken sword near her. It was buried, not even up to the hilt, in the creature’s abdomen. And she had no mana she could attack it with.

As the creature backed away, Aurora’s consciousness, about as lucid as someone who is half asleep and very drunk, wasn’t doing the best job at processing what was happening anymore. Her mind was growing foggier by the second, and she had consumed nothing to satiate the growing hunger, not even a bit of the creature’s essence. To make the situation even worse, other than a few, shallow wounds, and the broken sword stuck in it, the creature was pretty much in perfect condition.

But Aurora’s hunger, unlike her mental faculties, did an excellent job at realizing a meal was literally in its grasp. With a part of sword, a part of her body, right in front of a feast, who was to deny her?

As Aurora’s hunger pulled at the creature’s essence, her entire body went limp, all of her remaining conscious effort helping mount a fight against the creature, but doing a poor job at it. With Aurora unable to mobilize that much mental force, the creature’s essence shouldn’t have even moved in the slightest. And it wouldn’t have, if it wasn’t for the sheer desire a starved Void Horror could produce.

The insatiable hunger from a Void Horror’s soul pulled at the entirety of the creature’s metaphysical existence, in an attempt to absorb it into itself so that it could feast at last, and grow from it. The creature put all the effort it could muster into keeping itself inside of its body, from being consumed. But it couldn’t outlast the hunger of a Void Horror.

With another, even higher-pitched screech, the creature, on the opposite side of the cavern, ran towards the Void Horror, realizing it couldn’t win this fight, as it stopped holding onto its essence. And even with numerous chunks torn from the wavery body of the Void Horror, the drainage never stopped. And as the creature withered, its body slowing down, falling apart as it shriveled up like a dry raisin, the Void Horror was rejuvenated, missing chunks of energy slowly coming back, features growing defined again. The rapidly withering body of the creature rushed towards the Void Horror, in hopes that slaying it may stop whatever was consuming its very existence. It dropped its illusion, revealing a shriveled up spider trying to cross the cavern as fast as it could.

But as the Void Horror’s body reformed, so did its blade. The upper half of the blade, which reformed inside the body of the creature, only hastening the drain of its essence as the Void Horror feasted.

And when the creature finally reached the Void Horror, having grown slower with every step it took on its eight hairy legs, it used its remaining, though much feebler strength to stab straight through where the now fully reformed face of the Horror was. It punched straight through the Void Horror. Elated by its success, the creature tried to limp away to nurse its wounds, and consume its meal from earlier, which consisted of a few wolves that wandered in before this… abomination.

But the drainage didn’t stop. Nor did the spider receive a kill notification. And the spider couldn’t pull its leg out, as the entirety of its being flowed out of it even faster than before. In its last struggle, the creature tried to stab the Void Horror through the stomach again, with another limb. But its leg, now covered in gray hairs that were beginning to fall off, couldn’t even pierce the outer layer of the Void Horror.

And as the Void Horror’s face reformed, Aurora’s eyes flickered open as the withered husk of the creature fell over, a shadow of what it once was, entirely consumed now.

[*ding!* You have slain an Illusion Weaver - Level 34!]

Gripping her forehead with one hand, Aurora pushed herself up into a sitting position, groaning as she leaned against the rough stone wall, which was perfectly visible now. “What just happened… ah.” Aurora thought. When she focused on it, she could recall memories of what had just happened, although they were rather fuzzy. “I guess I almost died again, huh. Really taking after my parents in that regard, at least. But… I survived, I’ll find them again.”

And, with the regeneration of the majority of her body, Aurora truly felt tired. After acknowledging that, she stood back up and prepared to leave.