Twenty shadows materialized on the platform; each one a perfect mirror of Joshua draped in the costumes of his deepest failures.
[ENEMIES: 20 Manifestations]
[WARNING: Host psychological defenses compromised]
[Crimson here! - Time to upgrade! Say 'Blood Whip' and 'Life Sense' - trust me on this one!]
Joshua's chest tightened as he stared at the army of himself—versions twisted by shame, failure, and abandonment. His hands shook slightly before he forced them steady.
"Blood Whip! Life Sense!" he commanded, desperation sharpening his voice.
Power rushed through him like a freezing wave. All at once, his senses exploded outward—Lysandra's racing pulse, the hollow void where shadows lurked, his own blood thrumming with newfound strength.
Reality sharpened, every detail laid bare in Joshua's mind.
But the first shadow didn't give him time to process these new feelings.
It wore Joshua's old royal robes, stained with phantom blood that never quite dried. When it smiled, it was with his father's cold disappointment.
"You think you belong here?" it whispered, voice mocking and cruel. "The talentless prince. The mistake they finally found a use for."
His blood responded in kind, pulling itself from small cuts on his palms, gathering into a crude, red blade.
[HEMOKINESIS - CAST]
[Vitality - 98.2%]
The crimson blade carved through the shadow's chest in one savage arc. Dark essence sprayed like ink as it dissolved with a sound like tearing silk, but not before its dying words found their mark.
"Ask her," it hissed as it faded. "Ask the princess what she felt when she first saw you."
[Shadow Defeated]
[+75 XP]
Three more shadows immediately surged forward.
"You know why they really sent you, don't you?" one sneered, tackling him to the obsidian ground. Its weight felt real, suffocating. "It wasn't only duty. Your family was relieved. Finally, an excuse to discard the embarrassment."
Joshua rolled, gasping.
No… They had to follow the pact.
But doubt crept in anyway.
Lysandra surged forward, her own crimson mana flaring as she deflected a shadow trying to flank Joshua's blind spot. "Joshua, focus—"
"Oh, the princess is getting involved," another shadow cut in. It wore the face of Joshua's eldest brother. It sidestepped Lysandra's angry blast with a lazy grace.
"Tell us, Your Highness," it continued with a warped smile. "what did you really feel when you first saw Joshua in the throne room?"
Lysandra's perfect composure cracked for a second. Her next spell sputtered, losing half its power.
"Lysandra?" He called out, his stomach twisting
The shadow pressed its advantage. "Come now, Princess. Be honest. When you saw this pathetic offering stumble into your throne room... what was your first thought?"
"I—" Lysandra's voice caught.
"Disappointment?" the shadow crooned. "Disgust? Did you wonder how the humans dared send such a weak, talentless—"
"Nothing!" The word tore from Lysandra's throat like a confession ripped by force. "I felt nothing. He was supposed to be another sacrifice. Another political necessity. I looked at him and saw... nothing."
Silence followed heavy and painful.
Joshua's blood blade faltered in shape and nearly dispersed. The shadows grew nearer, almost giddy.
"Lysandra," Joshua whispered.
She wouldn't meet his eyes. "Joshua, I—"
"Nothing," he repeated, the word tasting like ash. "You felt nothing."
I knew this already. So why am I so bothered by hearing her say it out loud?
"Even she knows you're worthless," it hissed. "Your betrothed felt nothing when she saw you. Because that's what you are, Joshua. A mistake in the shape of a prince."
More shadows closed in, their voices a chorus of cruelty targeting Joshua, but then they shifted focus, sensing Lysandra's vulnerability as she watched him crumble.
A single shadow changed shape into a littler, scared depiction of Lysandra, its sharp claws dragging across the princess's side and drawing blood.
"Tell him how you stood there," the shadow cooed, mimicking the wounded girl's voice as it landed another solid blow to her abdomen, sending her leaning forward in pain. "How you watched your little foster family burn. How you did nothing while they screamed your name."
"I was a child!" Lysandra managed, attempting to swing with her red mana blade, but it lacked her usual power.
"You were still old enough to know right from wrong," a shadow wearing the face of the human mother mocked, "but you were too much of a coward, weren't you?"
Joshua watched Lysandra; This powerful, terrifying woman who had nearly killed him crumple to her hands and knees. The sight of her breaking under the weight of her own buried guilt was somehow worse than his own pain.
More memories crashed into Joshua from everywhere; The disappointed looks of his father, the mockeries of his brothers, and the servants who pitied him more than they respected him.
Joshua himself was driven down again, his knees hitting the obsidian platform. The shadows closed in on both of them, not striking immediately.
This is it. This is how I die. Broken on my knees like they always said I would.
"Will you give up Joshua?" they questioned in unison, voices blending into a symphony of cruelty.
"Are youready to stop pretending you're anything more than what you've always been?"
Joshua lay broken, tasting copper. Beside him, Lysandra could barely muster a breath, and she met locked eyes with him, both of them with their bodies pressed against the ground.
She looks so tired… so human. Is this what defeat looks like on both of us?
But beneath the agony, Joshua felt the familiar, violent stirring of his cheat.
[DAMAGE CONVERSION ACTIVATING]
[Pain Received x 1000]
[Pain Threshold - 44%]
His wounds flared as his vision trembled, but his body began to regain his strength.
"No," Joshua gasped, pressing his bloody palms against the platform, teeth grit in unimaginable pain.
"She felt nothing when she first saw me," he continued, pushing himself to his knees. Blood welled from his cuts, rising by his will.
[HEMOKINESIS - CAST] x 3
[Vitality - 46.1%]
"And you know…" Joshua's voice grew stronger as he stood, blood swirling around him like a crimson storm. "I don't blame her."
The shadows hesitated in confusion.
"I walked into her palace as a sacrifice," Joshua continued, his blood forming into sharp, precise swords floating around him. "A political offering. A stranger sent to die for a treaty."
His life sense expanded, showing him every shadow's position.
"But I'm not that stranger anymore."
[Life Sense - Active]
[17 hostile entities detected]
Joshua moved with the controlled violence of someone who'd learned to fight with nothing but determination. The swords of blood locked on to all the shadows, homing in on each like a missile.
"I survived your princess!" he roared. The manifestations screamed as they dissolved.
[MANIFESTATION DEFEATED x3]
[+225 XP]
The remaining shadows recoiled, their earlier confidence cracking.
"The man who made the demon princess choose him!" His blood formed into long spears, piercing two shadows mid-lunge.
[MANIFESTATION DEFEATED x2]
[+150 XP]
Lysandra lifted her head, watching the broken prince transform into something she hadn't expected.
"I made her feel something!" Joshua's voice thundered as the blur of crimson sword swung into a wide arc around him, catching two more figures and crushing them into nothing.
[MANIFESTATION DEFEATED x2]
[+150 XP]
He spun toward the shadows wearing his family's faces, his eyes blazing with something that wasn't quite fury—it was acceptance.
"And even if she felt nothing then," he declared, his blood magic responding to his emotional clarity, "she feels something now. I've seen it."
The shadows faltered as Joshua's power spiked beyond their ability to comprehend. He wasn't fighting them with confidence—he was fighting them with the hard-earned knowledge of his own worth.
"I am Joshua Vale," he declared, blood swirling around him like a personal hurricane. "And I don't break."
His attacks became surgical and precise. Four shadows fell in rapid succession, unable to counter his combination of blood magic and tactical awareness.
[MANIFESTATION DEFEATED x4]
[+300 XP]
The final shadow—the one wearing his father's disappointed face—tried one last desperate gambit as it retreated toward the platform's edge.
"But you're still just—"
Joshua's blood spear punched through its chest with a wet thunk, pinning it to the platform's edge before it could finish the sentence.
"I'm still exactly who I choose to be," he said quietly as the shadow dissolved. "And that's enough."
[MANIFESTATION DEFEATED] [+75 XP]
Silence fell.
[TRIAL OF FLESH - SECOND WAVE COMPLETE]
[+1,000 XP BONUS]
[LEVEL UP!] [LEVEL UP!] [LEVEL UP!]
[Man! That was intense!]
Joshua stood in the aftermath, breathing hard, his blood magic still crackling around him like contained lightning.
Lysandra stared at him, her own wounds forgotten. Her expression was complex.
"Joshua," she said softly. "I—"
"You felt nothing then," Joshua interrupted, his voice gentle but firm. "But do you feel nothing now?"
Their eyes met across the scarred platform. Lysandra's lips parted, her answer caught somewhere between her throat and her heart.
Before she could respond, the platform tore open.
[WARNING: FINAL MANIFESTATION DETECTED]
[BOSS ENTITY: THE AMALGAMATION]
[THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME]
Something enormous began to rise from the abyss; A writhing mass of every person who had ever hurt them, every word that had ever cut them, every moment of pain they'd ever endured.
Joshua wiped blood and sweat from his mouth, his magic still humming with barely contained power. He looked at the nightmarish thing emerging from below, then at Lysandra.
"Ready for round three?" he asked, exhaustion and determination warring in his voice.
Lysandra's expression hardened into something between respect and fierce protectiveness. She rose to her feet, mana crackling around her like a crimson storm.
"I cannot allow myself to continue showing weakness."
"Right."
The Amalgamation roared, a thousand voices screaming from one throat.
Joshua and Lysandra stood ready.