Destroying My Own Novel

Agnez, Jeanne, and Lillith walked back to meet with the others after checking the surrounding area. Turned out they were in the middle of the dead forest on top of the hill, and they could see the volcano clearly from there.

They looked at Gunnar and the others who were staring at the pit in front of them. They saw Asmond and Enma standing in the swamp of dirty water with dead carcasses floating and covered with maggots.

Agnez stared down at the demons who were staring at Asmond and Enma. She chuckled and it made Gunnar and the others looked at her with confusion.

“What’s so funny?” Gunnar asked.

“You’re not seeing this?” Agnez asked back with a smile of disbelief.

Gunnar was so confused and he shook his head with his eyebrows furrowed.

“What are you talking about?” Gunnar asked.

Agnez chuckled in disbelief as she walked away, she then looked at Mykel who was enjoying his cigarette. He was staring at Asmond and Enma who were offered by the demons to drink the water from the pool of dirty water.

“You’re seeing this, right?” Agnez asked as she stood next to Mykel.

“I have been seeing all this ever since we entered the portal,” Mykel answered.

Mykel’s [Mind Control] rank was so high that the illusion didn’t affect him at all.

“What are we going to do with this? Should we wake them up?” Agnez asked and looked at Gunnar and the others.

“If you want to wake them up, they should see it with their own two eyes that those people aren’t humans,” Mykel looked at Agnez and Jeanne.

“It seems that Enma noticed something is off about this,” Jeanne said.

“Anyway, there are pair of eyes that have been staring at us,” Mykel looked in the distance and saw heads popping out from behind the trees with their glowing red eyes.

“Right, should we deal with them?” Agnez asked as she noticed the eyes in the woods.

Enma looked at Asmond in the eye, they both stared at each other silently.

“I don’t think they’re what we think they are,” Enma said with her right hand holding the sword handle. “There’s no such a thing as coming back in time, Asmond, it’s either all of this is just an illusion, or it’s a trick that the demons are playing right now,”

Asmond was hesitating as he paid attention to the small family in the small room. He wanted to believe that they were real but the longer he paid attention to them, the more bizarre their behavior became. The giggles of the children were getting louder and didn’t stop, the wife kept staring and smiling at them without blinking her eyes while the husband looked like a mannequin because he didn’t move a muscle.

“What are you suggesting then?” Asmond asked as he looked at Enma.

Enma tried to look at them from the corner of her eyes. “Would it be a problem if we kill the father?” Enma asked quietly.

“Why do you want to kill him?” Asmond asked back.

“Do we have a way to find out if they’re a demon or not? We have been exploring different worlds with Mykel and his team. I’m not telling you that what they did is right, but we both know their methods were efficient,” Enma explained and looked Asmond in the eye as if she tried to convince him of her plan.

They both knew it was wrong and none of them want to make the decision, but at the same time, if their hunch was right, they would get the answer about the twelfth floor.

Asmond felt his throat and chest had been itchy for no reason, and rubbed his throat while deciding whether he agreed with Enma’s plan or not. Before he could give an answer, they felt a presence walking toward them from the tunnel.

“Lillith?” Enma asked as she squinted her eyes because she knew the only one who could lurk in the dark unnoticed and showed a bit of terrifying aura was Lillith.

“You guys are so slow, everyone already knows the truth while you guys are still thinking about whether to kill them or not,” Lillith walked past them and entered the room. “You can look away if you don’t want to see it,” Lillith said as she grabbed the daggers on the back of her waist.

Both Asmond and Enma watched Lillith slit the man’s throat while the wife and the children started to scream in fear. Their screams were so believable that they didn’t have the heart to look and hear the fear on those faces, especially the children.

“You can look now,” Lillith said as she wiped the blood.

They slowly turned their heads and saw the small family was actually a group of demons, and the children were imps. They weren’t surprised because their hunch turned out to be right, and then the small room slowly disappeared and turned into a small swamp of dirty water and was surrounded by dead carcasses.

“Did any of you drink the water they offered? If so, I suggest you throw it all up,” Lillith said as she walked away from the pit.

Enma looked at Asmond while Asmond saw the cup floating on the water. He saw the inside of the cup, and it looked like vomit with maggots in it, he immediately threw up and saw the maggots come out from his mouth.

Asmond couldn’t stop vomiting because of what he drank and the pungent smell that started to strike his nose. Enma brought him out from the pit as fast as she could, and then Kastor lend them a hand with a face of regret.

“I’m sorry, Asmond,” Kastor looked at Asmond with a worried expression.

Asmond couldn’t say a word while his stomach started to feel sick because he kept vomiting and there was always a maggot that came out from the vomit. Mykel looked at him and chuckled quietly because it was the same in the original story when he drank the cup filled with maggots.

Enma looked around and noticed the small town had disappeared and turned into a dead forest on top of the hill. She looked around and everyone was fighting the demons that had been lurking in the forest.

It was all thanks to Agnez’s act that dragged one of the demons to the backyard, she showed the true nature behind the living beings that lived on the twelfth floor. They were all shocked when the person turned into a demon and then the illusion broke at the same time.

The demons weren’t that strong, they were only good with illusion magic and tried to kill them by letting them stay on the twelfth floor forever.

The last demon was killed and a notification appeared.

[You have cleared the twelfth floor of the Samael Tower!]

[You are the first to clear the eleventh floor]

[Please enter your name]

[The red portal to the thirteenth floor is now open!]

[The blue portal to your original world is now open!]

“Asmond, do you think you can continue?” Mykel asked as he looked at how pale Asmond’s face was.

“Yeah… I’m starting to feel better, I think…” Asmond answered as he rubbed his stomach and held in the urge to vomit.

“We should understand by now what kind of threat we are dealing with,” Mykel said as he looked at everyone. “It’s a world of illusion and I want you to keep this in mind that everything that you see could be fake. I don’t know what’s on the thirteenth floor, but one thing for sure is that you can only trust in yourself, and nobody else can help you if you’re in the same situation as Asmond,”

“We should stick together from now on, to reduce the risk of being in a dangerous situation,” Kastor said as he looked at his team and then looked at Mykel and his team. “It’s the best option when we don’t know what we are going to face,”

Agnez scoffed in the back because everyone knew that already.

Asmond stood up after drinking four bottles of water, he then looked at Mykel and Kastor. “I’m ready to go now,” Asmond said.

“Let’s move then,” Mykel said as he walked toward the portal with his team.

Mykel let Kastor and his team go first while he held everyone in his team back.

“I want you guys to hold my body so tightly the moment we enter the portal,” Mykel said. “So we won’t get separated,” Mykel smiled as he stared at the portal.