The Villain Rising: Ascension of Arcane Trickster.-Chapter 204: Mommy!! I want his balls.

One of the younger elves slowly turned his head toward our group, creepily, as if it had been watching me from the very beginning. His gaze locked onto me as he tilted his head slightly and then spoke,

"Mommy!! I want his balls. Let me have him!" He said pointing at me specifically.

My face twisted in pure disgust.

This was the exact same reason I killed this bastard before getting knocked out by his A-Ranker mother. I guess one good thing about the loop was that I got to erase that ugly mug more than once.

The others didn’t react much, probably not even understanding the elven language.

Still, Alya immediately stepped to the front when she saw the group of young elves lunging toward us, with an A-Ranker mother elf leading them from behind.

"Rael, you and the others take the young ones. I will keep the adult one busy." She took off with the mother elf going after her.

And just like that... chaos erupted.

People clashed everywhere, groups forming against stronger elves, screams and mana explosions tearing through the hall. Our group was no different.

I turned to them immediately.

"Viola, stay back and provide cover and Sylvie, you guard her. The rest of you take the front."

My eyes scanned the incoming enemies.

"I will handle the two in front. Arza, take the two on the right. Arthur, take the ones on the left. Noah, you take whoever’s left."

Everything flowed out naturally, like muscle memory from a script I had already performed too many times.

Umbra Seraphina stepped closer and whispered, "What about me?"

I looked at her and smirked. "Go wild. Take out their mages while we keep the melee ones busy."

Her eyes lit up instantly.

The battlefield was set and although this was our first time fighting as a group, they were competent enough to not drag me down.

I didn’t spare any of them even a single glance and lunged forward as my Cards of Arcana manifested around me instantly, spinning with familiar weight and presence.

In the real world, I knew better than anyone how hopeless this situation truly was but I wasn’t trying to win because my plan was never to fight my way out. Escaping at this point was impossible. I needed to wait until the elves captured us and only then would I find a way out during the transportation when they would have had their guard down.

I had cursed myself countless times for coming to this place, on this exact day of all days but now, with those useless regrets gone, I could finally see it clearly.

This whole setup was way too elaborate to be a random or butterfly effect of my actions. Everyone was meant to be captured and everyone was meant to be taken away by the elves and this probably happened in the novel as well but because no witnesses survived, no one ever knew about the connection between DD’s Wonder and the elves when it was mentioned.

The two elves stared at me while slowly licking their weapons. The one leading them was the same brat with a dagger who had singled me out earlier while his partner seemed to be his lackey and held a sword.

"Hey, that human is mine, don’t touch him, okay?" He said in the elven tongue to his partner, probably thinking no human could understand him.

Unfortunately for him, my Myth made sure I heard every word loud and clear. I clicked my tongue and muttered back, just low enough for only him to hear,

"Why don’t you crawl back to whoever taught you that trash and beg for better manners? Or is that too hard when your whole bloodline is built on filth and cowardice?"

My voice was drowned out by the chaos of the battlefield but it was more than clear to him.

Their faces twisted instantly and without another second of hesitation, both of them lunged at me at the same time.

I sent one of my Cards of Arcana flying toward the first elf and twisted my body to dodge the other’s strike. After thirteen loops, their attack patterns had become laughably predictable. I could probably fight them with my eyes closed at this point.

The dagger wielder looked genuinely shocked. A peak E-Ranker like me dodging an attack from a beginner D-Ranker like him clearly wasn’t something he expected.

But before I could make use of that moment of hesitation, the sword wielder, the same rank as his friend, slashed toward me from the side, his blade cutting through the air with brutal speed.

I teleported to a card I had already prepared beforehand before sending my remaining two cards at the sword wielder with a slow speed. The ugly bastard smirked and deflected one of the cards and caught the other one, trying to show off his dominance but that was exactly what I wanted as I activated the <<The Tower>> effect of my card and blew it up.

And that’s why you never touch unknown things without knowing whether they can explode or not.

The sword wielder couldn’t react to the surprise and was blown backwards.

SCREENCH!!!

His scream tore through the chaos.

One of his arms was completely blown to bits. The other was left dangling, a few strands of muscle barely keeping it attached to his shoulder, blood spraying everywhere.

His friend, the dagger wielder lunged at me with his dagger coated in a dark energy. Some kind of curse probably.

I dodged it effortlessly, my eyes naturally drifting toward the rest of my teammates and that’s when I noticed it.

Something was wrong.

Unlike the bastards attacking me, everyone else was moving... strangely like puppets being dragged by invisible strings. It was like watching a three-year-old’s drawing animated by a ten-year-old.

I understood the reason immediately.

It was because I had never really seen them fight properly during this chaos. Only a few accidental glances here and there while I was busy on my own. So the monster had no real reference and it didn’t know how they actually moved, how they attacked, how their skills flowed. This... was the best it could fake.

Only now did I realize why a few of my previous loops had ended right at this point. It was because I must have glanced at them by accident, felt something was off, maybe even reacted subconsciously. And the moment I did, that bastard probably noticed the inconsistency and collapsed the space before I could properly process it.

Damn...

So it wasn’t random.

I was getting too close to the truth every time.

But this time, I didn’t give any unconscious action away.

The dagger wielder went completely berserk after seeing his partner almost killed. He attacked me relentlessly but I dodged everything with ease, like I was dancing instead of fighting.

He was that weak.

Then his body started glowing in a pitch-black color and I knew what was coming but I still had to act it out.

Two shadow copies of his body appeared out of nowhere, both wielding daggers as they attacked me. I tried teleporting to my card but his real body was already there, waiting for me like he had predicted my move.

For a split second, I thought I was done or at least acted like that but before he could land a hit, a massive fireball slammed straight into him, blasting his body away.

I turned toward the caster. It was Viola.

I met her eyes and nodded once and then I looked back at the bastard. His body was burned badly, flesh charred and smoking... but he was still alive.

Just like I had done in the real world and like every loop before, I sent my card flying as it pierced straight through his skull.

And immediately after that, I willed myself to enter my Domain. The hit from the elf’s mother was coming any second now.

’Ra, it’s time. I’m entering the Domain now.’

The world around me seemed to freeze as everything slowed, stretched, cracked at the edges but just before my consciousness slipped away, I caught one last scene.

The elven bitch, hunched and twisted, lunged forward and drove her fist straight into my face as my nose crushed instantly, and my vision was drowned in red.

I had activated <<Internal Gravity>> at the exact moment to reinforce my face in the real world. That was the only reason my skull didn’t shatter and I just fell unconscious.

At the exact same moment, I saw Alya behind the elf slashing at her, using the punch on me as a distraction to rip the elf apart.

My body was thrown backwards due to the impact as I crashed onto the cold floor but I didn’t feel any pain because I had already entered my domain.

Still... I could feel my unconscious body in the real world. It was inside the stomach of The Mind Harvester, and I could sense the shifting process beginning as he started healing my wounds and rearranging the space to the start of the loop.

Finally... I am inside.

Immediately my stomach and head started aching violently... my eyes turned towards my body as I saw...