The Villain Rising: Ascension of Arcane Trickster.-Chapter 205: Statergic Sacrifice of Arcane Trickster.

As soon as I entered the Domain, my stomach and head started aching violently. I instinctively looked down at my body as I saw a disgusting black smoky worm crawling out of my transparent stomach, writhing like it was alive.

"What the fuck is this?" I cursed immediately.

"Calm down. That’s just residual corruption being purged from your soul." Ra appeared in front of me and casually crushed the worm under his foot like it was nothing.

"The mind harvester has already started feeding you and shifting the area," he continued calmly. "It’ll be done in about half an hour. So take your memories and think of a damn plan to get out of here, unless you want to end up inside its body permanently."

"...Feeding what now?"

My attention snapped straight to that one word.

"I wouldn’t have said anything but honestly, your dumb state is starting to get annoying, so let me explain something."

He smirked.

"How the hell do you think you have been able to keep running nonstop for thirteen loops?"

My silence was enough of an answer.

"That bastard keeps feeding you and nursing you back to full strength before restarting the loop." Then he added, almost mockingly, "The feeding process is... efficient. It uses one of its fleshy tentacles to transfer nutrients and mana directly into your body."

My face stiffened.

Before I could even open my mouth, Ra burst out laughing.

"Relax, relax. I was just trying to lighten the mood." He said with a crooked grin. "It only uses its mana to give you nutrients. I was joking when I said it uses tentacles."

Then he paused.

"...Or was I?"

My expression twitched.

"Just give me back my memories," I said in annoyance.

"You see that big orb behind me?" Ra pointed lazily, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "Go touch it. That’s your memory sphere. I extracted it with great difficulty from myself, you know..."

"Okay." I didn’t joke around this time and simply walked toward the orb and placed my hand on it.

The moment I made contact, everything crashed into me at once. Memories flooded my mind like a violent wave, sharper, clearer and more vivid than they had ever been before. They weren’t just restored... they were enhanced.

It only took a few minutes but it felt like reliving an entire lifetime and when it finally stopped a slow smirk spread across my face

Ra walked over to me. "Why are you smiling? Did you finally find a way out?"

I looked straight at him. "Nope. I mean, you have my memories too, so you should already know how hopeless this situation is."

My mind drifted back to Noah’s notes, the detailed ones he had given me about every known monster in the novel.

Xyrrhael — The Mind Harvester was written there too.

A monster also known as a Living Space. One that trapped its prey inside landscapes formed from their own memories, slowly feeding on their emotions and thoughts until nothing was left but a hollow shell.

After that, it absorbed their bodies into itself.

And there was a special note given under it.

That if you remotely see Xyrrhael in your proximity, you should run because this monster for all of its incredible powers had one weakness, it was that it couldn’t hide itself properly.

Most of the time it tried to disguise itself as a room, a building or an environment, but there were always tells or something off about it which made it easy to recognize... if you noticed early enough.

But once you were trapped inside, there was no way out as the monster could collapse the space infinitely, over and over, until the host lost all energy and died.

"Ra, can I somehow use the Domain to teleport my physical body away or something? Or maybe use it to scare that bastard off?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure. Why not? You can also summon gods while you’re at it and ask them to dance." He scoffed. "Fucker, if it were that easy, do you really think you would be crying here after getting trapped? I would have done it already."

Tsk.

I clicked my tongue in annoyance but then... something about his words hit me a second later.

Summon the gods...?

My eyes narrowed slightly.

...Wait.

What if?

A plan slowly started forming in my head when Ra immediately narrowed his eyes at me.

"What are you planning now?"

"What if... we give it memories that could annihilate it just from knowing them?" I said quietly.

There were a few names and a few memories in my mind that could never be spoken out loud or could never be remembered properly. Things that erased minds, souls and even existence itself just by being acknowledged. That was why I had always buried them deep in the back of my mind.

...but if I could somehow make one of its projections speak those words instead or if I could even make it eat one particular memory of mine, I was certain that this bastard would die.

I had a word I could say them myself, sure but my soul would probably be erased before I even had the chance to escape into the Domain and honestly, even I wasn’t suicidal enough to test that.

"What memory are you talking about?" Ra asked, genuinely curious.

I smirked.

"You know... there is that one particular memory that attracted HIS gaze. The one that almost got me killed. Hell, I am still cursed with a terminal illness because of HIM."

Ra’s expression immediately shifted, sharp with concern. "Rael... we don’t know what will happen if you mess with Him a second time."

My smile only widened. "This is the only choice we have and I am going to enter the Domain before it even finishes digesting that memory."

"But how are you going to make sure it eats that particular memory?" Ra asked.

My smile wavered for just a moment because that... was the hardest part and it was going to cost me.

"I just have to suffer through the loops long enough to understand the pattern of how it siphons my memories."

Ra clicked his tongue. "That could take a lot of loops."

"Yeah," I replied calmly. "But we have all the time we need since the time inside this bastard is distorted beyond reason."

Then I looked straight at him.

"And more importantly... I have you."

A faint grin returned to my lips.

"You’ll remind me who I am every time I am on the verge of forgetting."

"Rael, that’s madness," Ra snapped. "What if you never figure out the pattern? What if in just a few loops you forget to enter the Domain and then forget everything about what we discussed... even what the Domain is? We can’t keep expecting some mysterious blind boy to come save you every time you lose yourself."

I looked at my split soul and I didn’t need any special sense to see how worried he was. It was written all over him.

I reached out and patted his head once.

"That’s exactly why we have to do this, Ra," I said quietly. "We can’t rely on someone else to come save us." 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

My eyes hardened slightly.

"We have to find our own way out and this... is the only path that gives us the highest chance of survival and who knows I might figure out the pattern in just the first loop... and get us out of here."

Ra still looked unconvinced but I didn’t say anything anymore.

"I believe the restructuring is nearly done... I will be going back now. I will come here after every two loops to recover my memories."

I willed myself to return to the real world... but before my soul completely slipped away, I looked back at him.

"And... I’m sorry for overworking you."

Just for a split second, his expression softened. "Who the hell is overworking for you, I am only working for my own—"

I couldn’t completely hear what he was saying as my consciousness entered my body again as the new loop had begun... and I started focusing on the smallest changes in the environment and within myself because this time... I wasn’t just surviving the loop, I was studying it.