The Demon Against The Heavens - 229 No Power, No Love

Circe was making every effort possible and imaginable. She tried to concentrate and activate at least one of her Skills, but to no avail.

It seemed that Lumia had taken her to another dimension, a dimension in which the silver-haired girl was an unparalleled tyrant.

Circe opened her Skill tab. It was unusual for one of the contenders to check their Skills during a fight. Usually, it was done only to observe the progress made during training. Yet Circe was stunned when she saw what was in front of her eyes: all the Skills she possessed had turned grey!

This meant that she couldn’t use them, at least until she was stuck in that Illusion.

By preventing Circe from activating her abilities, Lumia was in a position of clear advantage.

What the fuck was going on?

“My brother’s master,” Lumia began to explain, “told me that Helial began to create an Ability that completely modifies the battlefield, Perfect Background.”

Approaching Circe, the girl began to circle around her, exactly as the Witch had done with her a few minutes earlier.

“The principle of Perfect Background is to create a battlefield capable of responding to the needs of the fighters, in order to develop attacks and defences in a split second, using Runes as a catalyst. The principle is quite simple: it is enough, in fact, to arrange the Runes more appropriately within the battlefield.

It might sound easy, but in practice it’s much more complex. In order for Perfect Background to be truly perfect, every Runic Framework that can be destroyed must have a way out. If you destroyed Runes to take away a chance from your opponent, he should immediately have a chance to launch a deadly attack in that dangerous position.”

By applying this process to all Runes, it was easy to understand why creating a Perfect Background was so difficult. Helial had worked several times with Frankenstein to figure out how to improve this creation, but he still hadn’t managed to find the right balance.

The real difficulty lay in being able to control an expanding radius of the battlefield. The further you moved away from the radiation point, the more difficult it was to control Perfect Background.

However, once found the way to properly control the Skill, its potential in a battle would have reached incredible peaks, especially if the number of soldiers had been very high.

“And why should this interest me?” laughed Circe, trying to condense the Mana as much as possible within her Meridians and to regain possession of her own body.

“The goal of this Skill is having absolute control over the battlefield. This is more or less the way my Moon Cage works, the difference is that mine is an ability that aims to have absolute control over people. It is much more risky to use than Helial’s. But, obviously, there is no perfect Skill, so mine also has some problems that I’m trying to solve.

“At the moment, our bodies are lying motionless on the field where we were a few minutes ago. Our minds, however, are in a completely different dimension.”

It was only then that Circe truly worried. Lumia’s words were confirming what she had guessed, but it was impossible for her to believe it. Besides, she had never heard of such a Skill.

How would she fight, knowing nothing of what she was facing right now? Did this mean that she was doomed, that she would lose against that brat?

“Don’t worry, for the moment there is nothing I can do to you.” It seemed that Lumia had read the Witch’s mind and was responding to her thoughts. This made Circe’s skin crawl even more. Lumia continued: “All I can do is keep you trapped here with me. The Moon Cage is much deeper than you and I can imagine. I myself have only touched its boundaries and I have yet to understand the core of this Skill.”

“By using Moon Cage, you put both mine and your life at risk,” Circe growled.

Lumia stopped at Circe’s side, then took a few steps back and stood a few centimetres from her face.

“It’s true, but here you can’t do anything to me, zero. Stupid bitch. Do you want to play with my brother’s emotions, and do you expect me to stand aside like an idiot watching while he is duped by a whore?”

Lumia spat those words on Circe with immense malice, something that did not seem to belong to a girl with such a pure and innocent appearance.

At that moment, a child appeared in that upside down flat. His black bangs waved over purple star-shaped glasses. Under one arm, he had a large portion of popcorn and held a drink in one hand. A black straw protruded from the glass, too large for his hand, on which stood a bat of the same colour.

For the moment, the Devil decided not to reveal his presence to the other two, but simply to enjoy the scene. He sat on an invisible chair and, sipping loudly what he had in his glass, he enjoyed the show.

“Have you ever considered the possibility that there may be real feelings between me and your brother? Even if I had approached him with the intention of …”

“No, wait. Maybe we didn’t understand each other,” cut short Lumia. “The only reason you haven’t been gutted and burned yet is because I’m still not able to get my hands on you. Whether my brother loves you or not, I don’t care. You’re just a burden to him, I hope you die before you can ruin his future.”

These were the last words Lumia uttered before the world she had created vanished in a flash. Circe and Lumia regained consciousness, waking up lying on the sand of the training ground.

The girl was slightly pale and struggled to get up. Moon Cage asked for a much greater effort than any other Skill.

The Witch sat up to observe Lumia’s tiny figure. She would never have believed that the brat would have aroused in her the feeling closest to fear she had ever felt.

How was it possible that the little girl had managed to drag her into such an Illusion without her even noticing? Furthermore, it had seemed to her that Lumia had full control of her actions for as long as they had been in the other dimension.

Even now, feeling dizzy and with her head swirling as if she had spent a long time upside down, Circe wondered if what she had seen was not a dream.

Once recovered, Lumia got up and went away, but not before giving a very significant look at Circe.

She snapped her fingers in the air as she walked and said nothing.

Circe sat on the ground for some time, still incredulous.

As Lumia walked away, a child dressed in a rather eccentric way appeared beside her.

“If Circe were to repeat what you said to your brother, what do you think his reaction would be?” laughed the Devil.

Lumia shrugged, not at all disturbed by those words. “Circe is weak, stupid and naive. And, if she were outside the walls of Orma, with her character she wouldn’t be able to do nothing at all. She is only a braggart. In this herd of incapable, even the sheep can be considered a lion. ”

Iblis chuckled and continued to tease Lumia: “Yes, but you didn’t answer my question.”

Lumia’s silver hair was moved slightly by a second shrug.

“So if you became a burden on Helial, would you step aside? No power, no love? ” asked Iblis.

Lumia seemed quite convinced as she nodded and repeated the Devil’s words: “No power, no love.”