Chapter 375: Mirrage Maze

When Luna stepped foot into the third zone her guard instantly rose and her domain exerted itself on the surroundings.

For what she saw was a world that made no sense.

Similar to the previous two zones she had found herself in this one was Arctic themed, snow and ice in abundance.

However, there was now a addition theme that was added on top of that which was the cause of Luna’s instant wariness.

For it was no simple snowy landscape that spread out before Luna, no it was a world of impossibilities.

The ground twisted in on itself in a bizarre corkscrew like manner, completely ignoring any regular laws of physics. Bridges of bitter ice rose up into the air, folding back in on themselves and reattaching to the ’floor’ in unnatural locations that hurt the brain to try and understand.

Yet as Luna watched this strange scene a frown quickly formed as she watched the very landscape itself begin to slowly shift from one form to the other.

The twisting ground seemed to be slowly ’unwinding’ before her very eyes. Yet only in certain parts, other seemed to fold in on themselves before simply blending into itself before turning back to ’normal’ land.

It was a truly bizarre environment that made absolutely no sense, constantly shifting and twisting in on itself. A place where up meant down and down meant going sideways whilst moving forwards could result in you falling into the sky itself.

Yet Luna felt her instincts shiver in delight, her domain humming in resonance them.

Her domain had taken on aspects of her affinity with illusions. Forming constructs and more by tapping into that illusory aspect, so when she was presented with a landscape that her very being insisted was an illusion, well she couldn’t help but feel excited.

To witness such an illusions was truly eye opening to Luna. She had only ever used them as a part of her combat style in the most basic of ways, by solidifying her illusions and using them as distractions and ways to land more blows.

Yet she was now begining to understand that that was only scratching the surface of what could be possible with illusions.

If she could manipulate her domains innate connection with affinities to replicate this kind of environment would that not be a massive boon to her fighting prowes?

Still whilst it was a lofty goal actually achieving something like that would be a long term goal, unlikely to be realised any time soon.

It was unfortunate that their was a time limit on staying in these outer zones before she had to reach the inner region, if that wasn’t the case Luna would have loved to be able to stay and experience this place for longer.

But she knew that she was on a time limit, so she began to advance.

Luna was not actually all that worried about making it through this complex landscape of illusions for one quite simple reason.

Anywhere her domain touched the illusion froze, unable to shift and twist like it so desired.

Once under Luna’s authority the work around her ’froze’ in place, unable to move without her explicit permission.

As with the previous zones Luna felt like her domain was been actively assisted when she tried to exert her control over the surroundings. It was an ephemeral thing, like their was a moment of resistance upon her domain expanding, only for that hesitation to recede and instead open its arms in a warm welcome.

It was a strange feeling, made even more bizarre in this confusing landscape that is ever twisting and ever changing.

Still, Luna would not allow this off putting thought to prevent her from utilising that benefit she was experiencing to delve deeper and push forwards.

So she did.

Luna moved forwards with ease, the work directly around her freezing in place as she approached. Her instincts directed her towards paths that allowed her to cross seemingly vast distances with simple efficiency, never guiding her wrong or leading her in circles.

Still Luna knew that whilst she may be able to traverse this landscape with relative ease she still needed to gather 5 tokens to advance through to the next zone.

As such Luna did not bother heading directly inland, instead opting to meander through the shifting landscape in search of suitable prey.

She found her first victim a short time after starting her search. Luna had to hold back a chuckle as she watched the obviously confused tier 4 elk as it walked in random directions.

It would begin climbing on of the ice bridges only to suddenly find itself walking back off the bridge several moments later right where it entered.

The beast would then snort in frustration before trying to move forwards away from the bridge only to suddenly find itself halting its movement as it found itself back on the bridge if ice but this time facing off the edge of it and staring down into the sky.

It was evidently completely lost and seemed to have no way of figuring out how to traverse this confusing zone. Sure it was making very slow progress, yet that seemed more out of desperate luck and happenstance than from any actual effort to advance.

Luna started to feel back for the beast as it grew both more confusing and clearly frustrated at its lack of progress the more it advanced. It was constantly finding itself going in the wrong direction or random finding itself right back to where it started.

Luna observed for a couple more minutes, finding herself enchanted by the complexities of this illusory environment that so effortlessly confused and trapped the line beast lord.

She was itching to test out how she could incorporate similar aspects to her own domain, creating a twisting maze of ever changing obstacles and defenses that tricked and attacked her foes.

It was an enticing idea, but again it was sadly not something Luna had the time to fully implement just yet.

Still she would remember this experience, determined to try and apply her ideas when she had the chance.

For now though Luna had seem enough of the poor elks suffering. She swiftly moved forwards, soon finding herself standing in a seemingly random spot on the ground some distance away from the elks position. Yet only moments later the elk seemed to try and turn to avoid a large block of ice only to appear directly in front of Luna.

The beast froze, its confused frustration instantly turning into one of extreme fear as it near instantly sensed her presence now that it was within range of her domain should she extend it.

Luna smiled down at the elk, her razor sharp ranges glistening in the stark white light that illuminated the space.

Thankfully to elk did not take the stupid option of fighting Luna and instead opted to keep its life as it surrendered. So it was that Luna had gained her 6th token shortly arriving in the new zone.