Chapter 146: Ninth Chant

"Hun?" The spirit looks around in confusion. She is in a completely black place, and when she looks down, she sees herself standing in a pool of black sludge.

"You think illusions are going to be enough?! I can feel how fake—" Before she can finish, the black liquid forms a jaw and bites into her leg.

"Kyaaa!!!" She screams in pain, only to realize just how much it hurts. She has a plant-based body and does not receive information this way. She should not be feeling [Pain] like this.

"W-What?! Y-You—" More jaws emerge from every direction, biting into and tearing apart her body, until she opens her eyes and finds herself in a forest, but before she can say anything, her entire body is shredded and pierced by vines.

She opens her eyes again, finding herself inside an ocean, where black sharks bite into her, tearing her body apart and devouring her head. She awakens again, plummeting from the sky, the atmosphere choking her and making her cough and gasp for air until her body swells and freezes in free fall, her body shattering into thousands of pieces from the powerful winds.

Soon she is waking up in another scene where death repeats itself. This is the power of [Chant]. Because of the Dragon of Madness class, Nio possesses a total of 10 Chants, each one more powerful than the last.

Each Chant requires very specific conditions to be activated and has an immense cost, which is why Nio normally does not use them.

The Ninth Chant itself is one of the cruelest. In the game, it only created a "blindness/constant damage" Debuff that was permanent, but that effect was merely what the game allowed, and the Debuff was removed when the player died.

But reality is different now. The Chant obeys its actual description, which is to apply [Reality and Fantasy].

[Reality and Fantasy] Is a Unique Debuff. It breaks the boundary between what is real and what is fantasy, causing things that are lies to become real, and things that are true to become a fantasy that never truly existed.

The spirit is forced to die, and die, and die again, and she is genuinely experiencing death. Even though death is impossible in Hell, that does not matter to this effect, because now this is the reality that keeps repeating itself, and this effect does not depend on Nio’s power to function, so it cannot simply be "broken," not even by Nio herself.

However, the effect seems abstract, until the spirit finally truly wakes up after dying more than 10,000 times, every death a brutal one where she was torn apart in some way.

"Haa... haaa..." The spirit gets up from the ground, panting and dripping a slimy liquid that is her sweat. She ends up looking at Nio, who has a devilish smile on her face.

"Y-You monster!! I’ll kill you!" The spirit tries to attack Nio, only to realize that the plants are not working.

"H-Hun?" The spirit looks at her hands, realizing how small they are. She is as small as a child, while also being unable to feel magic.

"W-What did you do?!" The spirit asks desperately as she tries to use magic.

"Me? Technically speaking, nothing. But realistically speaking, as of right now, you have no powers. Your level is 0, you can no longer sense magic, and your body has shrunk into a fragile form that would never allow you to use any weapon. You can’t be a mage, warrior, or anything of the sort." Nio has literally destroyed this spirit’s life permanently.

"What?! I-Impossible!!"

"Indeed, impossible. It’s a fantasy, but now that fantasy is reality, and fantasies make the impossible possible."

"N-No!! No!!! No!! This is Hell!!! You know what they do to people without power!!!? Give it back!! Arghhh!!" Nio grabs the spirit by the throat and begins dragging her toward the edge of the dead forest.

"O-Oh no! No! No! No! No!! Please don’t throw me into the forest!!! T-The plants will get me!! Please!! I beg you!! I’ll do anything!! PLEASE!!!" The girl looks at the trees, where she sees people hanging from the vines and being used. Her voice is filled with desperation.

"I won’t throw you in there if you tell me how to cure the poison in Nioh’s body." Nio’s tone is extremely simple and cold, completely straightforward.

"Y-You just have to wait!! I-It’ll wear off!!! I-It’s just a paralytic that travels through the veins, neutralizing nerve activity and brain activity, and nothing more!!" The spirit reveals her trick. It is not even that dangerous of a poison. It simply has a very effective effect.

"How long?"

"T-Two d-days!! N-Now let me go..." Nio gives her a sweet smile as she places the spirit on the ground.

"I—" Before the spirit can say anything, Nio tears off the spirit’s legs. A greenish sap flows like blood as the spirit screams, still feeling pain, because now this is reality and her body can feel pain.

"I realized something interesting about Hell. You can’t regenerate if something prevents the regeneration." Nio takes something else out of her dress, something she had taken from her inventory and hidden from Nio.

"GAAAHHHH!!" Nio drives a blade into the severed stump of the girl’s thigh. She twists the handle, breaking the blade, then drives the handle into her other leg, pushing it inside, leaving two objects lodged in the girl’s body.

"There. When your legs regenerate, these two things will be stuck inside until someone removes them. If they aren’t removed, your flesh won’t be able to close the wounds, so you’ll feel constant pain...and now..." Nio snaps the girl’s neck. She starts crying, drooling all over herself.

"You know...I’m a liar. I lied. No bitch touches what belongs to me and gets away with it. Now those plants are going to catch you and drag you up there, where you’ll be filled with seeds for eternity, bitch."

"...You shouldn’t believe other people’s words, you stupid fool." Nio starts walking away as the girl looks at her in desperation, unable to speak or move because of her legs and neck.

The tree’s roots quickly find the spirit, grabbing her and dragging her upward. Tears of pure desperation fall to the ground as her body becomes nothing more than another of the many seed planters on this floor of Hell.

"...Haaa...I feel much lighter, even though I feel a little tired from having so much magic drained all at once." Nio does not love Nioh, but Nioh’s selfishness sees Nioh as something that also belongs to her, and that is why she was brutal. She did not feel pleasure or sadism. In her eyes, she was simply defending what was hers.

"This magic is much scarier than it was in the game. Her level really did drop to zero. It’s like the power of a GM removing someone’s level and items...although this magic only affects a single target, and it also has that annoying condition that I have to be alone with no one watching."

"In the game, I never used any of the Chants because they were all pretty useless since they only worked in specific situations...but now there are real situations where I can use them...and I still have 9 more to test..." Nio smiles as she realizes just how useful abilities she ignored in the game can be.

"Now all I have to do is wait for Nioh to wake up. This clearing is free of trees and roots, so we can sleep here peacefully..." Nio decides to stay in this place, which is safe, rather than leave while carrying Nioh and risk something happening.