Senna’s mana was in chaos as her consciousness was trapped in a mental illusion. She was trapped upon a battlefield filled with the stench of blood and death.

Gunfire and explosions echoed across the dirty landscape of collapsed buildings, whilst those with gifts fought with powers beyond mortal men.

Heroes wielded inhuman speed, the power to imbue weapons with elements, or even cast lightning. Mages constructed magic barriers and summoned golems, while cultivators wielded mystical sword arts and more as they weathered the battlefield with inhuman physiques on par and even beyond some of the strongest heroes.

Each side of this giant battle saw Senna as a force of other side and ruthlessly attacked. To make matters worse, uncanny powers flooded the battlefield and affected her body, causing even bullets to tear through her flesh. Despite this, she would not die, her wounds constantly healing.

With a beastly roar, the demi-fallen fae bore her teeth and fought off the attackers. Her eyes glowing more and more crimson.

After a seemingly endless amount of time, Senna, covered in the blood of others, remained the only one standing in a field of death. No more explosive shells fell from the skies, and no more bodies rose from the dead.

The fae’s eyes glowed like two hot coals in the night, her chest heaving violently.

The entire world seemed to fracture at this point like a pane of glass. Senna then found herself in the middle of a primal forest, a cacophony of insects, and birds constantly making noise from every direction.

*Thuck*

Senna stumbled forward as an arrow stabbed through her shoulder from behind, the blood soaked tip protruding from the front of her body. Before long, her ears picked up another whistle as an arrow cut through the foliage.

Sharply turning on the spot, her hand shot out and caught the arrow mid air before snapping it in two. Baring her fangs, she then launched herself off the ground and into the direction that the arrow flew from.

No matter where she looked however, she failed to locate the archer. Even worse, more arrows began to attack from a distance.

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Whilst Senna was trapped, her body was currently chained upside down on an inverted cross by bloody and rusted chains. Gravity pulled her hair down towards the ground, placing her long pointed ears on full display as her eyes rapidly moved under her closed eyelids.

Her torn and tattered clothing would also have revealed everything due to gravity I it weren’t for the chains mostly holding them in place.

The location was unknown, but the square room had all four walls covered in a mirror, reflecting back on itself until an infinite number of Senna’s appeared trapped. The handful of free standing candelabras around the room were also multiplied infinitely by this endless reflection.

Around the imprisoned demi-fallen fae, seventeen demons stood in a circle with their arms extended towards the girl. Said arms were trembling and they were covered in sweat as they used every ounce of their power to keep her mind trapped in the eternal cycle of illusions and suffering.

The demons however had no reflection, surrounding only the one and creating the illusion that all the Sennas were real, infinite iterations of herself in perfect lines and rows.

“S-sir, I don’t know how much longer we can hold out… She… she’s simply too strong!”

One of the demons insisted as his arms trembled.

Astaroth, the only demon in the circle, looked over the struggling demons with disdain.

“Pathetic, even with all of you pieces of sludge working together, you can’t keep a single fae trapped in an illusion.”

The Duke of Doors didn’t say it aloud nor let it show, but even he was struggling to contain the girl. The only reason why the other demons had even been able to keep the fae trapped was the enormous amount of demonic energy he was feeding into the restraints.

There were seventeen demons including himself, but he was supplying over 90 percent of the demonic energy into constraining her.

‘What the hell is with this fae! All that pain and blood she is going through, yet she hasn’t gotten any closer to falling!? I stole the power of the one who subdued her, yet even that along with my own power can’t keep her restrained?”

Astaroth cursed in his mind without letting his thoughts leak through his expression. The last thing he needed was for one of his minions to see him in a moment of weakness and try to kill him and take over his position, an occurrence far too common among demons.

“This isn’t working,” The duke stated with a look of annoyance, “I don’t know how this fae trained her mind, but she is resisting the pull of sin. Swap to plan B.”

Plan B. Force her to take real human lives and fall into depravity that way. The demons knew everything about her, including that she refused to take a life.

Falling into depravity was a slippery slope. Once a rule is broken once, it is fated to happen again, and again, slowly releasing the shackles restraining oneself until they are bound no longer.

Senna had the iron clad rule of never taking a life, so this became the demons’ point of attack. If this failed, there were even more schemes that were planned, for demons were cunning above all else.

At Astaroth’s command, all the demons bar four quickly left through a door that appeared on one of the mirrored walls.

The four remaining minions obviously couldn’t restrain the fae girl once Astaroth stopped supplying demonic energy and retreated to the back of the room near the door, acting as a guard.

Without the strength of her mental imprisonment weakening, Senna shook herself free of the illusions and opened her eyes that glowed like hot coals in a dark night.

It was unsure how she moved, but her body seemed to quiver before all the chains tying her up shattered and sent the links flying in all directions, causing the mirrors walls to crack like spiderwebs and fracture their reflections.

She landed on her feet, her silent, predatory gaze focused on the demons present in the room.

“I am impressed,” Astaroth began from the back of the group, “I didn’t expect you to have this level of mental tenacity. Looking at you however, I can’t say it was entirely ineffective.”

Senna closed her eyes and stabilized her breathing while the demons watched in confusion. The air seemed to resonate and vibrate around her as she circulated the mana within her body before taking up a martial arts pose, one palm pressed forward with the other drawn back and poised to strike.

“Enough nonsense, I have a useless idiot to go save.”

The demon sneered in response.

“You can’t even save yourself, let alone others. You will break sooner or later, but I am in a generous mood. Surrender your body to me, and I will let your soul live. I will even return your carer’s power to him.”

“He doesn’t need to be strong, so long as I am there.”

“How foolish. I am not heartless, as you would say, so I shall offer you a different deal.”

With a signal from Astaroth, the demons fled from the bodies in columns of oily black smog. They crashed into the floor and turned into an ocean of smog that rippled with waves before seeping into the floor and vanishing.

The humans, now no longer possessed, didn’t flee or panic however, as if they were expecting this. Senna on the other hand frowned in displeasure as the now no longer possessed humans faced her swords and maces in their hands with expressions of madness and greed.

“My deal is thus – Kill these humans, and I will let you go.”

Astaroth had a smirk on his face that all but displayed his confidence in this plan of his. If he could get the demi-fallen fae to abandon her no killing vow, he would have profited and gotten closer to his goal.

“Do you honestly think four humans could even touch me? I refuse.”

“Don’t be so quick to make judgment. These humans are quite strong. Do it.”

The four men gripped their weapons and leaned forward before charging at Senna. The ground cracked and dust was kicked up as they moved far faster than was physically capable for an ordinary human. Their strength and speed were easily at the level of a high rank superhero.

They were extremely slow in Senna’s eyes and she reacted easily, throwing palm strikes at such a speed her body appeared to move in four different directions at once. Just before her attacks landed however, her nose twitched slightly and she adjusted where her attacks were about to land.

Four dull thuds from her attacks overlapped one another and the four humans were scattered across the room like rag dolls.

“You gave them strength, but no defense. Did you think I would accidentally kill them?”

Astaroth shrugged his shoulders helplessly, his smile unfaltering. Even as Senna vanished from the center of the room and appeared before the door behind him, his smile only grew wider.

Senna ignored the demon and opened the door to leave, but what was behind the door was a mirror image of herself as if the door was instead a mirror. She pressed her palm forward, only to be met with her reflection doing the exact same until their hands were pressed together in the doorway.

It wasn’t like touching a reflection though, she could feel that she was touching her own hand.

The floor around her feet cracked as the demi-fallen fae increased her strength, the mirror reflection doing the exact same.

“Did you really think you could leave a room that I, the Duke of Doors, have not allowed you to leave?” Astaroth turned his head 180 degrees with a diabolical grin spreading from ear to ear in an eerie manner. “That door opens onto itself. That is not a copy or reflection of you, girl, that is you.”

“Petty tricks.”

Senna gave up trying to force her way through the door and stepped to the fractured mirror wall on the side. Clenching her fist, she threw her weight behind the punch to shatter the wall. She winced in pain as she punched a fist of equal strength and shape that came from the other side of the wall.

A violent shockwave spread throughout the room from the collision and shattered the mirrors.

“You couldn’t go through the door, so you tried to make another… door?”

Astaroth’s head kept turning as he watched her vain attempts.

Senna leapt upwards to break through the ceiling, but her fist was met with her reflection’s fist. She even tried shattering the floor, only to kick her own foot.

By this point, the four humans had recovered their bearings and chased after her once more. It became apparent that they could feel no pain with how they moved, considering Senna’s earlier strike had displaced organs and caused a not insignificant amount of damage.

“This entire room is a tesseract, girl, you cannot escape.”

“Then I just need to take you down.”

Sidestepping the humans charging her like bloodthirsty hounds, she slipped through their attacks seemingly effortlessly before vanishing from sight once again.

“Did you not learn that you are weaker than me now?”

Senna’s expression was as still as water as she launched a spontaneous palm strike at the side of Astaroth’s head.

The demon duke raised his hand and caught her wrist, but was shocked as he realized the force behind the attack was far beyond what he could stop. Even as he held her wrist, her palm continued unhindered and sent him bouncing across the room.

“Who did you say was weaker?”

There wasn’t a trace of anger on Senna’s face, her emotions completely composed.

“You have gotten stronger?”

“I am just holding back less.”

“Ridiculous.”

Shadows flickered across the room and exploded into thorns to stab through Senna, but she snapped them all with her hands and feet. She didn’t hesitate to use her toxic nails when breaking apart these shadows, but Astaroth took advantage of this.

A small doorway opened in the shadows, resulting in her stabbing one of the humans in the arm with her nails. Despite no feeling of pain, he cried out in pain as the toxins rapidly entered his body.

Senna swapped targets and snatched the sword of one of the other assailants. The man whose arm was turning inflamed as engorged poisoned veins begun to protrude still tried to attack her, but he could do nothing as the cold flash of reinforced carbon steel, severed the infected arm.

She then threw the sword at Astaroth like a lightning bolt, not giving him the time to open another doorway from the garden of shadow thorns the room was turning into.

Molten chains from hell then assaulted her, but she deflected several while avoiding the others. No matter what Astaroth threw at her, she avoided or destroyed it all.

“Time to end this.”

Astaroth’s gaze had turned from confidence to frustration as his plans appeared to be failing one after another.

Space shook around Senna’s body as a path between her and the demon was carved through the endless flickering shadows. Astaroth struggled to fight her off physically, but every attack was countered and sent him off balance.

The duke teleported to the other side of the room, but Senna appeared across the room faster than ever and planted a palm strike in his sternum that sent him flying parallel to the ground right at the doorway to the room.

The four humans attacked in desperation, even as one was still bleeding severely from his severed arm. Their weapons were shattered and they were knocked unconscious at a speed they didn’t even see the demi-fallen fae.

Senna struck once again just as Astaroth crashed into his mirror image in the doorway. Her center of gravity was low as she leveraged the entire force of her body in a palm strike into his stomach that emitted a strange gonging sound and caused the air in the room to vibrate and hiss.

The force behind the attack reverberated through his body like ripples in a still pond, and to make matters worse, the mirror image of them suffered the same strike and prevented the force from being able to dissipate out of his body and into the wall behind.

Astaroth coughed blood and vomited a portion of his demonic essence as his eyes rolled up above his eyelids. The force behind the blow had penetrated all defenses and even damaged himself that was residing within Mr. West.

The reflected world through the doorway faded away like an illusion and revealed a large, empty warehouse with several empty crates and pallets scattered about. The other demons who had helped restrain Senna in an illusion nowhere to be seen, having departed the area now that their roles were finished.

The demon duke tumbled across the solid concrete like a rag doll, traces of black smog still leaking from his mouth. He had completely lost consciousness and without his power fueling the room which was built in the center of the warehouse, the structural damage Senna had created caused it to crack and start collapsing.

Her brows twitched in annoyance before she dashed back into the room and dragged out the unconscious humans before they falling rubble crushed them to death. She even took one of the standing candelabras and used the flame to cauterize the wound from the arm she severed.

The unconscious didn’t even twitch from his burning flesh, having lost all sense of pain.

With her task here done, Senna departed from the warehouse. It was still dark outside, the sounds of cars occasionally passing through the industrial district.

Leaping on top of a nearby warehouse that was taller than the others, the demi-fallen fae looked around to get a sense of bearing as to where she was.

The eastern horizon showed a faint red glow above the silhouette of buildings, displaying that it was nearly dawn, but not even that could fully extinguish the light from all the signs and billboards on them that polluted the commercial district.

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