Transcending Dreams
B2 - Chapter 99

Alarm bells rang in his head when the corrupted avatar didn’t bother to move, but it was too late to reverse course. He chose to instigate, and he would follow through, for better or worse.

William fully expected to be slapped aside like a fly.

He wasn’t.

Instead, he flew right through the corrupted avatar and unceremoniously slammed face-first into the wall directly behind her.

William let out a small groan as he rubbed his face and turned, noting that the wall was still in perfect shape after that collision. It was stupidly strong.

“Always with the punches,” the corrupted avatar said with amusement. “What would you have done if I hadn’t broken the illusion of you meeting your mother? Would you have punched her, too?”

He had too many questions that needed to be answered but also had [Force Multiplier] active. There was a time limit, and it had gone to complete waste so far.

William ignored that casual revelation of why the Wheel of Death had malfunctioned and shot toward the corrupted avatar again. This might not have worked the first time, but there has to be something he missed.

He tracked her body with sharp eyes to see if something was amiss as he swung an uppercut at her stomach that was fast enough to create cutting winds. He didn’t think targeting her stomach would cause more damage; he wanted a larger target than her head to ensure the first failure wasn’t a fluke.

The smile on the corrupted avatar’s face was unchanged, which didn’t bode well for him.

William let out a growl as his fist accelerated right before hopeful impact.

It hit nothing. His hair fluttered wildly as the gusts of wind from his punch filled the entrance hall. He stared at his fist in dismay; it looked like it was embedded in the corrupted avatar, but he could feel nothing but air around it.

“Are you finished?”

William flinched and jumped back to put distance between them. “You’re another projection.”

“Wrong,” the corrupted avatar chirped. “I’m going through a bit of a… revival, you could say. It just so happens that I will be incorporeal in the process.”

He stared at her blankly. He just wasted an activation of [Force Multiplier]. “Where’s Kae?”

“Kae is the hybrid boy, yes?” She crunched her nose as if it were disgusting to even think of. “He’s resting in the hall there.”

William rushed off in the direction the corrupted avatar pointed and entered a massive sitting room dripped with luxury. He didn’t care for the decorations. He saw Kae on a couch, sleeping on his back.

“Are you not at all interested in why I broke the illusion?” The corrupted avatar asked from behind.

He had tried to put it out of his mind, knowing that the answers he would get wouldn’t be of any help with his situation. In fact, her willingness to discuss this was suspect. Talking to him at all was suspect.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“What did you do to him?” William asked tersely, ignoring her question.

“He worked hard to escape my Flesh Puppets, but even a giant can be felled by ants if there are enough of them. I couldn’t let such a young cultivator die, so I gave him a gift.”

“You mean you decided to take over Kae’s body!” William turned, a fierce look on his face.

“Yes,” she confirmed as if it was obvious. “He was fated to die, so what harm would there be if I used his body? And you should be happy that you are no longer needed.”

He winced when [Force Multiplier] deactivated. The time limit ran out.

“Quite a useful martial skill,” the corrupted avatar commented. “Instrumental for you to pass round one in the Wheel of Death.”

William didn’t take the bait. There were more worrying things to focus on than satisfying his curiosity, the most headache-inducing being Kae.

The corrupted avatar gave off an amenable personality, but he couldn’t trust its motives, no matter what it said. Lord Paddlington practically worshipped Sophia, and when it told him to ‘kill’ one of her avatars, it wouldn’t be done lightly.

Anything William was told by the corrupted avatar wouldn’t—couldn’t—be believed. That was the reason he didn’t want to hear her answers to whatever questions he had. It was also the reason he was quick to come to a sobering conclusion.

Kae might have to be killed. He didn’t know why the corrupted avatar was so keen on taking over a body, but it couldn’t be allowed, even if he had to take drastic measures.

The problem was that he had to prevent his own body from being taken over even if everything went exactly as planned, which was doubtful.

William ignored the corrupted avatar and approached Kae. If she hadn’t done anything to harm him by now, he would work under the assumption that she can’t.

“I would suggest not to do that.”

He continued to ignore her and tried to lift Kae up. The moment he touched his fellow disciple, he found himself slammed into the wall at a frightening speed. He had absolutely no chance to react.

“You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?”

William recognized that deep voice. It wasn’t the corrupted avatar.

He saw a cherubic baby standing on Kae’s forehead, with an infuriating smirk on its face. The dots were quickly starting to connect in his mind. He might have sent Kae to his end by insisting Shitou accompany him.

“You led us here,” William said blankly.

“You’re partly right,” the corrupted avatar smiled. “I certainly led your friend here, but you? Not so much. I had hoped you would be delayed by the Wheel of Death, but I had to stop that myself.”

“Why? I still had two rounds left. That would have bought you more time for whatever you have planned.” William honestly couldn’t care less. He was desperately hoping some idea for escape would miraculously appear.

He was a punch-and-hope-it-works type of guy, and he quite literally could not punch the corrupted avatar.

“Don’t flatter yourself. Does it look like your presence is stopping me in any way? I wanted you delayed to avoid having to kill a human directly.”

There it was again—someone speaking of ‘humans’ as if they were a special, rare class—a possible topic to stall for more time if needed.

“You still haven’t told me why you changed your mind.”

“Every challenge you faced resulted in you significantly increasing your cultivation. I couldn’t allow that to continue.” The corrupted avatar looked a little more transparent.

William felt the urge to do something, anything to stop that. He made the obvious assumption that the more transparent she was, the closer Kae’s body was to being taken over.

“Then what about those guards at the gate? I wouldn’t call them a challenge, but you didn’t stop them.”

“Observing you from afar has its limitations,” the corrupted avatar shrugged. “I wanted to see how you gained from simply killing things.”

William’s heart skipped a beat. “And? What did you learn?”

“Nothing. It’s illogical.”

He would have smiled at the annoyed frown if not for the precarious situation. There was little doubt that this wasn’t the real Sophia, but this admission confirmed that. Sophia would definitely know he gained cultivation through experience points.

“But you know,” the corrupted avatar stated, staring into his eyes. “Tell me.”

William glanced at her, then switched his focus to Shitou, whose arms were smugly crossed while claiming Kae’s forehead as his territory.

He tried to find the humor in the situation, but it was hard to do so when the corrupted avatar was visibly fading out of existence.