Doomed to Die in 3 Minutes

Crimson Lies

Corai did not simply leap out with a new identity and declare his presence. That would be utterly stupid and not work for more than a few seconds. He needed three minutes.

His entrance would need some preparations otherwise he’d be doing nothing but making himself a target. So he got to work on setting up the stage for his show.

Against the Terror, there was no need for real subterfuge but against the races, he needed to deceive more than just their eyes.

The first thing he needed to do was spam the colouring spell. For Corai the invisibility spell was functionally useless. It like many other spells depended on his nonexistent magic stat.

Normally it’d make someone harder to spot or outright undetectable with the naked eye.

For Corai all it did was make him slightly transparent. All you’d have to do was pay just a bit of attention and you’d spot him easily. Like a child trying to sneak away after stealing something hoping nobody noticed.

However, by using the colouring spell he could change his surroundings ever so slightly, darkening the shades of various locations and hues while basically painting with his will.

The changes would be almost instant as if the whole world was an art program on a computer while he cast. Then by adding the only slightly if at all helpful invisibility spell and painting himself in the surrounding colours, so in this case shades of green and black…

Voila. He had made army level stealth camo which could alter itself on the fly.

Such alterations were once intense work that had to be prepared heavily in advance with hundreds of test runs whenever he was putting on a show but over the last few years he had gotten a knack for it, it was almost second nature now.

Sure he had cut a few corners compared to when he started out and meticulously planned every move but that may have been to his benefit in the long run.

Making a perfect disguise wasn’t necessary most of the time, people would fall for simple tricks because of how basic they are. Their questioning minds over how they could be fooled so easily was an actual payoff. The real distractions would be made from his audience.

It was essential to play off the crowds expectations and keep that train going.

Throw more fuel on the fire. More coal into the engine. Never stop burning.

This was only the first step. It didn’t guarantee he could sneak around the forest and cliffside as he liked, only gave him good odds. Now he had to rig the machine further.

He cast the smoke spell and the entire forest was instantly filled with white clouds.

It wasn’t actually inhibiting the sight of those within it, still, it was incredibly confusing, even more so because they realised the smoke was there but it wasn’t doing anything.

Their eyes didn’t water. Their vision wasn’t obstructed. There was no change in the aroma.

This was always the quickest payoff that worked every single time. Seeing something that defied all rules and physics never ceased to halt anything in its tracks.

Corai began to make his way over to the back of the cliffside, crawling his way across the ground until he hit the greenery of the forest. Then he needed to keep his blitzkrieg of surprises going. “Supreme Spell: Javelin of Jupiter.” He whispered out the strongest lightning spell without a care in the world.

A colossal golden flash descended from the heavens above and seemingly drilled into the earth in the exact space between the elves and the travellers.

Then the bolt continued to sustain itself… and moved towards the elves very slowly.

They began to panic at what seemed like the blade of a god from the stars approach them.

Then it disappeared just as it was about to strike.

Stunned yet again. Expectation denied. It was cheap and underhanded. It worked.

Corai had reached the back of the cliffside the elves were using as their offensive vantage point.

Now he had to hit them with something really big to prevent them from thinking about anything but survival. Something implausible but not impossible. Or at least frightening and very, very distracting. “Supreme Spell: Meteor Rain.” Another whisper, another cast of useless magic.

The skies began to burn as hundreds of asteroids fell and blazed a path through the clouds!

A single meteor landed far away from the forest or at least seemed to.

“Sound Replay. Quake. Amplify.” Corai’s lips cracked into a smile.

While the meteor had become nothing but mana vapour when it landed on the ground he timed his sound spell to explode with the impact. Coupled with his unique rumbling of the earth that did no damage and moved nothing, he had crafted the vague notion that these sudden shooting stars were a very real threat. That faint hint of doubt was all he needed.

The elves dropped their guard. The knives at the neck of the hostages lowered.

“Whisper.”

Similar to the sound spells and amplify spells he was also able to send messages through the air to others. A light sound that didn’t interrupt the symphony of madness but communicated with clarity to those within it; it had always been helpful on stage whenever someone forgot their lines or actions, the hostages heard a single word.

“Run!” That’s all they needed to hear and they began to run for their lives.

The elves noticed after a second of course and would easily recapture most if not all of them.

However, it was time for the leading man to make himself known.

The liberated travellers ran off the cliffside and then deep into the forest but coming from where the smoke seemed heaviest was a figure made of shades of green, brown and black.

They formed to make the shape of a slim and ridiculously tall eight-foot monster resembling a man. Its entire body was made of camo gear. It had no face. It was just a thing made of a crawling chaos of colours. As if the forest had birthed a horror the world had previously only whispered about… it spoke with the voice of thousands of beasts.

The cries of birds of prey. The hisses of serpents. The buzzing of insects. The low growls of wolves and the roars of bears. The rustling of trees and the snapping of branches.

Sharp blades of wind that could only be heard in the darkest hours of the night when a person was alone in the depths of forgotten nature.

The elves began to scream and the monster howled with malicious laughter.

The stage had been set. This is where the fun began.

Corai was still crouched down in the forest while his illusion advanced forward.

He stared at the timers across his hand and while he couldn’t help but smile his heart began to race with a familiar pressure and intensity.

2:00

The next trick was something Corai had cooked up with a lot of pride. It wasn’t at all feasible for his insanely large, extravagant and outstanding designs but for smaller-scale ones, it was well within the realm of possibility but required some concentration.

While some would consider an 8ft lanky gorilla-like horror monster to be a rather big thing, for Corai it was small. Everything seemed tiny when compared to dragons that could cover every inch of the seeable sky.

The elves first instinct was to retreat a safer distance.

It was predictable considering their prized fighting style demanded the use of either short blades or projectiles. There was no way they would try to take this sudden horror head-on.

So they forgot the humans below and focused on the new challenger which had entered the ring. Pulling back their bows they regained confidence, tit was their most natural programmed action, conditioned through millennia of effort wrapped in a helix of talent.

They let loose their arrows. They broke the sound barrier as they began to drill their way through the air and penetrate the illusion before them. The forest coloured mystery was bombarded with a swarm of sharp and straight projectiles.

The sounds of splinters, clashing metal and repeated knocking sounds resonated with the strength of clapping thunder as the horror was impaled over and over. Then Corai smiled from his hiding place. Perfect.

Normally his false illusions would just fade away as if they were never there or leave a trail of mana particles for a moment when they were hit.

With some preparation, he was able to somewhat fake that weakness away.

The trick was to layer mirage upon a mirage.

One larger layer outwards for everyone to see. Then below that multiple slightly smaller layers, piling on like a stack of pancakes or the insides of an onion.

Then in between each layer, you add throw a few scraps of whatever you could find.

Some damaged shields from the fallen guards, a wheel from a wagon, a few sturdy sticks, rocks the size of fists and some leaves that were all kept in place with the float spell. So doing all of this he could create an illusion that would not break, or at least keep up the appearance of the fabrication he desired.

On top of that, it had a very mentally overwhelming effect on his opponents.

His mirage monster had taken at least twelve deadly arrows that would have killed almost any other flesh-based lifeform within seconds. Unfortunately, they were shooting at a scarecrow tied together by barely functioning magic.

Like moving a chess piece, Corai pushed his man-made horror forward, with lurching and limping steps and forced out the confusing cacophony of natural sounds which were the voice of the creature.

“It’s on its last legs! Shoot it again!” Corai could only laugh as the elves drew their arrows, put them to their bowstrings and fired again with the precision of a firing squad.

They made a pincushion of the indescribable inhuman creature.

Then it advanced without a care in the world.

The growl going lower and deeper with every step it took. The response was a barrage of desperate and rapid attacks without coordination.

The creature charged onwards without a care in the world, despite the fact its face was full of arrow quivers and every joint and place where an organ would be had been firmly punctured.

The piercing attacks continued as the rangers of the woods were faced with what seemed to be an avatar of the forest filled with rage come after them, an unstoppable force that no living being could hope to defy.

Since arrows weren’t working Corai knew what they would do next and couldn’t help himself from snickering.

They began to cast magic to deal with their mystery foe. “Wind Blade!”

Sharp vacuums flew out of the palms of the fair and fearful race and tore at the innards of the horror. Cut marks appeared at the neck of the being… and then faded completely.

“I-instant regeneration!? No… way…!” The elves were losing all their confidence now.

They were defeating themselves. Wasting everything they had on a single inoffensive target.

If that wasn’t enough they were coming to their own inaccurate conclusions on the nature of the scarecrow that was crushing their souls.

How could you fight something that couldn’t die? Archers are not necessarily cowards, Herakles of myth would destroy you in a single blow for making such a statement; but they did have certain overlapping habits similar to Corai’s own habits. Attacking for maximum range if possible.

Going for cheap but critical blows. Backing away if something gets too close. Focusing on not losing rather than concentrating on winning. These ingrained actions and defensive mentalities worked against them.

In a way, Corai was a perfect counter for them.

A coward knows best how people react under fear and especially those that begin to panic once things stopped going their way.

He was a weak man himself and had lived the last ten years of his life with this set of unique and inconvenient abilities and he drilled into himself all his strengths and weaknesses.

His greatest advantage over others was the following.

The element of surprise. The ability to bluff, lie and threaten all at once.

However, the most essential and most power only became apparent if you knew how to use the spells together with accurate reads of how people would react to certain situations.

One of the key lessons of The Art of War. Look strong when you are weak and weak when you are strong. Then all you had to do was to remember the rule of deception.

The greatest lies are the ones with a little truth in them.

1:30

The next phase began. “Vine Lash!”

The elves had again done what he had expected without fail.

They manipulated nature around them to entangle and wrap around the puppet and crushed it instantly. A continuous force of nature that strangled for all sides was an easy way to rip apart of his mirages. The collection of bits and bobs fell to the ground with a rattle as the camo coloured horror faded into blue shards of mana.

“Hahahahaha… ayayayahahahaa! Aguguguguhuhuhuffufufufahahahaahayayyayayaahhahaha!”

Laughter erupted from every direction towards the elves the moment the monster had been seemingly slain. It wouldn’t stop for even a second.

It was the cackling of a being whose sanity was not remotely close to mortal. It was the howling, sneering and amused spewing of malice from something beyond the understanding of men.

Or that’s how Corai hoped it sounded. You could only do so many takes of intimidating laughter.

The earth tore itself apart and a spire made of lava forced its way into the clouds… a constant stream of molten liquid… when it ceased to flow there was a single sun-like orb of orange and red floating at the apex of the sky.

It then cracked like an egg and spread outwards as if it was a butterfly leaving its cocoon.

A body made of lava and singeing flames that were eclipsed the sun with its enormous wingspan. Its tail feathers for the lack of a better word draped from its back like a tapestry of destruction and beauty, flowing like deadly silky hair to the world below.

A phoenix that was purely made of the hidden orb of rage from the planet’s core.

It spoke with a voice of magnificent majesty and respect that was both earned and demanded.

“Foolish elves. You dare to wound the lowest of my soldiers?

“Know that your lives are now forfeit. The only options you have now are to become slaves to my will or beg for mercy which I shall never deliver. Your deaths will be slow.

“Do you know how it feels to be reduced to ash? Your flesh will bleed, your blood and wounds cauterised by flame and then they will be slowly peeled apart again when they turn black. Repeating over and over… until your soul is desperately screaming to leave its body!”

Corai had shown them the 2nd Neo Heavenly King.

Nova the Eternal. The true form of the planets core and the creator of the stars themselves.

The living will of the big bang burning with rage and vengeance for the unworthy who lived wasteful lives, ruining the miracle it had bestowed upon them.

Well, that was the script anyway. Even if the crafted story of Corai’s these facts were in fact rumours and legends even in the world in his head.

Still, if you’re going to dream, you’ve got to dream big.

1:00

The foolish elves had actually blown two minutes of their precious time, the time they needed to locate the caster of the doom spell. At this rate, they didn’t have a chance…

Corai had not been paying attention to the number of elves. Had he bothered to do a headcount… he would have counted 24 out of 25.

A sharp knife was then pressed against his neck.

His eyes boggled as they recognise the threat right in front of him. While he had been tightening the noose around his victim’s necks… the reaper had crept up behind him with their scythe, posed to strike.