Alista Tudor stood on a landing inside the temple, strategically positioned one floor below the highest point. From here, he had a panoramic view of every potential entry point, from the grand main entrance to the subtle, hidden tunnels. He was no longer reacting; he was conducting.
As he waited, his eyes caught a slight shift in the shadows. He saw the Slayer, Orphne, enter the cathedral through one of the lower, concealed entrances—a hidden tunnel designed for escape. His memory of the previous loops confirmed this was a one-way path leading outside, but she was using it for ingress.
Alista took a deep breath and shouted, his voice echoing off the high stone walls. "Hey, Bitch, I am here!"
Orphne's head snapped up. She saw Alista Tudor, battered but grinning, doing a ridiculously exaggerated, strutting dance in the style of Bully Maguire from spiderman movie. It was pure, deliberate provocation.
Orphne immediately drew her bow and fired an arrow. It hit a mirror Alista had salvaged and strategically placed. The arrow shattered the glass. Orphne, realizing the deception, quickly climbed the stairs to confront him.
As she reached the next floor, she was confronted by a shimmering array of multiple mirrors, reflecting Alista's figure dozens of times. Furious, Orphne started shooting arrows wildly, aiming to shatter the mirrors. Her actions were unreasonable—a deliberate victory for Alista's [Lawyer] Attribute, which thrived on exploiting emotional flaws.
Just as she paused to reload, her hunter's senses—now honed to maximum sensitivity—screamed a warning of an incoming attack. She saw it at the last possible moment: a huge axe, swung with brute force, attacking her blind spot. She dodged, pushing her body to the extreme. The axe missed her head but cleanly cut her quiver, severing the leather and sending her remaining arrows scattering. When she recovered from the dodge, the severed quiver was already missing.
She heard a sound—a slight rustle—and followed it, only to find Alista Tudor quickly tying the salvaged arrows he'd just stolen to a length of rope. Alista immediately shot one end of the rope upwards, lodging it securely, and began to climb, using the tether for rapid ascent.
Orphne ran to catch him, but Alista's rapid, practiced ascent—the result of dozens of failed attempts—was too fast. Using the tied ropes to gain elevation, he reached the final indoor railing. Orphne was catching up quickly, but Alista immediately climbed outwards and started to scramble up the exterior wall toward the immense bell.
Orphne, seeing his objective, followed the dangerous climb. A frantic cat and mouse chase ensued, culminating directly beneath the apex of the structure, near the bell.
Alista reached the summit and, turning back, shot a few loose arrows down at her. Orphne expertly dodged them, plunging her sword into the stone wall to gain grip as she leapt forward. She jumped the final gap and pushed him toward the bell's mouth.
Alista, anticipating the maneuver, didn't fall out. Instead, he rolled inside the massive bronze bell, followed immediately by the enraged Hunter.
Now, Alista and Orphne were trapped inside the huge, confined space of the bell.
"No more running, imbecile," Orphne spat, drawing her sword.
Alista, meeting her eyes, drew his own blade. "Yeah, you bitch."
The close-quarters combat began. Orphne was a master, but the inner space was too small for her to exercise her superior fighting capabilities. Alista had forced the environment to be his ally. He fought with all his might, absorbing minor wounds while managing to inflict a few very minor cuts on the Slayer—a massive improvement from previous loops.
Alista knew this was the pivotal moment, the time to shift the gears into his endgame. He had to exploit the deepest weakness of a hunter: their reliance on sharp senses, which made them acutely sensitive to overload.
"You know," Alista said, fighting and talking simultaneously, his voice strained but audible. "The Nine's quest to destroy my Empire is truly pathetic. Before the war even starts, you guys lost all hope. Because you simply trusted a seer's word. Seriously, that is the lowest form of pathetic you can get."
Orphne, fighting with pure intent to kill, suddenly stopped. She froze, her eyes wide, her body trembling not from effort, but from shock.
"How… did… you… know… that?" she whispered, the question betraying a crucial secret of her mission.
Alista smiled like a maniac. He had landed the verbal blow. Before she could react, he slammed his body against the inner surface of the bell, simultaneously yanking a hidden rope.
The massive bell rang with a deafening, catastrophic CLANG!
The loud, localized sound jarred both of them, but Orphne, whose senses were orders of magnitude sharper, was affected far more severely. She dropped her sword and desperately clapped her hands over her ears, momentarily blinded and disoriented.
Alista seized the opportunity. He pierced his sword deep into her chest. He followed the blade with one of the stolen arrows, driving it into the wound for good measure.
With his sword still lodged in her chest, Alista grabbed the main rope and cut it.
The floor beneath them vanished. Both Alista and Orphne were sent freefalling down the massive vertical shaft of the cathedral.
"Well, last part alone is left," Alista muttered, hanging onto his sword, which was still pinning Orphne to him. This was the plan all along. Orphne's fighting prowess came from her sharp senses; increased sensitivity meant vulnerability to sound overload. Alista had halved her potential by seizing the quiver, and now he had neutralized her remaining ability.
As they freefell, Orphne desperately tried to wrench the sword out of her chest. Alista, using his remaining momentum, pulled out his makeshift, wrist-mounted bow and fired his remaining arrows at her point-blank range. The arrows pinned her to the sword and to him.
Alista used Orphne's pinned body as a landing buffer. He simultaneously deployed the remaining ropes and fabric he had tied to his arms to slow his descend, albeit minimally. Both figures crashed onto the stone floor of the cathedral, Orphne taking the brunt of the impact.
Alista slowly, painfully, rose to his feet. His body was a mess; he knew he had broken several bones, but he was alive—the human cushion had worked. Orphne, however, was in a far worse state. Her bones were mangled, and the arrows and sword were deeply embedded. The fall hadn't killed her, confirming she was an Awakened.
She struggled to move, her first thought being to use the Fire Giant's help. But to her shock, she saw the colossal creature kneeling motionlessly. It was pierced with dozens of spears and utterly subdued by a paralyzing poison.
Alista walked toward the giant, his steps labored. "The poison gas worked wonders," he said, his voice raw.
Orphne finally understood everything. Alista hadn't tried to fight the giant in the loop—he had released a cloud of powerful poisonous gas into the temple as a passive trap, knowing the giant would charge straight in and become immobilized. The gas had dissipated during the long fight above, making the finale safe for him.
"Luckily, the fight happened on top, and the poison gas got dissipated before we fell," Alista remarked. He then cut a rope connected to the giant.
Suddenly, a huge axe landed and cleanly cut the Fire Giant's body in half.
Alista used his last remaining arrow to pierce the giant's vulnerable core, ending its life.
[You have killed an Awakened Tyrant, Colossus Fire]
[You have received a Memory, Flame Armor]
"Good," Alista whispered, turning his attention to Orphne, who was trying desperately to drag herself away.
Alista, ignoring the searing heat, immediately used his sword to cut off a flaming part of the giant's corpse. He then walked as fast as possible toward another wire he had strung. Cutting it caused a large number of barrels to rain down onto Orphne, drenching her in a liquid that reeked of alcohol.
Alista walked to the nearby throne, his legs barely holding him, and collapsed onto it, exhausted but victorious.
Orphne, soaked and pinned, screamed. "Do you think this can stop me from killing you, War Mongrel?"
Alista laughed, a sound that was half cough, half maniacal triumph. He looked every bit the villain on the throne.
"No," he said, crossing one leg over the other. "But this will."
He threw the flaming piece of the Fire Giant he had cut off into the pool of alcohol.
The liquid instantly erupted, covering Orphne in fire. The endless rain of alcohol never stopped, fueling her agonizing incineration. Orphne, burning and soaring in pain, looked at the person responsible, who sat like a king on the throne. Her mission had failed.
"Why… are… you… doing… this?" she gasped in her final moments.
Alista Tudor, the transmigrator who had just cheated death dozens of times, looked down at her despair and replied with pure, icy indifference.
"No reason."
Orphne died, baffled and consumed by despair.
[You Killed an Awakened Human, Orphne of the Nine]
[You received a Memory, Hunter's Sword]
[Wake up, Alista Tudor! Your nightmare is over.]
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Kindly review the chapter and First Nightmare is over and yet the biggest thing yet to come,Trust me it will change the story