10 Thorny Rose
"Enough with your cries, you are not afraid are you?" Boian inched in.
Viette stopped her tears and her face became serene.
"I am not afraid. I know you will do nothing to harm me. It's not because of anything else, just that I can feel you do not want to hurt me. But I don't want to kill you. If you hurt me, you will die. I don't want that."
"I do not know what to believe with you anymore." Boian bent down slowly, he could hear Viette's breathing and see her glistening eye. As he inched closer to her, he could sense her heartbeat getting quicker and her breathing getting rapid.
Viette closed her eyes not wanting to see anything. She was kept in the same position with her left side of the face pressed against the bed. Boian's body came to contact with her back and he bit on the left side of Viette's neck. With her body lying face down with no leeway to move, she could only tighten her fist before Boian fangs sank in. He kept his guard up intending to prevent any mishap and confront any sudden threat.
But what awaited Boian surprised him more than anything. The moment he bit her and his teeth sank in a bit, making a tiny tear in her skin, he was pulled into a whirlpool. He could not resist as he got pulled face first into Viette's body. The suction force swallowed him and his vision turned dark for a second. When he regained his senses, he was moving forward due to momentum. Even before adjusting his senses, he could feel something calling him up ahead.
He kept moving forward as if he was programmed to do so. When his vision got cleared up, he could see where he was. He was in an entirely different place. The lighting was slightly dark, but he could see everything clearly. He couldn't see the sky above as top of the place was full of fog.
But what grabbed his attention was what's in front of him. Beautiful roses surrounded him. They were all dark red and the entire area was filled with thousands of them. The view was breathtaking and he couldn't help but get mesmerized. He was on a small path in the middle of these roses. He got an urge to continue moving forward as if something was calling him.
Boian shook himself to awaken his rationality. The years of experience told him that this kind of urge means only one thing...TROUBLE and in worse case a horrible DEATH. He willed himself to stop but soon shocked to find that he couldn't control himself.
"AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....." Gathering his extremely strong will, Boian stomped his legs on the ground trying to anchor himself. He slowed down but now he could distinctly feel something pushing from behind.
"What is this place? Why am I sucked into a place like this? Why can't I control my body? Body? Don't tell me..." Many questions came into his mind. But soon he was struck with a realization. It's not his body that was in this place. It was his soul.
As he slowed moving forward. The urge that compelled him to move forward tripled in intensity. This time it was accompanied by a soothing and attractive voice.
"Come. Come to me."
Boian followed the voice only to get stunned again. In front of him at a good distance sat a woman on a small rock. She was mostly naked with hands and posture covering her private parts. She had dark red hair that seemed to blend in with the roses. The surrounding roses projected her beauty even more. He could not deny the arousing of the evil fire in him, but another greater emotion helped him withstood it. Fear.
He became scared. It was because he recognized the woman in front of him seductively urging him to move forward. He recognized what sort of place this is. He had been here. Or it could be right to say he was the first man ever to experience this skill since its inception. In fact, the woman in front used him as a test subject to master this skill. She let her friend name it and the name was...
THORNY ROSE.
Without even looking back he realized what was pushing him forward and made him take action immediately. He got no time to lose anymore. He used all his soul power to push backward. His soul power was the main reason for his confidence. He may not be strong in terms of pure strength, but his soul definitely was among the toughest Evil beings.
Boian was successfully able to stop the push but he knew it was not a viable solution to escape. The more time he spent in here will cause more damage to his soul. Behind him, a cluster of vines was growing and pushing him. It appeared like these vines join together to form a log that pushes the person forward but Boian knew that these vines are the dangerous part of Thorny Rose. These vines were actually covering the link between the body and his soul.
The soul of a person would be connected to the heart in the body. That was why for most beings with a physical body, the heart was the important part of their body. When one's soul got sucked in like here, a normal human would immediately die. But for strong abnormal people, their soul would still keep some connection with their body. The role of these vines, which were more accurate to say the branches of the rose, were to cover this link and cut it. The plain looking vine branches had thorny side penetrating his soul's link to his body. The surrounding beautiful roses were there to grab the victims attention and to release anesthetics to numb the victim. The lack of feeling will prevent the victims from realizing the thorns were cutting and tearing their soul. As they move forward, this connection is getting stretched and thinned. The roses along with the seductive beauty work perfectly to distract the person and trap him.
Luckily he was not new to experience this, his prior experience and knowledge could help him escape. But this Thorny Rose looked more powerful than the one he knows of. That must mean she perfected this when came to Earth.
Four seconds had gone by from he got sucked in by Thorny Rose. This was enough time for Viette to counterattack. The lethality of this skill did not lie in its efficiency in harming one's soul but in its surprise factor that makes the person completely harmless outside. When the soul gets separated forcefully, the person's body was left defenseless. Anyone could kill him during this time. If there was someone else with Viette or if that Umbra Araneus was there he would be done for.
Boian quickly used his fine control over his soul to overcome the numbness and tried to reconnect with his body through the link. Despite countless thorns penetrating it, his soul strength enabled him to withstand them. He started feeling his body again and willed it to lock Viette preventing her from making any movements. Even though he wanted to trust her, his prior experience with the pencil made him take heavy cautiousness towards her.
But with this action, he felt the consequences too. The lack of numbing effect brought him unimaginable pain. All the tears his soul suffered from the thorns gave a cumulative effect that made him shudder.
'This pain. It reminds of past. haha.'
Boian contemplated about the best solution to escape. He was told by the woman who invented this, Hymi Rose, that in order to escape he had to find and destroy the Prime Rose and as well as the naked woman. That way was easier to execute at that time when the skill was in its beginner stage and there were people to guarantee his safety. But now when he was in mortal danger and the skill in advanced level he could not waste time doing that. It was not efficient to hunt for the Prime Rose among these thousands of roses. The naked woman might resemble Hymi but he couldn't convince her to let him leave since what's in front was just a projection left behind by her will. Destroying it will not give him any benefits.
He could only try something the other girl secretly told him. The risky one only a few with great soul strength could pull off. He had to force his way out. He had to use brute Soul Energy to get rid of the vines and escape through how he came in.
"BURST- Explosion" He yelled.
His Soul Energy exploded out from inside destroying the vines covering the link to his body. Without wasting time, he ran backward. It was nearly difficult to turn and he had no time to waste. So ran backward while nourishing the 'link' from his body and controlling his entire soul with his will. The destroyed vines were replaced by new ones and even extra vines came to wrap him. He maneuvered his soul to escape the thorns and reached the end. Here the vines were thickest and thorns were sharpest. It resembled a wall with a lot of vines crawling together like snakes. He looked around while blasting the attacking vines with his 'Energy blade Bursts.' He soon realized the wall was like the Earth where the roses all around grew from. All the roses around him had vine-like stems that start from this wall.
As he reached the opening through which he came into this place, the naked lady who was seductively persuading all along tuned to aggressive. With dark red Energy emitting from her she stood up and lifted her hands towards him. All the roses around suddenly rose up from the ground and stood like they were commanded and moved to attack him. The woman also moved towards him.
"Puu. I had never thought about you in this way all the time you grew up in front of me, Hymi. Why did you have to show your lovely assets like this and corrupt my poor soul? My body most like might had a nosebleed when I get back and look." Boian mocked seeing Hymi's will raising her hands making herself visible to his clear eyes.
The opening was tightly closed with multiple thick vines wrapping around his soul link and its sharp thorns gave him huge pain. With thousands of new vines and a crazy woman's will moving towards him, Boian could not help but rely on extreme measures as his last resort.
"BURST- 20% Self Detonation."
