Breaking

Grey slumbered in a black oasis, a blue blob himself.

Suddenly, he snapped awake, scanning his surroundings.

"Where am I?... Oh, wait, I'm in my soul." Grey realized. "Fallen Star, are you there?"

A mechanical orb flew out of Grey, forming itself into a screen.

- I'm here. It took a lot of effort to get this meeting.- It replied.

"Oh, finally. I've missed you so much bud." Grey breathed a sigh of relief. "Check my memories."

Grey waited a second or two, allowing Fallen Star to access his memories and gain a grasp on the situation.

- So, you're trapped in an Illusion? - Fallen Star, reviewing Grey's memories.

- And it's not a self-recognizing one. There's a key. That makes this difficult. -

"Yeah, it does. Anyway, there's a bigger problem. What's the situation like outside?" Grey asked.

- I can't see, but there are several D Rank auras around you, as well as a C Rank. I think you're with the boss. - Fallen Star replied.

"That's good to know." Grey thanked Fallen Star. "Do you think that you can help with the Illusion?"

- I should be able to. However, you might want to hurry. I don't know why a C Rank put you in an Illusion and then chose not to eat you, but it will kill you at some point. -

"Is Aurora with me?"

- Yes, don't worry. The two of you are asleep in the same cave. Last night, you fell under the Illusion before I could warn you. Because I didn't know that I existed, I wasn't able to enter it. I had to brute force my way in through your mind. -

 "Okay. Thanks for letting me know." Grey replied. "Now let's get out of the Illusion."

- Sure. -

---

Grey awoke, exiting his soul. Opening his eyes, he found an alluring sight. Aurora crouched in front of him, her face close to his.

"Hello." He said with a smile.

She was surprised, but hid it well, choosing instead to leave immediately. "Finally, you're awake."

"How long was I out?" Grey needed to know.

"A few hours. Don't worry. Nothing happened."

"Okay, well then, do you want to go? We're both rested, right?"

"Yeah, sure."

With her words of confirmation, they both left the cave.

Drip, Drip, Drip-

'So, how does this work? How do you help?' Grey asked his partner. By now, the constant dripping had been zoned out.

- Simple. There will be a shift in the Mana, unnoticeable to someone weak like you, but easy to spot if you're me. - Fallen Star said.

'I see.' Grey took no offense to being called weak, as he too felt that he was weak. In the grand scheme of things, he was but a speck.

They entered the first floor of the cavern, passing the corpse.

- Not here. -

Moving on, they entered the forest, searching around the entrance. It wasn't there, either.

They circled outward, scanning each crevice they could find. Since the key had to be somewhere, and they were stuck in an Illusion that could only be so big, it made sense.

---

Deeper and deeper into the forest, they continued to circle the cave. By now, they were circling 100 meters from the cave entrance, and they had just finished up.

'Alright, 101 meters now.' Grey said, taking a step further out. With both his perfect memory and Fallen Star, it was easy to stay on track.

Drip, Drip, Drip-

'There weren't as many Beasts as I expected.' Grey ran through the memories of the day, watching and analyzing each of his fights.

There had been a total of 7 D Ranks they had killed —all by hand. Although it was an Illusion, their Mana pools weren't. They had to make sure not to spend a drop so that when they woke up, they would be able to fight.

The Beasts he had fought were all from his memories: a DL-Bear, an EWi-Tiger, and an FWa-Bear. Luckily for him, since they were the only Beasts he had fought, he trained mentally with them, using his perfect memory alongside knowledge about their behavior and habits to create simulations. Thanks to that, he knew how to kill them.

'Thanks for teaching me that, Dad.' If Grey hadn't known how to do mental training, because it was a finicky subject, then he would have struggled much more.

Grey was lost in thought as he walked but was pulled back by a sudden exclamation from Fallen Star.

- Grey, I found it. - It told him.

'Really?!' Grey yelled in excitement. They could finally leave the Illusion! 'Where is it?'

- Up on that tree. That leaf there. - Thanks to their connection, Fallen Star could draw Grey's attention to the object.

The key was a single pink leaf on a black tree with white leaves, all the way at the top of the tree, 15 meters away. This tree was located 101 meters from the starting point of the Illusion. 

'We would have never found this.'

"Aurora!" Grey called out, stopping her from going too far away. He was leading them around the forest but had stopped, and she had yet to notice.

Hearing Grey's voice behind her, Aurora swirled around, a look of surprise on her face.

"When'd you get behind me?" She asked as she moved toward him.

"Earlier. I found the key, I think." Grey told her, pointing to the pink leaf.

Drip, Drip, Drip-

"A pink leaf? On a white tree? Hmm, that is suspicious. Too suspicious. Who's to say that the key is that? Wouldn't it make more sense to make it white too?" She expressed her doubts about the leaf, all of which were quelled by Grey after Fallen Star's response.

- In an Illusion, they key has to be different from normal. It's a constraint on the power. Of course, you can make the Illusion key recognition, and then you won't have to change anything. -

'I see. How do I tell her that?' Grey contemplated for a second and then decided to say something else entirely. "Maybe, but we can always just test it."

"Sure, I guess. So, how do we use the key?" She said, creating a pillar of Ice to stand on and grabbing the leaf.

'Good question. How?'

- You just break it. - Fallen Star told Grey, which he relayed to Aurora.

Upon hearing his words she ripped the leaf in two.

CRACK!

The sky suddenly cracked, and leaves started to fall off of trees. Their vision began to swirl, turning into an oozing wheel of colors.

Then, the Illusion broke, and the sky fell from... well, the sky. It crashed to the ground, encasing the duo in blue nothingness.

After, it all fell to darkness.

---

Aurora and Grey floated in a world of pitch black, both of them nauseous. They couldn't open their eyes, either, and, like a void, they couldn't feel or sense anything either. Not even time.

Suddenly, the nausea disappeared, and they could feel again. They opened their eyes, spotting several creatures surrounding them.

Grey immediately sprung into action, followed a few seconds later by Aurora. A beam of Light shot from Grey's hand, ignoring the restriction of casting.

It struck a small pixie, blasting it into smithereens.

An arrow of Ice struck another, and Aurora started to chant again.

"Glacies Hastam!" She yelled the incantation, creating a spear of Ice.

"Grey!" She called out, tossing it to him.

Seeing it, he figured out her intentions in a second, jumping for the spear.

He and the spear met in the middle, his hand wrapping around its icy shaft. It was difficult to hold, and very cold, but Grey managed.

With a simple thrust, he dispatched a second, and a swing killed a third, splitting it in two.

Now, there were only two left. Grey tossed the spear at the first, impaling it on a wall, and a second beam of Light erased the last.

Alone, they took a breather, catching their breath. They had woken up to a fight and wanted time to figure out the situation.

Looking around, they found themselves in the same cave as before; blood-red marble covered the room, making it hard to see the blood of the Beasts, and, unlike before, there were several puddles.

One such puddle was next to where Grey was lying, explaining why he heard a dripping sound constantly.

'It must be raining.' He thought, looking up at the ceiling, spotting several areas where water fell from.

Grey crouched down, examining the body of the nearest Fairy.

"So, this is a Fairy." It was 8 inches small, with wings similar to a bee. They were sharp and pointed, but bee-like anyway. They sprouted from the back, below where Grey guessed the shoulder blades were.

The bottom half of the creature, legs to the waist, was identical to a human, however, the top half was akin to a beast. This one was a wolf.

He looked over at another, examining the separated halves. The bottom was a human, and the top was a fish.

"Fascinating!" He exclaimed. "A little disgusting, but fascinating." He wasn't sure if they existed in whatever world they were in, but the little creatures wore no clothes.

"Alright, save your curiosity," Aurora spoke up. "For D Ranks, they were weak, however, we can't say the same for the boss. Get ready. I think I hear it above."

Just as she said, if you listened closely, you could hear a ravenous chewing, one that came from a large creature.