Reincarnated with a lucky draw system

Chapter 564: FAKE REALITY

Nightflame stared at the weapons clutched in their hands, his eyes burning with barely restrained rage.

A suffocating aura radiated from him, thick and oppressive, as if the air itself had grown heavier under his presence.

"Don’t let him get the chance to rest! Fire!" the commander barked, his voice sharp with urgency.

Nightflame, however, had no intention of testing their attack again.

With a mere thought, he summoned several undead simultaneously.

Their hollow forms clawed their way into existence, emerging with eerie silence before lunging toward the guards under his command.

The guards, startled by the sudden appearance of the undead, had no choice but to redirect their focus.

Panic flickered across their faces as they raised their antimatter blasters and opened fire.

Each blast tore through the undead with terrifying precision, disintegrating them completely, erasing them as if they had never existed.

But the undead were never meant to win.

They were only a distraction.

By the time the guards realized this, it was already too late.

Nightflame had vanished.

And reappeared directly behind the commander of the elite squad.

His hand shifted, bones twisting and extending unnaturally until it formed a sharp, lethal spike.

Without hesitation, he drove it forward, piercing straight through the commander’s heart.

The man didn’t even have time to react.

His body stiffened for a brief moment before collapsing lifelessly to the ground with a dull thud.

The sound was swallowed almost entirely by the chaos of the ongoing battle.

Nightflame moved again.

Positioned now behind the remaining guards, he conjured multiple bone spikes in an instant.

They erupted from the ground and air alike, shooting forward with deadly accuracy.

Each spike found its mark.

The elite guards were impaled from behind, their bodies jerking violently before going still.

Silence began to reclaim the battlefield.

Those few guards who remained were dealt with swiftly.

Nightflame eliminated them one by one, his movements precise, efficient, and utterly merciless.

Moments later, no one was left standing.

Nightflame bent down and retrieved one of the antimatter blasters.

He examined it briefly, his gaze sharp as he analyzed its structure and function.

Then,

A sudden warning surged through his senses.

Imminent Danger.

Without hesitation, Nightflame vanished from his position, abandoning the stronghold in an instant.

He reappeared just outside.

In the very next moment, the entire stronghold was consumed by a catastrophic antimatter explosion.

The structure was obliterated completely, reduced to nothingness in a blinding surge of destructive force.

"Yes! That serves the bastard right!" Oxed exclaimed, a thrill of laughter escaping him.

Clutching a remote control tightly in his hand, he grinned with satisfaction.

After escaping with most of his gold coins, he had triggered the self-destruction of the stronghold without a second thought.

"It’s a pity, though," he muttered, his expression shifting into mild annoyance.

"I lost all my slaves and guards. Now I have to start again. Tsk."

He clicked his tongue, irritation evident.

"If I could, I would strangle that bastard with my own hands," Oxed added bitterly.

"Congratulations. You get your chance right now."

The voice came from directly in front of him.

Oxed’s body stiffened instantly.

A wave of panic crashed into him as his eyes locked onto the figure that had appeared out of nowhere.

Nightflame.

"You... how?!" Oxed stammered, shock and fear intertwining in his voice.

"You tell me," Nightflame replied coldly.

Before Oxed could even process what was happening, Nightflame moved.

In a blur, his hand shot forward, gripping Oxed tightly by the neck and lifting him effortlessly off the ground.

"Urgh—! Let me go!" Oxed struggled desperately, clawing at Nightflame’s hand in a futile attempt to free himself.

Nightflame paid him no attention.

His gaze remained cold, detached.

Without hesitation, he directly accessed Oxed’s brain, forcing his consciousness deep into the man’s mind.

Using a spectral wraith, he tore through Oxed’s memories, peeling away layers of information with ruthless efficiency.

Every secret.

Every thought.

Every fragment of knowledge.

Nothing was spared.

Moments later, Nightflame released him.

"Useless," he said flatly, tossing Oxed aside like discarded trash.

Oxed’s body hit the ground limply.

His brain had been completely fried, his mind reduced to nothing more than hollow emptiness.

He lay there, alive, but utterly broken, stripped of thought, will, and awareness.

With a mind like that, Nightflame didn’t even bother finishing him off.

There was no point.

He had already extracted everything of value, and found nothing of importance.

Without another glance, Nightflame gathered the gold coins and stored them within his shadow subspace.

Then, activating his time-stepping ability, he vanished once more.

In the next instant, he reappeared before the merchant he had met earlier.

---

"Seven hundred defect gold coins. Now, the information," Nightflame requested, his tone calm yet firm.

"Wow. To get the money this quickly... you really do know your stuff," the merchant praised, his voice laced with thinly veiled admiration.

"Here. The information. I already prepared it," the merchant muttered, handing Nightflame a sleek tablet.

"The information is of discrete value. Hence, I can’t print it. Worry not, the tablet is on the house," he added, forcing a faint smile.

Nightflame nodded in understanding and took the tablet, his expression unreadable.

Without hesitation, he activated the screen.

The moment his eyes settled on the display—

The tablet detonated.

A violent surge of antimatter erupted outward, devouring everything in its immediate vicinity.

The explosion swallowed Nightflame whole, erasing him in an instant, leaving behind nothing but a scorched emptiness where he had stood.

"I’m sorry, dear customer," the merchant said, staring at the space where Nightflame’s body had been, his tone cold and detached.

"But someone paid even more to ensure your death. Business is business, after all."

"And I’m sick and tired of you playing this foolish game."

The cold voice cut through the room like a blade.

The merchant froze.

That voice... he had heard it before.

It belonged to the very man who should have been dead.

Confusion twisted his thoughts into knots.

Slowly, almost mechanically, he turned his gaze toward where Nightflame’s corpse should have been.

There was nothing.

Not ash. Not fragments. Nothing at all.

"Huh?" he muttered under his breath, his fingers twitching as he suddenly became aware of something in his hand.

He looked down.

It was the tablet.

The very tablet he was certain he had already handed over.

A chill crept up his spine, slow and suffocating.

His body began to tremble.

He realized, with growing horror, that he was standing at the exact spot Nightflame should have been, holding the tablet as if he had never let it go.

His breathing grew uneven.

Then, almost against his will, he lifted his head.

Seated comfortably in his chair, occupying his position as though it had always been his, was Nightflame.

Calm. Composed. Watching.

"I always knew you were shady," Nightflame said casually, his attention drifting to the merchant’s laptop as he navigated through its contents with ease.

"I got a valuable lesson the first time I came here, not to trust anyone."

"You won’t be able to access my laptop," the merchant snapped, desperation creeping into his voice as he tried to regain some semblance of control. "You don’t know the code."

"You don’t need to worry," Nightflame replied smoothly. "You told me that already."

The merchant’s eyes widened.

His body shook even harder now.

He couldn’t comprehend it.

He couldn’t recall saying anything.

He couldn’t even remember moving from his position.

So how...?

How had everything unfolded so differently from what he believed he had done?

His thoughts spiraled.

Hypnosis? No... that alone couldn’t achieve something like this.

Hypnosis... and illusion.