Born in apocalypse

Step!

The moment Dhruv walked out of the door, everything beside him began to disintegrate as he began to float in the void... White Void. This had happened multiple times, but one thing differentiated this from the rest.

This time, he had brought himself into the void with his own free will. This time, he was still fully conscious. This time, he wasn’t vulnerable.

Looking around, a painful smile appeared on his face. Hiding it deep inside of himself, he shouted, "Huh... So, we are once again in the white void, aren’t we.."

Despite having visited this place multiple times, Dhruv wasn’t in the proper state to comprehend everything, leaving him with little to no knowledge about the location.

As a result, he only knows that someone is present here but has no idea when or from where it will manifest.

"..." An awkward smile crept across Dhruv’s face as he realized that no one had arrived even after a minute.

"...Nothing, I guess then I’m talking to myself." Muttering, he tried to move his body to wander into the void... but to his disappointment, he quickly realized that he was bound there by some unknown force.

No matter how many hand and leg movements he attempted, he found himself unable to move. While he could control every part of his body, he remained rooted in place. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Why is it not attacking me when I’m acting like an idiot?’ Dhruv thought. All this act of his was purposely done to appear harmless so he could catch it unprepared... but to his surprise, no one was falling for it.

Even after a few more minutes of waiting when it didn’t appear Dhruv knew something was wrong here.

’Either it hasn’t caught up with me, or after realizing that I’ve come to my senses, it is hiding from me... Unfortunately, I don’t have the luxury to wait here and find which one it is.’ he thought.

Having made up his mind Dhruv began to manipulate the mana which he had been preparing for all this time.

Plop!

With a plop sound, something appeared in front of him out of nowhere. For the first time, Dhruv saw the monster in its full glory.

The monster was nothing more than just fat white tentacles... really white tentacles. For a moment, Dhruv was puzzled about how he could even differentiate it in this whiteness, but the funny thing was that he could.

The tentacles were exactly the size of Dhruv. In what he guessed to be its mouth, there were hundreds of razor-sharp tiny teeth in it that could probably tear anything apart in seconds.

Looking at the monster in front of him a smirk appeared on Dhruv’s face. Lifting his hand toward the tentacle’s head he whispers, "Let’s have a party, shall we?"

Looking at the blue compact flame of death hurtling toward itself, the tentacles didn’t even attempt to dodge it and remained floating in the same place.

The fireball continued to hurl toward the monster, and after a moment, it finally hit the target... or that’s how it should have been supposed to be.

Instead of hitting the monster, the blue fireball directly passed its flesh as the tentacle remained floating in the same place. Looking at the man floating in front of him, a weird expression appeared on its ’face’ as it charged itself toward the man.

Knowing that he was almighty in this space, the monster moved without a worry. This delusion of his was soon to be changed as it found itself caught by something.

Something real... something that could hold it and not go right through like the fireball.

With confusion written all over its ’face,’ it turned to see what had caught its attention. The confusion deepened as it noticed a man gripping it. It couldn’t believe what it was seeing, as the man gripping him was an exact copy of the one he had been charging toward.

If it were only one other man, it could have coped with it... but... but that was far from the truth. Tens... no hundreds of men were appearing in front of him with each passing moment. The weird thing was that all of them could move as well.

Before it could make sense of what was going on, a sound reached him, ’See... you aren’t the only one with the power of illusion.’"

"... Now we are playing on the same ground... aren’t we?" Dhruv muttered as a smirk appeared on his face.

The spell he had just used is the same one he used during the fight with Grec. The name of the spell is [Illusory Mimicry]. It is a very simple and straightforward spell.

With its help, you can create an exact replica of any and everything... guaranteed you have enough mana.

The real problem, it isn’t really a problem, and more like a downside of this spell was that the Mimics can’t really interact with reality. It can only be used as a confusion tool, which for a fact it excels in.

Now, this downside is completely removed when everything around the Mimics is illusion. Being in an area with nothing but illusion the Mimics could truly feel like home.

In this void where everything is an illusion, they couldn’t ask for more. Having the ability to interact with everything, the real power of Mimics began to be shown.

This ability became even more overpowered because, here because for the fact Dhruv doesn’t have a mana limit. He could cast any spell as many times as he liked.

Screech!

A painful screech escaped the monster’s mouth as numerous Dhruvs began to tear it to bits.... literally. Every Dhruv that could get its hand or more accurately its mouth on the monster was biting a piece out of it.

’Now, that is something that should be worthy of being considered as a normal dream.’ Dhruv couldn’t help but have this thought as he saw the scene in front of him.

If he wanted, he could even command his Mimics to attack the monster with their spell... but he wasn’t going to do that. After all,, he was in the mood to torture the monster as much as he could.

Screech!

Screech!

His methods seemed to be working as the tentacles continued to produce painful screeches.

After fighting—or more like trying to fight— the thousands of the mimics, the monster had understood one thing... and it was that it couldn’t win against the numbers.

Having a feeling that it could lose the battle, the monster turned its attention and charged toward the direction where the real Dhruv was... remained floating in the same place.

Before it could even move a few inches it came to a sudden halt as the realization struck that there was no way it could pass the sea of Dhruvs that were standing between them.

Screech!

It screeched for the last time as its mouth was consumed entirely by the same being it had brought here. Flowing its mouth the monster was consumed entirely in just a matter of seconds.

The monster had vanished, but it wasn’t the end as the tentacles appeared once again in the void. Instead of worrying about it, Dhruv began to laugh loudly.

"You fucking moron... why did you appear here once again? Is it that you like being eaten? Surely not, right... after all, you were screeching in pain... weren’t you?" Dhruv remarked as he saw that the monster got eaten in under five seconds.

It wasn’t the end either... as the tentacles appeared for the third time...

...Then for the fourth time...

...Then for the fifth time.

The sixth time... the seventh time... the eighth time... for the tenth time... for the twentieth time...

After a while, Dhruv forgot to count the number and instead just began to watch the monster spawn and get destroyed in just seconds.

’Is it that the monster can’t truly be killed, and I’m stuck here... No, that can’t be the case. No matter what it is, there should be a limit to how many times it could replicate itself...’ Having confidence, Dhruv continued to watch as the monster spawned once again.

As time continued to pass, a slight headache began to appear inside his head. Each time the monster spawned, the headache inside him grew more intense. After a while, it reached the point where it was unbearable to handle the pain.

’Shit, it looks like the system is getting overloaded...’ Dhruv had a hint of why he is getting a headache. Knowing the cause of it, it was easier for him to cope with the pain.

The pain continued to grow, but Dhruv wasn’t in the mood to give up either. Biting his lips, he continued to endure it...

After a minute, it got to the point that it was too much to handle... but that was the case for the monster...

Screech!!

The monster screeched in pain for the last time as everything in the void stopped... the real Dhruv... the mimic Dhruvs. Every one of them had stopped.

Crack!

Out of nowhere, a loud cracking sound traveled through the void. Before one could notice, cracks began to appear in the reality itself.

Booooommm!

Like a mirror, the whole thing cracked into oblivion. The whiteness began to recede as darkness took its place.