Chapter 682 The Deadly Domain
Astaroth felt a powerful ring of Aether expand outward, but it was too fast for him to react. As it passed through him, he heard a notification.
*Condition detected: sleep. Mind Over Body activated. Success. Error. Domain detected. Calculating player's willpower versus domain creator. Player is too weak to resist the domain. Mind Over Body overridden.*
At first, Astaroth was about to grin since he resisted it. But the second part of the notification made him frown.
'A domain? What is that?'
He felt his body become like lead as his mind went black. And when he woke up, he was back in the real world.
He was in his kitchen, at the kitchen island, enjoying breakfast. Kary was next to him, and they were talking.
But the words spoken were all unclear, like spoken through a closed door. It was strange.
Then someone entered his penthouse, stepping off the elevator. Their face was blurred out.
'What in the hell is happening?' he wondered.
He felt a hand grab at his collar before it hurled him through his patio glass doors and over the balcony railing.
Astaroth felt gravity take him toward the ground, and struggled to meld with Morpheus, or even Asmodeus, but nothing was working.
'Is this how I die?'
As his thought ended, he slammed into the ground, before waking up again, now in a hospital bed.
He was still injured, his body covered from head to toe in bandages. He tried recalling what had brought him there, but his mind was all fuzzy.
'What the hell is going on? Where am I?'
She rushed over behind the gnome to look at the screen. He was eating some kind of nut mix, his eyes glued to the display.
On it, she could see Astaroth, body standing but slumped, as his health ticked away, chunk by chunk.
'Come on, Astaroth. Do something... I know you can.'
Inside the training room, Titania stood before the king, enjoying every jolt his body went through each time he died in his dreams. She could see what was going on, since this was her domain.
Only her domain did not create death scenarios. It only took near-death experiences and turned them into death scenarios.
And seeing how many of these the king had, it mildly impressed her.
'His life has been a rocky one. But regardless, he has seen nothing yet. It's time he learned there are people stronger than him everywhere,' she thought, as she waited for his health to empty.
But as his health neared zero, her connection to his dreams suddenly snapped.
"What the hell?"
Titania tried peering into his mind, but as she did, a golden pair of eyes stared back at her. She reeled back instinctively, pulling out her weapons before her.
"What the?!"
The eyes that had stared at her contained power. Power beyond what the king had.
Power beyond what any mortal should have, for that matter.
'Is he getting divine help?! Why would a god help him? I have to kill him now before they establish the connection and he wakes up!' she panicked internally.
Dashing forward, her two swords raised and ready to strike, she saw Astaroth's head lift, and the same golden eyes locked on her.
She didn't hear the words coming out of his mouth, but read his lips.
"Divine Domain; Soul's Judgement."n-/o-/V/(e-(l-/b((I(/n