Surviving These Unfair Scenarios [LITRPG - DIMENSION HOPPING]

Returning to the outskirts, into an interesting 1v3 battle… The paintbrush had vanished, replaced by a sphere of dense black energy humming faintly in the air. Lautaro stared at it, his nose bleeding, his body still on the ground from the impact. For the first time since the battle had started, the smile on his face had completely disappeared. His eyes darted between the object and the figures before him, who now stood in their true forms. Chloe, Katya, and Gregor. No more disguises, just the three of them, standing firm.

Gregor stepped forward, slow and steady, his boots grinding into the stone. The glow of his left hand pulsed faintly with a demonic aura, and his expression was unreadable—calm, cold, and exact. Chloe remained behind him, her breath still short, and Katya didn't speak, simply dragging her massive scythe in one hand as if it weighed nothing. Her black uniform rippled slightly with each step, and her blue eyes never left Lautaro.

The clown-like Djin pushed himself up to his feet with an exaggerated groan. He rubbed his jaw and blinked several times, clearly trying to shake off the confusion.

"That was... new. Didn't think a flying pencil could smack me like that."

Gregor didn't answer and kept walking.

"You people are no fun."

Lautaro added with a more forced grin. He twirled a finger in the air, but nothing happened. His skill didn't trigger.

Chloe swallowed hard and reached for the pouch of needles at her side. She didn't know what she could do that would help in any real way, but she couldn't just stand there. Lautaro stretched his neck and cracked his fingers with theatrical flair.

"Alright, alright, you caught me once. I was being dramatic. Let's try again."

He snapped his fingers… Nothing. Gregor's eyes narrowed slightly.

"You're starting to understand."

A faint tremble passed over Lautaro's features. It was the smallest moment, a twitch, but it was there. He snapped again. Still nothing. His body remained solid, not intangible. Chloe felt it, too. A shift in the air, like a pressure pushing down from all sides. Her eyes moved to Gregor. His left hand had stopped glowing, but the sphere behind him—the [Karma Devil Ball]—hovered with intent, a silent watcher waiting for the next command. It pulsed slowly, like a heart.

Then Lautaro forced a chuckle and pointed lazily at it.

"You really brought that creepy beach ball back out? What is it, your emotional support orb?"

He grinned, but the grin didn't reach his eyes. Gregor finally spoke, voice low.

"You can't keep running."

"I don't need to run."

Lautaro replied, floating up a few centimeters into the air again.

"I can still fly."

"Float all you want, it won't change where you land."

Katya cut in, her voice sharp. Lautaro turned to her, laughing softly.

"Oh, it speaks. Did the ice doll finally get bored of posing?"

The blonde didn't answer. Gregor's foot slammed into the ground with sudden force. The stone beneath cracked outward in a spiderweb pattern, making Chloe flinch. The tension between the four surged. The Ball moved forward, slow but deliberate, weaving in lazy arcs as it circled Lautaro like a vulture.

"What's this, now? You gonna throw the bouncy ball at me and hope it stuns me?"

The Djin frowned.

"No."

Gregor replied while the young clown blinked.

"That's not how it works. I'm the fun one. The guy people like. I don't even kill anyone. I'm like... comic relief."

"Then laugh while you still can."

Katya surged forward. In an instant, her body was cloaked in deep crimson light. [Asura Mode], a skill she recently got after the bonus from the last scenario, that increased her physical capabilities, snapped into place without warning. Her pupils vanished, replaced by glowing orbs of fury. Her Tulpa-formed scythe swung upward without hesitation. It didn't matter that it couldn't harm him. She knew it couldn't. But her immunity to his reality-altering antics gave her the one thing Gregor needed… Openings.

Lautaro's body shimmered, trying to phase out, but the system rejected the attempt once again. He twisted his torso mid-air to dodge the swing and barely managed to evade the blade. Katya pressed the assault. Each movement came with a brutal momentum, overwhelming speed, and pressure designed not to strike him down.

Gregor moved in next. His right hand lit up with demonic energy, and his body twisted into a lunging uppercut. Lautaro ducked, kicking off an invisible surface, spinning backward through the air.

"I swear, you people are allergic to fun."

Lautaro muttered, flicking a handful of confetti from his sleeve. The moment the colored streamers hit the air, they transformed into hundreds of tiny, floating masks, each one laughing.

Chloe raised her hand and flung a needle into the swarm. One mask popped. The rest ignored her while she took a step back, frustrated. No matter how fast or precise she was, it didn't matter. None of her needles had any real effect. Her role was to support, but Katya needed no healing, and Gregor didn't flinch at pain. She was just... watching.

Another punch from Gregor nearly caught Lautaro's shoulder, forcing the Djin to flip mid-air. His body twisted unnaturally, but no longer intangible. He was dodging the old-fashioned way now.

However, the shift happened without warning. Lautaro stopped laughing, floated in place, and tilted his head as if listening to something no one else could hear. Then he spun once midair, graceful and deliberate, and the world twisted. The courtyard fractured into reflections, each one warping and multiplying until the entire space resembled a vast hall of mirrors.

Dozens of Katya and Gregor stood at all angles, some upside down, others stretched or shortened, moving a second slower or faster than the real ones. The true ground became uncertain. Transparent platforms shimmered into existence above, below, and around them, shifting with each movement. Lautaro hovered at the center of it all, untouched by the chaos, his arms open wide like a magician presenting the final act of a show.

Chloe gasped and instinctively took a step back, nearly tripping over a transparent ledge. Her needles were useless now. She couldn't even tell which version of her teammates was real, and with the terrain shifting beneath her, even standing became a risk. She lowered her arm and held her breath. She couldn't do anything but stay alert. Everything around her was beyond her control.

Nonetheless, Katya didn't hesitate. She moved like the illusions weren't even there, charging straight forward through the disorienting field. Her black boots shattered a false image of Gregor as she passed through it, her scythe dragging sparks against a floating wall that wasn't solid. Her eyes didn't dart around. She didn't blink, she didn't adjust her course, nor did she have a reason to doubt her path. Whatever this trick was, it didn't affect her. The Asura Mode rendered her untouchable to Lautaro's personal skill [Unchained Prankster], and that made her the one constant in a battlefield of unreality.

The clown floated backward and upward, warping his own image across five different mirrored surfaces. His real form flickered briefly, but never stayed still long enough to be tracked. The illusions copied Katya's movements, dozens of them swinging identical scythes in perfect synchronicity. Some struck the invisible walls and shattered. Others phased through the shifting terrain. None of them mattered to her. She kept closing the distance. Her scythe began to arc in wide, horizontal sweeps, not to hit but to pressure. She was driving him back, pushing him into specific flight paths by limiting his options. Her body didn't stop moving, and every motion forced Lautaro to dodge in predictable directions.

From the far side of the mirrored space, Gregor raised his [Energy AK Reaver]. He aimed not at the young djinn directly but at the corridors of escape between illusions. Controlled bursts of demonic energy exploded in straight lines. The recoil echoed harshly across the distorted field, shattering several mirrored Gregors. The bullets passed harmlessly through the projections but served a purpose. With Katya pressuring from one direction and the Reaver's suppressive fire blocking the other angles, Lautaro's movement began to narrow.

"Come on, you're not even trying to be fun."

Lautaro muttered under his breath. He twisted again and snapped his fingers. A wall of glass-like energy rose from the floor, blocking a portion of the suppressive fire. Then a stairway of floating tiles emerged beneath him. He ran across them in an exaggerated, dance-like skip, laughing as Katya's scythe missed his shoulder by inches. Her expression didn't change. She pivoted and swung again. The mirror behind her fractured. The real Katya reappeared in a flash, and the false one vanished.

Gregor didn't speak. He continued to fire short, focused bursts. The Reaver pulsed with heat in his hands, the demonic energy inside adjusting with each pull of the trigger. He wasn't aiming to kill, he was cornering his target.

From below, Chloe knelt again, bracing herself near the edge of a shimmering platform. Her hand moved instinctively toward her needles, but she stopped herself. She couldn't throw anything there, she even felt her stomach twisting from helplessness. She wasn't part of this rhythm. She wasn't fast enough, strong enough, or precise enough to do anything here. The others weren't even looking at her... She was a bystander.

Lautaro threw out a hand and conjured a spinning disk of water that hovered in front of him. The reflections bounced off it, multiplying his face a hundredfold across the glassy walls. Then he shattered it with a flick, and the fragments scattered like confetti. For a moment, all vision of him vanished. Then he reappeared just above Katya and dropped low, intending to float past her and escape the funnel they were closing. But her blade was already there. She swung upward, not with full force but enough to graze through his phantasmal waist.

He twisted midair and vanished again, reappearing farther back. His breath caught for the first time, and Gregor noticed.

"It's working, he's running out of space."

He said, but Katya didn't answer. She simply rotated her stance and moved again.

Lautaro exhaled slowly and hovered in place. His grin returned, but it was smaller, tighter, and not that playful.

"All of this for a ball?"

He said, eyeing the Karma Devil Ball floating silently near the back of the field.

"What's in it? Cursed explosives or something?"

No one answered, but Gregor's eyes remained focused.

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The clown wasn't an idiot; he knew what was happening, and for the first time since the fight began, he stopped laughing. His smile faded slightly, not into fear, but into calculation. His eyes flicked to the side, narrowing as they tracked the floating black orb that had been quietly circling near the edge of the battlefield—never too far, never too close. The [Karma Devil Ball] hovered almost lazily, its movements subtle, its presence silent, but Lautaro's Personal Skill responded every time it drew near. His illusions warped unevenly. His control over the battlefield glitched for an instant. It was like a current of static brushing against the edge of his tricks.

He moved backward, subtly at first, pretending to retreat from Katya's swings or from Gregor's suppressing fire. But it became clear he wasn't focused on them anymore. His gaze kept returning to the sphere. He began adjusting his altitude more frequently, zigzagging upward or downward just to maintain a clear line away from the orb's location. At first, it seemed like random movement, but the blonde noticed the shift. She didn't say anything, but her next step angled the scythe slightly closer to the orb's path, not to pressure Lautaro directly, but to keep him pivoting around it.

Inside the [Karma Devil Ball], a faint reddish glow pulsed with rhythmic calm. Gregor felt the whisper in his mind before the voice came. Ashmedra spoke gently, without urgency, like an old companion giving advice from the backseat of a vehicle.

"He knows."

Said the demon, his voice deep and low.

"He's no longer playing. He recognizes me now. Keep him circling. Don't give him flat space to retreat. If he shifts elevation, match it. If he dives, redirect him. The barrier won't trigger if he sees it coming. You need him to forget I exist for just a moment."

Gregor grunted softly in acknowledgment. He adjusted his stance and redirected his next volley with that advice in mind. The Reaver's demonic energy rounds now came not from angles of direct pursuit but from flanking sides. Katya, noticing the man's subtle change in pressure, altered her own rhythm as well. Her attacks grew broader in arc, sloppier in appearance but more effective in shaping space. They were drawing lines around him, and Lautaro was starting to see the pattern.

"Why's that dumb ball still following me?"

He finally muttered under his breath.

"I thought you were the scary one, soldier man. What's with the remote-controlled fruit?"

The orb hovered ten meters to his left. He threw out a burst of spatial distortion, attempting to force it away, but the black sphere barely reacted. It floated around the edge, unfazed, like it had no mass or substance of its own. His next illusion, intended to drown it in visual noise, flickered. The orb phased through the effect, and Lautaro's teeth clenched slightly. He twirled once in midair and snapped his fingers again.

A sudden burst of reality-warping laughter echoed across the mirrored field. Random objects formed in the air—chairs, balloons, cutlery—but none of them moved toward his enemies. They all dropped around the orb, cluttering the space near it.

"Stay away from me, you creepy floating thing!"

Lautaro said sharply, spinning out of Katya's reach and rising higher into the air.

"What even are you!? It feels disgusting!"

The orb tilted as if in answer, and Ashmedra's voice echoed, only audible to Gregor.

"He's starting to crack. Let him. Push harder now. If we want the barrier to form directly underneath, we need one blind turn."

Gregor didn't answer. He focused on his footing and fired again, short bursts from the Reaver. The recoil bit into his shoulder, but the weapon remained steady. He was setting a pattern, and Lautaro kept taking the bait. Even if he twisted midair or blurred into the illusions, he always moved away from the orb, like a magnet repelled by a hidden force. His Personal Skill still worked, but it was losing fluidity. The tricks were becoming erratic.

Katya shifted her approach again, this time jumping from one of the floating platforms that Lautaro had created earlier. Her scythe cut through a dozen false walls. Her movements were mechanical, relentless, focused not on coordination with Gregor, but on maintaining pressure. She was fast, stronger than before, and still immune to Lautaro's reality-warping influence, but she wasn't cooperating with his teammate. Sadly, her instincts while in Asura Mode weren't built for synergy. She was hunting, not playing chess. Gregor had to account for that, tightening his control even more, knowing she might close in without warning if he left a gap.

Lautaro's grin returned.

"Man… you guys suck at teamwork."

He said, flipping midair and creating three duplicates of the [Karma Devil Ball], all spinning in random directions.

"You sure you're not just hoping I trip and knock myself out?"

The game was nearly over. Lautaro felt it. He has lost his smile once more and was checking every corner, every ledge, every space between illusions. The orb was hunting him, and somewhere inside, he finally understood what it meant.

Gregor's shots stopped mid-burst, his finger releasing the trigger without a word. The Reaver's barrel lowered while Katya, a dozen meters ahead and mid-lunge, halted her movement in the air. Her scythe hung frozen at an awkward angle, her body leaning too far forward. To any observer, it looked like a misstep—like both of them had lost their rhythm at once. Lautaro raised an eyebrow at the sight, his senses twitching at the sudden shift in momentum. He didn't feel the usual wave of energy. There was no obvious signal, but something was off.

He smirked and rolled his shoulders.

"Giving up already?"

He said, drifting sideways in the air with a lazy kick.

"Or is this the part where you pull out another stick and hope it hits me again?"

Then the blonde surged forward with unnatural speed. She didn't correct her overextension. She leaned further into it, flinging herself with full momentum in a diagonal path that didn't even aim for Lautaro's body. Her mouth stayed closed, her eyes unreadable. She spun her scythe as if to strike—but pulled at the last second, throwing off her own trajectory. The entire move reeked of desperation. It was so overt, so wrong, it was perfect bait.

Lautaro took it. He snapped his fingers, making her body rotate midair like before, spinning her off-balance. A soft giggle escaped his lips.

"Seriously? You fell for the same trick twice?"

He said, floating slightly lower to keep control of her twisting descent.

"You're either brave or really, really dumb."

And that's when the ground cracked open.

With no warning, the stone beneath Lautaro's feet shattered into sharp, glowing shards. The [Karma Devil Ball] burst up from below, its black surface glowing with restrained energy. The moment it surfaced, a pulse radiated outwards, and a translucent, glowing cube snapped into existence with a resonant hum. The space around the guy locked instantly, and the barrier formed before his Personal Skill could react.

He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, his weight no longer supported by his intangible tricks. His body hit the inside floor of the cube with a flat thud, his palms scraping stone.

The [Karmic Suppression Barrier] was complete.

From the outside, the cube shimmered faintly with energy, unmoving and absolute. No power could be used within. No skill could pass through it, and inside, Lautaro sat up, blinking, arms pushing against the hard floor. The usual buzzing in his head—his playful control over physics, logic, and space—was gone. He tried to snap his fingers, but nothing happened. He moved his arms in rhythmic patterns... Still nothing. For a moment, confusion overtook him, then a slight chuckle bubbled up in his throat.

"Heh… seriously?"

He muttered, glancing around the small cell.

"You actually trapped me in here?"

His laugh grew louder. Not hysterical—more incredulous. He stood, brushing dust from his sleeve.

"I mean… wow. A cube. Real original. But you do realize something, right?"

He tapped the inside wall with the back of his hand.

"I can't use my skills in here… but neither can you."

Outside the cube, Katya landed with a heavy breath, rolling to soften her fall. Her expression remained unreadable, her eyes following Lautaro carefully, but she made no move to enter. She stood still, watching.

Gregor, on the other hand, stepped forward. The Reaver was strapped to his back now. His fists were clenched, the veins in his forearms tense but not shaking, and the lines on his face were calm, almost unreadable. Chloe, a few meters away, stood uncertain. Her hands twitched toward her needles, but she didn't move. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to help—or if this was even still a battle.

Gregor didn't speak; he just entered the cube as if it were nothing. The moment he stepped inside, the glow flickered slightly, sealing again behind him. The demon's voice inside the sphere didn't say a word. Ashmedra was silent. He didn't need to say anything now.

Lautaro turned to him with a lopsided grin.

"Oh? You're going to come in here and do what? Punch me to death? You're not very smart, old man. Maybe I can't use skill here, but neither do you."

But before he could say anything more, Gregor's fist landed into Lautaro's jaw… The impact was clean, direct, without flourish. Lautaro staggered backward, spitting a small trail of blood from his mouth.

"Ow! What the hell!? You can't just—!"

The second punch slammed into his gut, folding him instantly. A third caught him in the ribs. Then a fourth, to the shoulder. Then a fifth, to the side of the face. The rhythm began. Gregor didn't yell, his fists did all the talking. Each blow was timed perfectly, the product of years of battlefield precision. His arms moved with practiced force, not brutality, but discipline—a soldier's beatdown—methodical, controlled, and inevitable.

Lautaro stumbled, tried to turn intangible, tried to blink away—but nothing answered him. He raised his arms, trying to shield his face. Gregor twisted his stance and delivered a clean knee to the gut, followed by an elbow to the back as Lautaro doubled over. He hit the floor, gasping, and tried to crawl away, but Gregor caught his shoulder and pulled him back into another clean strike.

"You… bastard…!"

Lautaro coughed, blood staining his teeth.

"This… this isn't fair! I'm not a brawler!"

After these cries, Gregor finally sighed and said in a quiet voice:

"You're not, you're just a spoiled kid with too much power."

He struck again. Lautaro hit the ground, unmoving for a moment. Then he groaned, curling into himself. His breathing was shallow… The trickster was out of tricks.

The soldier didn't look at his opponent as he collapsed for the final time. He had no need to. The boy's body slumped against the inner corner of the now-dimming cube, a thin trail of blood running from his nose. His arms twitched slightly, then went still. There was no further resistance, the Lesser Djin was unconscious.

The [Karmic Suppression Barrier] dissolved around him in complete silence, its edges folding in like light being swallowed. The air was still.

Ashmedra didn't speak. His voice, usually calm and pragmatic, remained absent. Inside the sphere, he simply drifted—watching, absorbing the moment, knowing the fight had gone exactly as predicted.

Gregor stepped out of the cube with heavy strides, fists bloodied, breathing stable. His gloves were torn at the knuckles, but he didn't seem to care. He didn't glance back, nor did he check Lautaro's state again. He had felt every impact, and he knew the exact moment the fight had ended. He was not a man who enjoyed violence, but hell knows he was a man who finished what needed to be done.

Chloe remained frozen where she stood, her hands still trembling from the tension of the fight. Her eyes followed him as he walked away from the fading barrier, yet she couldn't move. She had seen the moment Lautaro's body went limp. She had seen the ease with which Gregor had walked through that final exchange, and how effortlessly he had ended it once the trickster was cornered. And through all of it, she had done nothing.

Katya approached, calm in her steps. Her scythe was no longer materialized, and her expression was unreadable—sharp but tired. She reached within several paces of the others before suddenly halting. Her eyes closed. Her lips pressed into a tight line. The moment lingered, and then she whispered.

"It's time."

A pulse of distorted spiritual energy radiated from her body, faint but unmistakable. Her form vanished instantly as if the air had swallowed her. In her place stood a slender humanoid Tulpa, draped in an ethereal form, with sharp claws and insectoid wings humming softly. It observed the scene without speaking.

Neither Gregor nor Chloe spoke. They didn't need to. They both understood this had been part of the plan.

From all the scenarios Adam had constructed, this one had been the most straightforward. According to Meera's tactical breakdown, Lautaro's nature as a trickster meant that direct force would always fail—but spiritual containment paired with raw physicality was his natural weakness. Gregor and Katya, when working together, formed a perfect counter. One overwhelmed with physical presence, the other ignored his tricks entirely. There was no need for deception. Just steady pressure until the trap closed. Even if the young djinn was one of the most problematic opponents in 'Dragon Utopia', of all the matches drawn out for their campaign, this had been considered the simplest. And it had gone exactly as it should.

But not for everyone… Chloe took a few steps away from the others. Her legs were shaky, her thoughts clouded. She lowered herself to the ground near a patch of broken stone and sat down, her knees pulled close to her chest. She reached into her pouch and retrieved her set of needles. Her fingers were trembling as she stared at them in silence.

Every detail from the fight flashed back in her mind: the chaos, the flurry of movement, the illusion-filled battlefield, Katya's relentless charges, Gregor's unyielding advances… and her? What had she done? She had thrown a few needles, missed most of them, and nearly got herself killed twice. The only times she had been noticed were when Katya shielded her from a falling trap and when Gregor barked at her to stay back at the very beginning.

She hadn't changed anything. No one said it, but she knew. Her presence in that fight was inconsequential; she might as well not have been there, and the result would have been the same. She had been a background piece, someone the others had to compensate for. She clenched the needles tighter, feeling the sharp press of the jade-tipped points against her skin.

In the distance, Gregor adjusted his gloves, silently removing the damaged wraps. He didn't look at her. He didn't seem to think about her at all. Chloe's eyes remained on him, a slow, growing heaviness in her chest. Whatever strength she thought she had, whatever usefulness she had imagined for herself when they walked into that battle—it wasn't real. It hadn't been enough.

And for the first time since joining the team, Chloe wondered if maybe she had never been truly a part of them.