Developer in the immortal World !

Music suddenly started belting out from all corners, not particularly loud, but just enough to generate an atmosphere of unease at the alien sounds being created.

Before Flower could think too much of it, the now-named Ornstein suddenly pointed and hefted his lance in her direction, crouched down and shot forward at a speed that she hadn't expected from this level of a scenario. A golden blur holding a silver point directed exactly at her torso. She sidestepped the move, which she was thankfully able to do with the pathetic amounts of energy she was letting course with her body. Ornstein stopped in place after the charge, gripped his lance differently and swung it sideways, the blade instead of the point now coming directly for Flower's head. She reluctantly parried the blow so it struck above her but was surprised that Ornstein simply stepped forward as it was struck aside, gripped the lance closer to the blade and spun the butt of the weapon at her. Flower was forced to jump backwards, again, and reconsidered her opponent.

She narrowed her eyes, puffing a strand of her long black hair out of her face. This was turning out more difficult than expected and the lance was a much more flexible weapon than she could have imagined. It had all the diversity of a staff, but also had a blade, a sharp point, and a cross guard.

Ornstein didn't seem interested in letting her consider her options. He dashed at her again this time with a swing instead of a thrust. Flower ducked under the move and extended her arm with her sword to try and pierce through the giant's torso, however, the vibration that ran up her arm at her strike almost made her drop her weapon.

While she was doing this, and Ornstein's lance passed over her head he stepped forward into her weapon, pushing her back through the solidity of his armour, reversed his grip on the lance and swung it down diagonally from the other side. Flower threw herself to the floor and rolled away, but received a swift and brutal kick to the face as she did so. Her face stung and her nose felt broken. She once again retreated, only to be hunted down as if she were a rat being chased by a cat.

A blur of white bone on silver and wood commenced, every single move from the enemy being something that Flower had never seen before. As her green-clad form fled from the golden giant she realised the true threat that dragonslayer Ornstein represented. He wasn't perfect, nothing was. But everything was novel and it gave her the feeling that she was permanently off balance.

Flower had never fought against a demon, but she could very starkly feel the danger of facing a never-before-seen enemy as cuts appeared on her body, slowing her down more and more, while her own strikes failed to penetrate the dragonslayer's armour.

"Novelty indeed," she muttered distractedly as she was forced to jump in the air and spin over a brutal sideways swing of the lance. Her jian shot forth aiming for the very narrow eye-holes in Ornstein's armour, but the knight simply tilted his head forward so the sword scraped by uselessly. He kicked out at her torso. She didn't have enough energy, being barely more than a basic human in this form, and thus she was unable to dodge.

She was kicked into the air.

The lance swung from below, leaving a laceration on her torso before the damned weapon was pulled back and thrust straight at her chest. She tried to deflect it, but Ornstein struck her weapon out of the way with a twist of the crossguard, which had caught her sword in one of the spokes. The lance continued onwards to stab her in the lungs. Flower could only grit her teeth as the tip of the lance exited her back and the two tips of the cross-guard buried themselves respectively in her chest and into her stomach.

"Fuck," she grumbled as she fell on the floor, Ornstein roughly placing a foot on her face to dislodge the lance from her body.

Rather than finishing her, the bastard took a step back and dispassionately watched her bleed out on the floor.

Flower ended the instance and reappeared back in the blank space.

A frown spread across her face as she compartmentalised the pain she'd just finished experiencing. She'd never actually died from a monster created by an outer disciple, or an inner disciple for that manner. After all, usually, she'd fought several of those monsters already in slightly different scenarios created by other illusionists.

The argument that what they needed in the sect was more original creatures wasn't a new one, the issue was that it was hard to actually make something like that and that most cultivators preferred to stick to the safe route.

She was about to enter the game again when a slight hesitation in her mindset made her pause.

"Something original, can be so terrifying?" she asked herself quietly as she noted that her hands were shaking.

Sure, she'd reduced her own power a lot and refrained from using any spells or techniques, but... even if she knew that she could blow Ornstein away if she used her true power, it truly was a horrifying experience to face something and know that one had not even scratched the surface of its abilities yet.

The thought of slightly powering up, enough so that she at least matched the oddly well-developed physical strength that her opponent exhibited flitted through her mind. But then she gritted her teeth and decided that she didn't feel like admitting defeat to an illusion made by an outer disciple.

She went to face Ornstein again.

Green and gold danced in the dead cathedral while dark orchestral music played in the background.

She went to face Ornstein again.

Bone-white and silver flashed in a blur as if they were differently coloured flies trying to mate in mid-air.

She went to face Ornstein again.

Tried systematically dismantling his armour, but failed.

She went to face Ornstein again.

Tried to enter her sword through the slits in his helmet, but failed.

She went to face Ornstein again.

Succeeded in cutting him in the weak points of his armour, the joints, but traded in her life for success.

She went to face Ornstein again.

Slowed him down by stabbing his joints, and tried to go for the eye-slit. Impossible, a simple tilt of the head and the sword went askew.

She went to face Ornstein again, managed to disarm him and dismantled him slowly and efficiently as he weakly slapped at her with a pathetic unarmed fight. All extremities bleeding out, a sword through the eye-slit

She realised that the disciple hadn't programmed Ornstein in any unarmed fighting because there was no point considering his philosophy of focusing on novelty.

She went in again and faced Ornstein as he was meant to be faced, with a lance.

Died.

Through the head, torso, loss of legs, loss of arms, head smashed against a marble pillar. So many ways to die.

But Ornstein was only an algorithm in the end, she became used to the new and it became comforting. She developed counter-strategies and found the flaws.

She won, but it wasn't enough. She had to pay back the suffering she'd gone through. She went in again, and again, winning, losing, faster and faster.

In the end, when she had the golden giant kneeling at her feet, a lake of blood growing under Ornstein as he tried to lift his lance through nearly severed arms, Flower realised something.

A bright and contagious laughter filled the cathedral, accompanying the orchestral music with its ominous vocals.

She was having fun.