From her sanctuary on the library's fifth floor, the demoness Kyojutsu continued to write. With every stroke of her pen, she wove a new, terrifying tapestry of despair for Horitake's consciousness to endure.
Within the mental realm, the scene remained a vast, desolate wasteland occupied only by Horitake and the illusory form of the demoness.
But as Horitake watched, Kyojutsu's figure began to distort. Her body collapsed into a heap of rubble, clattering against the dry earth before vanishing entirely.
She was gone, but her presence lingered. Standing alone in the silence, Horitake heard her voice erupting from all directions at once—a distorted, echoing chorus that shook the very air.
"Now then... let us see how you handle the 'Deep-Fried Tempura' treatment!"
As her venomous voice faded, the wasteland began to convulse.
With a deafening roar of grinding stone, the earth shuddered. The ground beneath Horitake's feet began to heave and roll, vibrating with such violence that he struggled to maintain his footing.
Steadying himself against the tremors, Horitake scanned the horizon.
"An earthquake?" he murmured. "Well, it's not so bad. In a wide-open space like this, a tremor shouldn't pose much of a threat."
No sooner had the words left his lips than the threat manifested.
The ground directly beneath him snapped open. A massive, jagged fissure tore through the earth, widening at an impossible speed until the entire world seemed to split in two.
Caught off guard, Horitake plummeted into the abyss. He fell through a gathering darkness, his body accelerating as the surface vanished far above him.
As he drifted toward the lightless depths, Horitake felt the distinct, gut-wrenching sensation of weightlessness. Despite the situation, he couldn't help but offer a dry critique.
"The construction of this illusion is actually quite impressive. This feeling of freefall is incredibly realistic! But wait... I've been falling for quite a while now. Just how deep does this hole go? Surely I'm not falling all the way to the Earth's core?"
He didn't hit the core, but where he landed was no better.
Splash!
Horitake slammed into a river of churning, subterranean magma.
Surrounded by a brilliant, suffocating glow of orange and gold, he felt the terrifying, searing heat of the liquid fire pressing against every inch of his skin. For a fleeting second, panic flickered in his chest.
I really did fall into lava! Damn, the temperature is insane!
Then came the agony—unparalleled, white-hot pain. The molten rock enveloped him, hissing as it began to char his flesh, threatening to reduce his entire being to a pile of gray ash.
But was the lava truly burning Horitake's body?
Not exactly.
Horitake's physical body remained in the reality outside this dream, sitting peacefully in a chair on the library's second floor, head bowed in a deep, hypnotic slumber.
The body currently being scorched by magma was merely his "mental avatar"—a manifestation of his consciousness. However, because the mind is the seat of all sensation, the agony felt as real as if his physical nerves were being flayed.
This was the essence of Kyojutsu's trap: to use a mental construct to inflict death. If the consciousness believed it was dying, the spirit would eventually surrender and extinguish itself.
As the lava gnawed at his form and the pain reached its zenith, a single, stray thought crossed Horitake's mind.
So... this really is 'Deep-Fried Tempura'...
It was a lucky thing that Kyojutsu couldn't read his thoughts in this state. Had she known what he was thinking, she would have been speechless with frustration. Here he was, literally burning in a lake of fire, and he was still preoccupied with her ridiculous naming sense.
On the fifth floor, Kyojutsu wore a twisted, ecstatic grin. Her pen moved across the page in a frantic blur, fueling the nightmare. She pushed the intensity of the illusion further, raising the perceived temperature of the magma until it was a blinding, soul-shredding heat.
Almost there! Just a little more and his spirit will be incinerated!
Once Horitake's consciousness was snuffed out in the dream, his physical body would become a hollow vessel—a vegetable. Whether she chose to devour him then or offer his shell to Lord Muzan, both were glorious prospects.
Her excitement grew, her writing became more erratic, and the lava in the dream roared with renewed fury.
But would Horitake's spirit truly be burned away?
The events that followed shattered Kyojutsu's expectations.
From the heart of the boiling magma, a hand suddenly emerged.
It was Horitake's hand.
To anyone's surprise, the limb wasn't a blackened, charred stump. It was perfectly intact, skin smooth and unblemished.
Horitake pulled himself up until his arm was clear of the surface. He raised a single index finger in a lecturing gesture, his voice calm and steady despite being submerged in fire.
"As I said before, a person cannot imagine what they have never seen. By that same logic, a person cannot truly imagine something that is fundamentally wrong."
On the fifth floor, Kyojutsu's face paled. She could sense through the link that Horitake was unharmed. How? How is this possible?!
Within the magma, Horitake continued his lecture with relentless composure.
"I know you can hear me, so let me give you a little lesson in science. Research shows that the density of magma is significantly higher than the density of a human body."
"Do you know what that means? It means that falling into lava isn't like falling into water. You don't sink. You stay on the surface, much like falling onto a thick marsh or a bog. You wouldn't be submerged for a long time."
"Therefore, the state I was just in—being buried beneath the surface—was a mistake. It was unscientific. It was a violation of the laws of nature."
"Certainly, the heat of the magma can kill a person, but it wouldn't be from drowning in it. It would be from being roasted alive while lying on top of it."
Listening to this calm, academic critique, Kyojutsu felt like her head was about to explode with rage. She couldn't help but scream back at him, her voice thundering through the illusion.
"Fine! Even if you're right, even if you shouldn't be sinking—the heat is real! Your nerves are feeling it! Why aren't you dead?!"
Then came the final blow to her sanity.
Horitake brushed aside the magma surrounding him as if he were simply pushing through tall grass. He climbed out of the liquid fire and began to walk calmly across its glowing surface.
As he walked, he gestured toward the empty air, continuing his explanation.
"The thing about an illusion is that it is a purely 'idealistic' construct. It is a matter of mind over matter."
"Simply put: the reality of this world is dictated by how I perceive it. In your mind, you believe lava should swallow me and burn me to ash, so that is the reality you tried to project. But in my mind, I know this is an illusion. I know it is a lie."
"And since I refuse to believe in the fire, the heat has no power to burn me. My spirit remains whole, and I am perfectly fine."
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