Cold sweat dropped from Sky's face as he grabbed his broken left arm with his right arm.
'That much power from just a single strike? I don't think we can fight this one, at least not like this.' Sky thought, trying to arrange his thoughts together and form a plan.
"Kyle, I need you to-" A fist interrupted Sky, the fist that felt like a hammer landed on his face fracturing a few of his bones and almost knocked Sky out.
As Sky tried to stand up, the pursuer dashed forward and with killing intent, aimed a fist to Sky's face but a heavy kick pushed him back. Kyle had managed to push him back.
As the pursuer charged forward, Kyle too charged forward, both of them clashing against each other landing a punch in each other's face yet they didn't back down, Kyle who was severely injured stood his ground and exchanged blows after blows with each other. As Kyle's face got more bloody, his fists grew faster and heavier until eventually it reached the same level as the pursuer's striking force but unfortunately, for Kyle the constant pressure applied had been wearing him down until eventually before Kyle could surpass the pursuer's strength, a strike from him broke a large portion Kyle's skull, knocking a few teeth out and dislocating his jaw completely.
The pursuer who had been trading blows with red shot eyes and a completely bloody face, grabbed the customised warhammer that Sky had thrown, his bloody hand shaking as he slowly walked over to the barely conscious Kyle holding the hammer above Kyle's head he gripped the customised warhammer and swung it down but the hammer stopped right before hitting Kyle's head and Sky with his string, pulled Kyle over to him.
It had turned out that Sky had attached hundreds of extremely thin and strong strings over the hammer and had wrapped it around 3 of the extremely large and strong trees to prevent the pursuer from using his own weapon properly.
But this only buyed Sky some time as the pursuer had already dropped the weapon and picked up his sword from the ground.
With some hesitation, Sky reached out for his void in his broken left hand but then again hesitation occurred but seeing the pursuer charging at him, Sky took out a sword from his left palm blocking the pursuer's strike.
The blade that was jagged with a twin-tiered tip that split into 2 uneven peaks or blades was still sheathed.
The large amount of string that was covering the entire weapon was absorbed back into his body.
With a small deep breath, Sky kept exchanging strikes with the pursuer over and over again until the pursuer's blade started to turn red from the heat while there was no change in Sky's still sheathed blade.
As the pursuer backed up, Sky threw several daggers which were barely dodged by the pursuer and as the pursuer was going to clash with Sky again, he sensed the blade coming back and turned around to block the blade that had been pulled back using strings but as he blocked the daggers he felt something behind him, making him promptly attack behind himself but it was just a cloth.
This blunder that the pursuer had made, allowed Sky to close the gap and stab the pursuer in his abdomen with the still sheathed blade but the pursuer still stood firmly and was about to counter attack.
Seeing this, Sky took out his blade from the purser's abdomen and at the same time kicked the pursuer in his abdomen with his right leg and as the kick landed, a thunderhead of compressed wind exploded outward in a single pulse, flattening dust and hurling the pursuer back as though he was struck by an unseen hammer.
Sky fell to his knee from the pain of the recoil while the pursuer laid on the ground barely moving.
Blood dripped from almost every part of the pursuer's body as he stood up with difficulty approaching Sky slowly.
Sky seeing this tried to stand up but the recoil was still shaking up his leg, so he instead looked around him and saw Kyle who had just relocated his jaw stand up very slowly too and then looked the other direction and saw a cliff.
A cliff that literally separated the dark woods and the grassland.
Seeing this made Sky come up with an idea and he spoke out loud, "Hold him off Kyle! I need you to buy me time!"
His screams were heard by Kyle who's ear was ringing.
The pursuer hearing this, with all his remaining might charged at Sky sensing something bad but Kyle easily stopped him overpowering the ridiculously strong pursuer with raw physical strength.
Kyle grabbed the pursuer's arm almost breaking it with his grip but a knee to his face interrupted him and the pursuer seeing this opportunity headbutted him making Kyle loosen his grip allowing for the pursuer to land a kick to Kyle's face pushing him towards the cliff but as he tried to take another opportunity to land a free hit, Kyle overpowered him and pushed him on the gourd but yet they didn't stop fighting, wrestling each other on the ground near the cliff both not willing to let the other win.
Eventually after a minute or 2, Kyle managed to get on top of the purser choking him with his arms but the purser countered with a kick using both his legs pushing Kyle back.
As they both tried to gain their form back and stand upright, the both stumbled back but unfortunately for Kyle he was at the edge of a cliff and he was about to fall, seeing this made the purser a bit relieved but a large sound was heard from behind him and as the purser turned back, he saw Sky running past him, grabbing the falling Kyle with his broken left hand that had been put into a state of usability by Sky's string and fell down with him.
But before the purser could even wonder what happened, he felt something tightened around his neck, choking him.
The tugging came from both sides making unable to go to one side and then he saw multiple small but strong strings wrapping around his neck, the string being tied to multiple trees from the forest and another place exactly opposite to it, at the bottom of the cliff?
Yes, it had turned out that Sky who had used compressed air on his left leg to dash forward had already wrapped strings around the purser's neck and had slowly been lengthening the string to slowly reach the ground safely while choking the purser.
The string was so small that it was difficult to grab it with a firm grip, especially the one on his neck making this choke really difficult to escape.
But Sky as he fell slowly felt something weird, the strings were being somehow slowly being cut, which meant that the purser had somehow found something to cut the string with, although it was slow and was a race to see if he could cut the strings first or he would run out of oxygen first.
Sky realising that were barely halfway down when the strings were being cut, started to lengthen his string faster and faster, because by any chance if the purser actually managed to cut the string, they would immediately start falling at a rapid speed and he was not sure if he could survive the fall, while they were this injured.
But sadly the string was cut before Sky could fully reach the ground but thankfully they managed to get to a height where they wouldn't have died even if they fell.
As they took the full blunt force of the fall, Kyle was knocked out cold while Sky was barely conscious.
"What a shitty start to my journey." Sky muttered weakly as he soon too, lost his consciousness.
· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·
There was nothing.
Just a simple black place with a single table and a bed and Kyle who had been laying in the bed laid there staring at nothing.
'Today is an uneventful dream' he thought, his mouth slowly disappearing and a black substance covered his face.
His eyebrows, his ear and every other thing disappeared leaving only his eyes to see what could be seen.
Soon he stood up from his bed and while sitting on the edge of his bed, stared at the table, the only other thing beside the bed that existed in this place.
He stood up and observed the table above and looked at the desk and saw something written on it.
[WHY DO I CONTINUE?]
[THIS WON'T GET BETTER, IT'S JUST SO DIFFICULT, JUST LET IT END]
He stared at the text on the table and pondered for a few seconds before replying, or at least he tried but he couldn't speak as his mouth was gone,
So he instead took the Cotton form his pillow and put them into shape and wrote something
{It's fine for you to feel hopeless but I believe if you continue to walk, that with enough perseverance, to keep those suffocating thoughts at bay, you make it.}
He wrote this message understanding that this was someone's word. Someone he knew in the past.
Maybe his sick older brother or maybe his father or even a random stranger he met in his past.
The problem being…
'I don't remember who.' Despite forgetting the identity of the one who wrote this in his memory, he didn't remember who had but he still comforted others with a few words, always staying silent to let others think without interruption, to let others not be bothered by him.
This was simply a nature or a way of living he had followed ever since he was a kid and he didn't mind it.
A small feeling of gratitude did reside in him as he laid here since it meant that when he woke up, he would not be stressed and it also meant that he would get sufficient sleep.
This small feeling made Kyle a bit happy.
After leaving the message, Kyle took the very small piece of cotton that was left and walked off holding the cotton in his right hand.
He walked forward, something he hadn't done in this dream.
This dream was an uncommon dream he dreamt of. In this dream there was always a message written on the desk and there was always a single bed and table and he always laid in the bed. The only variable that changed was the content of the message written on the table, however this time around, Kyle decided to roam further into this dark void for the first time.
He walked around for a bit and by the time he decided to rest, he realised his entire body was painted in black.
He looked at his black hands and checked if they could be wiped as he continuously wiped the same spot for a long time, until he realised it was forever stained so he gave up.
As he stood up and walked forward, he thought of giving this dream a name since he was sure he would dream of it again.
'What about black space? Feels a bit weird, then I think the void would be a pretty cool name.' Kyle thought a bit childishly and chose a name that a child would have most probably given.
Eventually Sky saw a mirror and a box under it.
The mirror had something written in grey, the message read:
[I get up,
I live,
I sleep]
Seeing this message, Kyle didn't know how to respond to science. He didn't even understand why he needed to respond to this, since this message said the truth that we get up, we live and we sleep.
Kyle instead diverted his attention to the box and as he opened it, a rotten arm could be seen.
This didn't really shock or scare Kyle as he had seen plenty of worse things but he felt like the above message and this arm had a bit of a link.
Maybe the one who wrote this message and the person whose arm was here, were the same person.
But soon, the world vanished as Kyle woke up from his dream.