Raviel gritted his teeth as he pushed himself up from the shattered remains of the skeletal display which were crushing him after being destroyed.
Each movement sent a jolt of sharp agony through his leg. The Femur was still buried deep above his knee, bone grinding against bone. He wanted to scream, but the moment he tried to, his throat tore with blinding pain. His vocal cords at this point were too strained to even produce a weak whimper.
He clenched his jaws tight, bitting down on the piece of cloth from his shirt. His hands trembled as he teared a line of his shirt again,
He wrapped the teared part of the shirt further above from the embedded bone, tying it hard enough that it made the veins bulge under the cloth.
The pressure made his vision go blur, but he forced it even tighter. Anything to stop the river of blood flowing steadily from his leg.
"...Shit—fuck"
The words barely came out of his throat before it blurred again with pain,
He staggered to his feet, using the katana as a walking stick to get back up, gripping the katana's hilt tightly. His back screamed where the shards of glass where still embedded with some fresh ones, but he ignored them. He couldn't afford to stop now.
" C-can't just magically heal myself, can I—shit…. Fucki'n still hurts " his voice now dripping with raw agony.
Then he Froze.
The 'Abysswalker' wasn't moving anymore.
It was crouched just a few meters away, half in the shadow of a broken display, its long fingers dragging against the marble, leaving trails of black sludge as it tried to touch them. Its head tilted slowly from one side to the other, antlers scraping against the the overhead displays. It looked….. curious. Studying him like a predator.
Raviel gritted his teeth again, brows furrowing in realization. That bastard was toying with him, he could feel it in his bones that if that thing really wanted. He would be dead already.
And yet...he wasn't.
He stared at the creature.
The black sludge and the faint violent mist seemed to follow the beast like a cloak.
Something about this whole nightmare alerted him, the undeads, that polka shit, water and now this and the way his body refused to pass out. None of it felt right.
He swallowed the blood on his tongue.
Whatever force was keeping him alive. Whatever was making him survive this far, wasn't mercy. Not at all.
It was something that wanted him to keep watching. However dead he might be but it still wanted to make him keep watching. And that thought scared Raviel more than he admitted.
He gripped the katana tighter, whispering under his breath, "You're not killing me that easy….."
The Abysswalker's face twitched, almost like a psychaotic deranged grin.
After seeing the abysswalker fusing with the shadows. He swallowed hard. He was getting hunted.
"Of course, you can see in the dark too brilliant, Raviel…..just fucking brilliant"
He muttered as he remembered his shitty idea of destroying all the lights to render it blind. But seeing it now slithering between shadows, he realised how dumb and fucked up his idea was.
Then in a moment of desperation he remembered something, He whispered...
[MINDLOCK]
Instantly the world drained of colours.
Sound dulled into the darkness.
The chaos in his mind vanished, replaced with cold, mechanical clarity.
He moved with no hesitation, no fear. Almost as if the pain had became a distant echo, like it belonged to someone else. Not him.
The Abysswalker's grin stretched as it crawled out of the shadows, amused by the audacity. It's figure blurred, vanished from his sight
CRASH—!!!!
The impact came from his left. Raviel barely turned in time, raising the katana in a half-formed guard near his shoulder. Metal shrieked against monstrous force.
The blow sent him spinning, and before he could even regain footing, agony ripped through his shoulder.
His arm...gone.
Torned apart like a piece of paper in a single clash. Blood splattered all over the floor. He stumbled, body twitching, but his face stayed empty. No scream. No gasp. Just stillness.
He stared at the fallen limb on the ground for a long second, then looked back at the creature.
A hollow smile stretched across his swollen lips. " Bastard...."
And then.
He lunged.
The katana hissed through the air, cutting through the tension. He didn't care if it was madness, if his body was breaking down, if his own blood was choking him. He just wanted to know, why he was still awake?. Why this nightmare refused to end?.
The blade met flesh.
Almost.....
The Abysswalker caught the strike with its lump of a hand. The impact sent a shockwave of black mist across the room. Metal screeched against the creature's skin as Raviel pressed harder, his teeth bared, blood dripping from his chin.
While the creature stared at his face. Playfully.
The tip grazed its chest. Just barely.
A thin scratch, and from it, one single miniscule drop of blood fell.
Thick. Black. Greasy
Like tar.
The moment it hit the marble floor, the world turned void.
The white stone turned black.
The cracks in the walls spread like veins. Pulsing black and then vanishing into darkness as it consumed everything.
Raviel's vision darkened, not from pain, but from the darkness which was pouring into him, swallowing everything around him.
The creature tilted its head, smiling wider as the tar spread across the ground, creeping toward Raviel's feet.
And as it reached him, his knees buckled, his eyes rolled back. And the liquid swallowed him whole as it covered his injuries.
And the world turned into void. The place where the ceiling should have been.....glimmered faintly like a constellation.