The Thing That Stands.
Chapter 17
"I... don't know... how long..."
Eidolon's voice was barely a breath, barely human.
"I can't see... can't smell... can't hear..."
His words dissolved into the shattered dust around him.
The old man had beaten him past recognition-past pain-past self. His senses were fading one by one, slipping away like dying embers in a freezing wind.
The old man stood over him, disappointment carved into his ancient features.
"I expected greatness," he said coldly.
"I expected a tower that rose above the weak. But you..."
He seized Eidolon's throat effortlessly, lifting him into the air like a piece of broken cloth.
"You are nothing."
He threw him.
The force was monstrous-so violent that Eidolon's pupils rolled fully back, leaving only the ghostly whiteness of his eyes. His body hit the ground like discarded meat, limp and lifeless.
The old man exhaled, slow and controlled.
"Pathetic."
He turned away.
Hands behind his back.
Footsteps echoing across an empty coliseum filled with corpses and dust.
He did not expect anything more.
He did not expect movement.
He did not expect sound.
But then-
A chuckle.
Soft.
Weak.
Impossible.
The old man froze.
Another laugh-louder this time.
Then louder still.
Until the sound filled the entire coliseum.
He turned.
What he saw almost made his heart stop.
Eidolon's body-broken, twisted, mangled-began to shift. Bones snapped back into place with sharp, brutal cracks. His ribs pushed into alignment. His shattered spine straightened with a sickening pop-pop-pop.
Blood soaked through his skin.
His breathing turned ragged... then steady... then monstrous.
His eyes, once pure white, were now drowned in red.
Not red like fury.
Not red like pain.
Red like something that should not exist.
Blood tears dripped from the corners of those glowing crimson eyes as the last fragments of his humanity flickered.
And he kept laughing.
Laughing louder.
Laughing stronger.
Laughing with a voice that didn't belong to a boy... or a man... or anything mortal.
The old man stepped back.
"This... is not possible," he whispered.
Eidolon rose-not standing, not crawling, but ascending, as if gravity had forgotten him.
His head hung low, shadows hiding half his face... but the smile-
that smile carved in blood-
was unmistakable.
The old man felt something he had not felt in centuries.
Fear.
Eidolon's voice slipped out between the laughter, distorted and echoing:
"...you should not... have turned your back..."
The coliseum trembled.
Something terrible had awakened.
And it was wearing Eidolon's skin.
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