Midas felt as though he had only just blinked once. When he opened his eyes, however, he noticed he was in a completely different setting.
He furrowed his eyebrows as his eyes instantly widened.
"I... have been here before." He said, staring at the boarded door in front of him.
He stood at the entrance of the main monastery building--the one he had already entered.
'It's still boarded... but I remember taking the board out. Did someone put it back?' He thought.
Before pushing the door open, he glanced at the bead pillars behind him again.
"Red..." He muttered under his breath, "They were... always red..." He said, pausing.
"No, they were blue last time." He clenched his jaw, "Mind games... my mind had been playing tricks on me since before I even entered the monastery." He said as the background of his vision slowly unblurred itself.
He focused on the buildings on either side of the marble floor. They were intact, not a single mark of ash nor crack of destruction in sight.
The buildings had been resurrected to the time when they still stood, grand and majestic in appearance.
Midas turned, taking the plank off its hinges.
'My mind is entrapped in an illusion... but I still can not tell what is real and what is fake.' He glanced at his body, 'I feel no pain. My body is intact. But is this my real body?' He thought, slightly worried.
Who was to say he wasn't in a dream right now? That his body wasn't bleeding out this very second?
Or maybe the body he used to enter the room last time was the fake one, and now he was the real one.
Or maybe, both were wrong.
"I don't know..." He muttered, 'But what I do know is that I can damage those skeletons. If it makes me do the entire trial again, I'll make sure to finish off all four mage skeletons before they even notice me.' He opened the doors as their creak alerted the forest once again.
This time, no crows fled from the treetops.
'Hmm...' He mused.
Within, Midas was surprised to see the two skeleton knights still holding their ground with weapons in hand.
He walked forward, grabbing his bone daggers.
"I see..." He said, 'So my progress is saved. That means I only have to do one thing... kill the remaining mage.'
However, this was much easier said than done.
Midas leaped forward with ferocity, his stamina and health now back up to full.
As he noticed this as well, however, he thought for a split second: 'Shit... does that mean I wasted my potion for no reason?' He grabbed his inner pocket, realizing the potion was still there.
His eyes lit up with relief, 'Nice! It would have been a big waste to have spent it there. After all, there wasn't even a consequence to my death. I was only healing false injuries. It looks like even if I use it, it returns if I die... that is, if I am allowed to die again.' He thought.
He realized that his entire inventory seemed to reset, his bone daggers completely untouched as they were at the start.
"DEATH IS YOUR MASTER!" The whispers, this time, were no whispers. Instead, they were roars of war and rage that screamed inside Midas's head like wraiths.
The voices were fewer than before, but each time the eye orbs of the two massive skeleton knights flickered, another loud voice rattled Midas's eardrums.
"FEAR ME!"
"KRAAHH!!"
"YOU WILL BE DEVOURED BY DEATH!"
Midas ignored the noise to the best of his ability. As he neared the knights, his mind began to think quickly.
'How should I finish the mage off? Trying to fight the knights first would probably be useless. They aren't like the other skeletons. Their speed, strength, and even agility are easily far superior to my own. I'll have to try and get around them.' He thought, beginning to plot how to get past the knights.
As he arrived thirty feet away from the feet of the knights, they raised their weapons high into the air, seemingly awakening.
"Hahaha!" A booming voice sounded from the back of the chamber.
'The mage...' Midas said in his head, glancing behind the two skeleton knights and straight at the robed skeleton.
It had a smug expression on its face, its tone slightly condescending.
"Give up!" A voice yelled in Midas's head. It wasn't monstrous and screechy like the ones of the knights.
He instantly knew it was the mage's voice.
"You have no power here! Your greatest ally has become your enemy. Your strengths have already become your weaknesses!" The skeleton mage shouted with what Midas perceived to be glee. It swung its staff forward.
The two knights pushed themself toward Midas.
They closed the thirty-foot distance in less than a second, slashing through Midas's body in a nasty scene of bloodshed.
Midas blinked, and he, once again, stood at the entrance of the main monastery building.
He felt chills crawl up his back. This time, he barely even had time to register that he had felt any pain, let alone died.
He looked around, the bead pillars still red.
He exhaled, quickly entering the room again.
This time, he went around the very left side of the room.
'Just let me get to the mage!' He yelled inwardly.
Right as he got halfway to his target, however, a sword swiped across his shoulders and sliced his head clean off.
Midas blinked, once again standing at the entrance.
This... continued.
Each battle ended in seconds.
Each blink rewound time to this specific moment right outside the room.
After a dozen tries, Midas's confidence began to fade.
'I have made no progress...' He glanced down and looked at his hands carrying his daggers, 'I haven't made it even an inch closer to that thing...'
Despite this, he continued. It wasn't like he had any other choice.
He died again and again, minutes turning to hours.
After a while, Midas began to lose track of time. It also seemed that the voices in his head were getting louder. As if his decline in confidence led to more space available in his mind to be taken over by the voices.