It had all been an illusion, a farce, a lie he told to himself, it was a dream, it was something that was not anything really, perhaps it was just a psychological breakdown's symptom, a cause that caused him to quell in his past memories with some changes, but right now he simply couldn't think, no, he was simply breaking down.
While he had been stuck in that limbo, in that equilibrium, he was crawling forward, he had only really woken up when he crashed against the end of the other chain, starting to fall down, or so he thought, but he had simply fallen into one of the smaller dents, though even those were still about as deep within him, that were interestingly enough seemingly only on this very chain, and even then they had only begun appearing a few days ago.
And so he had crawled and fallen into a 5 foot tall deep hole with an circumference of about 5 feet as well, and he had woken up wit his one eye ripped wide open while the other, despite him not knowing that, was still charred from some kind of special flame that the monstrosity had seemingly used, resulting in him not even having skin on that small part, no, there was simply a charred hole on that side of his face, but only where his eye had been while extending about an inch outwards, barely reaching parts of the nose and barely recognizable further out, only slightly charred, as if his very face had been wooden just as that of the monster that had done this to him.
But he didn't know that of course, instead of thinking about anything he simply started to stare ahead, his only eye now filled with pure terror, brimming to the limit with fear and anxiety, and yet he simply couldn't blink, he couldn't even cry anymore, he had simply lost that ability right now, especially in his left eye that was after all charred just as wood would normally be, turning into a kind of smoking crater that had long since stopped smoking.
And yet he simply couldn't do anything, he arched over, his head touching the uneven ground that was leaning towards the centre that was the deepest, just as with a normal hole, and then he just started to move, he started to try to fight back against this endless hell, and as such he began to move his right arm, his only arm, punching the endless chain over and over again, while barely causing any damage it, something that he didn't even realize right now.
The only thing all those attacks, all that repeated punching really achieved was that his hand had started hurting, including his missing arm, his left one, the one that had been ripped off by that monster, and yet it looked as if it had been surgically removed..
He simply couldn't take it anymore, he simply had to let all of it out, if he didn't he might as well die now, he might as well kill himself now, and at that point the chain was no longer his target, no, the only living thing in a radius of at least half a thousand miles had become his target, he, himself, had become the target of his anger.
And as he did he began to claw into his own flesh, scratching above it and almost ripping out chunks of it, grabbing all over and simply punching himself and his face, practically flying around in the small hole, having a tantrum like a little child that had been denied ice cream after it had been promised to have it.
Cades almost ripped apart the robe that Manug had given him, but his hand only searched for the skin, and as it found the skin it began ripping it apart, it began to take off entire patches of the thing that he had been so obsessed with caring for just a few months ago, a vital part of his morning routine after all, and finally he stopped for just a moment and looked at that very hand that had just mutilated his own body.
His hand, his only hand, was full of cuts, full of wounds that he had gained from continuously punching the invincible chain, it was bloody, and not only the blood from the hand itself but also the blood from many other parts if his boy, even including his face, was dripping from it in quick succession, only further enhanced by his healing speed that slowly drove the old blood out as it accelerated to close the wounds.
He was no longer hurting himself, instead he was thinking, no, he wasn't thinking, perhaps he was simply doing nothing, his instincts themselves were right now trying to fix what was wrong with hi,, with his entire mind, but they failed miserably, and finally Cades began to move once more, this time simply putting his hand down, onto the chain and starting to laugh.
He began his laugh, at first it was normal but it soon started to deteriorate into a kind of mad high-pitched laughter that one would normally only hear of in theatre or movies, though Cades did not know what those even were, it was simply maddening, and the creatures of the void seemed to think so too as they slowly started to go further away from the laughing maniac that somehow managed to even scare those more powerful than himself, those hiding deep within the sea of light.
However, soon after he began his maniacal laugh he devolved into a kind of rambling about the unfairness, about everything that had happened, and then it devolved int non-sensical sounds, into recollections of everything that had happened, ones that only he could understand.
Cades continued with this for about an entire hour, simply repeating and repeating what had happened, recollecting how he was basically dead twice already, once on the tree where he had gained his engravings, and once while fighting that invincible monstrosity.
But, finally, it had ended, and he had began to 'calm down', finally standing up straight, his eye not shivering anymore but simply staring ahead, not entirely calm, but instead just gone.
He didn't know what was happening, and he knew one thing, he knew that he was in danger, he knew that his place wanted to break him, and he knew that it had already succeeded at that without a doubt in his mind, after all, no sane person would say that he was doing well.
But now, with him staring ahead, not entirely there and yet completely there, he had changed, his soul itself had changed, and though he didn't know that, his body reflected the change as well, so much so that his eye, his only eye, had begun to turn into an entirely different colour, with a hint of orange, just as the wooden puppets had, creeping in from the sides.