Xin, heart raised swiftly, climbed inside. Clunging to the lid's ring as it closed, the lid closed on him, trapping his fingers. Pain lanced through him—a silent, distorted scream tearing at his mind.
The unnamed approached, shifting the tone, "That's strange—where did this come from?" He then hopped atop the structure.
*Thump!*
Inside, Xin heard muffled voices overhead, punctuated by a heavy thud. The lid pressed down on him harder. In agony, he whimpered, shuddering with paranoia. His eyes watered, blurring his vision as he dangled helplessly.
Flustered, Tim'ur snapped, "You're acting weird today, Tutu!"
"I've seen too many interesting things today."
*Clang.*
Below, Xin heard a lighter sound this time—like a stick tapping out a rhythm. The pressure increased.
He heard an indiscernible sound of an argument below.
...
Before long, silence fell—He didn't hear the others anymore, then something crawled on his leg and gnawed at his skin.
'It hurts.'
But he waited and waited until he couldn't endure anymore. A soon as he felt the pressure lift, he then slipped free. Stunning brightness stabbed at his eyes, blotting all detail and assaulting his nose with a metallic stench.
He covered his watering eyes, painting his face red as the glare eased. Shapes began to coalesce behind the light—a nightmare made visible. In fours at the ground, he hurls, holding back his vomit.
Before him lay two headless bodies, sprawled like butchered animals. Their bodies were intertwined like dogs, blood gushing like fountains.
His hand bled, fingers purple and useless, pain radiating from his limp arm joints, and he felt his vision swim. Tears were slipping down his cheeks.
Hungry and weak.
Questions raced through his mind—who to blame, did he deserve this, was this really it?
The thought of dying again broke him. As he closed his eyes, someone whispered.
"You can't," said a childlike, ghostly voice.
Xin fell to the ground lifeless like a soaked rag at the ground, but when he opened his eyes, everything was white—a vast void stretched into eternity.
There, he felt ethereal and strange.
He looked around but saw nobody. He tried to speak, and found he had no mouth, just a single eye without a body, floating alone. Before him, he stared at a familiar stat panel.
Ye Xin /█/ Lvl. I
HP: 10/10 Stats: Normal
Mind: 22/30 Stamina: 09/15 RP: 10
STR: 10 AGI: 5 DEF: 3 INT: 12
◙|Survivor|5| Inventory: [][][][][][][][][][]
↓Maximise↓
'I'm dead… again.'
"You can't," the mysterious voice repeated as, in an instant, his battered body materialized again.
*Thump.*
He collapsed to the ground, unmoving. Water gathered and formed a pillar around him, lifting him upright until he stood, though he felt nothing. Watching his blood swirl and return to his veins.
Encased within the water as it washed over him, head to toe, mending and restoring him. Before him, it manifested in front of him out of thin air.
A bustling town.
People walked around—men and women dressed in a single garment. He can't move through the crowd. Between them, a man in red without a face walks.
A shaman in red.
He held a small yet thick book between the walkway and the gutter. There, he placed a stool, then climbed atop as he opened his held book before the gathering crowd. With his chest puffed out, there atop, he spoke.
"Hear me as I recite the words of our creator. I alone am the Truth, and by mine authority bestow thee wisdom of mine utmost order!"
The crowd paused, attention fixed on him. With newfound confidence, the shaman tucked the book away and spoke from memory.
"Time streameth always forward; none may return, nor may it be halted, nought endureth forever as all that doth exist shall meet its end in time..."
"You hear that? That's a joke!"
Without a care, he continues, this time, he spoke in a higher tone.
"As thou livest, while time remains, dwell not on days bygone and cherish what is thine. Three..."
"If anything's a joke, the young master is the biggest of all!"
People burst out laughing, filling the marketplace with mirth.
"He pissed himself before 'Beloved Scholar Cheon Ma' and fainted!" the old man bellowed, grinning.
"As expected of 'The Drifting Star, Shin Iseul'—blind and deaf, and still he brings laughter."
"Hope he rots in Everell," the youth sneered.
The shaman frowned, yet he pressed on until he wrapped up his speech.
*Clap!*
Instantly, it changed to a land of green.
In front of him, a man with a sword speaks. With his wooden sword, he carved runes on the ground.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, and finally seven, and you got three hundred of those?"
"Who are you again?"
"…"
"Ye Xi... Ye Iseul...…"
It was he who instinctively talked, as if he lived through this, yet somehow no recollection of it happening. He felt it was like a fantasy, a dream he had neither thought nor made.
Encased in a watery cocoon. Where, within, a butterfly rests on his forehead. Overhead, the skies, a colossal shadow shifted, falling, fanning waves of air, clearing the water and exposing scarred ground below.
Xin awakens. There he was, drowning, with an uncomfortable feeling resting on his forehead, blindly moving on what felt like an endless sea.
*Crash!*
'Where am I?'
Looming above him, it crashes into the ground before him, sliding closer and closer as it finally crashes into him. Erect in place, the water pillar pierces across the hull, splitting the ship into two, wrecking itself into a wreckage as it slides far from him.
Wood groaned and splintered all around.
As the shimmering blue butterfly resting on his brow drifted away between his eyes. The watery pillar where Xin exists exploded, sending him sprawling across the barren shallows.
With heavy breaths, he awakens, recalling, 'A dream—a dream I remember.'
A nightmare of a dream.
*Fweet!*
A sharp whistle rang out—a call for reinforcements. Xin tensed as warnings raced over the water. Within seconds, a spear flew at him.
This felt like happened before, but he was unsure of it.
A deja vu.
Without thinking, his unruly tail swatted it aside in instinct, though it grazed his face, drawing a line of blood. As minutes passed, they completely encircled him, scattered around the wreck, with their spears readied.
Within the formation, someone from them stood out and stepped out. Adorned in feathers, inked in black to its feet and neck, its head painted in white, it talked.
A leader.
"A talking game!" The leader shouted, beating his chest.
'To hell with that, white-head!' Xin snapped.
His warriors advanced, circling Xin tighter. With each step they took, the spears they readied got closer and closer.
In retaliation, he then swats the spear away in a circular motion.
Suddenly, the ground shook, and water swirled between, disrupting his balance. Like a geyser of water flushed upward, erupting pillars of water.
Knocking them all down to the ground.
Sprawled on the ground, the sudden pressure made Xin grow dizzy, inadvertently causing his vision to begin to blur. Their jet black inked feet crowded his sight, tying him with a rope to a piece of drifting wood.
Tied in a piece of drifting wood, in unison, they pull him, dragging him through the ground. Xin's blurry vision gradually turns clear. Squinting his eyes open, above him, something floats, a translucent panel.
Within reads.
Ye Xin, survivor, has met the conditions for the quest "Aegere & Aefer."
Dragged to the ground, in each second, closer and closer, he saw it again, the monstrous, tower-like structure. Left or right, its sheer size covers his periphery…
*Rip!*
The moment Xin snapped his eyes open, an indiscernible silhouette cut his restraints off. It was so dark that he couldn't see anything but the silhouette looming over him.
It undressed him, tearing his clothes like wrappers.
"A male," It said in a coarse voice.
It was as tall as Xin's waist, and its skin was as white as paper. With its small physique, it attempted to assault him, grinning, as it stripped fully in front of Xin. It's pointy ears, twitching whilst its own tongue licks its lip, it came closer and closer as it breathes in his nape.
Thud!
Lying down, Xin's tail pulls the creature closer as it then slammed its head into the ground, knocking it out cold. There at the ground, he felt like he was being watched; someone in the corner stared at him with such vacant, empty eyes.
"You killed him." A man said in a curious tone.
Xin looked around and saw a masked man staring at him blankly across the bars. In its flat mask, in its hollow hole, its eyes' focus as the two eyes locked for a long, breathless moment. Then, abruptly, the man's gaze shifted past Xin.
Out of confusion, Xin followed its gaze.
*Crack.*
Behind, his own tail wrapped around the body, with its tight grip, it inadvertently crushed in its grip, its bones gave way under the pressure, and its eyes and mouth gushed blood, dripping blood. With its blood, the lying foreign creature suddenly woke, crawling fast in its pool of blood.
Xin instinctively threw its body in their direction; it popped like a fruit, splashing its blood all over, painting the room red in its blood. It's thick, gamy blood smeared his face.
It missed.
He turned back toward the man behind the bars, whose expression hadn't changed at all—as though the grisly scene behind Xin was nothing more than a noise. Their soft chewing of its flesh and the faint popping sound of bones made Xin cover his ears.
It was his first kill, their dinner.
His own two hind legs suddenly gave out as he then fell, in fours, tears formed in his eyes, blurring his vision. His nose felt stuffy, his mouth watered down, dripping liquid to the ground as he then regurgitated his own saliva.
It wasn't from disgust nor fear that protruded into his mind.
Something from him inside grew—a desire he couldn't understand made him act this way.
An insatiable hunger.
The masked man, looking through the bars, his eyelids curled as he then tilted his head. Suddenly, he tossed something inside the cell—in the same direction as the corpse.
He leaves.
*Cling!*
With his bare hand, he caught it mid-air—A set of keys. Stripped to bare bones, the corpse wasn't enough, unsatisfied, in accordance with the grimy smears on Xin's face, made him another candidate for food. In a burst of speed, they jump towards Xin's direction.
Xin hurries through the gate—there's no keyhole to open it.
Yet he was still calm.
'Wateball!'
It didn't work. Xin forced himself against the bars, squeezing through inch by inch—all of him made it out, but his massive tail remained wedged behind him; it won't slip through the narrow bars, no matter how he twisted.
In just a second, his tail disconnected from him, like a lizard's tail—it became their food.
*Roar! Growl!*
Standing outside the cell, the long hallways, and many cells shout at him. Monsters, creatures of the dark, and so on—all won't make sense, shake the ground with their chaotic behavior.
It's so loud, he can't think straight about what's happening, as just suddenly water appears before him, whirling as it turns into a pillar, gradually forms into a clear panel, in which shines.
At the end of the hallway, a glowing white light lit up close. Xin, in curiosity, walks towards it. It was a woman staring with empty eyes; the same empty eyes the masked man had, her—before him, a translucent figure floated, mirroring his own.
[0]→[1]
Her empty eyes gradually gained color, her eyes glistened in hope, and in deep breaths she stammered—
"A system! I kn-know what you are—" Tic sharp inhale, "Y-you're the same as me."
'System..?'
-The words faded as a cool breeze brushed his skin.
He felt earth and grass beneath him; footsteps rustled through the blades.
"Empty yourself—you mustn't mix it. It's not alive, it has no feeling; accept it as it is."
It burns, it's out of control…