The voice vanished as soon as it had arrived, and the next second, Leonidas's awareness was back in the Realm of Madness, desperately running from the Pilgrims behind him.
Who even looked at those beasts and decided to name them something as holy as Pilgrim
Crazy bastards.
He took a quick glance at his surroundings, and everything seemed the same. He wasn't a step away from where he had been when his mind had found itself traveling towards the island of light, which was his Edict.
His face scrunched up from disgust as he took in their form. Their hulking bodies were a mixture of red blood and patches of thick, unruly fur. Massive chunks of liquid flesh hung from various locations, barely connected in a grotesque sight.
Pus and some sort of corrosive substances poured from every pore, sizzling their skin. Smoke rose from its wolf-shaped body, and five eyes stared at Leonidas with predatory hunger.
As if that wasn't disturbing enough, the distance between Leonidas and...Red was shrinking at an alarming rate.
Red was obviously the Pilgrim born from the crimson liquid.
Quite a fitting name if I do say so myself.
Leonidas dug his feet into the ground and launched, this time confident in himself. He knew he had awakened; the fact that he could feel his Edict was enough confirmation...but that begged the question, how?
Even though he was desperate to learn the answer, surviving was a necessity. Leonidas's azure eyes sharpened as he launched himself farther and farther away, the spires almost in reach.
Almost!
A shadow towered over his body, and before Leonidas could even react, a massive maw closed in over his head, bloody teeth surrounding him, aiming to crush his upper body into pulp.
His face turned ashen, dread sinking into the very depths of his being. Never before had he come this close to death.
I'm....I'm going to die.
With jerky movement, Leonidas moved himself. His legs buckled as he shifted all his weight to his knees. The motion forcefully lowered his height, narrowly avoiding Red's pincer-like teeth.
"AHHH."
A scream tore through his throat without consent. He had previously worried about screaming when the bell had chimed, but staring at where his arm had once been, Leonidas couldn't care less.
The pain was unlike what he had experienced before. It felt as if he had been stabbed by a rusted knife, only a million times over.
The corrosive acid sticking to Red's teeth served to only amplify his pain. It was as if his pain receptors had been enhanced a thousand times, and then pure salt had been poured over the breaking knife wounds.
All this had happened because he was too slow. While he managed to avoid his head from being eaten...he had to sacrifice his right arm.
His vision blacked out at the edges, the world slowly dying around him. Only his...former arm mattered, the bloodied stump flowing with metallic blood. Pain had nullified even emotions. Leonidas felt neither rage nor sadness. The only emotion even remotely present in his heart was loss, yet it too was dulled.
"Seridius's sword..."
The words came from nowhere, but he had promised to give it back.
His eyes—now dull—shifted to his surroundings. The sword had to be close by. The first thing Leonidas noticed was that Red wasn't actively munching on his body. He could feel nothing except his lost arm; as such, the realization was one positive in his pitiful situation.
The sound of Red's ugly ass grunting broke Leonidas's train of thought.
Almost on instinct, he scrambled further up the spire, away from the wailing monstrosity.
A gleeful smile appeared on Leonidas's face as he raised his arm to point at the hideous Pilgrim, but...he had no right arm.
Right.
He had almost forgotten about his maimed state. His smile slowly vanished, replaced by a spiteful look. He grit his teeth, eyes staring at Red with contempt and hatred.
Fortunately for Leonidas, the beast couldn't step on the colorful rocky ribcage of some long-dead god. At the start, climbing the spires had simply been a gamble on Leonidas's side. The more he had observed Red, the more confident he became.
A simple thing had given him confidence in his theory. He hadn't once seen all of Red's body off the crimson surface.
As absurd as it seemed, Leonidas was completely sound of mind when he made the prediction. From what he knew, Pilgrims wanted nothing more than to feast on human souls, and as such, they would do anything to get their prey.
Yet Red hadn't once jumped in an attempt to close the distance between Leonidas and himself.
In all honesty, Leonidas had taken a massive gamble, but it had worked, and that was all that mattered. Now, he stared at Red, who was seething with indignation but unable to attack Leonidas.
After all, if he did, he would die himself, and nothing, no matter how hungry, wants to die.
Leonidas turned his body slightly, the movement causing him to wince in pain. Leonidas quelled the discomfort and looked around, taking in the spires in all their colorful glory.
He currently sat at the base of a relatively small spire, around a dozen feet from the liquid ground and field of monsters. His back was pressed against a massive tree, easily thrice the size of those on the surface world.
Its bark was a bright orange, while the rest of the tree was a deep shade of violet. Thankfully for Leonidas, Seridius's sword sat right beside him, the tip of the blade dipped in the impromptu stream of blood from Leonidas's severed arm.
The sight of the thin blade made Leonidas sigh in relief. He really would have been screwed if Seridius saw him back without the damn sword.
With trembling hands—with a trembling hand, Leonidas grabbed the hilt and buried it within the spire. Pushing all his weight on it, he stood on stumbling feet, falling over twice before his body adjusted to his imbalanced state.
His vision was barely functioning, his legs felt like jelly, his mind felt like it was exploding under all the strain it had been under recently, and his emotions were numb from pain. Yet Leonidas still looked back at his wonderful friend Red and flipped him off with his remaining arm.
I swear, I'll kill you one day.