Leroy stood there, breathing raggedly. His sword arm dangled at his side, numb, while his other hand barely gripped the hilt. Blood dripped down from the edges of his cloak, pooling at his boots. Every heartbeat was a hammering echo inside his skull.
And then he felt it.
A sharp pain, right through his back.
Stab.
The blade pierced him like a betrayal.
He gasped, wide-eyed, stumbling forward and falling to his knees. The world spun. Colors dimmed. His vision tunneled as agony lanced through his chest like ice.
"I guess this is what it really feels like… when the knife goes in," he wheezed, a humorless chuckle escaping his lips, warped by pain.
<
<
His eyes flicked toward the chest. It was so close.
"I didn't suffer through two hours of electric slime hell to leave empty-handed," he muttered, dragging himself forward.
Blood marked his trail as his fingers clawed across the cold stone. His limbs screamed. His body was dying. But his mind? It was beginning to slip even faster.
The moment his hand touched the chest, his body gave out.
And the world faded to black.
Pure Darkness. Not the usual game-black loading screen. Not just seeing black, but seeing nothing. As if he had grown to be blind, losing his sight completely.
This was primal. Void. Like his soul had been dropped in a pit that God forgot about. Not only did he feel blind, but he felt alone. Like he had lost all connection to his entire soul. His entire being. He felt gone. His physical body was there, but his mind felt elsewhere. A nightmare. That's what this felt like. A nightmare he couldn't escape.
"...Hello?"
No response. His words faded through the abyss. Everything was quiet. It was like sound didn't even exist in this dimension.
He tried to move but felt nothing. Not even his limbs. Like he was trapped in the idea of a body rather than the real thing. Tense. His body was tense. Time didn't seem to exist—no seconds, no minutes, no hours, no days. It seemed like everything stopped. Even his breathing was barely noticeable. To him, it was like he wasn't even breathing. Like he wasn't even alive...
Sound.
Vibrations traveled to his ears.
Those vibrations being sounds.
Whispers.
"...venge..."
"...listen..."
"...one of us..."
Leroy blinked, but even blinking felt abstract here. He couldn't even tell when he blinked and when he didn't. Either way, he saw nothing but only heard whispers...until...
He saw them.
Silhouettes. No—reflections.
Versions of himself.
Some were burned. Others were broken. One had no eyes. Another dragged half a leg behind itself, leaving a trail of darkness.
And they were watching him. The burned ones were watching, some of their skins melting off their faces, the other burned ones' faces bursting in small flames. Broken ones were watching him, their limbs breaking off as their faces stayed neutral. The one with half its leg stared at him too, no blood seeping out of his leg, but his leg—or what was left of it—was a pale white, its veins visible and disturbing. Even the version with no eyes watched him.
"W-What... what the hell is this..?"
More whispers. From his left. From his right. Coming from every direction and no direction at once.
"Why did you do it?"
"You left us behind."
"We suffered so you could live."
They stepped closer, their features becoming clearer. Their pain is more real. The mutilation was grotesque. Flesh fused with armor. Bone exposed. Eyes missing. Each one screamed of pain, but even their screams were silence. Your ears couldn't hear their pain, but you could feel every one of their sorrows on you, every burn, every scar, every wound, everything.
"You could have saved us... But you chose to run."
This isn't real. This is not real.
But his mind screamed otherwise.
Hands rose from the ground. His own hands. Corpse-like. Cold. Grabbing his legs, anchoring him in place.
He tried to fight back against the dead. But nothing moved. He couldn't move his arms, his legs, or anything.
His breath hitched. His heart thundered. The panic was rising like bile in his throat. His breathing quickened as he was being grabbed more and more. Drowning in the hands of the dead. Leroy's eyes stung with tears, his breathing becoming more rapid. He began to hyperventilate, crying and screaming.
"GET OFF OF ME!!"
Their grip tightened. And then they were on him. Crawling. Clawing. Screaming.
Then the floor beneath him crumbled.
He fell.
Endless falling. Into a sea.
No, not a sea. Not water.
Blood.
Thick. Viscous. Endless.
He gasped for air, but all he got was the taste of iron and rot.
Then the heads surfaced.
His head. Again and again. Hundreds of them. Some are intact. Others bitten. All of them are alive.
"You..."
"Did this..."
"To us."
One opened its mouth and screamed.
Its scream is turning into screeching. An awful, horrifying screech.
Before he knew it, they pulled him under the blood.
Teeth bit into his legs. Fingers dug into his chest.
He sank deeper, darkness wrapping around him like chains. His lungs ached. His eyes burned. Something inside him snapped.
Is this death? Is this the game over screen?
No.
Worse.
He woke up.
Floor 2 again. Same stone floor. Same broken silence.
Only this time…
A slime sat on his chest.
Colorless. Featureless.
Just… there.
"You again?" Leroy rasped. "Did I die or just hallucinate being eaten alive by a thousand cursed versions of myself?"
<
He hesitated. For once, doubt flickered across his expression.
Then he muttered, "Sure. Let's add trauma bonding to the checklist."
He winced, slicing his palm and letting it drip. The slime absorbed the drop as it bounced. Seeming to be quite a bubbly slime. It looked at Leroy with a small, innocent look in its eyes. Its eyes sparkling like a curious child.
"We'll call you... Slowen. Because I feel like dying slowly now."
<
Warmth spread across his limbs. Pain receded. Barely. But it was something. Small cuts on his body would cover in a thin layer of pus, slowly healing themselves.
He sat up, body trembling with pain and exhaustion.
Once he sat up, Leroy just stared at the ground. The tears from earlier were blinked away. Grinning tiredly, he laughed.
A broken, manic laugh.
"This game... is not a game."
After a bit of rest from those hellish times, he opened the chest with his trembling hands.
<< Acquired — >>
Skill Cards:-
Items:-
<30,000 Gold>
Elemental Essence — Dark Lightning 10x
Your Element
< — — — >
<
[10% boost to all stats]
[When mana is condensed into the weapon the user is using, it will ignore 15% defense of the enemy]
<
[The design of the mask can be changed the way the user wants]
[Immune to all attacks when the user's condition is critical for 5 secs]
[Absorbs 10% of the damage done by any magic]
"Holy f*ck, these are way too awesome!"
His eyes lingered on Pain Vessel.
A skill that made you immune to pain until it stacked up—and then released it all at once.
"Oh. So basically what I'm doing emotionally," he muttered.
A sudden announcement is made by the vicious system.
<
<
[Time Left: 9:59:99]
"An event for all difficulties? There has to be some multiplayer panic attack."