He was used to feeling pain. But that didn't make it any less annoying.
The burning throb in his shoulder pulsed with every heartbeat, but even so, Elian's mind remained clear.
He gritted his teeth and tried to move. But the monster's limbs were still wrapped tightly around his body and holding him down.
A surge of anger flared in his chest
Without thinking twice, Elian opened his mouth and bit down hard on the monster's shoulder that was now biting at his shoulder.
His teeth sank into cold rotting flesh, and a mouthful of black blood spilled across his tongue.
The taste was horrific like meat that left to rot for weeks in the sun, but it worked.
The monster recoiled with a flinch. Its jaws release their grip from his shoulder.
"Get a taste of your own fucking medicine!"
The monster shrieked in his face again, the scream blasting over him like a shockwave, but this time Elian didn't hesitate.
He lunged forward and sank his teeth into the creature's face—right into the nose and cheek of that smiling expressionless horror.
The creature thrashed violently, its limbs convulsing, and then leapt off him in a panicked retreat.
Elian gasped for air, but couldn't even sit up fully.
Pain bloomed deep in his shoulder. His ribs screaming in protest. The weight of the monster from earlier had done some damage.
But he couldn't stop now while it was still alive.
He forced himself upright, teeth clenched against the pain, and grabbed his sword from the floor.
Then he charged toward the monster.
He raised his sword high and brought it down in a powerful slash across the monster's neck. The blade hit deep, spraying a fountain of dark blood
The monster screamed again, shaking the air around them.
Ash exploded from the ground with the impact and move, swirling in thick clouds as the monster thrashed and bucked wildly. The blood soaked into the ash, painting Elian's body in smears of black and grey.
He didn't stop.
He kept attacking—slashing, hacking, and stabbing—until his arms felt like they would tear apart.
He stabbed the blade into the creature's chest, right where a human heart would be, even though he had no idea if the anatomy was the same.
"Just DIE already!!"
With one last violent shove, he drove the blade in deep
The monster gave a final twitch, then went still.
Its many limbs collapsed. Its body sagged to the stone floor. The twisted smile finally faded from its face.
Silence back to the room.
Elian stood over it and panting hard. His hands trembling around the hilt of his sword. Blood, ash, and sweat covered every inch of him.
But he was still alive, and the monster was dead.
Elian let out a small, bitter laugh that echoed in the vast chamber. He had killed that abomination with its endless limbs and smiling face. But now what?
His body throbbed with pain from head to toe. His stamina was gone. He was weak, bloodied, and barely holding it together.
He knelt beside the monster's corpse and searched it, hoping for something. Maybe even a dropped Relic or something. Some kind of reward for surviving that nightmare.
But there was nothing.
Just dead flesh and cold silence.
With a grimace, Elian stood up and turned away, wiping some of the ash from his eyes.
He raised his hand and shone his chest crystal into the shadows again, its faint orange light sweeping over stone and darkness.
Then, in the distance, he spotted something.
A patch of black that looked deeper than the rest.
Elian moved toward it, slow and cautious, until he finally saw it. It was a massive stone door standing tall in the wall.
The problem was… he didn't know if this was the same door he had come through earlier or a different one entirely.
Still, it was the only thing he had.
Even so, Elian felt his knees start to give out.
His shoulder screamed. His ribs still throbbed. His sword felt like a weight he could barely hold anymore.
"I'll just… rest. For a while."
He slumped down against the wall, letting the cold stone press against his back. The silence felt almost peaceful.
His eyes drifted shut.
But the peace didn't last long.
A cold sensation slithered over his arm. Then his leg. Then his other arm.
Elian's eyes snapped open just as pain exploded across his limbs.
"Argh!" he screamed.
Teeth dug into his skin. He looked down.
He saw three creatures clung to him like tumors. Thick, bloated leech-like things but each one bigger than any normal leech he'd ever seen. Their slimy bodies pulsed and wriggled as they fed on him.
One on his left hand. One on his right arm. One latched deep into his left thigh
"Shit." He tried to pull away. But his limbs wouldn't move.
Then he realized that he wasn't just losing blood. He could feel something else being drained from him. Like his strength and his will. This feels like it was his very life that the creature drained!
A sickly chill spread through his veins.
His sword lay on the floor nearby, just out of reach. But when he tried to move toward it, his muscles refused to listen.
He was too weak to move.
A terrifying realization dawned in his mind.
"If I don't get these things off me… I'm going to die right here."
Elian felt his consciousness slipping
His thoughts began to scatter like ash in the wind. Everything grew distant. His arms numb. His breath was shallow. He couldn't even think straight anymore.
The leeches were still feeding off his life.
He could feel them pulsing, sucking and draining at his very soul.
"They're waiting until I'm too weak to fight back… then they'll finish me off."
These weren't just parasites. These were Grave Realm monsters. Creatures born from a place where death itself had gone mad.
"So this is how I die," he thought, his eyes fluttering half-shut.
But then something inside him moved. It was like a spark.
A dark red flame blazed into existence. The leeches let out horrid screeching cries as the fire touched them.
Smoke rose. Their slimy skin began to blacken and peel.
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