Chapter 9: Surviving in Hell
As Ragna walked down the Mountain he was on, and sweating because of the hellish heat, his [Obvious Blood] flaw kicked in for the first time and attracted multiple creatures. Thankfully all of them were dormant and didn't have a higher class than monster.
With every kill he grew stronger and more experienced and so he slowly made his way down. Sadly the Mountain was way too huge for him to make it in just a a few hours so later he decided to walk inside of a cave to take rest.
Because of his second flaw he needed to walk deeper so the creatures wouldn't get attracted to him by his flaw.
He sat down at the stone ground and leaned his back against the wall.
'This is more exhausting than I thought and I haven't even fought strong monsters yet. Mnhnm, just a small nap"
Just as darkness overtook him he found himself somewhere else again.
He couldn't move nor speak and his sight wasn't that good but there were some things he could see.
'Where am I ?
Ragna looked down and he saw something that he didn't expect. His body was a clump of cells and blood, throbbing from time to still couldn't really move so he was just stuck there for a while but soon he heard someone approaching him. It was a tall man who wore a dark mantle and a fearsome mask of a demon with three twisting horns.
"Oh you sad creature ... You're really flawed, aren't you ? Im so sorry for failing you but let me try something more special this time."
The tall creature cut his arm slightly with his slightly longer nails, making a single drop of blood fall down onto whatever Ragna was.
Then the man or whatever that was started weirdly moving his fingers, like he was crafting or changing something out of nothing. After about a hour he suddenly stopped and Ragna then felt his body changing. Like he got a slightly more humane form and like wings were growing on his back.
"Grow my little Blood Angel. Upon you I bestow [Blood Weave]"
And then Ragna suddenly found himself in the cave again, his breath heavy.
'W-was this a dream ? Normally you don't dream inside of the dream realm. That thing ... he called me flawed and Blood Angel . Did i dream this because of the Lineage i absorbed in my First Nightmare ?' Fuck that was scary.'
Ragna stood up, feeling like his nap helped him regain stamina but by now he had already spent maybe around 10 hours inside of the Dream Realm and he didn't do anything productive yet, except killing the Skylith's.
'Let's go to that damn city now and hope that I'll find something helpful there."
He walked outside of the cave, which took a few minutes and then started trailing the mountain down again.
His second attribute made his life a little bit harder but thankfully only weak creatures attacked him on the way and after many more hours he finally arrived on the ground, feeling the sand under him. On the vast expanse of sand he was completly exposed but for some reasons he didn't see any creatures.
'Im slowly getting thirsty ...'
Ragna went on, now walking on the hot sand. Thankfully his boots were pretty thick so he didn't feel it that much.
While walking he looked at his Runes again.
...
...
Blood spilled: [176/10000]
...
'Nice.'
Ragna continued trudging forward, the heat of the desert sun continuing to shine brightly. His mind drifted back to the dream he had inside of the cave. He couldn't shake the feeling off that it was something important, even more important than he thought.
'Grow my little Bloodangel. Upon you I bestow [Blood Weave].'
That was what the mysterious figure told him, or rather the creature he absorbed the lineage from. His mind steamed as he thought of many theories.
'Is that figure the creature of the flawed one ? After all he acted like that and even changed it's body by weirdly moving its hands over him. And who is the flawed one exactly ? He was a sacred titan evolving into a divine one before I killed him but that was inside of my Nightmare so the creature was already dead in the real world before I killed him or he is still alive, somewhere. Bloodangel .. Flawed one .. Lineage .. Blood Weave. So many mysteries.'
As Ragna slowly got nearer to the city he saw that it actually wasn't one big city but hundreds of small villages, standing close together, yet he was still far, far away.
As the day slowly ended and Ragna got closer and closer something happened again .. and it defenitely wasn't good since that unlucky kid walked straight into Quicksand. Thankfully Teacher Julius taught him how to handle situations like this.
'Lay on your back and act like you are swimming back he said ..'
And Ragna did just that but for some reason it did not work and the quicksand just pulled him down more and more.
'Okay, this is not funny !'
Ragna augmented his body with his Aspectabillity, creating a thin layer of blood around him but it still didn't work but just then Ragna felt his feet being able to move freely again, like there was a "safe" space under the quicksand. A drop of sweat rolled down jos forehead.
'Never thought I'd deliberately let myself sink down in quicksand. Well, it's not like I can get out of here anyways.'
As he slowly sinked further and further down and was just about to sink down with his head too he augmented his lungs since he found out that he could also do that with inner organs.
'Let's hope I can hold my breath long enough.'
After sinking completly into the quicksand, everything around Ragna went silent, well, there wasn't much to go silent but still.
He expected the weight of the sand crushing him or the cold suffocating pressure of being burried alive. But instead, as his body was fully submerged, he felt weightless.
He had his eyes closed, since he obviously didn't want the sand to go inside of his eyes, and fully concentrated on holding his breath. He maybe sunk for just a second or dozen of seconds, maybe even minutes but somehow he wasn't sure.
But suddenly he felt a soft thud, like he landed somewhere. When he slowly opened his eyes he expected more sand but what met him was a long tunnel full of glas.
'Glas ? Why glas ? ... wait. I'm on sand, right ? And there are volcanoes here and there so it's obvious since really strong heat melts sand into Glas, Minecraft taught me that.
He stood up and looked around. There was nothing weird, well expect that the glas didn't reflect an image and somehow there was light in this tunnel but that surely was normal, right ?
As Ragna started walking forward things only got weirder and weirder. After maybe a hundred meters a reflection of him suddenly appeared everywhere, just standing inside of the glass and looking at him and not moving like how his reflection should.
Another hundred meters later the reflections acted completly normal, like they should but after another hundred meters they stopped again, this time grinning madly tho.
'This is not creepy, this is not creepy. Everything is normal, they are just reflections.'
After another hundred meters the reflections inside of the glass disappeared again and suddenly he heard things shattering far far behind him.
It was the glass. Ragna started walking a bit faster and with a bit faster i mean dull out sprinting while augmenting only his feet. After maybe thousand meters the glass behind him stopped shattering and reflections appeared again, not moving this time. Behind him was literally nothing except darkness, like the glass shattering bend reality. He didn't want to know what would've happened if he was too slow.
'Genuine question ... WHAT IS THIS ? GO FUCK YOU, [Fated].'
This time the reflections changed with every step he took. Sometimes they stood still, sometimes they followed him like normal reflections, sometimes they grinned and sometimes they were gone.
'Man, what is this ? How do I get out of this ?'
After a while of this continuing, transparent blue strings started to appear as his [Unseen Link] Attribute finally decided to help him out. The strings connected every Reflection with Ragna's mouth, like it wanted him to talk with the reflections.
So he did just that. He approached one random Reflection and looked at it.
"Hey ca-"
Just when he spoke the reflections jumped out of the glass and punched at Ragna. Since his body was augmented he easily dodged and punched back. The reflection was destroyed with just one touch and it turned into glass itself but it had a weird form, like it was a piece of a puzzle.
He did the same with more reflections and every time he killed one he got a new puzzle piece. Those reflections weren't creatures tho because not once did the Spell reward him with anything or tell him that he had slain a creature.
After gathering more and more pieces he couldn't carry them anymore so he tried putting them together. They held like glue after that so it was easier to carry them. As he went further and further into the tunnel another weird thing happened. There was a Reflection of a person that wasn't Ragna.
He looked lifeless, like he had been stuck there for years. When he saw Ragna he suddenly started laughing, he heard no sounds tho, since the reflection was inside of the glass. Ragna felt a chill running down his spine ...
'No, that isn't a reflection .. thats a real person. He's stuck inside there.'
Ragna, feeling creeped out augmented his fist and destroyed the glass, killing the crazy human inside of it.
[You have slain a dormant human, marksman]
[You have obtained a Memory]
'Oh ? A Memory ? Didn't expect to get anything here.'
Ragna quickly summoned his runes and looked down to the Memory section.
Memories: [Redfur Cloak], [Glass Piece]
[Glass Piece]
Type: Tool
Rank: Awakened
Tier: 1
Description: "A man's life was stolen because of his reflection. As he spent years stuck inside of glass he became crazy till he couldn't think straight anymore"
Attributes: [Reflection]
[Reflection]: "This piece of glass reflects even the brightest of lights."
'Hmnhnm, interesting. Could be useful in certain situations.
Let's continue with gathering those puzzle pieces now.'
——-Author's Notes——-
Words: 1755
I actually really enjoyed writing this chapter. Gotts plan how make Ragna escape this tunnel now.
I hope y'all enjoyed the tunnel and the small dream at the start of the chapter too.
Peace ✌️
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