บท 23: First Sigil
Alice didn't know when she woke up but she found herself in a strange corridor.
Tall walls flanked her sides as she couldn't see the top of the walls. Decorated with a dirty cream coloured wallpaper, rotting wooden pillars was spaced out evenly along the length of the wall.
Darkness surrounded on all sides with no end nor start in sight.
'Where am I?' Alice wondered to herself as she started to walk down this corridor.
The longer she walked, the deeper her frown. She tried to damage the walls, whether that be through punching scratching or other methods, but nothing worked. The walls remained the same while her surroundings didn't change.
Letting out a frustrated sigh, she continued to walk down the path as she slowly reached towards her neck and started to scratch.
It was at this moment she noticed that she no longer had a collar on. Touching her neck, her eyes widened in surprise.
'This is wrong. I should still have the collar around my neck… Lilia should be in the arena and I had just killed the spider and got a bounty.' Alice frowned as she started to sprint down the corridor. She noticed that she had become faster and she wasn't even close to being out of breath.
Stopping in her tracks, she looked down and wondered if it was the Sigil causing this change within her body. Recalling where she saw the pattern emerging, she glanced towards her forearm and saw an eye staring back at her.
Before she could react, the eye sunk into her body and could no longer be seen.
'What the hell?!' Examining her arm closer, she couldn't see any scars or wounds where the eye was. Almost as though she was hallucinating.
Taking a step back, unfamiliar controls assaulted her mind as she stumbled over her own legs. Just as she was about to clutch her head from the sudden headache, Alice saw a pair of scythes swinging towards her face.
'Are these… my hands?' She questioned with disbelief as her heartbeat started to increase.
Looking down slowly, she could see blade like appendages acting as legs while a large mound of flesh protruded from behind her. She was now in the form of a spider, the same spider she had killed in the arena.
Trying to move her body, she realized that she was rooted in place. Her body not her's to control and felt as though thousands of strings were threaded through her body, forcing her to dance to another's tunes.
The way she breathed, the way she looked around, everything was out of her control. She was merely there in consciousness.
Then she saw her, a visage of her own body. A vicious demon with the cruelest smile and eyes that illuminated the darkness with malice and sadistic lust.
Alice watched as her other self threw a wave of daggers towards her before taking a sharp turn. The glee in her eyes as she drank the blood of a fallen Dusk Hunter.
She understood that this was a recreation of their fight but this time she was in the place of the spider!
A foreign sense of fear wormed its way into her heart as she witnessed her other self tear off the leg of the spider and jammed it into its mouth, killing it through internal wounds.
Feeling the fear and despair of the spider, Alice watched as it was torn to shreds. Even after its death, she did not stop.
Alice had no recollection of this, she only remembered feeling intoxicated from the taste of blood before seeing the spider's corpse.
A complicated expression could be seen on her face as she was unsure of what to feel towards this vision of her berserk self. The way she lost control, how she laughed as she brutalized the corpse.
Was this really her?
Before she could dive deeper into this feeling, she felt a stinging pain on her arm. Shadows slithered across the surface of her skin and started to converge into a pattern yet it wasn't fully formed.
There was still one thing that was missing. The power she wished to steal from the Spider.
Glancing towards the corpse of beast, she could see a purple flame dancing in the air above the body. Reaching out towards the flame, Alice watched as it split into three paths with each one showing a different scene.
The first path showed the spider swinging its scythe like legs, cutting apart anything in her way. This then transformed into the figure of a man doing the same with scythes erupting from his forearms.
The second path displayed the spider firing its webs coated with acid that melted everything it touched while also restraining the target. As for the figure of the man, he would weave webs between his palms before doing the same.
The third and final path was the most confusing as the spider was not doing anything. It merely showed the spider standing still with a wound on its body and the sight of people stumbling over their own feet. It was the same vision for the man, he simply stood still with a wound on his body.
'Are these… abilities that I can choose? Is this the final thing needed to achieve my first Sigil?' Alice wondered to herself as she theorized on what she was supposed to do.
Analyzing the different paths, she came to a conclusion on what kind of power she was getting.
'The first path allows me to grow weapons from my arms. Useful if I was strong physically. The second path seems to be similar to the first except this was more controlling a target rather than damaging it. The acid is nice but the main benefits seem to be restriction. It'll require strong physical powers if I want to restrain a target. As for the third… Seems like it's poison blood. The spider was able to affect both me and the Assassin with just fumes from its blood. I assume taking this path means I get the same ability.'
Furrowing her brows, Alice started to scratch her neck while thinking of what she should do.
She wasn't a physical fighter at all so the first one was completely off the table. She preferred the restraint option if she could but she lacked the powers to do so at this moment. Thus she only really had one choice with this matter.
Poisoned Blood!
With poison blood, even if she takes damage during a fight, the scent of her blood would affect her target, letting her have an easier time as the fight continues. Plus, this will also help her outside of fighting if she was to extract her own blood.
With her mind made up, she stepped towards the third path as the other two paths extinguished themselves.
A wall of flames coiled around her body yet strangely, they did not hurt at all. It converged towards the ink on her forearm as a sudden burst of pain filled Alice's body. Her heart felt as though it had been set ablaze while her blood began to boil.
Little by little, the outline of the Sigil revealed itself on her left forearm starting from the tip of her ring finger. A streak of darkness that slithered up her arm as curled hooks branched out from the main body. From afar, the Sigil looked similar to a weave of thorns, a beast's claw or to some, even a heart at certain parts.
Etching itself permanently on Alice's skin, it slowly faded away as there was now a foreign power that flowed through her body.
She instinctively understood that her body had been changed and if she was to reach out for this power, the Sigil would manifest itself and activate the powers along with it.
With the branding of the Sigil complete, Alice felt a wave of lethargy hit her mind as she was forced out of this realm.
Feeling control being returned to her body, Alice sat up in a panic and saw what she was now back at the cage where she first arrived at this place.
Furrowing her brows, she felt the collar on her neck once more. But unlike before, she didn't feel as weak as she did back then. She felt… energetic.
Looking down at her left arm, she reached within for the foreign power and felt a surge of heat on her forearm. Little by little, the Sigil manifested itself.
'So it seems like I can get Sigils through killing beasts. But it doesn't seem to be just any beast… Something to do with a bounty. I also need to know more about the abilities of my current Sigil. I need to know the potency and effectiveness against beasts and people.' Alice thought to herself.
But despite all of this, there was a sense of excitement fluttering in her heart.
Letting go of the power within, her Sigil faded away and her arm returned to its previous state.
Looking to her side, she saw that Lilia was in deep slumber and seemed to be on the verge of waking up from the noise.
With a Sigil at her disposal and the two of them safe after the last fight, Alice sighed in relief and laid down in her cage. She'll ask Lilia later about what will happen to them now that they've passed the second round, on what their VIP sponsor would do.
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