Whether Soren and Chronovore were on good terms or not, it did not remove the fact that they were connected.
As such, Soren could easily recognise the faint calm of the Shade’s hunger.
Still, it surprised him.
Chronovore was feeding... How?
Soren traced the fine dust particles being absorbed by the cocoon, and then he looked in a certain direction.
A silt was opened on the sky, and through it, he could see.
And what he saw shocked him.
It was a Glassheart. A very familiar Glassheart.
The old bronze looking Glassheart that belonged to the old Baron of the Los Elegidos Family.
It was true that Chronovore had been interested in the Glassheart for the longest ti.
—but didn’t Soren leave the Los Favorecidos town a long ti ago?
Even if he was to subtract the five years in the nightmare, at least a couple of days had passed.
So how was Chronovore feeding from it?
Unless...
A ssed up realization dawned on him. And as it did, the crack above seed to open up wider, pulling his consciousness in.
Soren gasped as he woke up.
Eyes wide, darting around in a mix of shock, fear, anxiety.
Soren had been through different kinds of death.
But never had he felt this mix of emotions, and definitely not this wild or potent.
His chest tightened, as his lungs threatened to explode from his chest with every air.
Of course it did.
Looking below, his chest cavity had been opened up, like bread slices waiting to be marinated.
His ribs were like jagged bone spikes pointing upwards.
His eyes laid on his red fleshy lungs as they expanded and contracted—expressing his confusion.
For Soren, death had co in different forms.
Painful—most of the ti.
But what they all had in common was that they happened instantaneously.
However... this. This was sothing else entirely.
His eyes looked around. He could not feel his lower body.
No pain.
Just numbness.
Stiffness.
And then he noticed he was dipped in so of liquid.
The air slled rancid—a mix of alcohol and piss, and a faint bile at the end.
It filled his sense of sll so much, that Soren felt like the sll originated from him.
It was only when the lining of the walls lit up did he realise that it did.
And Yes... They never left Los Favorecidos.
But right now...?
I’m I in so kind of stomach?
The words were thought in his head. But were intended for his mouth.
Unfortunately, his throat was mostly gone. lted away by the acidic mucus underneath him.
Ahead, and around him were others. In the sa state or worse.
His friends.
Cynthia.
Sophia.
Vass.
Eyes bulging out of sockets—leaking like dew drops to the side.
Skin like butter under the hot sun—misplaced, and churning together to ugly disfigurent.
So of the people were already digested into the mucus.
Only twitching limbs remained as evidence of their existence.
Others had their eyes wide open, but stares were blank.
Little veiny, mushy pipes—like pulsating spaghetti was embedded in their heads.
Even now, they sent little alternating shots of light into the heads of their victims.
Straining, Soren barely looked up.
Those sa pipes were connected to him.
But they no longer pulsate with light.
This was it. This was what had put him in that state.
The Five years.
The Nightmare creature.
His Friends.
The Winter gas.
A whole reality was not real. Even when he thought it had been.
Even when he was sure I was real.
It wasn’t.
Nothing was real. Even his Blackfield had been scamd.
aning that if not for Chronovore’s feeding, he would have never found out.
Digested slowly and surely... into nothing, whike thinking he was fighting so mysterious Nightmare creature in his head.
Soren struggled. It was hard. He could feel his fingers on one hand.
—the hand still gripping hard on the Old Baron’s Glassheart.
Just then, he shook too much.
The stomach walls suddenly opened a bit, and then hundreds of thin tiny creatures with smooth oval bodies, and thin long fingers for legs—crawled out.
Soren saw this and struggled so more. But it was fruitless.
He was like a nail embedded deep in wood.
They climbed his body, cutting flesh here, tearing there.
It was a live performance—an operation.
All while digesting him.
Soren groaned. It was deep vibrating with the mucus all about him.
The crawlers seed to sense this, and paused.
Then one of them detached from the others, returning to the hole in the stomach lining.
After a few seconds, a much bigger hole tore open like a pocket.
And then he proceeded from it.
—not a walk out, but as an extension of the very flesh.
The old Baron.
The one that owned the Brinze glass heart.
The one before Don Alejandro.
Green as the walls that surrounded them.
His lower half was completely fused.
Soren quickly realized that they had been wrong.
The old Baron and the Eldritch were not just connected.
No.
There were one and the sa thing.
Soren’s shock was apparent on his face. But his eyes still focused.
For one being slowly digested while being operated on, he was strangely calm.
The sheer pain he was going through was on on scales the human mind should not perceive without attempting to go mad, and yet he remained calm.
A normal man should have passed out from the hurt, or at least from the shock of what was before him.
But Soren had beheld more evil in the world than most had.
"No! No!! No!!!" The old Baron lanted, grabbing tight at the few strands of hair left on his head.
"Its all wrong. Its all wrong... why are you awake?
They took it... and now its all wrong. They took all my tears of work.
My sacrifice.
AHHHH!!!!"
His scream was high pitched, making the crawls screech and a few explode.
Soren frowned hard. His ears bled, but his eyes remained on the man.
He groaned a word through his nearly fleshless throat.
"Whyyyyy!?"
The old Baron paused. Then he turned to Soren.
"The Void Of Souls..." The old Baron replied. "Paradise... Freeeeedommm." He smiled, teeth naturally sharp—just as it was his new nature.
He chomped down for Soren’s head.
[You died]
.....
Soren opened his eyes.
"Soren let’s go..." polystar scread.
Run..." Sophia wheezed, her voice a chorus of multiple distorted tones. "Please... run!"
"The guards! They’re coming!" Vass’s voice cracked through the shock. He grabbed Soren’s arm, dragging him back. "Turdface, move! Now!"
Soren stared at Sophia rolling on the ground, as she experienced the pain of those she had saved during the day.
Vass had to pull harder to snap him out of his head.
He turned and ran into the dark with them.
The group conversed within the shed Tia Maria took them to.
However, Soren paid no attention. His mind was on sothing else.
How could it not?
Even now, he had to pinch himself several tis to be aure this was real.
Because to him, those five long years... they had been real.
And rembered them.
He rembered every single day his mind allowed him to.
He rembered his loneliness. The battles.
The dread.
And yet, it was all a lie.
Even a person with strong ntal resistance as him could not help but shake at the thought of it.
And to think that right now, they were all standing on such evil.
Just the thought of it.
It sent a shiver down his spine.
Soren had known death. Embraced it. Accepted it.
But this. It was different. It was the gift of a false world in exchange for one’s life.
Soren hated it.
True.
But in all honesty, he feared it more. In fact, he feared it far more than he did death.
He really did not want to repeat it again.
And his friends...
He looked at their faces. They were all going to die in the sa manner, and in no doubt also gifted dreams.
—nightmares.
"SOOO-REEEN!" Cynthia called, snapping him out of his head.
"Hmm... yeah. I’m here. I’m here." He replied swallowing hard, trying his physical best to keep calm.
"Are you sure? Cause you kinda froze. TURDFACE."
"Its nothing... erm. I was just shocked about," Soren’s eyes fell on the old woman.
"...about Sophia."
"Yeah. Aren’t we all." Polystar nodded.
Bloodshine looked down, shoulder’s slumped.
Cynthia was no different.
Soren swallowed.
"But we are going to get her back." He stepped forward.
—secretly begging his knees not to cave in to the fear still running its course in his veins.
"Polystar and Vass... you two go for the Anchor. Bloodshine and I will head for the tunnels.
And Cynthia will help create a distraction."
Vass frowned, wanting to say sothing.
But Soren already knew.
"Shut up Vass. Its my party mber, so I give the orders."
Vass’s words seized in his throat.
"And polystar... check the huge portrait in the foyer."
"Huh... okay."
Unknown to everyone here, soren had changed the teams intentionally.
This ti around, he was going down there himself.
[Author’s note: See... two arcs in one. But don’t worry. It gets deeper. So... dont get lost. Please send gifts. It helps.]
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