“Wait there!” He yelled back as he ran, trying to keep anyone from following him as they were all still busy with taking in the empty space around them before reading the sign.

It gave him a few seconds at least, all he needed to put himself at the edge of a small boundary before spinning around, just in time for it to begin to click with the others just what they were being instructed to do.

“Ben!” Thera yelled at him, being cut off before she could say more.

“We’re on a time limit and I’m the only one without life magic. There’s no point in wasting time arguing so just make sure you save me, okay?”

With that he gave a confident smile and took a few steps back, crossing the boundary as just what the sign said clicked with the rest of them.

SELECT A SACRIFICE TO HEAL.

TIME LIMIT: 3 HOURS

He’d already told himself he wasn’t going to let anyone else put themselves in danger when he was the one who’d convinced each to come and he’d meant it, which was why he’d thrown himself into things so forcefully. The outcome was obvious anyway, all that was left was seeing just what he was about to go through.

After all, how bad can being a sacrifice be?

The answer was horrifically so as he at first collapsed to the ground when things truly began and he did all he could to keep from screaming. It felt like his entire body was being stabbed at once, far worse than what he’d done to himself in the last section, but what made it worse was the feeling of movement that came with it. His skin was opening up and peeling away of its own accord as each piece of himself was disconnected from everything else, slithering out of his clothing while his minds were lighting up in the agony that came with being disassembled.

It was a pain that made it impossible to think, but the shape his mind had taken had deprived him of the mercy of whiting out that any normal person could expect from such a thing. All he could do was suffer through it as an indeterminate amount of time passed for him, trapped within a dissected body.

It never eased, but as each second passed he felt his reason slowly coming back to him, even through his suffering as he tried to keep his focus from his body to instead make out the noises around him, with it eventually becoming clear it was his companions.

“Yeah, I get he’s a guy and his organs have been altered, but you’re the only other human here Steph so we have to assume your body plans are going to be similar,” Thera said, her voice betraying the panic she was feeling. “I think I have a pretty good idea how he’s put together, but I need to do some comparisons or else we're never going to get all of this.”

“I get that, just breathe Thera, we’ll never help him if we panic.”

Jesus, when did I start using my thought speed skills? He moaned. Even if they were panicked, they were talking too fast, with only one obvious explanation. Is that some sort of survival mechanism? I feel like I’m going to die so time slows down? ‘Cause I really don’t like it!

Even if it was just prolonging his pain though, he didn’t stop despite what he’d just thought. Agony meant he was alive, which meant he had room to work.

And if I’m going to work, that means I need to see what I’m doing. Oh man oh man, I’m really not going to like this.

Despite knowing he was about to give himself another mental scar with the act he pushed the feeling away as he reached out, connecting to the women around him to see the world through all of their eyes and hating what he found as much as he was expecting.

His body was stripped down and laid out the way a museum piece would be, or perhaps how a medical hall might be set up to teach students about a body's structure. More accurately, after the exhibit had been dropped. His bones were all laid out, but there was no organization to it, same with his muscles and organs, all cleanly separated from each other and left on the ground to be reconstructed into a proper person.

He could also see someone had vomited earlier, he couldn’t tell who, but the puddle of it was thankfully clear of him. He could only imagine what it had looked like as he was taken apart like that, it would have been all the more traumatic if he’d had to see it too so he didn’t touch their memories, instead going straight to speaking in their minds.

So it’s a good thing I was the sacrifice from the looks of it, huh? He tried to joke, doing his best to hide the immense pain he was in but still seeing some of them flinch as a bit made it through.

“Wait, Ben? How are you talking to us right now?” Steph asked, jerking at the sound of his thoughts. “How are you even conscious?”

Connect is excellent and my mind skills are less so. My god told me he doubted I’d be able to pass out anymore and it looks like he was right. Really wouldn’t recommend thinking with your soul if you can help it.

He felt Thera’s relief hearing his voice despite the situation and tried to put on a confident front as he looked through her eyes specifically, seeing her use her mana examination on Steph and feeling how her body structure compared to the body plans of humans on Earth.

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While the chemistry and biology behind it were completely different, the physiology was the same as his mind made connections, his knowledge skill helping with that as he compared what he was seeing to what was before him.

Alright, so in the interest of me living, I’ll give orders to Sonya and Sachel if you and Steph are able to act on your own?

“Absolutely,” Thera told him, not questioning where the confidence he knew how to put himself back together came from. If he thought he could then that was good enough.

Excellent, in that case, I need you two to get moving and quick. Sachel, that should be a muscle from my lower back so place it where I tell you to on my skin, Sonya, you're standing by the shoulders there. Also, could someone tell me how much time we have left?

“Two hours, forty-five minutes,” Sonya spoke as she rushed to do what he said.

So it took me fifteen minutes to get myself together after huh? I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

“That absolutely doesn’t matter right now Ben, you can ask your god after.”

Are you kidding me? After having to deal with this sort of bullshit I’m done with gods. Can I interest any of you in the wonders of atheism?

“I don’t think you can have atheism on a planet where gods definitely exist,” Steph chimed in, happy to have the conversation to distract her from how overwhelmingly horrific what she was seeing was. “You kind of need either uncertainty, or else proof there isn’t something.”

Ah, but I’m not talking about a ‘there is no god’ sort of atheism, I’m talking about a ‘gods aren’t worthy of worship’ sort of atheism. Which most of them aren’t. I guess Myriad can have a pass, but I’m definitely holding the fact that he didn’t warn me about this against him.

“Ben,” Thera began, her voice loaded with stress. “I know you have a thousand minds in your head and I’m trying to be calm here, but if you don’t focus on keeping yourself alive for just the few hours we need to I’m going to have a panic attack.”

I’m serious, I’m serious. Though I guess I can get a little more serious in ensuring my survival. This won’t be comfortable for any of you, but I guarantee for me it's worse so I’m just going to build up your minds a bit. One second.

He began to disassemble some of the spare ones he didn’t need, wrapping the strands around each of them as he forced the effects of his thought speed skills on their minds, doing his best to keep all of the pain away as he did. Speeding up their thoughts would be meaningless if they couldn’t do the work from the pain, but he seemed to have most of it under control, keeping that dreadful aspect for himself alone as he felt their thoughts become more powerful as they each did what they had to, Sonya and Sachel moving his pieces back in place as Thera and Steph used their life magic to put them back together while also finding and placing parts themselves, all of them moving at a breakneck pace as each of their minds flew.

I can’t believe I’ve just become the worst puzzle in history. So very very not a fan of this. I think if this world wins then as a little treat to myself I’m going to force this tower into another level or reality too. Who knows, since this one is being looked after by living gods, maybe I’ll finally get my third tier of sacrilege for it. That would almost begin to come close to making up for what I’m going through here because a blessing and a couple levels sure as hell isn’t going to.

He kept those grumblings to himself, not wanting the others to be distracted from what he considered their exceptionally important work of making sure he left the tower in one piece, with the progress going as well as he could hope.

Thera’s mana examination and his own scattered knowledge on the topic of human bodies was having him reassembled at a fast past, but there were some distinctly non-human aspects of himself that required a deeper look.

He’d known that when partial demonic body had changed to integrated demonic body, the result had been equal parts of his demon organs contaminating the rest of him while his human cells did the same to them, but it had resulted in changes beyond his eyes that weren’t so easily seen if not for times when his innards were exposed.

It was nothing drastic, but it still left him needing to double-check some of the instructions he passed along, as well as giving him the first look at what had been put inside of him so long ago now, all the while he counted the time down, feeling each second drag on.

He knew it was going to be tight, that much was obvious. A body was no simple thing, breaking it down to its more basic parts and trying to put them back together in such a timeframe was stressing each of them out, with the lack of knowledge about what would happen if they didn’t finish hanging firmly in their thoughts.

Will we fail, or will however all of my bits are being kept from bleeding out all of their fluids just stop? Just to be safe, I think I’ll direct them to get my head and major organs done first and we can worry about finishing the limbs after.

He could feel panic building in them all by the time his head was reconstructed, letting him properly see through his own eyes again, and when enough of his organs were in place to speak he was devoting himself to keeping any reflexive scream from leaking out now that he had the lungs to do it, instead keeping his mouth firmly shut to avoid being a distraction.

Each of them was feeling the crunch while making the conscious choice not to check the time. None of them wanted to see what they were working with, instead devoting themselves to pushing as hard as they could in the emergency situation, feeling their bodies and mana strain as each one gave all they had.

Arms next. He spoke to all of them the moment his organs were properly in place. He knew what none of them did. They weren’t going to make it as things went, but given that, assuming he would live even if they failed, then he wanted the tools that let him do his work as a craftsman.

After all, I really hate running anyway.

It might have been from how he spoke up, but they picked up on the fact that they didn’t have long as muscle and bone were placed down, being connected before his skin was sealed up as those bits were finally complete, his hands clenching as he enjoyed the feeling of mobility for only a second until he forced himself to sit up, much to the chagrin of the others.

“Ben-”

“I’m officially an extra set of hands and we don’t have time to argue,” He told them, already reaching at the piles beside him to put things in place as he kept instructions going in both Sachel and Sonya’s minds for where they should be doing the same. “I’d rather not find out that I needed to be completed and can’t just walk away without feet.”

Even as he said it he was pushing himself, reconstructing his body and feeling his own, still warm flesh in his hands as he put each bit down, feeling the things he was doing now engraving into his mind as memories that he was sure would hit the moment that things became less urgent.

Bones were all but flying through the air as he counted down the last few minutes, watching as skin stitched itself back together to seal everything in the time they had left, working their way down from his knees, reconstructing his ankles and finally finishing the absolute mess that was his toes as his companions around him collapsed to the ground in the last few seconds they had, feeling the relief that came with only barely finishing as the adrenaline that was keeping them going finally cut off as they let themselves breathe, the last section of the trial finally done.