No. This was all wrong. What the hell was wrong with him?
He truly was a coward, wasn’t he? Giving up in the end just because death was truly in his face here and now? This wasn’t the decision his brother in arms did back when they were facing the Persians. They didn’t throw down their arms and beg for mercy. They didn’t give up fighting even though they understood they were going to die.
No, they were so filled with pride and spite that they struck down as many Persians as they could before going down. They fought to the last breath even when things were going to end horribly for them.
Those were the kinds of warriors he should strive to be. Even when he was going to die, he should make a huge show of it, show that monster what a true Spartan was.
So, he stopped thinking about what to do and began to follow his purest instincts. No longer did he care about consequences, he had to focus on how to survive here and now.
The lance came forward for his head. With a battle cry that came from deep within his soul, he lifted his left arm in hopes of blocking the incoming strike. It pierced deep into his flesh and slammed right into his bone where it stayed stuck, the skeletal structure keeping the weapon stuck in place.
He screamed in pain before he slammed into the monster. The two of them went rolling back from the impact before all of them came to a stop. In this position, he had his right arm available for usage while he had the monster’s arms occupied in his body. In this current state, he finally had the chance to fight back.
His mind was burning from the pain. He should have no chance of surviving any of this. He was beaten, damaged, and far beyond recovery. But that changed nothing. He was going to kill this monster no matter what happened here and now, consequences be damned.
Thus, he activated his divinity. He scanned the enemy in front of him and realized ultimately what had happened.
He had miscalculated his path in the end. There were still two of those flesh protrusions still intact in the leg. The rest had been destroyed by his spear strikes but they were slowly regenerating and welding themselves back together.
That was something he could not stand for. At this current state, it seemed like there was no other method to move forward. He couldn’t attack them without a weapon and he couldn’t use his divinity as a means of attack. No, he should be in a stalemate and he had to simply wait for the Crusader to come.
But that would take too long. That’d be something he would have to gamble on. And he wasn’t going to rely on the Crusader now. No, he had something else he could hedge his bets on, something that should ultimately work.
He closed his eyes and focused on those fleshy protrusions. Then, he opened his right hand wide, before slamming it against the floor as hard as he could.
He didn’t hit the ground. Rather, his palm struck the leg of the monster right on top of those fleshy protrusions. The sensation was horrible as he felt itches running down inside his right arm, as well as feeling tingles and pain going down his limb.
But that didn’t matter. He had a hand on these protrusions. He had to act here and now and move to do something that had the iota of a chance of succeeding.
He dug with his fingers into the flesh. Thankfully, he had enough strength to puncture the flesh and slowly but surely, he was going to get a grip on those two protrusions to crush between his fingers.
Unfortunately, the monster had other ideas. With a combined screech of rage and pain, it started to pull on its lance arm, intending to rip it free to stab him once more.
The bone lance began to yank at his left arm itself, tugging at the bone and all the sinews within. Waves of pain burst out continuously and made his eyes water. His mind burned at all the stimuli going through his body and he felt regret.
The pain was far too much. He should give up right here and now and allow the monster to win. Why go through all this when the Crusader would probably get through this monster with ease? What was the point?
But he didn’t listen. He grit his teeth and kept pushing until finally, his fingers came together and touched. With that, he pushed himself to the limits and pulled.
Crack. Squish. Crack.
The flesh protrusions were all ripped out of the monster’s body with each of the veins still attached. He had to keep on pulling to get each of those little fibers separate, to ensure that no blood was able to push into these protrusions anymore.
The monster shrieked and shoved its lance back within. However, the Spartan felt none of the pain anymore. His mind was no longer focused on the regret, the pain, anything. No, it was focused on killing this damn thing once and for all and making it regret ever coming up against a Spartan warrior.
The veins started to rip and tear. The monster screamed even louder. Then, the veins snapped and spewed blood everywhere. However, just to be sure, the Spartan then slammed these protrusions against the stone-hard floor and turned them into nothing more than mushed-up muscle and meat.
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Then and only then did they begin to dissolve into dust. The monster in front of him began to disappear and leave behind its skeleton. Unfortunately, that meant the lance and the spike were still deep within him and this was truly the end.
His vision had gotten blurry now. His breathing was getting haggard. He knew his time now was coming to an end.
Then he saw it. The glimmer of hope he had been waiting for all this time. The moment he had a chance of salvation.
The black shard had formed in front of him. That single piece of the monster’s soul would be more than enough to heal him and give him an additional power boost. All he had to do was reach forward and touch it.
He tried to lift his right arm, but he was far too exhausted to do such a thing. He tried everything to lift a single finger, but his body wasn’t listening to him anymore. He was too tired.
He didn’t want to go on anymore. He wanted to go to sleep. That wouldn’t be so bad, right? He’d take a small little nap and get his bearings all up before reaching out to get the shard. Yeah, that’d be fine, he could wait a little bit longer.
His eyelids were beginning to close. His head began to dip and sink onto the ground. He could feel himself getting colder and–
He was shoved forward. His face collided face-first into the shard.
Then he allowed himself to go into the deep embrace of Hypnos’ embrace.
----------------------------------------
“So that is the plan.” The voice of the second man from the previous time spoke once more, “This is the goal that we seek to achieve. Do you understand?”
The Spartan blinked at those words, before taking the time to analyze the area around him. This time, he was not in the darkness without anything around him. Now, there was something he could make out. While the scene was quite blurry and not clear at all, he had enough of the image to work off of.
A pair of two people stood in front of him in a misty and foggy room, most likely coming from the shaded memory of the soul that witnessed the scene. The poor quality must be coming from the fact that he did not have the whole being in his hold as of yet. This was nothing more than a fragmented memory, which explained why things kept bouncing here and there for perspective and scenery, the other person spoke up at that moment and snapped the Spartan out of his musings.
“That’s the brilliant plan?” The other voice, this one belonging to a woman; one with a meek and worried tone, “Make our leader a hero? Really? You don’t have anything else to give me besides that?”
“No.” The second man shook his head, “That’s all we have. I had hoped you would have a better insight into this case and have something for us to work with.”
“You can’t be serious.” Despite the woman’s posture portraying that of fear and concern, her voice had steel and anger within, “You had me come here from another town, go up all these stairs to this tower, and now you’re telling me to make our leader a hero. I’m sorry, were there no couriers available to send a message?”
“We need to be secretive about this plan. If this were to be leaked–”
“Oh yes, the great and viable plan of making our lord a hero can’t be leaked because anyone could figure out what that would entail.” The woman spat, “Spare me the platitude and get further to the point. What exactly am I going to have to work around? Because unless you made me waste my breath and energy to give me some vague goal, I will be billing you extra for all this.”
The Spartan chuckled as he watched the man struggle to figure out what to say or do for a good while. Eventually, he resigned himself to sigh and look away in defeat.
“Our lord is busy with so many other strategies that he hardly has to think about this. Thus, the only goal is to make him a hero by any means necessary. Whether that be by taking down some bandits or doing some good, it matters not. The point is that the public perception of him is favorable in the highest degree, so we can call upon levies to provide manpower for the future.”
“Really? That’s all you have?” The woman looked at the man with pure annoyance, “Even I know he’s a better strategist than this. Our lord is one that, while enigmatic and sometimes out there, still does have the courtesy to deliver a plan if it is meant to further his goals. The only reason why he would decline to do such a thing is if… he wasn’t…”
She froze as the implications of her own words hit her. She turned towards the man and started to take several steps back.
“You–You’re going behind his back on this. What this is could be considered treasonous! Have you gone mad?!”
The man did not respond to her words, before merely walking to the window of the tower and looking out. He took a while to breathe, before looking back at her.
“This is a necessity. Our lord is focused on getting support, yes, but it is far too slow. He is wise, but he is not perfect. What I am doing is for the good of all of us, an absolute. We need to become the loving figure of the public, we need to get this done faster. There is no other path available.”
“Still, to do all this without his approval! You understand that this is akin to betrayal, right?”
“He will understand.”
The woman seemed to look at the man with disgust, before taking a hiss and looking away.
“Right, and I’ll bet that there’ll be some sort of accident if I fail to do anything, huh?”
“Think of this more so as a way for us to get a step ahead rather than any kind of malicious intent.” The man turned back towards the woman, “Him becoming a hero is the best way for us to succeed. Remember this when you formulate your plan, understand?”
“Fine.” The woman turned and stomped away for some time, before turning around and jabbing a finger at him, “But I expect you to pay for everything, got it?”
“Do not worry. I’ll make sure you’ll be fairly compensated for all the trouble.”
With that final remark made, the woman went ahead and stormed out. The man looked back outside the window and gave a heavy sigh, before shaking his head.
“Ah… The things I have to do to ensure my lord’s success…”
The Spartan scoffed at that, before his vision began to turn and twist. The world was getting faint and the world started to get smaller.
Then he was jolted awake.