“Huh? What…where am I?” I spoke, finding myself awoken in a space of nothing. A vacuum. My body floated around in the purple, dashed with sprinkles of black and red, enclosure. Nothing but these colours stemmed in my vision until the world in front of me began shattering like a glass window. Out of the shatter, slowly did a figure emerge. No visible features, just an outline of a person filled in black with strange amethyst patterns circling around him like a ring on a planet.

The figure tilted its head, but I was unsure if it was looking at me or if it could even see anything for a matter of fact. Then its hovering silhouette dashed into motion whilst its body remained fixed. Almost as if it was entirely eroding the space between us.

A vehement trance sucked the two of us in as our presences acknowledged each over. His face was mere millimetres away from mine. His breath struck out cold, in a smoke of obsidian pigment radiating its chilling temperature that slowly clambered up my body in a dark ice.

Throughout the course of my now combined thirty eight years alive, through the gory battlefields and the blood baths that I swam in and ventured across, through the course of torturing countless opponents, ripping out their guts, killing their loved ones in front of them, and eventually even dying. Throughout all that, did I not once come across anything as bone-chilling as the creeping and leering smile protruding and twisting onto the figure's face. Its scene alone filled me with absolute dread and the presence emanating from it, thrusted its multiple blunt blades directly into my body like a pincushion an infinite number of times.

My breath reversed and then fell into panicked gasps until I could no longer breath. The figure only smiled at me and then raised its prolonged, slender, cadaverous and deathlike finger, progressively dragging its crooked long nail along my face and down to my chest where it stopped.

Sweat beamed down my face, but froze before long. My heart pounded apace trying to rip away from my body. But then, its finger dug into my chest ripping through my flesh and the ribcage behind it, pumping some vile black liquid and snapping its finger away.

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It slowly drifted away, with its hair-raising smile that would replay in my nightmares and crawled back into the crack, dragging its hand across the shattered space like it was being dragged and vanished. The shattered sky collapsing on itself and repairing nigh instantly.

Before my calmness of mind returned, the space washed over me in its colours, and returned me to the living.

Gasp!

I sprang up from the ground, sitting on my bum and supporting myself up with my arms. I wiped my face to check if my sweat actually trickled or if it froze. My eyes trembled heavily and their usually unshaken scarlet prestige vanished. There was not one person I have ever met with such an overwhelming gap in presence. Yet that thing, it terrorised me. It’s nightmarish appearance had me checking my back the whole time and reacting sharply to any slight movement.

I Then sensed a stabbing itch in my chest and I quickly took off my coat and took off my top. “W-w-what the?”

On my chest, an inked black tattoo. Not one that decorated my skin, but rather showed from the inside. A distorted clock. Its sense gave off no mana and only presented a disturbing feeling that oozed of the previous creature's death.

I dressed myself quickly, disinterested in the contents of my tattoo and the meaning and instead more interested in getting out of there. I still had something to do. I will deal with that at a later time.

I was most likely scared. It was the first time I felt such an emotion. I panicked and was unable to respond. So in turn, I dismissed it and ventured forward to the only place I could.

The snow began piling up again as soon as I reached the heavily affected areas. The Challenger Cavern’s, North East, entrance stood right before me. The opening partly submerged, diving into the depths of the mountain it was submerged under.

My steps steadied to a slow walk as I trampled through the pestering snow that wedged to my feet and soaked through my clothes that weren’t safeguarded by armour. My scarlet eyes traced the entrance like two metallic balls cradling and hitting each over, traversing from one side to another.

Multiple people gearing up to go inside. Some stood tall whilst others knelt in fear. Personnel varied in looking like heinous criminals ready to rob you and others naive and irreproachable fearing for their lives. However, no matter what you looked like or what your intentions were, we were all here for one thing. Money.

People's gaze naturally stirred in my direction, as the little boy ventured ahead of everyone else, powering through the wind with his fur coat dragging through the snow. His eyes set ablaze in fire that only began grooming itself, posing for unimaginable battles and struggles to come.

“Happy seventh birthday, Elias Ashburn.” I congratulated myself.