The purple light pierced even the fog surrounding Red, and for a second it was all he could see. He closed his eyes to avoid being blinded.

The boy half-expected the creature to be roaring in pain, or to charge at him through the light. Nothing of the sort happened, though, and instead there was complete and eerie silence. When Red felt like he could open his eyes again, the scene ahead of him left him shocked.

The fog had retreated under the purple light, leaving behind a pocket of clear air in a ten-meter radius around the boy. The demon was standing frozen in place, and its body seemed to be undergoing a transformation.

A festering purple substance was spreading around its body. Scales and flesh rotted wherever this effect passed through, and soon enough, most of the demon’s chest surface had festered away into a putrid pile of dark fluid.

The creature stumbled. It let out a low roar of pain.

‘It’s poison?’

Red wasn’t sure. He noticed, however, that despite the demon’s wounded state, it didn’t seem as if it was about to die as it remained standing, its hateful, rage-filled gaze turning back to the boy.

Red didn’t hesitate. He nocked another purple arrow into his bow and pulled back, his movements aided by the wind energy surrounding his body. The demon had wisened up to the danger of his arrows, though, and it dashed ahead at the boy before he could shoot.

The distance of ten meters was covered in the blink of an eye. Even with the help of his talisman, Red didn’t have time to move out of the way.

The demon’s claw slashed through his bow and arrow, cutting them in half. Red tried to pull his bow-holding hand out of the way, to no avail. The creature sliced his left hand in half, taking three of his fingers clean off with it.

Red didn’t even register the pain. He pulled back, trying to distance himself from the monster, but he was too close. The demon stabbed him on the side with his other claw, grabbing onto the boy’s flesh and bones to hold him still.

Red tried to pull back, but it was no contest. His opponent was far too strong for him, and the boy’s strength was quickly leaving his body as he felt the beat’s claws dig into his insides.

He wasn’t resigned to his fate, though. As the demon lifted its free claw to finish him off, Red’s right hand grabbed onto the remaining purple arrow on his quiver.

Just as the demon slashed down, the boy stabbed at its neck with the arrow. Another blinding flash of purple light blasted forth as the head of the arrow exploded against the beast’s body.

Then everything went dark.

…

‘Huh?’

Red suddenly opened his eyes again. The pain in his body had disappeared, and the boy could feel his own left hand again. He examined his limb, noticing that all his fingers were back in place.

‘I survived.’

The boy felt dizzy and confused. He couldn’t remember what had happened moments ago. He just recalled fighting against that lizard demon and being on the verge of death.

As his senses recovered, Red felt he was lying on his back on the ground, staring at the sky above. However, he quickly noticed something was wrong.

There were no stormy clouds and lightning in the sky anymore. There was only the crimson-colored firmament and a dark star that seemed to bear down upon the boy’s very psyche, threatening to devour him if he stared at it for too long.

Recognition crossed his mind. He was back in the world of the crimson mist - the first time in a long time.

‘Did I die? Or am I just dreaming again?’

Just as Red was contemplating what was happening, he heard the shuffling of feet behind him. He sat up and his head swiveled around, looking for the source of the sound. Then his eyes widened in shock.

“W-Where am I?”

There was a person standing right there.

It was a frail man. He was almost skeletal in appearance, his skin pulled taut against his bones as whatever patches of white hair remained on his head seemed on the verge of falling out with a slight pull. What surprised the boy, though, was the fact the man was sporting a heavy plate armor, with symbols and decoration that Red didn’t recognize, and yet that seemed to belong to someone of very high standing.

At the same time that Red spotted this man, the man also seemed to notice him.

“Y-You!” the knight pointed at him with a trembling finger. “Tell me! Where are we?! Where did you bring me?!”

The man spoke with a commanding voice, and yet Red could see it was all a facade. His eyes betrayed the pure terror he felt.

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The boy felt at a loss for words.

“You, I told you to…” the man trailed off, his gaze wandering to the sky above.

As he spotted the crimson sky and dark sun up above, the knight froze. His pupils dilated, and the fear he had been trying to hold back seemed to pour forth all at once.

The man fell to his knees, his gaze locked onto the firmament.

“N-No, no… This can’t be.”

He grabbed onto his head in despair as terror seemed to consume his being.

“T-This wasn’t supposed to happen!” the man shook his head in denial. “Y-You promised me! I-I… Oh gods, my Mikaila!”

Tears streamed down his face as the knight seemed to remember something.

“I didn’t mean to! Please, please, forgive me…” the man wept, slamming his fist onto the ground. “I must… I have to…”

His gaze wandered back to Red, and a glimmer of hope seemed to return to his face.

The deranged man smiled at the boy. “You! You have to help me!”

The knight crawled up to the boy and held onto his hand while on his knees. Red was too taken aback to even react in this situation.

“Who are you?” the boy asked.

“You have to help me!” the knight didn’t seem to hear his words. “I saw you! It was just a glimpse, but I saw you!”

“What do you-”

The man continued to beg. “You need to take me back! I have to warn my lord! I can’t let them…”

Before the knight could finish speaking, his tongue fell out of his mouth. He didn’t even seem to notice this, though, as he kept babbling incoherently and looking at Red with pleading eyes.

The boy, however, could only stare in horror as even more of the man’s already decrepit flesh started to fall out of his body. His skin melted against his bones and evaporated into nothingness, while the knight seemed completely oblivious to what was happening, and tried to communicate with Red.

Eventually, however, he slowed down as his body melted even the muscles that supported his movements. A few seconds later, there was nothing left of the knight but his skeleton and his shining armor.

Red looked down, noticing the man’s now skeletal hand was still grabbing onto him.

The boy didn’t even have time to process what had just happened before a wave of pain started to spread through his body. Red fell to the ground as his skin began to burn.

Then everything went dark again.

…

This time, Red’s senses didn’t take long to return to him, and the first thing he felt was pain.

Unbearable pain.

The boy felt as if he was being boiled alive. Every centimeter of his body, every pore in his skin, was screaming in pain. And Red felt everything with an acute awareness he had had never thought possible before.

A croak of agony came from his mouth as the boy contorted his whole body. He tried to escape from this torture. Yet, there was no escape.

It enveloped his being, leaving nothing untouched. There was only pain and agony, and Red’s expanded awareness to experience it all with excruciating detail.

After he recognized there was no stopping this sensation, the boy tried to use what little he could of his working mind to identify what was happening to him.

It didn’t work.

All Red could recognize was that there was something making its way inside of his body, and even that took what felt like an eternity to discern. The pain wasn’t getting any better, either. In fact, every second it felt like the agony was getting worse.

Red knew he had to do something, but his mind seemed incapable of acting or thinking of anything under the torture. He kept doing his utmost, though, and almost subconsciously, he found something to grasp on to.

‘Radiant Current.’

The meditation technique.

His mind repeated the words he had been taught not too long ago. He tried to speak them out loud, but only an incomprehensible croak came out of his mouth.

He continued to force what little control he kept over his body to repeat the movements Eiwin had taught him. It was a task in futility, as the boy couldn’t form words, much less repeat the mudras of the technique.

Still, his mind was set on the task at hand, and Red didn’t give up.

He focused his entire being on the mudras and mantras, ordering his body to repeat them even if all that came out was a scream of pain or a twitch of his fingers. His single-minded devotion to the task eventually paid off, as Red felt himself being able to concentrate and focus his mind.

His awareness expanded to the edges of his body, still experiencing the excruciating pain, but this time being able to bear it and act despite that. What he felt inside his body, though, left him scared.

Red felt the crimson tendrils had expanded, reaching into nearly every corner of his frame. They seemed to be siphoning something into the boy’s veins from all directions, pumping into the rest of his body and growing in size all the while.

The boy immediately recognized this as the source of his torture.

His expanded awareness reached for the crimson mist as he had done before, trying to make it stop. The entity didn’t seem to listen to Red, though, as it continued to absorb more of this energy and spread it into his body.

The boy felt an inexplicable anger rise from within him, and he once more reached for the mist, commanding it to stop. This time, the entity reacted. However, instead of obeying him, it seemed to protest, continuing to absorb the energy.

Red was on the verge of losing his mind. The rage continued to rise inside of him, as the boy felt indignation at being challenged by this being that invaded his body and did with it as he pleased.

Almost out of instinct, Red tried something. Instead of commanding the mist with his expanded awareness, he tried to attack it.

The crimson tendrils recoiled, wounded by the boy’s blow.

Red didn’t know how, but whatever he had done was working. It was almost as if his expanded awareness of the meditation technique had taken physical form and lashed out at the entity. The boy wasn’t sure how he was doing this, but it seemed to come naturally to him, as if this was something he had known how to do his entire life.

The siphoning stopped momentarily, but the mist didn’t retreat. It tried to reach out again, hoping to absorb more of the energy.

Red, however, now armed by this new weapon, struck out again. The mist tried to fight back, but against the boy’s blows, it could only fall back.

Eventually, the mist gave up and retracted to its original state inside of his body.

Red felt some semblance of control return to him as the pain faded away. However, the consequences of what had happened still lingered in his body.

The boy could still feel this strange energy travelling through his blood vessels, and it was as if his body was on the verge of exploding from the saturation of energy. Red had to get this out of him somehow.

He tried to move, but something was lying on top of him, weighing him down and blocking his vision. The boy pushed against it, but it was too heavy to move.

Red then tried to slip away, and after some effort, he got his upper body free.

Finally able to look around, the boy found himself back in the trial, with fog surrounding him. When he looked down at what was lying on top of him, though, he froze.

It was the corpse of the lizard demon, and Red was resting right on top of a large pool of its blood.