Before Red could process what had happened, another pang of pain came from his body. He gritted his teeth and looked down at his arms.
The first thing he noticed was that his missing fingers had regenerated. He had no time to be happy about it, though. His veins were bulging as whatever energy he had absorbed into his body while he was unconscious started to look for some outlet. It wasn’t just his arms, either. The boy felt the energy travel all over his body, pumped by his heart that seemed on the verge of collapsing under this effort.
‘From one hell to another.’
Red gritted his teeth. Before he could do anything, he had to move this giant corpse laying on top of him.
Eventually, he managed to do just that, but his situation continued to worsen. The sensation of bloating became almost unbearable, and Red couldn’t even see properly as blood blocked his vision.
The boy knew what he had to do. He had to get this energy out of him, and for that, he needed to provide an outlet.
His hand reached for the knife in his waist. Red blindly grabbed for it, before feeling the cold handle of the blade. Then, without hesitation, he slashed at his wrists with the knife.
As soon as the cut was made, Red felt a jet of blood leave his body, accompanied by a sizzling noise as the crimson fluid evaporated, but a moment later. The boy felt some relief, but the wound he had created closed in the blink of an eye, and pressure resumed to build inside of his body.
Red frowned. He had never expected his own regeneration to work against him at such a vital moment.
He made another cut, but it closed in an instant again as another jet of blood spewed out, transforming into a mist midair before dissipating into the fog. This time, the boy didn’t relent, though, and continued to cut at it.
Any attempts at keeping the wound open didn’t seem to work, as if his body did its utmost to maintain him healed even from the inside, and Red could only repeat the same slashing movement over and over to accomplish something.
The boy didn’t even register the pain any longer, and after doing it dozens of times over the course of a few minutes, he felt some of the pressure inside his body diminish. Yet, it was so small that it made no significant difference.
The method worked, but it didn’t make Red happy.
‘This will take too long.’
He hadn’t forgotten where he was. This was monster territory, and above that, the boy was still racing against time to complete this trial before Rickard and the imperials. He couldn’t afford to waste time.
Red got up and collected his things - including the remaining half-broken purple arrow - and looked around. He couldn’t hear nor see any monsters, and his crimson sense wasn’t detecting any fluctuations either.
After falling unconscious, Red had completely lost any sense of direction - for all the good it did him in this fog, anyway. He picked a direction - the one he assumed he had been heading towards earlier - and began running forward in a hurry.
The overflowing energy in his body was overbearing, almost debilitating, but as soon as Red moved, he felt an explosive energy course through his muscle. The wind talisman had long since ran out, but the boy was running as fast as he did before with its help.
He didn’t stop trying to siphon the energy out of his body, though. Red tried different methods along the way, such as trying to open veins in other areas of his body, but they all seemed to heal just as quickly as his wrist. Still, it was having its positive effects, as the pressure in his body diminished ever so slightly.
However, Red had barely run for a few minutes when he felt more monster fluctuations enter his crimson sense. The boy froze in surprise.
The range of his crimson sense seemed to have increased. He wasn’t sure by how much, but he was certain that this ability had improved. The fluctuations of the monsters also felt clearer in his mind somehow, but Red couldn’t pinpoint what that meant, and neither did he have the time to experiment with it right now.
The creatures weren’t moving, but they were still blocking his path like before.
‘What am I supposed to do?’
Red thought that to try to sneak past these monsters while spewing blood mist out of his body wasn’t a good idea, but what choice did he have? Wait until this passes? That wasn’t an option.
He gritted his teeth and made a decision.
‘I have to risk it.’
He crouched and approached the monsters through the heavy fog. As soon as he got within 30 meters of the beasts, though, their fluctuations stirred.
Red froze again, staring forward in disbelief. The monsters closest to him immediately moved, and soon enough, another stampede with dozens of monsters in the Lesser Ring Realm was happening around the boy.
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‘Did they smell my blood?’
The boy didn’t have the time to wonder about that, though. He braced himself, getting ready to dodge past stampeding monsters. He felt a few of their fluctuations charge in his direction, the rumbling ground signaling their approach.
Red prepared to move out of the way, but to his surprise, the monsters suddenly changed directions as soon as they got close to him, stumbling over themselves to avoid his path. The boy immediately felt something was wrong.
A possibility came to his mind.
‘… Could it be?
Red continued to run forward, prepared to dodge the monsters. There was no need, though, as they all continued to avoid him as soon as they got close to the boy, with no need to even lay eyes on the human.
He was able to confirm it. This was the work of the crimson aura.
It had happened with the snake too once enough blood had poured out of his body, so Red imagined the same thing was happening here as he tried to bleed out all the extra energy out of his veins. Except, this time he wasn’t able to see any signs of the crimson aura surrounding him.
‘Can this be something else?’
Red wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. The effects were still very real.
The boy abandoned all guises of sneaking and started to run right into the middle of the rampaging monsters. Each of them could kill him with a simple swipe of their paw, but as soon as Red got close to them, the creatures avoided him in terror, as if a primal fear awakened within them.
He felt more and more fluctuations enter his crimson sense, and without exception, they all avoided him. Soon enough, Red felt as if he had stirred the entire world of the fog into chaos, as all the creatures desperately ran around to evade his presence.
The boy didn’t forget the danger he was still in, though. He cut himself using his knife, as more and more bloody mist spewed out of his body into his surroundings.
…
He didn’t know how long had passed in this state. An hour? Two hours?
The only thing Red focused on was running and easing the pressure inside his body. He felt inexhaustible under this state, and even moving at max speed for hours on end didn’t seem to drain on his stamina.
And yet, the fog seemed endless. Monster continued to pour out and run from him, and Red was quite certain the number of Lesser Ring Realm creatures he came across was in the thousands already.
The pressure at this point had diminished by more than half under Red’s ‘siphoning’ efforts and constant running. He actually became afraid of what would happen if he ran out of the energy, but thankfully something finally seemed to change in his surroundings.
The fog thinned, and Red could now see his surroundings more clearly. The images of giant monsters all running from him became clear, including creatures he had never seen before in his life.
At the same time, he could see them, the beasts could also see him. Their terror was intensified, as they now had a target to steer clear of. The monsters avoided him even before getting within 30 meters of the boy, and a few minutes later Red couldn’t feel even a single soul within crimson sense.
He didn’t slow down, though.
As the fog continued to dissipate, a gigantic shadow appeared before his eyes.
‘The mountain!’
It was there, a few kilometers away from him. When Red laid his eyes on it, he immediately felt something was different about the peak. He felt its weight bearing down on him with an unyielding pressure, threatening to crush down all that approached it.
He became certain that it wasn’t an illusion.
His objective was now within reach.
Red’s eyes wandered down to the foot of the mountain. There, he saw a large stone gate, over thirty meters high, that seemed to be embedded into the very walls of the peak.
What caught his attention, though, was the being that stood in front of it.
It seemed to be a giant lion, a creature Red had only read about in books, sporting a mane and almost as tall as the gate itself in its sitting position. Yet, as the boy got closer, he noticed something off about the creature.
Its skin seemed to be made of stone, and it was seemingly unmoving as it stood there. Red almost thought it was a statue, but he could swear the creature was staring right at him as the boy approached.
Once Red got within a couple hundred meters of the monster, he slowed down. By now, the pressure had diminished enough for the boy to not feel at risk of his body exploding, so he kept whatever energy remained inside of him to power himself up.
He examined the creature, unsure of what to do. Not even being this close to the stone lion made it clearer to the boy whether or not it was alive.
That was until its mouth moved.
“You made quite a mess of this place, didn’t you?” a deep voice resounded from within the creature, reaching Red’s ears with a resounding echo.
The boy frowned. “You can talk?”
The lion scoffed, displaying a human-like expression and disposition. “Of course I can. I’m a construct, not a monster.”
Red had never heard the term before, but he felt somewhat relieved that he wasn’t facing another monster. The fact a statue was speaking to him didn’t faze him either, as this wasn’t amongst the weirdest things that had happened to him recently.
“Don’t try to change subjects.” the lion glared at the boy. “You caused so much chaos in the fog that I had to interfere to keep things under control.”
“It wasn’t my intention.” Red said. He was being sincere.
“And?” the lion frowned. “Aren’t you going to apologize?”
“No.” the boy shook his head. “I did what I had to do.”
The lion fell silent, its eyes still examining Red with what he assumed was an unfriendly expression.
“Do I need to defeat you to continue?” the boy asked.
The lion scoffed. “Defeat me? You think you’d be able to do that?”
Red considered his question. “… Probably not.”
This was a 30 meter tall monster made of stone. The boy couldn’t imagine himself being able to kill it.
“To proceed you must pass the test.” the lion said.
“What test?”
“It doesn’t matter… You don’t need to undergo the test. You pass.”
The boy frowned. “I pass?”
“I have been observing you, and I judge you worthy to continue.” the lion said. “Of course, under other circumstances, I would have been more strict but… It has come to our attention during these trials that some competitors have been given an unfair advantage over others. As such, the playing field must be leveled to a certain extent.”
Red came to a realization. “The imperials?”
The creature shook its head. “This doesn’t concern you. You should just be happy that you’ll be able to advance to the last part of this trial.”
Although the boy was still curious, he didn’t press the matter.
The lion stood up, the ground rumbling beneath its feet. It moved out of the way of the stone gate before sitting down again.
Then, the gate began to open on its own, before a small slit formed that would allow Red to pass through.
The lion looked back at Red. “Go ahead, cultivator… In the end, the ultimate rules of this trial can’t be changed. You must rely on yourself if you want to win our master’s inheritance.”
Red contemplated the golem’s words before nodding.
Then, with a mind fully focused and prepared for the task ahead, he stepped forward.
Towards whatever awaited for him at the heart of the mountain.