The dagger was floating in the air, suspended by nothing at all. The blade was almost pure white, with ragged edges and a rough surface that seemed to have seen its fair share of wear and tear. It was a straight dagger, with no cross-guard and a handle that was also carved out of bone. The dagger was almost thirty centimeters long from pummel to tip, and like Red assume before, it looked too big to have been fashioned out a finger bone. It looked like a primitive weapon fashioned out of desperation, not unlike the one the youth had made in his hellish landscape, with a frail appearance and no apparent sharp edge to speak of.

Yet, when he examined it, a strange feeling rose in his mind. An urge to approach the dagger, to take it into his possession and make it his own. A sensation that with this weapon in his hand, nothing would be beyond his reach.

“Come to me…” A voice reached his ears.

It was calling to him.

As if out of pure reflex, Red started to walk towards the dagger. The chaotic chorus of prayers in the room sounded distant, and he the only thing he had eyes for was the floating dagger.

Any and all thoughts were pushed to the back of his head as he felt the blade’s call. What was the point of struggling? Of identity and purpose? The dagger and the power within it would grant him everything he ever wanted and needed, the realization and freedom he craved for his entire life.

“Everything.”

The promise of his greatest desires.

“All yours.”

All he needed was to grasp it with his own hand.

Step after step, Red approached the dagger. He stepped over the crawling man as if he was nothing, ignoring everything around him to reach his goal as soon as possible. It wasn’t long before the bone dagger was right in front of him, within arm’s reach.

Without hesitation, the youth reached forward with his right hand towards the weapon.

“Nothing in this place is real.”

An unfamiliar voice sounded inside of his mind, causing Red to freeze.

‘No, that’s not right.’

It was his own voice.

‘But I didn’t…’

As if snapping out of a daze, he looked down at his hand, a few centimeters away from touching the dagger. Or at least, what he thought should have been his hand.

A set of bony finger extended from his robe’s sleeves, all the skin and flesh melted away and nowhere to be found where his hand once was.

Red stared at this sight in a perplexed state. This was where his right hand should have been - he still felt it there - and yet, only bones remained. He frowned and tried to move his fingers.

The skeletal hand moved in kind, in the same way the youth ordered it to. Realization came to his clouded mind, and the confusion was wiped bit by bit as a shiver ran up his spine.

This was his hand.

Red looked at his other hand in a state of anxiousness, only to find it in the same state. He pulled his sleeves back and saw that the rest of his arm was likewise only bones, all the flesh having been stripped away from his limbs. The youth reached towards his face with some hesitation and started to feel around.

His finger still retained their feeling as if he still had skin, and they pointed towards a terrible fact. There was nothing left on his face, either.

Red felt despair setting in his mind, before the same phrase continued to echo in his head.

“Nothing in this place is real.”

He repeated these words out loud, and the sound echoed through the cave despite having no organs or flesh to produce it any longer. A serene sensation spread through his mind, and the confusion produced by the dagger dissipated like dust in the wind.

Red looked at the blade with a frown, or he tried to do it despite lacking eyebrows at the moment. Before he could do anything else, though, he felt a tug at his ankle.

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The youth looked down and saw the crawling man from earlier grabbing onto his leg, now having transformed into a skeleton just like him. The light was still pulsing inside his skull, but it was becoming weaker with every passing moment.

The skeleton looked up, and despite having no eyes, Red felt him staring directly at him.

“It is… Mine!” a deranged voice came from the man’s mouth. “I won’t let you have it!”

Despite his protesting, the man seemed to be incapable of producing any kind of strength in his grasp, trying to pull the youth down to no avail.

Red looked down at him, inspecting his form. There was not much to see in the man’s features in this skeletal shape, and he seemed to be wearing the same sort of dark robe the youth himself was using.

Yet, upon seeing the light pulsing in his skull, he had a good idea as to his identity.

“Are you the necromancer that has been controlling the ghouls?” he asked.

The skeleton didn’t seem to listen to his words, and it let out an inhuman growl from its mouth. “Leave this place! It is mine! Mine!”

Red continued to stare at the man. “You were the one who ambushed us in the forest, then?”

At these words, there was a pause. If the man still had a face, the youth felt he would most definitely be showing surprise. “You… It was you! You killed my ghouls!”

He didn’t respond. This was all the confirmation he needed.

Red crouched down by the man’s side and stared at his pulsing, glowing eyes even as the skeleton tried to drag him down in a vain effort.

The youth’s right hand rested on top of the man’s skull. Then he started to squeeze.

“You almost killed me.” he said. “And you almost killed Rog.”

The man’s bony hands grabbed around his wrist in an attempt to resist. Yet even in both of their skeletal forms, Red’s strength seemed far superior to the necromancer’s.

The youth continued. "I don’t know if I can kill you in here, but I certainly can’t let the chance go.”

With a final squeeze, he shattered the man’s skull with his fingers. The light in his skull flared in an intense glow one last time before fading into darkness. An instant later, the necromancer’s skeleton fell still.

Now in complete darkness once again, Red turned around and looked at where the dagger was seconds ago. The cacophonous prayer still echoed in the room, yet their chaotic effect seemed to have diminished in the youth’s ears.

“Mine champion…” The voice from earlier reached him again. “Thou hast defeated thy competition. Now the prize is all yours.”

The bone dagger started to glow in a faint white light, revealing its floating form to him, less than two meters from him. The temptation started to grow in Red’s mind once more, but this time he was quick to squish it down as he continued to repeat the same phrase in his mind.

He didn’t respond to it, but instead continued to examine the dagger. The shape of the weapon remained the same to him, yet with his mind now clear, he started to see something else. Not in the dagger itself, but rather in the space around it.

A shape encompassing the weapon, floating above it. A twisted form, so thin as to stretch its skin taut against its ribcage, and yet towering over the youth, multiple times his size. It was too faint, and Red could barely see its upper half, hanging down from the ceiling while the rest of its body disappeared into the darkness above. It didn’t have a face, its features simply a blank slate, yet it looked human beyond doubt, despite its twisted and malformed proportions.

What stood out from it, though, were the arms growing from its shoulder blades. The youth counted six from each side, extending from its torso like the arms of a spider, and right now every single one of them was surrounding him with fingers twisting and moving independently of each other. Its palms were the size of a human’s torso, and they all seemed at the ready to grasp Red at a moment’s notice.

Yet, none of them moved. It was as if they were waiting.

Waiting for him to grab the dagger in front of him.

He didn’t panic and looked up at the creature’s blank face.

“What are you?” he asked.

The voice sounded again. “Mine champion… Let go of thy worries and suspicions. Embrace thy destiny and let it embrace thou back. Only so shall all in the world be within thy reach.”

Red didn’t respond, and looked around him. The hands inched ever so closer to him, and a single movement of his part would make him collide with one of them. He couldn’t respond.

He closed his eyes and repeated. “Nothing in this place is real.”

“These sights are more real than aught your world has to offer.” The voice resounded in his ears. “It all can be yours to shape and use as thou please.”

He didn’t open his eyes and entered a meditative state. This technique still worked even in this place, yet there was nothing he could do with it to escape this place he hadn’t already tried. Everything, that is, except for one thing.

The meditation Eiwin taught him a long time ago, the Radiant Current, was a technique created by monks to control one’s own bodies. At lower levels, it served as nothing more than a serene exercise made to temper and eliminate the worries and anxieties reflected in one’s own physical form. At higher levels, however, as Red had found out himself, it was capable of controlling and examining the inner condition of his body to a certain degree, as well as serving as a way to communicate with the crimson mist.

It was a practice and technique that had become second nature to the youth, and even though its use in combat was very limited, it was indispensable for his cultivation sessions and saved him many times before. So it was, that Red had an idea.

Since his mind was the only thing this place was incapable of affecting, then he would go to a place where only his mind mattered.

He would go to sleep.

His expanded awareness reached into his mind, and without offering any resistance, the youth felt his thoughts start to slow down. His vision started to blur, the sounds around him became fainter, and he felt his muscles relax as he fell down onto his knees.

Darkness started to embrace him, and the only thing he heard before he fell asleep was an inhuman roar and the sounds of crying and despair.