An abandoned train station sat within a sea of inky darkness, nothing lighting its surroundings save a lone, flickering, lamppost. The only sound disturbing the silence of the platform was the incessant buzzing of the light that ever clicked in and out of existence, and this continued to be the case for several hours. To a solicitor spending hours observing the station, the noise may have become a silence of its own after a while, but even this silence was broken when chunks of viscera and pieces of a man’s body blinked into existence above the train station.
Blood and scattered body parts, enough to be reassembled into a full man, rained down upon the lifeless platform. A large portion of the concrete was splattered scarlet by the rain of gore, and for a full minute, the buzzing silence took over again. Then a shiver ran through the blood soaking the station ground and the severed pieces started to tremble. The buzzing stopped then and a reverberation that started to grow replaced it. The vibrations seemed to be either a byproduct of or the source behind, the anomalous occurrence happening to the scattered pieces of the corpse decorating the maglev station. Then the light spilling forth from the lone lamp, started to dim.
Crimson blood decorating the ground grew a shade darker and small reaching tendrils began to bloom out of the spilled blood, grasping towards the different limbs. It didn’t seem to be a decision driven by intelligence, rather, the ever-darkening tendrils growing from the blood seemed to be driven by pure instinct. This led to them reassembling the body piece by piece, based solely upon the distance to each scattered piece and its home, relative to the soon to be completed form.
A body started to form clunkily, a torso being dragged toward a mangled head while a shoulder and the attached arm were shuttled in the opposite direction toward a butchered hand. Unfortunately, the pure instinctual drive of the abyssal liquid pulling the body together led to the head being sucked back up upon its throne before any of its limbs had been reattached.
The moment the nerves running along the severed spinal cord regenerated a wet, groan rasped out of a lipless mouth. Limbs and appendages made their way back to their respective places over the next several hours and every minute was filled with the pained panting and groaning of a man being pieced back together while conscious. Once whole, a spasm ran through the entire body and then it was still, but it still took another hour of regeneration before the body resembled Domison at all.
Six hours after the scattered pieces of a shredded corpse hit the ground, Domison awoke, coughing up a black ooze as he lurched forward on his hands. For a moment he stayed hunched over, dry heaving every few seconds and trembling. Then Domison leaned back and screamed a curse at Raze into the sky. When no answer came after a full minute, the man sighed with discontent and stumbled to his feet.
Domison had no idea what exactly he needed to do. The number of enemies seemed endless, he had no idea how to detect them let alone harm them, and he had the feeling the trial had only transported him back to the platform, not healed him. A rush of confusion flowed through the man, which only stoked the anger in his heart.
Not giving himself a moment to further think of a game plan, Domison rushed back out into the darkness as soon as he was able. This time, six hours passed before a mostly whole corpse tumbled from the sky onto the platform again, the gruesome regeneration repeating. This cycle of anger at his guide, denial of his need to think through this problem instead of facing it head-on, and a bull rush into death continued for a full day. It was after the fifth rage-induced suicide by lack of planning that Domison’s anger and bullheadedness finally simmered.
This was an issue that he had never run into before and typically every other issue that he had faced, the man was able to overwhelm with strength. Not needing to push the bounds of his abilities. Hell, he had only used many of his abilities in quite rudimentary ways, not pushing the boundaries of his capabilities. He hadn’t even tried using anything other than his sword in this world, due to the description in the trial.
With a deep breath to try and disperse the slivers of trepidation, Domison looked into himself, taking stock of his pathways and core. Everything seemed to be functioning quite normally, the mana flowed through his pathways in dense rivers, his core still a ball of ever-twisting energy. The only difference that stood out was that no mana was being pulled into his core from the surroundings, though that didn’t surprise Domison. After all, Raze had said that he wouldn’t be able to regenerate mana while in the trial. It seemed like when he was brought back to the platform his core was fully restored though, and that was a small victory to the man.
In fact, Domison hadn’t even tried sensing the different affinities of the mana in the air, as he assumed he would not be able to affect it… Wait. Something clicked in his mind then. It was like staring at a problem for hours on end, only for a wave of incredulity to hit when the solution presents itself… Because the solution was so simple. Domison unfurled his aura
Though the world around him had seemed to be empty and dark before, it now thrummed with energy. There was no mana in the air, but he could still sense something… and it was dense. The curious energy in the air felt familiar, and Domison noticed that it seemed to saturate the areas completely covered in darkness.
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After running through all of his abilities, a feeling almost like taking attendance, Domison was able to determine that the only thing he could do besides forming his sword and using mana to empower his body, was manipulate his aura. That alone, however, gave the man a new air of confidence as he strode back into the darkness. With his aura pushed around him like a bubble, it felt like the world he was traversing now was a completely different one than where he had been torn apart time after time before. The darkness seemed to co-mingle with the energy he could feel, and it pressed against him like a warm blanket.
The sense of bliss was cut off the moment he sensed the darkness part around a twitching appendage. He still couldn’t exactly see what the thing in the darkness was, but he got a sense of its form within his aura. It looked almost like a tentacle, but every sucker seemed to be made up of taloned, disfigured fingers. As soon as his aura fully enveloped the creature, its twitching ceased. A moment later it disappeared into the ground as though it had only been peeking out of a body of water and not the solid ground.
With his aura fully unfurled, Domison now understood how the unseen creatures had defeated him in the past. Domison felt a disturbance in his aura directly between his legs. He could sense the way the tentacle slithered out of the ground and reached to tear a piece out of his leg, after the first attempt the tentacles had given up on their initial playful pretense, but Domison was ready now.
With a powerful thrust of his legs, Domison launched himself into the air, twisting his body to face the ground and the tentacle he could sense within his aura beneath him. With a decisive strike, a black blade split the air and the first tentacle creature fell, unmoving.
A grim smile split Domison’s face as he felt several new presences around him, their forms overlaid in his mind's eye. It was time for some good ole fashion payback. The man moved through the dark like an animal as he finally changed from the hunted to the hunter. His black blade drew arcs through the darkness as tentacles were cut to pieces. He continually launched himself through the void, diving headfirst into the thickest packs of enemies.
As the hours passed, Domison could feel his aura’s range gradually increase, bit by bit. Time started to pass surprisingly quickly as Domison fell into a routine of violence. Taloned tentacles continuously lashed out at his body, drawing furrows into his skin that were only allowed to bleed for a short time before being stitched back together. A black sword whipped out over and over again, slashing down swathes of mutated forms. This continued for hours and Domison slipped into a sort of trance.
Suddenly a flashing notification filled his vision, and Domison stumbled to a stop. His eyes refocused as he read the prompt filling his vision. The man looked over the words once, then twice. He pondered them in his mind, tumbling them throughout his consciousness as he wrestled with the realization. Time was up. He could leave right now, and go back to his world. The notification had mentioned a reward for clearing the trial, but…
“No,” Domison said, and even though sound was still deafened the notification understood the meaning, blinking out of existence. Domison readjusted the grip on his sword and began to stride forward again. The being within this trial had put him through hell, and either way, this constant fighting was tremendous training. Even though he was not able to expand his core by taking in raw mana, he could feel his physical abilities and regeneration speed growing. “I’m going to kill them all, no matter how long it takes… Time moves slower in this place anyways right?”
A bloody smile spread across Domison’s face as he continued the slaughter. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed at this point, but he knew that he had continued long past the twenty-four-hour mark of his completed run. His body moved in much more graceful patterns now. While his fighting style still resembled that of an animal over a human warrior, his movements were now more fluid. The jerky movements of his limbs that had previously alluded to his lack of familiarity with his newly enhanced body were gone. What was left could only be described as a predator.
Finally, the last enemy fell and no more tentacles swarmed up from the ground to replace it. Domison panted in deep breaths as he looked into the void where the sky should be. The bodies of the slain creatures did not disappear as he thought they would, and now mountains of corpses surrounded the man in every direction. He had to have been fighting for days, and if he was honest with himself, he was quite relieved that he would be able to take a break now. Pulling in one more deep breath of air through his nose, Domison looked to the notification that had populated his peripheral since the final body fell.
*Secret Quest Complete - Full Clear -*
Survive past the time limit and kill all the inhabitants of the trial Limbo.
Achievement unlocked!
A Lonely Limbo - A wandering soul used to at least hold comfort in the fact that they were not alone. Now the land is desolate and the darkness does not hold the warmth of another. The lonely wanderer is now, as destined, truly alone.
*Achievement - A Lonely Limbo - Grants recipient increased aura capability and perception.*
Name: Domison Wolfe
Attribute Points
Strength: 30
Agility: 25
Constitution: 40
Intelligence: 11
Wisdom: 10
Spirit: 12
Mana: 5,000/5,000