I looked at Klaus in horror.

He hadn’t been in close proximity to her, unlike me, so he still looked much better. My face, on the other hand, was covered in blood. It was warm, and flowed all over my eyes. Some of it got in, which clearing small blots while making them burn.

“Run. Go.” Klaus croaked while shaking his hands towards the door.

Right. I had no time to think about what had happened. I looked at the Auria’s remains once more. I was supposed to save the ones I still could. I had promised her that her death had not been for nothing. Someone I hadn’t even known for that long. Her death did not even make me cry. But I had taken a burden on my shoulders now, and I needed to live up to it.

I turned and ran for the door.

Then, a sword, right to the back of my knees. The blunt side hit me, so it did not cut through, but it still hurt enough to make me stumble and fall. I yelped as my face hit the wooden floor, and turned back to see what had happened.

Klaus was standing now. He started to limp towards me. One of his ankles was continuously gushing out blood. He came right to me and kicked me in the stomach with the other leg. I went and hit the nearby wall. My entire back ached. It didn’t feel like I had broken any bones, but it still hurt like hell.

I looked up at Klaus’ face and noticed that it was also covered in blood now. But it wasn’t Auria’s. It was his own, flowing down from the top of his head. He swung his sword towards me, and I rolled away. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been aiming for my head at all. He had been going for my legs. As soon as I rolled, my awkward position and style left one of them completely exposed. Shouting, he brought the sword down to it and chopped it off.

I shouted. There was nothing else to do. The pain didn’t kick in until after a second or two. At first, the only thing which existed was a sense of loss. As if something had been there for a second, and then wasn’t there the next. The cut was clean.

Klaus’ eyes were closed. No, sewn shut, with his own eyelashes. There was no doubt about it. This wasn’t the real Klaus. He had been completely taken over by God. These weren’t instructions anymore. They weren’t meant to make him suffer. These were absolute orders for someone who was going to be killed in the next few minutes anyways. The sword came down once more, but I had no strength to move this time. The shock was too heavy.

The other leg was cut off too.

I should have started running earlier. That’s probably what Klaus was thinking too, inside his head. I had wasted time. More than that, I had wasted both of their lives. Where was I even going to go with both of my legs chopped off? There was no escape from this anymore. Whatever he wanted to happen, would happen.

I still tried to crawl away towards the door, leaving two trails of blood and flesh behind.

Klaus threw his sword behind him, and it flew all the way towards the stairs, hitting one of them and then sliding down to their foot. There, it stopped. He then bent down and held me by my collar. I shouted and hit his hand, but the grip was too strong.

He opened the door and a sudden wave of light hit the entire room, making all the blood glisten. He started moving out of the house, pulling me along with him. My eyes were still turned towards the house.

Auria’s dead body lay right there, bright red in the sun. The sword behind her too, caked with blood. I had let them both down in a matter of seconds. That was how weak I was, how stupid. I had thought that I was going to be able to fight against a literal God. It had been their folly too, to believe in someone like me, but at least their desperation and need for help made sense.

I cried as he pulled me away from the house. Soon, it was out of sight.

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Klaus took me through the entire down, dragging my body on the cobblestone paths.

The people who looked at me either laughed, or cried, or ran and hid in their houses. I had given up on doing anything. Moving around caused pain, and even if I did escape, I wouldn’t even be able to move away a meter before I got caught again. I let my body go. He could do whatever he wanted with it. All of it had been a stupid idea anyways.

I saw some kids, who were looking at me from behind some stools of a shop. One of them hesitated a bit, looking around for confirmation about something. Then, he picked up a bowl that that was kept on one of the tables and threw it at me. It hit my stomach, so it did not break. It just stayed there. The bowl was empty, but still dirty with the leftovers of whatever had been eaten in it.

I smiled towards the kid. It wasn’t his fault. He had probably gotten orders to that. He would die if he didn’t. Might as well let him know that he didn’t need to feel bad about it. Still, he shook a bit and ran away into a nearby alley.

More such people came by, throwing random things at me. Cups, glass, food, strange vegetables. I just closed my eyes. There was no need to see what was happening all around me. I had already guessed where this journey was going to end. This God was not going to let me die, after all. He had apparently expended a lot of energy to bring me to this place. He needed to let me suffer.

Soon enough, I heard a strange, foreign hum. A buzz like the one that came out of a speaker when it wasn’t fully attached. I opened my eyes and turned my head to confirm it.

A white haze surrounded a circular wooden structure.

Well, not completely circular. Two standing wooden semi-circles were propped up on a stone platform. They connected with each other on the lower half, but the two top halves had quite a gap between them. Surrounding these two structures was a translucent white aura. The part in the middle was completely empty.

Klaus threw me on the ground in front of him and put his foot over me. The one hand he had, he pointed towards the portal and started muttering some words. Now that I could see his face, I noticed that he was crying. He had probably been crying that this entire time, unable to stop himself from doing what he was doing.

The portal’s sound changed. It was much more violent and rough now, which made my ears ring. The two semi-circular halves fell down on the stone platform and moved closer to one another to form a complete circle, with the white aura converging into a denser form in the middle.

Klaus picked me up and threw me into the middle of the circle. I sat up using my hands, and finally got a good look at his torn body, clinging to life for one last act of horror.

The circle rose in air until it close to my neck and then stopped.

Klaus’ fell to the ground on his knees, in a similar position to Auria, and his head slumped. The order had ended. He had full control of his body again. But then, blood started to flow out of his nose and ears. His skin started to lose all its moisture and shine. It sunk into itself and slowly became darker and darker until it looked similar to the hands of the wardlebeast.

The body turned into one of a ragged old man, with every single one of the bones visible through the skin. Then, it fell down with a clutter.

Klaus was dead.

The blood rose into the air and surrounded the circle.

It then slowly moved towards the circle and enveloped it completely. Now, there was no visible way to tell that there was wood under it. All it was, was a floating circle of blood. Then, it seeped into the circle.

The wood turned into a darker brown, and started vibrating with a loud noise, even more violent than the one it had been producing for the last few minutes. The wooden circle started to grow smaller and smaller, until it was completely covering my neck.

Then, at once, it snapped onto my neck and glowed bright white. My whole head felt like it was burning, but nothing actually happened. The light from the wooden circle filled my entire head and covered my sight. Everything was white, like a complete contrast to the abyss-like stage I had been in just a little while ago,

I lost consciousness.

The first thing I saw when I woke up was a stone roof. They were all covered with moss, and looked very moist.

I was on a very hard surface. I sat up straight and noticed that both of my legs were back. My hands were fine, and my face wasn’t covered with blood. I touched my entire body in shock and relief. I was fine.

Immediately, I jumped off the place I was sleeping and looked at it. It a plain slab of stone that seemed to have risen from the ground in the perfect shape of a very uncomfortable bed. I fell down to the floor and rested my hands and head on the cold surface of that stony bed.

“Let’s begin.” A hoarse voice spoke up from my left.

I jumped up with fear and looked there.

The room I was in looked like a prison. All four sides were stone walls, but there was no exit door. Other than the stone bed, the only other pieces of furniture in the room were a table and a chair. The table was empty, but the chair held a man in armor, without a helmet.

He looked slim, but fit. His cheeks were sunken into his jaw and his yellow teeth clattered when he croaked once more –

“Let’s begin.”