He tried to scream.

But no words came out of his mouth.

He tried to run.

But there was nowhere to escape.

The only thing that surrounded him was endless darkness.

The only feeling that accompanied him was that of being burnt alive.

‘Just kill me… someone please..’ His legs lost their strength as he fell on his knees. He felt a burning sensation rushing throughout his body as he noticed that his veins were expanding. One by one his veins began popping and soon blood spewed out everywhere. Soon, his consciousness began to fade away. He felt every single fiber of his muscles burning. His eyes soon began throbbing with intense pain and it felt as if several worms were crawling inside his skin.

Time passed, he could no longer feel his body. His mind had become dull and he was in a corpse-like state. His consciousness slowly began drifting away. And for some strange reason… He felt as if he was being bound by chains.

His consciousness slowly returned, as he was banished to The Abyss.

Inside the endless darkness, stood a mysterious man. "This feeling... quite familiar. At last has 'he' once again begun moving 'his' chess piece?"

A voice resounded through the dark fog, and filled the plane with some words after centuries of nothingness. The mysterious man smiled and spoke in a mocking tone "Oh, my dear old 'friend', how many failures will it take for you to realize? You can never defeat that... monster. No matter how many lives you ruin. Well, I suppose it's technically only one life."

The mysterious man grimaced. He realized that he had been muttering to himself, all alone like a madman. 'wait why am I talking to myself again? Oh well.'

But that did not affect him one bit. After all, it was natural for him to lose some of his sanity as a small price to pay for his power and it was the same for about everyone in the world—especially the gods.

"But to think you couldn't even maintain your connection to your dear pawn... you truly have weakened haven't you? Now it seems... you cannot even defeat even me." The man spoke with hints of grief and loneliness amongst his words.

"At last, it's time to end this war beyond time."

***

“Crap my head hurts…” Abraham got up while holding his head. His head was throbbing with pain. But that was the only pain he was feeling. That hell-like torture he had gone through earlier only felt like a distant dream. But for some reason, the sheer thought of it made his body shiver. So he avoided thinking of that experience too much. His eyes darted around in the room he was was in. He quickly realized he was no longer in that labyrinth from before.

‘Where the hell am I this time?’ Abraham looked around. He seemed to be in a small hut. The hut was made out of wood and strangely enough, it had no windows. Just a single door. Causing the room to be quite dark. Abraham walked up to the door slowly before pausing.

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‘I can’t ignore the fact that there could be an enemy waiting on the other side. What if something like that monster boy from earlier pops up? There’s no chance I can beat him as of now. I will simply be killed before I can make a move.’ Abraham thought for a while. The expression on his face became more grim by the second. He tried to think whether it is possible for him to defeat that monster he had seen earlier. But he could only come to one conclusion. That is, the fact that he cannot defeat anything similar to that thing.

It was quite realistic thinking. Currently, he had no idea of his situation. Abraham felt it. From every move he took. His physical strength was weak. Extremely weak. He currently had no way to defend himself. ‘I will probably die from a regular trained soldier from my world quite easily currently. Let alone…’

Abraham had unconsciously acknowledged the fact that he was most likely not in his world. But he wasn’t to be blamed. After all, what he had seen while spectating Neil defied common sense. ‘Alright… First I should thoroughly search this room. Perhaps… I can find a weapon of some sort.’

Abraham began going through all the piles of junk scattered in the room. The room had no furniture. And its size was like that of a small storage room. In fact, that was probably what it was. After all, the room was filled to the brim with random boxes and litter. Leaving only a small space to walk around. Abraham began thoroughly checking every single box.

He kept boxes that contained items he deemed useful separately and kept away the rest. In the end, he was left with three piles. He walked over to the pile on the far right and showed a disappointed expression while opening it. ‘These tools… Swords, bows, shields… sigh it feels like I have travelled back in time instead.’

Not only just the tools. But even the clothes were extremely old. Abraham took out a few items from the box before looking over to the armour kept in the corner. ‘They look extremely heavy just by looking at them… I can't wear it with my frail body.’

Abraham sighed and turned over to the clothes pile. He quickly changed his battered clothes into a clean shirt and pants along with a cloak.

‘How cheesy! I look like I’m out of a medieval movie… But oh well. At least it's better than nothing.’ Thinking so, he turned his attention towards the door. ‘There’s not a single piece of food in this place. Why the hell did the person making this place store all this random garbage but not a single grain of food!’

Abraham slowly approached the door. ‘Well. Here goes nothing. I can’t exactly starve in this place. I will have to go looking for food sooner or later. Better do it while I still have the energy to.’

Gulp

Abraham took a spear from his back that had been tied using a cloth and clenched his hands firmly. He hesitated for a second, but ended up opening the closed door.

***

Abraham stared at the scenery before him. Completely mesmerised. The entire land was dark. The trees, the ground, and even the water. Everything was deathly black. As if it was all dead. The only thing that brought colour to this land was the sky. Sombre black clouds, with beautiful crimson rays illuminating through them. It looked extremely sinister and beautiful at the same time.

‘There’s… no time to be mesmerised.’

He thought. He hurriedly began looking around his position

“Damn! I can’t spot a single thing beyond this sea… and on the other side there’s nothing but these otherworldly black forests… Don’t tell me I’m stuck here to starve!” He walked towards the seashore and tried placing a finger into the water. ‘I guess it’s safe to touch for now… But this doesn't exactly solve my water supply problem.’

He did not want to imagine it. Drinking this black water. It looked as if he would get every disease in the world if he drank it even by mistake. ‘It’s quite peaceful’

A slight smile appeared on his face. The sight of this endless—somehow beautiful sea made him feel a little calm. But, that did not last long at all. In the blink of an eye, several tentacles appeared out of the sea. Abraham’s face, which was previously completely calm, quickly got filled with despair.

‘I’m so fucking dead.’

***