? [An0maly Dete#ed — Your Sanity is waning!]
"What… the fuck…"
The laughter grew into a cacophony of insanity — and those sounds only made Sieg's migraine worse.
Disorientation soon crept into his vision, dizziness mingling around his thoughts, and it was becoming more difficult to even think straight.
"Do-does he know?" Scrawny man said while dying of laughter, his finger shakily pointed at Sieg.
"H-he does not know!" Intellectual man chimed in, he too was laughing like a maniac.
"What are you even saying…" Sieg tried to mutter but his breath felt restricted, he could only look at the fire, there was faint comfort from doing so.
The laughter then further intensified — their mouths were widening to further accommodate the insanity, and as a result, Sieg's sanity started to deteriorate.
? [ERROR]
? [An unwelcome presence detected within the trial — candidate, flee.]
Then Sieg shook his head upon seeing the system screen, he looked ahead into the woods, beyond the laughter was a dark figure.
It was hiding behind a tree, it was tall and skinny, looking at him directly, fear started gnawing at Sieg.
---
—[ ????? ]—
[???????]
Thoughts: I like you, let's be friends.
---
"WHAT IS THAT?"
It had a human face but gravely disfigured, loose skin, it's smile as wide as it was horrifying, it was hunched, staring creepily at the camp, and more importantly at Sieg.
Without hesitation, the slum boy gathered all his remaining strength and courage, he immediately bolted towards the direction on where male and female sorcerers should be, ignoring the fates of the four men and the horses.
He held Cryostalgia tightly, "WHERE ARE YOU GOING? YOUR FOOD IS GOING TO GO BAD!" screamed intellectual man, while somehow still laughing, then slowly those laughter reached at an all time peak.
Sieg looked back for a glance then he saw it — intellectual man's head started to swell and bubble reddening like a swore cyst wound, before exploding into a rain of brain matter and shattered skull pieces.
Some of it even landed on the fire, unintentionally making roasted meat.
The slum boy's hearing started to ring, as his eyes widened in terror as he witnessed the tall horrifying figure stand behind the laughing scrawny man sat on a log.
Scrawny man looked up, meeting the creature's creepy smile, its drooling saliva dripping on his face, scrawny man kept on laughing but before long, the creature opened it's mouth wide enough to swallow scrawny man's head whole in one bite, severing it from its body.
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That's when broad shouldered man finally came back to his senses and stopped laughing, in a moment of desperation he held his sword high.
"YOU BASTARD!" He screamed at the of his lungs anger wailing inside of him as he just saw his two best friends get killed brutality, but it was useless.
The horrifying creature summoned spikey tentacles and immediately grabbed broad-shouldered man's foot causing him to be upside down, no one knows what happened next as there's another long appendage that forced it's way into broad-shouldered man somewhere in his lower extremities, only his screams echoed throughout the tundra forest and by that moment Sieg and miraculously the rider who managed to get regain his sanity, immediately rode his horses and fled from the caravan to save his life.
Sieg ran as fast as he could, ears still ringing. His migraine burdens him, but the desperation to seek the sorcerers was his only survival instinct.
"HELP! HELP!" Sieg yelled as loudly as he could. It echoed throughout the dead forest. Then, behind him, he heard giggling — and along with it came a wet, spongy movement chasing him through the snow.
He didn't dare look back, only forward, as if nothing else mattered other than his own survival. He thought of using Cryostalgia to fight back, but what was the use of even thinking of fighting when he was too scared to even make a move?
Sieg moved despite his fear, not letting himself tip over and fall on the snowy ground. But his vision started to shake, his breathing becoming labored, until slowly he began to run at a snail's pace.
"Mister Kni— hel—"
"Mister Kn…"
"What am I saying?" Then a small smile crept onto Sieg's face. It widened and widened until he himself started laughing.
? [WARNING: SANITY HAS BEEN COMPROMISED, THE TRIAL IS BEING JEOPARDIZED.]
The slum boy laughed out loud. "Ahahahaha! I'm going to die! Ahahahaha!" he blurted involuntarily.
Then behind him stood the tall, dark figure. Its mouth was a sloppy mess from eating the other men, and it was still drooling saliva. Its appendages wiggled with excitement like centipedes.
? [CANDIDATE, REMEMBER YOUR MOTHER. DO NOT LET THIS INFLUENCE YOU!]
"My mother?! The—the woman who fell down the stairs and is now in a coma? AHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAH!" Sieg was teetering on the verge of insanity.
Then over him, the same face that devoured the scrawny man, gazed down at him with predatory eyes. It looked at the laughing Sieg, and it too started laughing while caressing Sieg's hair.
---
—[ ????? ]—
[???????]
Thoughts: Let's be friends.
---
Sieg kept looking at his hands, and his vision started to distort like a broken TV screen. He could hear static and feel wet drippings on his face. His throat was starting to strain and injure from too much laughing. He couldn't breathe properly, and his stomach constricted slightly — lightheadedness all consuming nearing an impossible point of no return.
"I…" Sieg tried to mutter against his own mouth. "I—REFUSE!" He yelled back at the process, biting his tongue, then subconsciously remembering Mister Knight's teachings.
Do not let it intimidate you—
The creepy creature's smile waned almost instantly. Then it looked wrathful as its eyes reddened, and without mercy, it started whacking its appendages at Sieg from behind like a whip.
? [HOW DARE A SLAVE TALK BACK?]
Sieg was still laughing as he was hit multiple times by the bloodied appendages. That caused him to drop to his knees. Then, out of instinct, he performed a desperate counterattack.
His instinct urged him to summon Mister Knight— but the thought slipped away the moment he reached for it, as if his fraying sanity couldn't sustain the summoning.
With no other choice, he gave up on it and lashed out in a desperate counterattack.
He found the notion of slicing the creature with Cryostalgia… funny… so he took out Cryostalgia, then slashed the creature in an arc with maximized [Permafrost], guaranteeing his sanity's collapse.
But in doing so, he painfully lost consciousness while the creature staggered back at the invading extreme cold. It cried in pain as the permafrost spread across its body.
However, that retaliation ultimately did nothing, as the creature instantly recovered from the damage. Its other tentacle grabbed the barely moving, barely thinking Sieg's left leg and lifted him upward.
Sieg was now suspended, it seemed his fate would be the same as the broad-shouldered man's, as the creature's other appendages positioned themselves to impale Sieg's lower extremities.
That was when a flaming katana flew through the air, cutting through the forest, hitting the creature with great force.
Saving Sieg from a harrowing death.
Chapter End.
