Saryn looked back, slightly angled due to the steepness of the hill, nothing but wasteland in all directions, and past that? Just orange sandstorms blocking his vision. A long trail of his footsteps rhythmically patterned the ground behind him, basically feeding his location to the stalker despite his careful attempts to stay quiet.
'The sandstorms will get rid of my trail.' Saryn thought, and rather hoped before sighing. He coughed almost violently as dust trapped itself in his throat.
He wasn't typically against fighting the stalker now, or perhaps fleeing from the stalker, depending on how powerful it actually was, but the terrain was quite disadvantageous to him. Without squinting he could barely see much around him, at least ever since these storms appeared.
It was almost like…
'That bastard… he's intentionally making things difficult.' Saryn guessed.
And of course, he was right, as while he was gritting his teeth under the threat of the storms and the bloodthirsty beast sniffing out his presence, Marduk was chuckling inwardly to himself at Saryn's suffering.
Eventually, Saryn left the sandstorms, and could see the vast grassland surrounding the central blade not far off.
But something felt… off.
The thing in his heart was desperate, as if trying to warn him.
Saryn focused.
'I'm being watched...' His nerves went stone cold, as he scanned his surroundings, the echo fabrics swirling around his arms with greater vigor in response to his cautiousness and fear.
His ears slightly perked, as a tumbleweed rustled behind him.
Saryn turned his head back quickly.
'Nothing there.' His lips mouthed his thoughts involuntarily.
Another rustle emerged from his right.
'Shit.' Nothing there either.
He gathered himself, before dashing forward in a desperate attempt to outrun the stalker, and ultimately make it to the central blade, where he'd hopefully be safe, unless Marduk had simply lied.
His ragged breaths seemed to make more noise than his quick steps, which tapped against the ground in short intervals, like some sort of performance.
He raised his head, he could feel it.
'It's definitely chasing me, the stalker.' He panicked, but kept running forward as fast as he could.
He didn't know for a fact, but something… something that wasn't him, was warning him of the stalker's presence.
Saryn turned his head right quickly, ensuring nothing was there, before tilting it back forwa-
Snap.
The left half of his ribcage shattered as he was sent flying toward the right. He slammed against the dry cracked ground of the wasteland over and over, becoming a sort of tumbleweed himself, except much more humane.
'This isn't good.' Saryn hurriedly transferred the echo fabric from his left arm to his injury, which horrified him upon looking down.
An entire crater, blood pouring out like a waterfall, his ribs exposed, as if being washed away by the breeze. Saryn gritted his teeth even harder, as he tried hard to not let the searing pain distract him.
However, as a result stemming from his quick absorption of echoes, and the echo fabric attracting them even further, the wounds closed up slowly but surely, the bleeding stopped as he dragged himself up off his butt.
Saryn looked forward to his opponent.
A distant shadow, seemingly flickering from side to side, its enormous dark maw wide open as saliva trickled down onto the pale orange floor beneath it.
'The stalker.' Saryn's battle intent solidified, as the echo fabric returned to his left arm, before a coat of water manifested, orbiting both his fists, abiding to his every command like the war generals of a king.
The stalker heavily outmatched him in speed, but Saryn didn't let that stop his courage.
He watched the silhouette carefully as it approached him with an intense burning hunger, reminding Saryn of the memories he had received upon entering the floor.
'Tch.' A sudden quiet overtook his surroundings, as he looked.
The stalker watched him while moving, in a way that a predator would watch its prey.
But this hunger the stalker felt, was nothing more than a droplet compared to the ocean that Saryn held.
The lilac echo in the stalker's chest beat with a resonance that beckoned him once more.
The same voice, or rather… presence, which had warned Saryn earlier, now seemingly begged him to fight, insisting on finding a way to conclude with the stalker's corpse laid in front of him.
And yet, the stalker wasn't the prize, it was the echo.
The echo held what felt like a boundless store of power, as if it would give Saryn the strength to collapse entire universes with merely the raise of a finger.
The being in his heart hungered.
And the same hunger washed over Saryn like an irresistible tide, a glutton so powerful it could command Saryn's every move and question his every defiance.
But what defiance was there to question? Saryn had long since settled on the idea of killing the stalker, before celebrating its demise like some sort of tribesman. He wasn't defying anything.
All of his predecessors had feared this being, this demon, they paled at the first sight of it, and most of the previous candidates who even passed this floor had only done it out of sheer luck.
'Luck? I don't need such a thing to succeed.' Saryn thought, as the stalker's shadowy form steadily grew bigger in his vision.
He had long since prepared to do whatever it took to prove his strength.
Not to others.
Not to Marduk.
But to himself.
His resolve strengthened once more, and the entity in his heart roared, somewhat in response to the lilac echo, but also in response to Saryn's thoughts.
Its hunger spread onto him once more, as he made a silent decision.
'This same… entity. It had warned me before, maybe it's time for me to repay it.' Saryn raised his arms in a defensive stance, almost out of instinct as the stalker's gloomy form closed in on him, he steeled himself, prepared for the rigorous battle that was about to unfold, the constellations around his arms rampaging in response to his iron will.
'Come at me.'