Elias wanted to scream, but he could not. His body convulsed on the floor, and his teeth were grinding so hard against each other that his gums were bleeding. A small part of him was aware that the blood emerging from his gums was vanishing into his body as quickly as he was losing it, almost as if his body was absorbing every drop of blood he shed like a sponge.
However, even this small portion of his mind that was free was soon dragged under the flood of information pouring into his mind as he felt his brain seem to stretch, and something like a map appeared inside his head.
As quickly as this flood of information had arrived, it vanished, leaving Elias stunned on the ground for a few seconds before, with a groan, he returned to his feet.
"What the hell," he growled while squeezing his head, as he could feel four spots of cold imprinted on his mind, and these spots of cold were giving him a constant stream of information that made Elias freeze in place once more.
His first speculations were right; what had entered his mind was a map, but one that was a bit odd. Each of these cold spots was like a needle on a compass, each one leading to a location where he could seed his Lumina.
At a glance, Elias could see these cold spots were not equal; each of them had different sizes, and the coldness he could feel from each spot grew fiercer and deeper the bigger they were. He could instinctively tell that seeding his Lumina in the biggest and coldest spot would lead to the greatest benefit for him.
Still, he needed to understand what these cold spots were, and he reached towards the weakest of them, and it was as if his sight had been transported to the heavens, and he could see the entire city of Stormfall, but it was monochrome; there were no other colors except black and white.
This was the first time that Elias was seeing Stormfall in all of its glory, and he realized how massive this city truly was. It was as if he had only been seeing a small part of it, and now everything had opened up before his gaze.
He could spend days looking at this city, and he would hardly be able to peruse half of it, and even though he would have loved to continue viewing the city, his attention was drawn to the spot of cold he had interacted with in his mind, and it pushed his mind to the north of the city, where twin great mountain ranges dwelled, and from his position, they resembled mighty jaws rising up to the sky.
Elias felt a rush of cold entering his body because he was realizing that the weakest spot of cold was at the center of these mountain ranges. This meant that this Fragment of Divinity was not limited to this tunnel alone, but the entirety of the city of Stormfall and beyond!
His greatest fear had been realized, and his trial was going to be much greater than he would ever want.
The only warning he had was a faint whisper, and his body moved before any conscious thought entered his mind. He bent to the side as if he were boneless, yet he could feel sharp pains tearing through his side, and his left arm went numb. His body was also pushed aside, and he slammed into one of the statues of Asulon with a heavy thump that echoed for hundreds of meters, as if a small house had just collapsed. He bounced off and rolled to the center of the passage.
Elias's head was ringing, and he could tell that he had several broken ribs and both of his legs had been broken in several places. Deep lacerations crisscrossed his back, and he knew that if not for his previous bodily upgrades, he would have been crushed to pieces after impacting against the unyielding stone.
All of this did not draw his attention as much as his left arm, or the lack of it. Whatever had struck him with so much force that broke multiple bones in his body had also sliced off his left arm at the elbow, and from the look of the cut, the only reason he was not cut in two was due to the fact that he had moved an instant before he was struck, and so he had escaped a greater portion of the blow.
Elias's eyes widened to the limit, trying to find the source of the danger, but he was already moving. He could not stand, but he could crawl, and he knew that whatever struck him down could be preparing a second blow already.
There was great pain, but Elias was used to pain, and with the potent rush of adrenaline flooding through his system, he knew he was barely feeling a tenth of the true pain he was surely experiencing. This was the first time in his life he had been injured to this extent, as he had never lost a limb before, and so Elias found his heart beating fast, and a thrill of fear and tension flowed through his spine.
He found himself grinning as he was crawling towards the statue that his body had impacted against before he was bounced off. He was scared, and this fear felt oddly enjoyable, and even though he did not need to look, he still glanced down to confirm that, indeed, he was growing hard.
Elias shook his head at the ridiculousness of the whole affair, especially when he noticed that he was not bleeding. The torn skin on his body was stitching shut, and he should have bled a ton from his injuries, but he did not; his blood refused to escape his body.
His new attributes made him crawl faster than he could previously run, and in less than a second, he had crawled and hid himself beside a statue of Asulon, his eyes peering down at the side of the tunnel that the attack had come from.
The heartbeat that had been racing slowly steadied, and Elias's breath eased. He had been on both sides of this equation before, and he knew that something was hunting him, and from the strength of that blow, his hunter must be at least at the peak of Fury Forge or a Mist Phantom.
He waited in silence, no thoughts passing through his head. Before he made a move, he needed to at least see what had attacked him; only then could he decide what he should do next. Plus, with every passing moment, his body was healing, his bones were being set in place, and he would find out whether he could regrow a lost limb.
Then he heard the sound of footsteps coming from the side of the tunnel that led to its entrance, and his senses were placed into overdrive, he closed his eyes and he listened. The footstep was heavy, and every step seemed to be incredibly precise.
His eyes flew open when he heard another set of footsteps join the first, then another, and another...
Feeling something cold and slimy touch his face, Elias quickly wiped it off and saw that it was black and thick like mud. Pushing himself back from the statue, Elias slowly turned to look up at the twelve-meter-tall statue of the Ascendant, and he found that this statue was bent halfway at the waist and its hand was slowly reaching for him.