Elias could feel the slow, inexorable thud of stone feet striking stone. The statues were walking, like they knew he could not escape. He had seen the speed that they could move if they wanted to, and he also knew they could attack in silence, and now they were just slowly walking behind him, as if they had all the time in the world, or perhaps they were herding him somewhere, but Elias did not feel like he had much of a choice, he could not fight through them, he could only find an opportuinty to retaliate.
Elias could feel them through his bare feet, coming closer, rhythmic, patient, inevitable. The statues were not in a hurry. They knew he was wounded. They knew he was alone. They knew he had nowhere else to go.
All around him, the sound of cracks continued to spread. Statues farther down the tunnel began to shift before Elias even reached them. Arms lifted slowly, heads turned with the sound of grinding millstones. Black blood dripped from widening fissures, pooling on the floor, then crawling toward him like living oil. He knew that if they wanted, they could descend faster, but they were patient.
The air grew colder, but this was not an issue for him. In the core of his bones, there was ice, and he did not fear the chill. His fear had long evaporated, and what was left was just cold and calculating, measuring every step and every moment, knowing that he could die at any time yet not giving up. He shoved down the thrill that was growing in his spine. This was not the place; he was the hunted and not the hunter, and Elias was discovering that his nervous system did not know the difference.
Elias's breath came in ragged gasps. His regeneration was working, knitting bones and sealing skin, but it was slow compared to the damage he had sustained. Every impact against the wall or floor reopened wounds. The stump of his arm was beginning to regrow, a sickening itch of flesh pushing outward, but it was not fast enough. His only consolation was the fact that he had not lost an arm forever, which would have been a painful blow.
He passed statue after statue, each one now turning to follow him with hollow, cracked eyes. The whispers followed, too, a chorus of children's voices rising in pitch, overlapping until they became a single, piercing wail.
He had not forgotten one of his greatest advantages that was hanging like a heavy stone in his heart, and as if his thoughts were enough to summon it, a section of the Status screen appeared before his eyes.
- Yseult's Blood Fragment (Single-Use – Fate-erasing strike; restriction decay: 6%)
Previously, it had been at a two percent restriction decay, but now it had grown to six percent, and Elias could feel the increasing pressure from that minor growth. His body was stronger than it had ever been, and so it was not very distracting, unlike when he was a mortal, but he could still feel the pressure growing.
Before he was shoved into this hell, the Commander had warned him about this pressure, but she had also said that the longer he could resist it, the greater the power of this drop of Lumina would be.
He was sure that when the Commander gave him a drop of her blood, she had not expected that his body could grow so strong in such a short time, meaning that if Elias played his card right, he could use this power to turn the tables at the right time. Perhaps she had expected that he would be able to use this power to clear up a problem that would kill a Wisp, but Elias was many times stronger than a Wisp could ever be, and he believed that this drop of blood from the Commander was more powerful than he could think of, and he needed patience and endurance to unlock its full potential.
'Fate erasing strike. Ah, so my Fate when I entered this Fragment was to die, but I am not willing."
Suddenly, the screams from the statues changed; the voices were no longer those of the unknown woman or the children, they transformed into the voice... of all of those he had hunted and buried inside the statues of Asulon.
You drank our blood and ate our souls
You buried us in stone, and we can never rest in peace.
You hid us in their skin for us to burn.
Now we rise to pay you back... Elias!
Elias stumbled, caught himself, and kept running. The hunt had suddenly transformed into something deeply familiar, and in that scream of his name from a thousand mouths, he could hear the rage and hate inside them.
He had always wondered if he would pay for his actions of burying his prey inside the statue of Asulon, but he had not expected that something like this would ever happen, or inside this Fragment that the stones would remember. Was this a trick of this monster, or was there something deeper going on in this place?
'Focus, Elias, the monsters here would not just be stronger and faster than you; they would also be smarter than you. They are hunting you as prey, and everything is a tool for their hunt, even your damned memories.'
Elias gasped as he finally reached his workstation, and his eyes widened when he noticed that everything here was exactly the same as it was in the real world. His eyes darted around to see if everything was in its usual place, and confirming this to be the case, Elias threw a quick glance behind him and saw something horrifying.
The nearest statue was no longer stone.
Its surface had split completely. Black blood poured from every crack, coating it in a glistening, living shell. The face, once noble and stern, was now a twisted mask of agony and hunger. The eyes were empty sockets, weeping tar.
And it was smiling.
Elias turned away, picked up his Work backpack, quickly pushed in the tools he needed, and slung it over his shoulder before continuing deeper into the tunnel, noting that the ground was no longer smooth stone; it was as if he were entering a deep cave.
He ran faster, as his bones had become firmer, and the screams behind him turned to laughter. The ground began to shake as the statues were no longer walking; they had begun to run.
It was as if entering this cave had freed them of the last restriction holding them back, and now they were hunting him for real.