Shadow Slave: Immortal Ice

Eirwen wanted to look back, but he also wanted to run. Run as fast as his legs would carry him. Up the stairs, anywhere but facing whatever it was behind him. His breath hitched; his body frozen in place. His heart stopped for a full second.

Step Step Step

The light steps echoed through the tunnel, each one seeming to grow louder and more oppressive. Eirwen's face paled with each passing second, sweat pooling on his skin as his body trembled uncontrollably.

"My poor brother, if only They had chosen him too," the calm voice continued, its words dripping with disappointment.

"Bernard always thought he had something to prove, tsk tsk tsk, look at him now. Killed by the person he admired so much," the voice whispered, now right behind Eirwen, barely a step away.

It sighed, a sound of pity and amusement, before gently brushing the top of Eirwen's head. The touch was cold, yet soft.

Eirwen swallowed with strain, his eyes widening as his thoughts slowly began to return to him. "Well, you aren't him, the prince, right? You are one of them. The creatures that come here from another world." The hand suddenly started to grip on Eirwen's hair as he kept talking.

Thud

His eyes widened even further as an object rolled forward from behind him. It was a head, someone's head. The face was mangled beyond recognition, and the neck was ragged, torn off rather than cleanly cut.

The voice behind him chuckled, a cold, amused sound. "I wanted to give this to Bernard before ending him. His dear commander, dead by my hand. Just like our brother."

Eirwen swallowed again. It had to be Anzor's head. The Saint commander of the Red Cloaks.

'How damn strong is this demon?!' Eirwen's mind snapped, thoughts returning, though still rigid and filled with fear.

"If I were you, I'd accept my deal," the voices echoed nonchalantly within him once more. "Just so you know, you won't return if you die this time."

Eirwen's eyes widened immediately. Throughout this whole Trial, he had been reckless, assuming that even if he died, he would simply return at the start. But now, realizing that wasn't the case, panic gripped him. With a Saint behind him, his chances of survival were slim, and that thought terrified him further, pushing him into committing rash decisions. All of his calculations forgotten in the face of true death.

He called the Runes forward and whispered through gritted teeth, "I accept."

'I don't care what happens when I release whoever it is from the Dream,' he thought, his mind focused solely on surviving and escaping. 'I'm not dying here.'

"Good decision," the Saint himself suddenly said, his grip loosening as he released Eirwen's hair.

Eirwen was stunned as he forced himself to look back, his mind racing as the shock overwhelmed the fear.

Behind him stood a skinny figure draped in nothing but a white robe. His skin was a dark olive, much like Bernard's, and his long black hair flowed down his back. His face was soft and breathtaking.

What caught Eirwen's attention instantly, however, was the smile on the Saint's face. It was warm, almost pitiful, as though he looked upon Eirwen with some sympathy.

Eirwen opened his mouth, ready to speak, but before he could, the Saint began to melt. His skin dissolved, sloughing off his body as blood spilled down, pooling beneath him. In a matter of seconds, the figure was reduced to a grotesque puddle of flesh and blood.

Eirwen sat frozen, unable to form words. His mind couldn't process the sight, but his eyes locked on the puddle as he remembered what Marcel's expression was -no screams, no signs of suffering- just that smile until there was nothing on his face left.

Was it even really Marcel? Eirwen couldn't say for sure. What he did know, however, was that he had been tricked into accepting the deal. The voices inside him had deceived him.

He glanced down at his gauntlet-clad hands. They had stopped trembling. The fear still lingered, but now it was under his control. What had happened, had happened. He couldn't change it.

[The Deal has been completed!]

[New Deal!]

Eirwen couldn't help but groan as the Runes began to appear once again. "What now, for God's sake!?" he cursed in frustration.

The ethereal voices chuckled beside him. "Don't understand why you're always so angry, child," they teased.

His heart skipped a beat as he quickly glanced to his side. A pair of glowing golden eyes stared down at him from behind the shadows.

Eirwen gulped, instinctively shifting back as he tried to stand, panic rising in his chest again. 'Why is everyone trying to give me a heart attack in here!?' he cursed.

The voices spoke again, drawing closer as they emerged from the shadows. "It's a good Deal, trust me. And don't worry about me tricking you just now. There wouldn't have been any other way to make you accept it," they added, chuckling once more.

What stepped out of the shadows was a tall man, even taller than Bernard. His skin was pale, almost gray, and his long pitch-black hair flowed in waves to his mid-neck. He wore an otherworldly black, layered garment, adorned with sharp, jagged textures. On his shoulders were what seemed like solidified shadows or black feathers. A high collar framed his throat, making his angular and sharp features seem even more pronounced. Deep shadows carved hollows under his high cheekbones and abyssal eyes.

"Let me introduce myself," he said, his voice echoing through the tunnel as he walked towards Eirwen with heavy steps. The aura emanating from this figure was somehow even more suffocating than Marcel's, yet Eirwen still found the strength to stand. Probably because the person in front of him allowed him to.

"I am Leviathan. I am the one who has been aiding you throughout this entire Nightmare Trial."

Eirwen swallowed hard, his gaze lifting to the terrifying figure towering over him. "What do you want from me? What new deal? And how do you expect me to get you out of here?" His voice remained steady, but it was still clear he was scared.

Who wouldn't be? The person in front of him had killed a Saint; one who had killed two other Saints himself. That meant he was either an exceptionally powerful Saint himself, or something beyond that level entirely.

'A Sovereign? Like the King of Swords. No, something is telling me this creature here is much much stronger…'

Leviathan circled around Eirwen; his gaze sharp as he studied him. "So many questions, yet so little time. For now, just finish this Trial, and I will answer -most- of your questions."

Eirwen had no choice but to agree with a quick nod. After all, he had already accepted the Deal to help Leviathan escape. He didn't want to find out what would happen if he failed to do what was expected of him.

The towering entity nodded before dissolving into thin air, like an illusion fading away. Eirwen guessed that this 'Leviathan' couldn't maintain his form for long, thus it had communicated through the Nightmare Spell before.

As soon as he vanished, Eirwen slumped, panting heavily, cursing under his breath from the overwhelming stress. "Good God, that was horrifying," he whispered.

After gathering himself, Eirwen looked up the stairs and groaned in frustration before starting to climb them again. He made sure to avoid stepping on any corpses with his bare feet as he did so.

"And what the hell am I supposed to do about that Nightmare Creature? No way I'm defeating that!" he cursed under his breath while jogging up the stairs. He was exhausted, his initial excitement and enthusiasm from the beginning of the Trial long gone, replaced instead by sheer fatigue and fear.

But when he finally saw the light streaming in from the entrance, he noticed something strange—there were no signs of the Nightmare Creature.

It was silent. Calm.

Hopping over two corpses, he quickly reached the open door. For a brief moment, he expected something to jump out and kill him, but nothing like that happened.

Cautiously glancing around, he finally stepped out of the tunnel. Outside, it was just as bright as when they first entered, even though he could've sworn he'd spent hours down there.

'This mind-fuck is so annoying,' he cursed under his breath, scanning his surroundings.

He found himself in a half-open hall. In front of him, an archway led to a bridge that connected to a new wing. Beyond it, smoke and fire billowed from towers, and ruined walls and roofs littered the landscape. The place was in terrible condition, yet there was still an undeniable energy radiating from it. A battle raged on there.

He spat and glanced back. The hall narrowed into another hallway.

'Great, another hallway. Is this whole damn castle just one endless corridor?!' He muttered curses under his breath as he walked toward it, his Bone Gauntlets still firmly in place.

But for some reason, there was no one to use them on. Not yet.

He walked for nearly five minutes before reaching another room where to his left, he immediately spotted what he had been searching for all this time.

He turned and faced the gigantic iron doors leading into the Throne Room. Eirwen grinned, baring his bloodied fangs. All the exhaustion vanished in an instant.

With quick steps, Eirwen approached the doors.

Placing his palms against the cold, metallic surface, he began to push with a groan. The gates were massive, but it made sense. They had to be this large for Saints in their transformed forms to enter. He could already imagine how immense the throne room itself would be.

Once there was enough room for him to slip through, Eirwen stopped pushing and slid inside.

The scene before him was something beyond anything he had ever seen. Not even in the books he'd read had he come across anything like this. His gaze wasn't even drawn to the throne room itself at first; his focus was entirely fixed on the sight in front of him.

Humans were helplessly tied to stakes or crosses, their bodies twisted in agony as they were tortured or burned. Some lay on the ground, bound and struggling, while robed figures loomed over them, performing gruesome, unspeakable acts. The air was thick with the stench of burning flesh and blood.

This immediately reminded Eirwen of when he had just woken up in the Trial. It reminded him of the cultists that were killing and torturing him.

But what grabbed his attention even more was the massive violet vortex in the center of a blood-soaked pentagram. Cultists knelt around its edges, each holding a candle, their prayers low and fervent. 'Do I have to make this Vortex explode?' he thought for a second.

"Kill them all, spill their blood, and soak this place in it," the voices echoed through his mind once more, drowning his senses for a brief moment.

His eyes widened, but his grin never faltered. Without a second's hesitation, he blurred forward, moving toward the nearest cultist.

He didn't discriminate in his massacre, cutting down everything in his path. The cultists were little more than monsters in human form, and the tortured human longed for death anyway. On top of that though, to Eirwen, none of them mattered. In his eyes, they weren't real, conjured by the Nightmare Spell. It all felt like a game, a story he was living in, where he had the freedom to do whatever he wanted without a shred of guilt. In that moment, nothing existed except for him.

After everything he had endured, Eirwen convinced himself that he deserved this. It helped a lot forgetting the fear he felt not even thirty minutes ago.

His Bone Blades cut through flesh effortlessly, the screams of the cultists ringing in his ears as blood splattered across him. The crimson painted his body, turning it from pale and marble-like to a chilling shade of red.

"This is bloodydamn fun!" he screamed, his laughter mixing with the screams around him as he whipped through the cultists.

Yet, strangely, the cultists didn't even attempt to resist. They simply knelt, accepting their fate without a fight, as though they had already resigned themselves to death.

---

Minutes later, Eirwen was panting, leaning on his knees, his body drenched in blood and viscera from head to toe.

"Done... Huff... What now? Isn't this supposed to be the end?" he muttered, glancing around, expecting some sort of response from Leviathan. But there was nothing. Only the Nightmare Spell echoed in his mind counting the kills.

He wiped the sweat and blood from his brow, something felt wrong to him, but Eirwen couldn't place it.

Eirwen groaned and looked around, waiting for anything to happen. He expected the portal-like vortex to simply explode, but instead, something entirely different happened.

Underneath his feet, he could suddenly feel the blood pooled on the floor move. It shifted, turning into streams that flew toward the center of the pentagram.

He arched his brow, stepping back instinctively, trying to avoid the flowing blood as it slithered forward.

The blood flowed toward the center of the pentagram, where the violet vortex began to pulse and spin.

"Finally. This Trial was already starting to get on my nerves," Eirwen said excitedly, a grin spreading across his bloodied face once more. He couldn't wait to return to the Waking World.

He stepped back and looked up at the vortex, which was now spinning violently. The energy in the room shifted, crackling and dancing through the air. The walls groaned under the pressure, and the wind whipped around, nearly forming a tornado.

But then, just as suddenly as it started, everything ceased. The vortex sucked itself in with a violent pull, disappearing into nothingness.

"Huh…" Eirwen stood there for a moment, waiting for something to happen.

Something did happen indeed.

The massive room seemed to darken all at once; or perhaps it was his vision failing him. He couldn't tell.

Suddenly, a suffocating pressure slammed down on him, forcing him to his knees. His uneven breaths came in sharp gasps, each one harder to take than the last. Sweat mixed with blood, dripping down his face as his eyes darted around frantically, searching for the source of the overwhelming force.

'Is it Leviathan again? Or a saint?' he thought, barely able to choke the question out in his mind.

Genuine, overpowering fear surged through his veins, and every nerve in his body screamed for him to do anything but look up. Don't look up, his mind begged, but despite his desperate attempts to resist, his head betrayed him, jerking upward involuntarily.

His eyes widened, and burned as his mind started to spiral as his body shook with raw terror from what he saw. There, hanging from the gigantic dome-like ceiling, was a grotesque, deformed beast.

It had a long, black body with patches of thick fur scattered across its form, and a humanoid torso that seemed almost too unnatural. Its legs were those of an animal, while its head was the skull of a horse, grotesque and hollow. Five long, multiple-jointed arms hung from its sides, twitching as if waiting to strike. On top of its grotesque head were long, spiraling black and jagged horns.

As the creature began to move, its massive body descending, Eirwen stumbled back, his legs shaking, desperately trying to scramble away. But his body refused to obey him. He couldn't run. He couldn't scream. He couldn't even move. All he could do was feel the cold weight of terror flood his mind. His pulse was faint, his breath shallow, and his face was frozen in an expression of primal fear.

The massive creature hung motionless, its enormous arm slowly extending toward Eirwen. Not a sound came from it, but the tension in the air was suffocating. The creature's long, black finger stretched out, the sharp nail gleaming as it inched closer to Eirwen.

His eyes widened in horror, heart pounding, as he watched the sharp tip of the nail draw nearer. The very space around it seemed to warp, bending and distorting as though reality itself might tear open under its touch.

'Get away from me! I can't die here!' was all he could think, panic flooding his veins. But before he could move, the nail finally touched his forehead and stopped, just for a second.

Then, with a blinding explosion of pain, it thrust into his skull, sinking deep into his brain. The world around him blurred as agony surged through his body.

---

[Wake up, Eirwen! Your nightmare is over]

[Prepare for appraisal…]