chapter 33 rude awakening
Fighter's hands and feet were tightly bound; every movement was restricted. He lay flat on a cold stone table. He tried to thrash his head from right to left, but he could see nothing—his eyes were covered with a thick cloth.
A vast amount of time seemed to pass, yet nothing changed. Within the void of his mind, the words of the [Empty Heaven Dissipating Sky Manual Scripture] repeated again and again, like an unending echo.
Exhausted from struggling for so long, Fighter finally gave up. The situation was utterly confusing.
The moment he stopped moving, something happened. The cloth covering his eyes was ripped away. Fighter blinked his eyes open, only to see the ground below covered with bowing shadows that flickered like candlelight. He was perched atop a high stone pyramid.
Fighter tried to move again, but something invisible and unforeseen was binding his very existence.
And then...
And then... he saw the Sky.
Suddenly, the hallucination looped. Fighter forgot how many times he had heard the sound of that scripture. At some point, he began to read along with it—reciting the words himself. He didn't know why. He didn't even know how much time had passed while he was trapped in that state.
Intoxicated by the sensation, Fighter asked Rechal.
Fighter: "Did you try to drug me? I am not into that type of thing. I hate drugs."
Rechal: [ No. Ok ]
Rechal gave no further answer. Her response would have been ice-cold if not for that final "Ok" tucked inside it.
Fighter felt a sudden chill deep inside his stomach—a faint sense of emptiness. It didn't feel like hunger; it felt as if there was simply nothing in that space. Occasionally, it felt like a gate was opening and closing inside him, a portal leading from his body to an unknown place.
All of a sudden, Fighter's back felt incredibly heavy.
He didn't understand what was happening to him—one confusing thing after another. Then, the sensation shifted again. Around his abdomen, a new organ seemed to have opened up in the very spot where he had felt that emptiness. The feeling was indescribable.
The organ began processing the air around him. Fighter knew by instinct what it was: [Ethos]. Now, Fighter had his own Ethos. It was entirely new to him. With a weak smile and an excited expression, he whispered:
Fighter: "It seems I have been diseased my whole life..."
His joy was short-lived. Fighter's entire body broke into a heavy sweat. His temperature skyrocketed; a fierce fever took hold, and his body felt broken and ailing. He could not move. Unlike the hallucination, this time he simply didn't have the energy to lift a finger.
________________________________________
In the morning, the sky was bright and blue. However that was no sound of birds it was a depressing dead morning .
A sudden, loud knocking at the door startled Fighter, dragging him awake from a heavy sleep.
Kaizer: "What the hell happened to you? You haven't come out of that room for two days!"