He slowly retreated from the slack, dead body that had fallen to the stony ground with a loud thud, resembling a brick wall being torn down and mangling the floor beneath it. When Reid's brain finally registered what had just happened, he also fell to the ground. Instead of laying face down, however, he knelt on the rigid stone floor.
After seeing such an unsightly visage—and being the person who caused it—he instinctively covered his mouth as if to stop something from escaping. As his stomach churned in pure, unadulterated dissatisfaction, Reid could no longer hold back what he was keeping inside, and puked. A few moments later, he brought his right arm up to his filthy mouth and wiped the disgusting substance from his lips, leaving smear marks across his cheek.
Reid's reaction was only natural. After all, he had not had the unfortunate honour of taking someone else's life before entering the Limit Break, as most people did. He had known since he could form a coherent thought that because he lived in a world without peace—one of only war, devastation, and loss—he would have to take a life one day. Yet, even though he knew he would have to perpetrate such a horrible act, it did not make actually doing it any easier.
His body felt light from the blood loss, but his head was a completely different story. In contrast to his body, his mind was heavy, as if it were holding up the heavens itself.
Staring into the dark expanse of what looked like a dungeon for prisoners—except for the fact that it only had one cell, and that cell had held Reid not too long ago—he started to stand up. Placing one hand on his crouched knee, he pushed himself off the wall he had been using as support. The immense burden of taking someone's life felt crushing and sickening. However, the very man Reid had killed had been trying to attack him as well, which lessened the guilt. If it had been an innocent person caught in the crossfire of a future battle, Reid didn't know what he would do.
Standing up once again, he pushed the immense feeling to the side and braced himself for what would inevitably happen next. As Reid calmed down, he shifted his gaze from the dead body to the stairs in front of him. He picked up the spear he had dropped earlier after falling to the ground and inspected it thoroughly.
The old weapon had a dirty, rusted spearhead that looked like it had once been a pristine silver, but no longer. It was most likely the result of a long period of use, though he didn't know for sure. As his gaze fell to the spear shaft, he saw a perfect groove where his hand gripped it. It was strange; it felt easily malleable, yet it still retained its hardness as if it weren't. Gripping the strange weapon, Reid resolved himself to complete the Limit Break and get home.
Walking towards the stairs, Reid heard hurried footsteps clash against the hard wooden surface, making a creaking sound. Before Reid knew what was happening, his body instinctively started to run toward the door to hide. Positioning his body in a way that kept him hidden, he waited. Soon after, three armored figures came rushing down, their guards up as well as their weapons. Reid recognized one of the guards; he was the man who had come down when had Reid broken one of the rusty iron bars.
The guards seemed to have no clue Reid was behind them. As they looked forward, their eyes locked onto two different sights. One was the empty cage that used to hold a dangerous prisoner; the second was a dead man on the floor wearing nothing but a tight leather bodysuit—one of their comrades.
One guard with a composed expression looked around further and saw pieces of mangled metal covered in blood on the floor. On the other hand, the two other guards who came with the first slowly walked over to the dead man and bowed their heads. Seeing this through a crack in the door, Reid let his guard down a little.
But that was not a good idea. Because if he hadn't, maybe he would have been ready for what he was about to see.
The two guards who were silently bowing their heads to their dead comrade suddenly raised them again. But instead of standing up and looking for Reid, they tore one of the dead man's arms off and bit into it. Witnessing the unpleasant visage, Reid gasped, but nearly instantly covered his mouth with both hands, hoping they didn't hear. Luckily for Reid, it seemed they didn't, probably because of how savagely the guards were ripping apart the dead man's corpse. The one man who was standing up gestured for the two kneeling guards to give him a piece. As they did, they also stood up.
One of them then turned his gaze toward the rusty prison cell and said in an eerily calm voice, while drops of blood fell from his mouth: "Hey boss, what do we do now? The Impure Prince... he's gone."
The one who was currently chomping on the leg of the man Reid had killed said in a voice that sounded slightly apprehensive, "Go, tell Rider to unleash the night crawlers, and also to blow the horn."
After that, one of the armored men left. It didn't look like he was very happy about releasing those night crawler things, so Reid didn't feel too good about it either. The other two men looked around for a while longer and then left, without finding Reid.
Reid gave it a minute or two before finally leaving his hiding place. When he did, he was still quite cautious, looking around a little before finally climbing the hard wooden stairs up to the next level of wherever he was.
As Reid reached the top of the stairs, he saw a large portrait painting of a person whose gender he just couldn't assign, no matter how hard he tried. Eventually, he gave up.
Some parts of the painting even moved—only slightly, barely noticeable to the naked eye, but Reid could see. He could see it all. The person in the painting looked to be young. Their deep purple hair resembled the vast, endless expanse of the cosmos, sometimes with star-like fragments streaking across the surface to create a mesmerizing sight. They had a pair of blinding white eyes that shone like stars in space, dancing at a slow, rhythmic pace, and a skin colour that didn't resemble anything found on Earth.
Underneath the painting, there were words, or at least letters, inscribed onto the stone wall that held it up. Though they were smudged and barely readable, some weren't, and they read: "T..... .....d ... ..c...e."
Reid couldn't decipher what the sentence was actually meant to say, and he wasn't going to try even if he could. After all, he was on the run and didn't have time. So, after a minute of looking at the painting, he turned away and started to head toward wherever the exit was.
Soon, there was a loud, melodious sound that rang through Reid's ears like nails scraping across a chalkboard. He dropped to his knees in agony, but as abruptly as it started, it ended.
Catching his bearings once again, Reid stood up and turned the corner, quite dazed. When he did, he found himself standing in the middle of a wide-open battleground of sorts. The wide-open space was dimly lit, differing from the pitch black of the corridor. There, on the other side of the large room, was a metal door that looked like it was meant to keep something in. Various bodies of different creatures lay on the floor, bloodied and mangled.
But the door was open.
A bit frightened, Reid ran to the other side of the arena toward another door. This door was different from the one in the center of the large arena; it was similar to the door he had exited to enter the space, so he felt safer. Turning another corner that looked nearly identical to the one on the other side, he stopped. A shiver ran down his spine as he heard heavy breathing—and felt it collide with his bare back.