Death had always been simple.
A line. End.
No one could avoid it.
He was familiar with death to a certain extent.
And Aziel was certain of that, having once encountered a near-death experience.
Or maybe, just death.
Being tasked to prevent death felt impossible.
Akin to trying to rewrite fate itself.
Perhaps what he had understood of the quest wasn't what it truly meant.
Or maybe it was.
Either way, Aziel had no choice.
The system had always, until now, aligned with his goals, though often in its own chaotic way.
This time too, he felt, the system had guided him toward what he needed.
Aziel wanted to escape this hell as quickly as possible, alive.
But he suspected the system knew better.
It knew he wouldn't be able to return without ensuring he could never die here, at least not foolishly.
Otherwise, he might remain trapped for ages.
"Well… this idea of mine… might not be that reckless, now that I've got a reason for it,"
Aziel muttered under his breath, gazing intently at the aurora-colored remnants where the plasma being had lunged its tentacles.
Apparently, this was the one that hadn't been fed upon by those parasites.
"Sometimes, the only way to survive is to speak in a language you never knew you could,"
he said nonchalantly, fingers hovering over the system screen as he attempted to write a skill description.
LCreating…
LInitializing…
LSkill creation failed.
"Fuck… at least let me have a skill for myself, you self-heinous bitch,"
Aziel cursed, impatience flickering across his face as he hurriedly tweaked something within the skill description.
---
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L Chamaleon Acrobat
LCreating…
LInitializing…
L Skill creation successful
Total Skills • [2/2]
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[ View skill description ]
.
---
"Later. First, I need to find a spot that won't try to murder me the second I blink," he muttered, his voice flat, almost humorless, the kind of sarcasm that's too serious to laugh at.
He sighed, closing the system screen and stepping forward.
It wasn't like he had any clue which direction he should go.
Aziel glanced around, taking in the distant, chaotic swirl of storms spinning violently in the distance. They were a force to be reckoned with.
"That's definitely not the route to glory."
He commented dryly, a shiver running down his spine.
He turned toward the only direction that seemed mercifully free of storms, like a peninsula jutting into the horizon.
The path stretched endlessly ahead, drifting into the unknown.
For reference, Aziel made a mental note of a particularly unique rock nearby, just in case the distance decided to warp again.
.
•••
.
It had been some time since Aziel began walking, though how long exactly he couldn't tell.
He had tried keeping track of his heartbeats as a reference but lost count soon after.
"It might've been an hour… maybe a day… perhaps a month… but I don't feel a bit tired. Not even hungry, in fact," Aziel murmured to himself as he passed what must have been the hundredth boulder he'd marked to detect any distance warps.
So far, he'd only noticed the landscape shift a few times, or at least that's what he thought.
The scenery offered no clues, looping endlessly as if the world itself had become a broken record, repeating the same barren view with almost imperceptible changes.
"This isn't working… I was hoping I wouldn't have to use that skill, but it leaves me with no choice."
He sighed, his gaze drifting to the horizon, where, instead of the familiar desolate terrain, something else waited.
Liquid.
Black liquid.
His eyes flickered with a spark of hope, but it quickly dulled back to his usual, detached glare.
This wasn't the first time.
He had already seen things like this dozens of times on his trek, and each one had been a hallucination.
Once it was an enormous cave, beckoning him with mysteries.
Another time, a crack splitting the land straight down to hell.
Then a dense fog rolling in, hinting at something potent behind it.
And the list went on.
And he...
He had believed all of them.
'This is the last time. Next time, I won't be tricked,' he had promised himself.
But not this time.
Or at least, that's what he thought, until he realized he was already bolting toward the horizon.
'This is it. My mind tells me it's real.'
The thought echoed through him as the horizon drew closer and the liquid spread wider.
The closer he ran, the clearer it became.
It wasn't a mirage.
It was a sea.
An endless stretch of black liquid, spanning as far as his eyes could reach, both across the horizon and deep into the distance.
It swallowed the land entirely, as if the world itself simply ended and bled into this ocean.
The surface writhed, not with waves like water, but with sluggish, heavy ripples that rolled too slowly, too deliberately, as though the sea itself was alive and breathing.
Aziel's steps faltered as he stood at the edge, staring out at the vastness.
"…So this is real," he muttered under his breath, his voice low, uncertain.
The memory of every other hallucination gnawed at him.
A strange chill radiated from the liquid, seeping into his bones.
It wasn't water.
It wasn't even remotely close.
He crouched carefully at the edge, hovering his fingers over its surface.
He had to verify its existence first.
To feel it.
Slowly, he dipped his only perfect hand in.
It was dense.
Way too dense than any liquid he had seen.
The thick black liquid clung instantly, pulling slightly.
Each finger sank deeper than they should have, and felt like being pulled.
Not inside.
But forward.
He yanked his hand back, eyes wide, watching the dark substance drip and writhe with an almost sentient motion.
A cold realization dawned upon him, and he froze.
Caught somewhere between genius and utterly bonkers.
And yet, almost reflexively, almost foolishly, he plunged his entire arm in, as if testing some cosmic dare, ignoring every warning instinct in his mind.
The liquid thrashed, splashed, and stuck like a stubborn octopus.