The full moon tonight witnessed the return of a failed adventurer.
The road ahead was as long as the one left behind. A pair of well-worn boots trudged along the gravel path. The owner of the boots was a young man with a tall, thin build. He wore a thick, faded cloak with tattered flaps. On his head was a Wisdom Hat - the traditional pointed, wide-brimmed hat of witches and wizards here. Propped on his back was a simple wooden coffin, carefully tied with rope.
Unlike the stories he often read, where the end of a hero's adventure was filled with joyful applause, people cheering with happy sobs, church bells ringing, or a beautiful happy ending. He was just a failed adventurer, not even a hero.
Under the moonlight, his lonely shadow stretched out. After all, there was only death on his shoulders and death lingering in his mind. However, that could not stop his determination. Because after tonight, everything would end.
He stood before the path leading into the forest, sighing. From within the forest, a breeze blew, lightly flicking the brim of his hat. His scarred hand quickly fixed the hat. When he looked up, the night sky appeared before his eyes.
As the moon gradually moving up to the top, he quickly increased his speed.
Behind this forest was a small village on the outskirts of Arvea - where it all began.
Quickly passing the shortcut, his rough hands quickly pushed the tall, dry grass aside. Not long after, when the tall grass gradually became sparse, the village gate gradually appeared before his eyes.
At that time, the small, nameless village had fallen into a deep sleep. The surrounding space was filled with only the chirping of crickets, the whistling of the wind, and the mocking laughter of the treetops.
Relying on his rusty memories, he held the rope tightly, heading straight into the village. Walking until he stood in front of the wooden gate leading to a certain house.
The old wooden gate creaked as it was pushed open, revealing a lush green yard. The freshly trimmed grass still gave off a faint fragrance. Under the gate stretched a stone-paved path leading into the yard. The path curved around a large old tree in the middle of the yard and then split into two branches: the right one led to a house, and the left led to a warehouse.
He hurriedly strode to the left path. By this time, the Moon was almost at its peak. He walked to the warehouse, opened the door, and put the coffin down. He grabbed a few pieces of chalk lying on the table that was littered with test tubes, pestles, mortars, ink, etc., and quickly sketched a complex magic circle.
As soon as the Moon reached its peak, the magic circle was completed. He took off his chalk, waved his cloak, and walked towards the coffin. When he stood before the coffin, he knelt down out of habit, gently resting his forehead on the coffin lid, and murmured, "Finally. We've arrived... After everything is over. I hope you'll forgive me for what I'm about to do next."
His fingertips followed the wood grain to the knot on the coffin lid. After carefully removing the ropes, he removed the coffin lid.
Inside the coffin was a body wrapped tightly in cloth, surrounded by blocks of eternal ice. The body was the intact form of an adult woman. In some places, the cloth was loose, revealing a few strands of platinum-pink hair.
The body was then gently placed inside the magic circle, next to the corpse of a rabbit.
"A soul in tune with a soul in tune with a memory - a soul in tune," he whispered, waving his hand, pulling out from his pocket two pieces of an arrow. The item he had just taken out was elegantly shaped and covered in blood.
He held the two pieces of arrow in his palm, hesitating. This was the only thing she had left behind in this world. Proof of a terrible adventure. And proof that he was a murderer.
After thinking, he gritted his teeth and placed the arrow fragments firmly in the center of the magic circle. Then, the space bag dropped a bronze magic knife into his outstretched palm.
His hand tightened its grip on the knife handle, while the other hand extended forward. The tip of the knife swung down, cutting his palm, and blood flowed out. He was determined, shouting loudly: "This is not the end yet!"
Red blood filled the magic circle. The chalk line quickly absorbed the warm liquid. In an instant, the entire circle was dyed red. From within the magic circle, bright red rays of light emerged. Standing in front of the circle, he looked down and softly said:
"Perform the resurrection ritual."
The room echoed with the high and low chants: sometimes steady, sometimes high-pitched, sometimes urgent, and sometimes like whispering. Sometimes, he caught himself screaming, sometimes like crying. Although his tears could not stop flowing under the power of the magic, his mouth still chanted the spell.
The ritual made his hands tremble.
After the extreme sadness, the anger came like hundreds of waves, urging him to stab the blade deeper into his body
In the room, the blood continued to fall.
Drip, drip.
As soon as the blood stopped dripping, the blade once again quickly contacted his palm. Once, once, and once again. The sound of the falling blood mixed with the spell's incantations to form a strange symphony in which the red light was like an audience enjoying it. It happily wriggled, floating along with the song and sipping the drops of blood that were pungent like children being given candy.
The blades pressed on the wounds one by one. Not knowing how many times, or how long, the veins on his hands twitched. The white fingers clenched tightly, as if trying to merge with the knife handle.
His vision towards the magic diagram was gradually obscured by black patches.
How much blood had he... lost? He wondered. He didn't have time to stop anyway.
As he continued to speak, the blood continued to flow.
Drip, drip.
Drip, drip.
Drip, drip!
He woke up. What? Did I lose focus? What about the ritual? He shook his head and looked around. In front of him, the space remained the same. There were still corpses, magic diagrams, the knife in his hand, and the red glow of the circle still swaying slightly. Panicking at his loss of focus, he bit the inside of his cheek, waving his hand to sprinkle blood into the circle. The hand holding the knife kept swinging down.
Fear gradually took over him. He gasped, continuing the incantations he thought he had missed earlier, praying that the ritual wasn't wrong. No, it couldn't be wrong.
His face had already turned white. His lips were pale and dry. As soon as he finished speaking, he let out a gasp; the magic knife fell, bouncing a few times before falling still on the floor.
He collapsed, trying to regain his vision after losing so much blood. His bloody hands hesitantly groped on the cold floor, towards the crimson chalk lines of the magic circle.
The ritual was completed.
Outside the window, the moon on the sky had long since left its zenith. The soft moonlight shining through the window left traces on his cheek. He shifted his gaze back to the front, where everything remained as it was.
... Did it not work?
His hands clenched into fists, punching the floor hard. Damn it, was it because he did something wrong just now?
Two years!
All the efforts of the past two years were ruined by himself at the last minute. He gritted his teeth, his whole body trembling with anger.
But where he didn't notice, the halo slowly retracted into the chalk lines. And in the center of the magic circle, one, then two,... black bubbles suddenly emerged. The thick liquid spread out, spreading in the blink of an eye, swallowing everything around.
It covered the arrow fragments, the rabbit corpse. And when it smelled the corpse, it immediately flowed over.
So immersed in anger, he was completely unaware that the liquid was gradually pulling all the items into a newly opened space in the center, including the woman's corpse. It wasn't until the woman's corpse was more than halfway submerged in the circle that he panicked.
"No, no, NO!" He pounced, screaming, "ALICE!"
When his fingertips touched the pink locks of hair, the woman named Alice's corpse was completely swallowed under the ground. He gasped, his mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood. At some point, the liquid had formed a black tentacle that shot out, stabbing straight into the chest below.
The tentacle lifted him up into the air. Before he could react, other claws continuously aimed at the same spot on his chest, slamming him hard into the floor.
Bang!
"Ah…" he groaned, his eyes flashing, his hand groping for the nearby magic knife. But the tentacles seemed to have a premonition and foresaw his intention. Seeing him try to crawl forward, they knocked the knife away and pinned his arm.
Then the pain spread from his rib cage. He screamed but the sound could not escape his throat. The tentacles wriggled inside, expanding his rib cage. He felt the pain of thousands of knives stabbing deep into his bones. And the pain was even more excruciating when they began to wriggle, sliding their slippery heads through the lungs and other internal organs inside. They were searching for something.
He struggled to move his wrist, trying to pull at the tentacles but failed because the skin was too slippery. The ritual just now had consumed almost all of his mana, he could not even cast any other low-level magic now. However, he couldn't die, at least not now.
He grabbed the tentacle, forcibly sucking the mana back into himself. The pain of sucking the mana back into himself was like a mosquito bite compared to the pain in his chest.
The tentacle that had its mana sucked away under his hand quickly shriveled up.
He raised his head, opening his mouth wide to prevent the blood from flowing back into his throat. He muttered, "Shear."
Immediately, sharp gusts of wind slashed the tentacles, causing them to fall down with a thud. The severed tentacles quickly disintegrated into black puddles, returning to the circle.
He fell heavily to the ground. He raised his hand to rub his eyes, but he couldn't rub away the blackness in his vision because he had lost too much blood. He propped himself up with his hands, struggling to crawl towards the circle. However, the black puddle before his eyes was mysteriously rolling back. It quickly retracted itself into the demonic map, transforming into a small whirlpool. As he blindly reached out, a small crackling sound caused flames to rise and white smoke to rush in—
BANG!
The explosion sent him flying against the wall of the room. In his gradually fading vision, he saw that his chest had become a mushy mess, and a few ribs had been pulled out during the struggle. At that moment, his consciousness also faded.
In the smoke, he seemed to see a black shadow appear. But before he could figure out the problem, the sounds from the past caught up with him, pulling his mind back into the deep sea.
He smiled wearily, bowing his head and letting the current of his mind carry him away. Only now did he feel peace. The peace they said only existed—in death.