Struggle

Over the next few minutes, Rethys continued weathering the stone-bending creature's assault, with no end in sight. He kept avoiding attacks or disabling them with his magic, and taking a few hits when he couldn't do either.

He got hit a lot actually, as each blow meant he'd lose his balance, which in turn meant that he'd get pelted by many more attacks from the creature's soft stone tendrils.

The soft stone didn't do much real damage, only bruising him at worst. However, this ordeal was beginning to wear him out, and it wasn't long until he was completely exhausted.

"This bastard..." Rethys sighed, his mind filled with inordinate amounts of frustration.

He had tried everything in his arsenal, everything he could think of, and everything his powers and body were capable of, but nothing worked. The creature remained protected within the flowing stone, and continued to toss him around with weak strikes that still sapped him of his strength.

He tried digging through the malleable stone to reach the living thing controlling it within, but it didn't work, as it simply sunk deeper into the stone as he tried.

He tried sending his ether towards the creature to disable it, but that didn't work either, the ether rich stone it surrounded itself with prevented Rethys' own magic from going through.

Through it all, he realized that this creature was not all that strong, it could even be said that it was weak. If it could move the viscous stone a bit faster, or if it could increase its fluidity, then Rethys would have had no chance whatsoever of survival.

No, the issue he struggled against was that he simply had no way of countering its ability, as it was material in nature, while his own was ethereal. He could do nothing as it handled him like a plaything, solely due to his own weakness.

At the end of it all, his body was battered and tired, and his stores of energy seemed all but spent. His breathing was growing ragged, and his muscles took more and more effort to move. It seemed that soon, both his magic and his body will fail him.

"I'm not going to die here. I'm getting out of this place!" He grunted.

Moving his body to the side, he avoided another attack, then another, then more.

Seeing through the ether that his opponent had just rose upwards through the stone, he lunged forward, his right hand already wreathed in Origin ether. His punch went through the shapeless stone, sinking a bit before delivering a sizeable, concentrated wave of Origin ether towards the being within the walls.

Just like the rest of Rethys' attempts however, this one also ended in failure. For though his attacks grew increasingly accurate with each attempt, the nature of his adversary simply prevented him from retaliating.

He was running out of time. His breathing turned to haggard panting and his muscles screamed from the slightest movement, but he wouldn't give in.

"Damn it!!" He yelled defiantly.

His body though, didn't share its owner's indomitable will, and Rethys eventually fell down. His muscles completely gave out, and his lungs felt as if they were on fire.

And as he fell, he could feel the gray mud-like stone slowly moving around to envelop him.

It was then that the object of his chagrin, the creature he was fighting, deigned to appear, emerging out of the fluid stone and marching unevenly and clumsily towards him.

Looking at the creature that had been torturing him for the past quarter of an hour, he saw an eyeless face with only two holes for a nose, and a large mouth filled with sharp teeth.

The toothy grin it wore seemed to mock Rethys as both stared at each other.

The creature regarded the bound young man carefully, taking its time to study him in his entirety. It then approached him, and raising its thin leg, brought its foot down on Rethys' right leg with surprising strength, breaking it at the shin.

"Arghhh!!" He screamed in pain.

While Rethys was busy screaming, the creature then approached his head, and with a swift motion, brought its hand down, intent on finishing him off.

Before it could however, Rethys, circulating an unhealthy amount of Infusion magic through his body, grabbed its hand and dragged it down to the ground with one forceful motion.

The creature, its back laying on the ground now, panicked and tried sinking into the stone to escape. Before it could however, a powerful fist struck its head, caving its skull in.

But it wasn't dead yet, as it possessed the sheer resilience expected of it as a remnant of Yvtar, and let out a shrill shriek as it tried to shake off its aggressor. Its lanky body hid surprising physical strength, and it seemed that even while enhanced, Rethys couldn't fully overpower it.

But he didn't care, focusing solely on attacking as he continued to strike again and again, reducing the ground around them to rubble, and its head to red paste.

"DIE!! DIE YOU BASTARD!!" The young man screamed, his eyes tinged with madness.

The sound of flesh striking flesh resounded throughout the broken halls, until that sound gradually changed into the crushing of stone.

The moment Rethys snapped out of his frenzy, his attention instantly turned to his surroundings as he made sure no other creature was coming.

Reassured that he wasn't in danger of getting into another fight, he looked at the creature he had just killed. Its head was completely gone, replaced instead with a bloody hole dug into the shattered stone of the floor. Looking at his once again badly hurt hands, he was met with the sight of the blood and monster brains that went up to his elbow.

'Great...'

Dragging himself to a nearby wall, he laid his back on it and tried his best to steady his breathing.

His leg was broken, his hands were a mess, a few of his ribs were broken from the creature's death throes, and he was tired beyond belief. He didn't feel much pain now, only heat running through his body, but knew that it was only temporary, and that the pain would return at greater intensity.

The sudden overuse of his faulty Infusion magic was also already noticeable, especially in his right arm that seemed to barely feel a thing anymore. He frowned at the sight, but he dismissed it, he had bigger worries for now.

Prying open his pouch, he took out a Restoration etherstone and held it near his right leg while sending his ether towards it. Before long, the stone marble shed its teal color and fully took on the dark blue hue of Origin.

He tried repeating the process for the other Restoration stones he had, but realized he was all but completely out of energy after using the first one. He could tell his leg wasn't fully healed yet by looking through it with his senses, but he now had to wait.

Looking around, he looked back to the corpse of the spindly creature. Its soul was still trapped in it, and he decided to take care of that before healing himself, it was his mission after all.

'Huh?'

As he froze in place, his blood ran cold as he realized what just ran through his head.

'What the hell am I thinking?' Rethys thought, feeling a horrible and familiar sensation within himself.

'I need to get back to her!' He decided in a hurry as he focused all the energy he still had into healing himself.

After a few rounds of healing and regenerating energy, his leg was usable again, and standing up, he rushed to grab his things and leave.

Grabbing all his things and stuffing the heavy metal strongbox in his satchel, he was quickly on his way back to the sealing chamber.

The walk from there proved the most stressful experience Rethys ever had the displeasure of experiencing. Every single part of his body either ached, bled or didn't feel like it was there at all. Both of his hands bled profusely and his right arm went completely numb, only returning the faintest of responses from anything. The only part that didn't hurt was ironically his previously broken leg that he used all of his healing on.

As if that weren't enough, feelings that weren't his were invading his mind, making him lose his line of thought time and time again. A familiar voice was also reverberating in his head, repeating the word "Kindred" over and over.

The cacophony of sensations and the threat of losing his free will again did his already strained mind no favors, and Rethys felt like he was losing it.

'Did she lie to me?! But she told me- of course she lied, and what can I ever do about it... Shit! Curse her! And curse this place!'

Minute after minute, he walked on and on through the stone galleries, his mind gradually growing numb to the chaos trying to overwhelm him.

Feeling only pain, hearing only his footsteps, Rethys' mind eventually reached a semblance of balance, and an eerie coldness descended upon his thoughts. But though he could think clearer than ever now, his worries were never greater.

'I need to keep it together, stay calm.' He repeated in his mind.

He could now sense the Origin entity communicating to him clearly, not through the link that once bound his soul to it, but through some other way he couldn't make sense of.

He could feel its rage towards Sevi, as well as its pleading towards him to continue with his mission. He did his best to ignore the intrusion upon his mind, but could always feel it in the back of his head.

He was thankfully still in control of himself, but didn't know how much time he had left.

Snapping out of his thoughts, he turned his full attention to his surroundings for the rest of the walk back.