Distress

Stump! Stump! Stump!

Huff! Huff!

I was running as fast as I could while also focusing on my surroundings. Although my vision was blurry due to the blood loss from my brain, Delta was still able to sort out the required details of the environment by looking through my eyes.

"Come on dude! Did you find anything?" As I was running across an unknown region, I yelled into the air with an annoyed tone.

- "Until now, Delta is unable to process anything which could be used for the cure of the poison. Host should not lose hope, just one ingredient to balance the effects of the flower would be enough to get host out of this predicament."

"Ahh! Fucking hell!" I exclaimed loudly into the air to calm the anger that was building in my mind.

Processing thoughts in my head was getting more and more difficult. My mind was slowly becoming clouded. The control over my emotions was gradually depleting. It felt as if the dam that I had built earlier to stop the emotions, would break at any moment.

My whole body was in pain. I felt very weak and feverish. The bandage, the arm and the whole left side of the clothes I was wearing had dyed red due to my own blood. As I ran in the forest, I left behind a trail of blood which could attract unwanted attention from monsters.

Due to the increase in the Health stat, I was somehow still managing to survive. The blood loss was constantly recovered by generating more cells by my body. However, it wasn't enough. It was as if a tank held water and a hole was made in it that would take more water than the amount entering the tank, eventually emptying it.

'A normal person would have died by now. It is only due to the increased stat that I am still surviving. But if I don't manage to find the cure on time…Fuck!'

Kaw! Kaw!

I looked behind me at the source of the sound. There were some Corvucs flying over me. They were beasts which were very similar to crows. These beasts fed on dead corpses and they were following me because I had the potential to be one.

My thoughts were so clogged up that I even forgot to check the details of the beasts from the system as well as appointing the 5 stat points I had obtained earlier into the Health stat. If I did, I would have managed to survive a bit longer. Even Delta didn't mention it to me!

Huff! Huff!

"Did you find anything? Is there nothing that could be done now? Where is your fucking Goddess that brought me into this accursed world? Isn't she the Goddess of Destiny? Does she want me dead? Am I nothing but a toy to her? I'm fucking going to die and you are quiet! DELTA!" I yelled uncontrollably into nothing.

My mind was being consumed by dread. Somewhere along the way, for some reason, Delta had stopped responding to my calls.

I ran and ran and ran, passing through many lakes, clearings and vegetation. I also saw many new and old types of beasts and monsters but only the Corvucs were continuously following me.

Without wasting any chances, I used Agility as much as I could. There was no way for me to know where I was heading. At this point, if I entered Bulios again, I didn't even care. It would atleast be able to provide me with some hope to survive.

Infront of me, I noticed a blurry and densely foggy area. It seemed as if the light of the stars was not able to penetrate through, as it looked dark and eerie.

- "Run away!"

Delta said something in my ears. It was crisp but all my disoriented mind was able to understand was 'Run' as it skipped the 'away' part. So that was what I did and ran straight into the fog.

By then, all my senses had dulled down. It felt as if I was in oblivion where I could not feel anything, similar to that time in the train where I had died.

From my dull senses, I managed to listen to the sounds of whimpering of a bunch of monsters, especially Lupii, in the dense fog. Somewhere along the way the Corvucs had also probably left me to my own antics.

Haa! Haa!

As I ran deeper and deeper into the cold and dark fog, I somehow managed to see a very small plant from my blurry vision, about 1 foot (30 centimeters) in height. Its details were lost in my vision due to my dulled senses.

The only detail about that plant that made it stood out from the rest in the dense fog was that it was glowing. The small plant was glowing with a dazzling blue light that even put the unreachable lights of the stars to shame in the dark fog.

As I stopped running and stood at the place like a statue, while staring at the plant, Delta spoke again. He only said three words.

- "That will do."

"Fuck yes!"

Filled with a newfound enthusiasm, I started to move towards the plant. However, my legs rejected to follow my command. They started to shake before I lost all sensation in them and slumped down.

Thud!

I fell in the pool of my own blood which was greedily being absorbed by the ground. My consciousness was fading and I knew that I had not much time left.

"AAAHHH!" I screamed as I moved my aching arms forward and planted my fingers into the soil. With the help of the anchorage, I crawled towards the plant as much as I could.

However, I was going nowhere. The glowing plant was still far from me but I was now also losing sensation in my arms. The legs already had no more sensation in them. It was as if a useless and heavy load was tied at my waist that I had to pull.

Right after covering a couple of meters, my hands died down too. I lost all control in them. They felt nothing more than useless and heavy sticks attached to my torso.

It was getting more and more difficult to breathe. My mind refused to process anything. My consciousness was only tied to a thin thread which was keeping me alive and I felt that that thread was slowly tearing apart.

Just a few meters more. Just a few more feet and the plant would have been in my grasp but my body was paralyzed. The blood was pooling around me. The flow was slowly decreasing. My skin that had finally got flushed with pink now became yellow, a yellow that only meant death.

But I didn't lose hope yet. I whispered into the stagnant air of the fog, "Keratin Control!"

As soon as I activated that skill, my focus went straight towards my jet black hairs. From my remaining consciousness, I managed to get a control over them. As I intended to increase the length of my hairs, it started to do so. It felt natural.

Although my scalp was hurting as if someone was pulling on my hair with a huge force, it was nothing compared to the joy I was feeling as I noticed that my hairs started to grow and covered my face. From in between the hairs, I looked at the glowing plant infront of me and directed the hairs to move like tentacles in that direction.

It was painful and very difficult yet I was somehow managing to not lose control. I kept on using the skill for around 20 minutes when my hairs covered around a meter of length.

'Come on! Come on! Just a few more feet to go!'

As much as I wanted them to grow more, they stopped growing at around a meter length. No matter what I did, nothing happened and I was just stuck in the pool of my own blood and hairs.

'Fuck!' I cursed in my head as I was unable to speak. The time limit of 30 minutes for the skill got over and I didn't even manage to reach close to the plant. All the hairs fell lifelessly in the pool of blood surrounding me, covering my face as it also fell into the mess.

With the last light of hope getting covered with the hairs in my blurry vision, my consciousness faded and I fainted, awaiting my death from the blood loss.

***

I slowly opened my eyes as my consciousness returned and immediately turned to look at my arm that was still bleeding. The blood was coming out at a steady pace.

However, this time, the pool of blood that was surrounding my arm had some strange brown colored worms crawling inside it. They crawled and suddenly started to move towards the wound!

I watched in horror as the worms climbed over my arm and started entering the opening in the wound. The flow of the blood did nothing to stop them.

"AAAHHH!"

I screamed as I felt an excruciating pain from the wound as the worms entered one by one inside my body and started to move inside my blood vessels.

"What the fu- AAAHHH!"

I was unable to process anything and the only thing I felt was pain, excruciating and unimaginable intensity of pain.