"So I am doomed to stay here even if my body turns to ash." Kiyeri sat in the white space again. He saw that the bck creatures were approaching and the bloodline circle was gone, but he didn't move. Everything lost its meaning.
" So you were the one steering this boat, Seyre?" Kiyeri buried his face in his palms, and finally, tears that hadn’t fallen in years spilled into them, “Ashi..."
If Seyre was waiting in ambush, then Ashiya sure did not survive.
He dropped onto his back like a fallen cross, arms outstretched. The approaching Voidborne growled and screamed, but what was the point of fighting them now? His body had turned to dust from that stab, his soul was stuck in the Beyond forever. Even if he could return, where would he go? Kiyeri's heart was breaking, his voice trembling, "Forgive me, I messed up... I deserved this."
Those words – “It‘s not normal to hurt yourself for others”, rang out in his head very clearly, as if they had been spoken to his ear just now. Before the Voidbore could grab him, Kiyeri jumped to his feet. He muttered under his breath as he began again, "Am I really going to resist after all this?"
“Not how you should feel, but what you really feel.” Listening to the voice repeating in his head, he took up weapons. “...what would you wish the most now”, “You know it's not for nothing”
And he started cutting. Overwhelmed by rage, mourning, and pain, he simply sshed, screamed, and sshed. He fell, got up again, and sshed again. He didn't count how many times, ignoring everything that hurt, he got up, screamed, and sshed. For a small possibility, for the slightest chance, for the hope that maybe he wasn't alone, he kept getting up, screaming and sshing.
It seemed like everything sted forever. His legs were dragging from fatigue, his hands were shaking, and blood was appearing here and there on his body. His throat was so dry that even breathing hurt, everything was blurry in his eyes, but he still got up.
Who knew how much time had passed, or how many times he had fallen, but finally, the attacks had become much rarer and the time between them had become much longer. The swarm of creatures around him had completely disappeared, and those standing far away probably couldn't even see him. Kiyeri finally tidied up everything around him and, having gained space, he could breathe again. Breathing heavily, he wiped the sweat from his face, "Hmt. There really is some specific amount of you here."
Muscle pain, sweat, heavy breathing, fatigue. The soul doesn't have such troubles; these are problems of the body. Kiyeri bent down and rested his hands on his knees, still trying to normalize his breathing, "Millennium Dagger disintegrates the body into dust... What a nonsense!"
Those tears were the first proof, but he didn't understand it at that moment, all his senses were different now. When the Voidborne had previously torn at his soul, their cws would have pierced him immediately, like a paper doll. Now, against a real body, they were no more terrible than wild boars, and he ate wild boars for breakfast. The only advantage of the Voidborne was their numbers, but against a real body they could do nothing, they cked speed, strength, and intelligence.
Taking a breath, Kiyeri examined his injuries, and there were plenty. Realizing his mana was no longer circuting, he sat down and began treating them the old-fashioned way. "If I had known that I couldn't heal myself... Good thing I didn’t let my eyes get gouged out in all that madness..."
He and Ashiya always carried a first aid kit with them. When traveling in such conditions, energy was constantly running out, and wounds needed to be tended to. The habit of always keeping that kit at his belt had paid off many times.
While cleaning and bandaging his wounds, Kiyeri carefully watched the Voidbornes hovering a little farther away and decided there must be a certain distance from which they would react and attack. It was also unclear what would happen if he died in their clutches, maybe then he would disappear altogether, or he would return to his world, the risk was too great, and he had to be careful.
The suspicions he had about this pce were more or less confirmed. That Dagger sucked his blood as a sacrifice and he received a blood barrier in the afterlife. The dagger pierced his body and the body turned to dust. No, the body also ended up in the “afterlife”. According to legend, only souls from those thousands of people were sacrificed and collected by the dagger, The Beyond is flooded with Voidborne who do not bleed when cut and do not leave corpses.
This is not the afterlife, hell, or The Beyond, as they call it. This is the other side of the Millennium Dagger, maybe inside, maybe some other unknown space. But no one here is dead.
Kiyeri rose to his feet and prepared to move forward. As he stretched his arms, the corners of his lips turned up, “It doesn’t matter how it works now, but if there is an entrance, there must be a way back.”
He took a deep breath, looking into the distance, feeling nothing in his throat: “If I am here, then you are here... Everyone else is here too. And I will find you all.”
As his head cooled down, Kiyeri's journey became easier. He gradually moved forward and lured the Voidbornes one by one getting rid of them. This space had no walls or ceiling in sight, everything was just white. But the floor was present, so Kiyeri decided to find a wall first. Gradually, walking as straight as possible and destroying the creatures coming at him, he noticed a pattern - they were lined up very evenly throughout the space. Until you attract their attention, they fidget in pce, and most of the time they don't move, standing at about the same distance from each other, "As per the instructions." Kiyeri muttered, remembering the other two who had behaved simirly. "I wonder if he'll send them here or keep them for himself."
Being in such a pce, it was impossible to say exactly how much time had passed, but it seemed to Kiyeri that he had been moving like this for a long time. Feeling some discomfort in his heels, he sat down to take off his boots and was unpleasantly surprised, "Calluses? Seriously?!"
Again, he falls like a cross, "If I fall asleep, maybe it will pass..."
Looking to the side and assessing that he was not completely sure he understood the behavior of Voidborne, he decided to stay awake. "I could go barefoot..."
After resting a little and putting back his boots, he moved on. For some time now he had peculiar unpleasant feelings in his stomach but ignored it completely. Now Kiyeri realized something terrible. He was hungry and thirsty. And irritable. But most of all hungry.
"This is a big problem..." He raised his head and screamed, “SEYRE! YOU PIECE OF SHIT! STAB SOME PIG WITH THAT DAGGER SO I DON'T DIE OF HUNGER!" Of course, he didn't expect an answer but still waited silently. "Mom raised me to be polite."
Having received nothing, he walked straight ahead, his mind spinning with thoughts of all those he had promised to find and save, "I won’t be saving people, but dehydrated corpses..."
Thus thirsty, hungry, irritable, tired, sleepy, sending for Seyre evil wishes and cursing, he noticed that the Voidborne in front had ended. Until now, everyone had stood as if pced on a chessboard — but now he could see the edge of that board. From left to right, they ended in one smooth, beautiful line. Kiyeri was flooded with new strength and rushed to clear the territory towards that horizon. Having cleared the path, he stretched his arms forward and walked carefully and slowly, his palms soon touching the smooth pne.
"Wall! A fucking WALL!" He ughed almost hysterically, “What business does a WALL have in the fucking AFTERLIFE?”.
Having cleared a slightly rger area, Kiyeri created a rge, wide empty zone, about twice the distance it took to draw the attention of the Voidborne. Returning to that wall, he leaned his back against it and colpsed. Pns, logic, intentions — none of it meant anything against pin physical fatigue. He could not overcome this with willpower, he needed to rest. Kiyeri fell asleep while sitting down.
