Sea of Darkness, Duke Island
He slowly opened his eyes, which had not yet adjusted to the darkness before him.
"Where am I?"
Then he closed them and opened them again.
he was struck by a severe headache and an agonizing pain throughout his body. But deeper than the physical torment was a lingering regret in his heart a regret that did not belong to him.
"This is not a place I know."
His vision became a little clearer, and his awareness gradually returned, as he had been half-conscious before.
"He remembered that he had died before. The pain, the raw fear he never imagined a person could truly feel death. In his previous life, he had treated death as an absolute nothingness, a mere consequence he dealt to others. He was the one killing, the predator, the underdog who rose to the top. But in the end, death had claimed him too. Either this was the afterlife, or it was reincarnation, it doesn't matter."
The horrors of death. It was terrifying, to say the least.
"Hahaha, damn me. I hope I don't die young in war again."
He felt what he was sitting on, his back against the wall. It was a bloody stone, eroded over time.
He was on a decorated stairway with strange ornaments many majestic eyes and twisted, odd lines around them. They were harmonious, but at the same time chaotic.
He turned his head to the right, and the first thing he saw was a staircase leading upward, covered in blood as if someone had crawled down. He saw the exit, which was dimly lit by the celestial glow . He turned his head to the left to see the staircase leading downward.
It was clean of blood, and the darkness was absolute.
In his right hand, he held a scimitar, ornate, bloodied sword called "Shamshir."
In his left hand, he held a white diamond-shaped symbol in the form of an eye with a black pupil made of obsidian.
He turned the symbol over to see a name engraved on it: Duji Ramog.
He put it in his pocket and looked around.
He was wearing a half black, half white suit elegant enough for nobles or even kings. It was bloody and torn in some places, revealing his relatively slim but slightly muscular body. He had no shoes. He searched the pockets of his suit but found nothing.
The strange thing was that despite the blood, there were no injuries on his body. However, the tears in his suit indicated sword strikes, and other marks indicated burning and other types of attacks he couldn't identify.
He looked around; there was an overwhelming feeling of fear, antiquity, and gloom about this place. Especially down there.
"Time to leave."
He stood up, hit by a severe headache and pain throughout his body. He rested for a bit, then began moving his body to get used to it.
After a moment, he stopped, then turned right and started walking, climbing the stairs.
he looked to his hands and the rest of his new body "I assume the original owner of this body is a nobleman, aged between 17 and 20 years old, about 6 feet tall."
"From the symbol he carries, the ornate sword, and the suit, I believe he is the heir of some noble family or a prince."
"The engravings on the walls... they depict many eyes and many striking, intertwined lines around them, indicating the connection between these eyes, I suppose."
He continued walking, gripping his sword, cautiously.
The place was so quiet it was deafening.
Step by step.
Stair after stair.
Then he stopped unexpectedly.
He turned to face the pitch-black darkness in the stairway, which looked like the mouth of an abyss due to its intense gloom.
It was strange that he ignored the place behind him. This wasn't his nature before. He never once considered going down or even going up, but it seemed as if he was forced from the very first moment to start walking toward the exit at the top of the stairs.
"I didn't decide to go up or down. I just decided to go."
He stared into the darkness for a long time.
'I believe this person knows that my logic prevails over my feelings and senses.'"
"He knew that if he tried to attract me downward, I would realize his action, but he did the opposite of attraction to draw me toward him. So, when he reverses the attraction and draws me up the stairs, I will notice, and from that, I will deduce that someone outside wants to attract me to him consequently, I will go down the stairs, and I will find him at the bottom."
"To go down... is this what you wanted from me?"
He turned to climb toward the exit, but stopped and looked toward the bloody stairs leading upward (where the former Duji Ramog, the owner of that blood, had crawled downward.) Then he turned to look at the bloody stone he had been sitting on, following with his eyes the lower stairs, which were devoid of any trace of blood.
his lips curling into a faint smile, and began descending the stairs.
"In the end, Duji Ramog and I had to go down anyway."
Then he pulled out the symbol; he knew it had a connection to whatever was at the bottom of the stairs, and that the former Ramog was a figure not to be underestimated.
A black figure appeared at the entrance of the stairway, but he did not dare to enter.
Through the veil of darkness, he could see him, aided by the enhanced vision of the assassination path.
Ramog continued his descent down these stairs,
which seemed endless.