Blood, so much blood… A crimson river dyed my boot the color of the sunset.
How long has it been? I can't feel my body.
CLANK
"Ahh… This never-ending war of attrition." I looked at the accursed creature with arms as long as a spear, nails as sharp as a sword.
"Grrrh?" The creature responded with a puzzled look, whether from the language barrier or the fact that I parried its ambush.
"Say… How do you taste? Actually… It doesn't matter." In a smooth motion, I cut the creature in half.
The slash was neither fast nor slow. Yet, the creature was cut without resistance.
I grabbed the body of the horned creature and took a bite out of its arm.
Warm blood splattered on my face as I ate the flesh with an unchanging expression.
"Disgusting." I spat it out and threw the limbs away before I cleaned my sword with the hide of the creature.
The blood of the body flowed into the river of blood.
I walked aimlessly along the crimson river made of guts and blood.
An unknown amount of time passed by as I encountered more bizarre creatures.
"One down…" A crimson arc that reflects the bloody river that flows into the endless horizon.
A body hit the floor, and I did not recognize or care for it. All that is just another nameless number in my forever ticking body count.
Following that was a cleave that glided downward, splitting another creature in half from head to toe.
Stab, slash, thrust, parry, parry cleave… Cut.
By the time I had realized it, another pile of bodies had piled up into a mountain.
Fatigue was something I had already long forgotten. I can't feel my blood rushing through my body, nor the sweat running down my back.
At one point, I started to stop feeling the pounding of my chest.
The only thing I haven't forgotten was…
"I'm hungry." I found a random beast and chewed through the fur and bit into the flesh before swallowing along the fur.
"Disgusting." Yet my expression still remains stone cold. My eyes reflect no light like a corpse.
"Disgusting, is it?" A pair of hands wrapped around my neck in amusement.
"You again." I twisted my body and bisected the figure from the waist up.
"Oh my, how… Passionate~" I could feel the tinge of annoyance behind their sing-song tone as their body reattached itself muscle by muscle.
"Enough. What do you want from me?" My numb body unfroze for a brief moment as a sliver of annoyance passed through me like a breeze.
"How cold~ You do realize I'm the one who is keeping you alive in this hell hole, right~?" The figure whose face was blurred with pitch black darkness poked my chest with their slender finger.
"I didn't ask you to." I slapped their finger away.
"Ow~ Fine, fine. You want to die, then die somewhere I can't see you~ Plus… Don't you have someone to return to? For example… Your sister?" Even behind the pitch black blur, I could see the infuriating smirk on their faces.
I cut them into pieces and severed their hearts before eating them.
"My~ Is this your way of confessing your love~?" They laughed with an annoyingly pleasant laugh.
"'Cockroach', is this funny to you? Is my reaction amusing to you?" A surge of heat coursed through my body before it dissipated like an illusion.
"Still calling me that, huh?" They sighed with too much flair to be real at her nickname.
"I will have you know I'm a beautiful woman behind this form." They poked my chest again.
"Enough. I'm not going to feed into your amusement and dance in your palm any further.
I slapped her hand away with more force this time and prepared to leave and return to my monotonous routine.
"Be boring then~ I guess I will let you keep searching for an exit in this endless abyss yourself. After I painstakingly found the exit~ Guess I should leave you alone… Forever."
My body froze like ice as light returned to my eyes.
"You what?" My voice trembled as my vision blurred, whether from life returning or the promise of freedom overwhelming me.
"Oh~? I finally got your attention? Yes, you can leave." Their sing-song tone vanished.
"You are serious?" Endless questions about the method and how she even found it in the first place. But before I could ask, they broke through my thoughts with an infuriating poke on my cheeks.
"Heh, that's something I would never get to see again. Well, hold your horse for a moment. I didn't say it was going to be free."
I frowned for the first time in a long time.
"Of course. What do you want?" My jaws clenched before I calmed down.
"You. Oh before you misunderstood. I want your body." I felt them smirk behind the pitch darkness.
"No." I rejected it bluntly.
"I wasn't asking." Before I could even realize, their hand phased through me until their body disappeared into my body.
I then felt a massive throbbing pain throughout my whole body, like something was tearing me apart.
After the pain dissipated, I felt something trying to rip my consciousness apart.
First, I felt my already faint memories disappearing, then they were slowly replaced by another memory.
I saw 'myself' standing in a grass field. A flower wreath adorned my head. I ran through the familiar yet unfamiliar grass field before my head fell to the ground.
The flowers and grass were splattered with blood.
Slowly, the greenery turned into the crimson abyss.
"Ah… So that's-" Finally, I lost control of my own voice.
"Vivianne… That's my same, you foolish girl. And I will be borrowing your body for a while." Vivianne clenched my fist and stretched.
"I won't forget you, Ruina Sinclair. The warrior who proved her worth through strength and discipline."
I felt Ruina's soul lying dormant inside.
"I will fix this. I won't let this tragedy happen again."