Inside the Pit
'Cold…' his legs numbed as he fell to his knees. Spider Webs started to surround his body, making him immobile. Even before the webs, his limbs barely functioned.
It was going well. The more he fought, the stronger he became. Even when the strength of the creatures increased by folds, he managed to keep up, but it changed after the sunset.
The color of the sand turned silver, and the air around turned cold. The worst part was his eyes got stung by the stinger of a Scorpian.
The golden eyes were the sole thing preserving his life. Someone like him was never meant to survive for this long in a place like this. His body healed unlike a human, but still, it would take two days for his body to recover fully. 2 days was something he didn't have. His eyes accelerated his growth and matched his recovery speed with someone who belonged in the 1st Red Moon Cycle, but it didn't make it any easier. His recovery speed would drop the moment he lost concentration.
He wasn't an experienced veteran who had fought countless battles before. The freezing temperature made it difficult to be swift. His body parts felt numb. He was physically exhausted and mentally drained. In such a state, he made a mistake that cost him both his eyes.
'It's warm.' Weirdly, after being engulfed by spider webs, he felt some warmth. It felt pleasant. He remembered this feeling. Death.
Even if he decided to submit and learn the Dark Arts, he couldn't. His body was on the brink of collapse. Even if he let his instincts take over and harness the Sentient's Essence, he wasn't mentally capable of controlling it in his current state and would end up like the beasts hunting him. Dying was better than living like a mindless creature filled with nothing but bloodlust.
He wouldn't have needed to endure this if he had simply pursued the Dark Arts like the other kids, but he didn't regret it. Foolish men dig their own graves, but sometimes so do the wise ones. He would have lived longer, but living longer meant nothing if he couldn't live the way he wanted to. Two hundred years is a long time to live for. When he reincarnated, he wanted something different than the life he had lived in those 200 years, but if he became a part of an organization that nurtured children this way, what else would later follow?
It was not a long time, but for a while, he had enjoyed what little of life he had here. Seeking the truth behind this place, interacting with those kids, and even fighting to the death here was a harrowing yet new experience.
Flick!
There was a small moment—when his mind had accepted his death, but his heartbeat still had not died.
Every one of those kids carried the blood of Sentients, and Sentient Beings were also known as 'Primordial Predators.' Since birth, a predator has two innate instincts—one to Hunt. A predator doesn't need to be taught how to hunt. That's their primary instinct. They will ensure their prey is dead, even if at the cost of their survival. That's why the state 'Berserker' exists. However, there is a secondary instinct–to survive. This is almost always suppressed by the instinct to hunt. 101's mental fortitude suppressed his primary instinct; however, between life and death, 101's body unconsciously fought to survive.
To survive, his body sought strength to recuperate. Thus, summoning the Sentient's Essence.
Swoosh!
The spider webs got sliced by hurls of wind.
Grr!
The legs of the tarantula about to devour 101 got cut off in pieces. 101's body landed on his feet. His pale skin started to mutate into something black. The force of the wind minced all of the enormous Spiders near 101.
Without a Gate, Sentient's Essence was scattered all around, destroying anything in its path.
"You must choose." 101 remembered this voice. It belonged to the Monk who sheltered him when he fled his kingdom after his father's death. "Should you choose to live here, you will learn the ways of the Divine, heal your bones, and live a peaceful yet humble life. If you decide to return to your kingdom, you will bear the responsibilities of an Emperor and experience nothing but a life of misery and bloodshed. You will never find peace."
He chose the throne, not because of Greed but because he loved his father. He had fled because his siblings rebelled. The kingdom was divided between those who followed the siblings and his father's loyal retainers who protected him. He didn't want to bow and get executed, nor did he want to fight back and cause a civil war, harming countless innocents and weakening the kingdom his father so badly wanted to protect.
He spent three months in the Monastery, learning to leave his mortality behind and ascending as a Divine Being, but before he could ascend, he left the Monastery. His brother, who ascended to the throne, became a tyrant ruling with fear and blood, and in his conquest, to conquer the rest of the Empires, spread war. Thus, he left his chance of a peaceful life to stop his brother from destroying his father's legacy. Ironically, to stop his brother, he had to become a tyrant even crueler than his brother for a while.
Those were the memories of the past. He felt strange that he would relive through those right now.
"Once again, you must choose. He who once walked the path of the Divine shall never let his heart get consumed by Malice." The voice echoed.
His heartbeat got louder, and he coughed up a heavy amount of discoloured blood.
"..I'm alive?" he regained consciousness. His chest ached, and the Sentient's Essence surrounding him started to get absorbed. "Shit!" he took short breaths. His physical state was terrible, but his mental fatigue had somehow faded. Every fabric on his body could feel the Essence flowing through his body. It was cold and dark.
He could feel it; whatever the Sentient Beings were, they were not creatures born out of nature. Through their Essence, he could feel their emotion. They wanted something. It wasn't meaningless bloodshed. It was something deeper. What he felt wasn't pure Malice but a deep desire for—vengeance.
Throb!
He coughed up more blood. His vision returned. He had somehow managed to gather the Essence in his heart, but his heart rejected it.
Screech!
Rays of bright light evaded his eyes. In the darkness, some parts of the sand rose while shining. The creature beneath the sand was unlike the ones from before. This one wasn't just huge. It was enormous. It curled up its body around 101.
As his eyes adjusted to the bright light, he could tell what it was. Its skin was gold, like the color of his eyes. He sensed no malice from the being. In fact, being under its shade, he felt warm and invigorated.
Shivers passed down his flesh. He couldn't move as the 50-meter-long centipede charged toward him.
-----
"I think he's dead." Robert rubbed the back of his head.
"You think so?" Lyla stayed leaned against the wall.
Both of them were in the Pit's Tail. It was a colossal room made up of black marble and stained-glass window. In the center was a sand pool with a radius of 5000 meters.
"Of course. He is clever. It wouldn't take him long to figure out that the way out of there would be to undergo Mark Awakening. That leaves three possibilities. First, he tried, failed, and is now one of the creatures among them. Second. He is stubborn, refuses to submit, and gets killed. Third. He's still persisting." Robert chuckled. "Actually, I place my bet on the third."
"Or," Lyla crossed her arms. "There is one more possibility."
Crack!
The entire place rumbled.
"An earthquake?" Robert took a step back.
Sand started to rise.
Robert covered his eyes with his lower arm to block the bright light. From the sand emerged the head of a centipede.
Robert fell back. The centipede came crashing from the sand to the marble.
After destroying the floor, the centipede's flesh morphed and scattered into pieces. As its pieces hurled into the air, 101's levitating figure was revealed where the centipede's head previously was. The pieces swirled and gathered near his right shoulder with a missing limb.
Soon 101's had a new right arm. As soon as the arm formed, Golden Markings appeared on it. Ten centipedes curling around his arm – that's what the mark indicated.
After the Marking formed, 101's levitating body fell on the destroyed floor. He was unconscious throughout the process.
Robert took steps closer to where 101 had fallen. His eyes narrowed as he observed the golden Marking in disbelief.
Thorb!
Robert's steps halted.
"4th possibility," Lyla whispered near Robert's ear. "He gets chosen by the Divine Centipede."
Blood dripped down Robert's mouth. His heart was just stung from behind by Lyla's lavender scorpion-like tail.
Robert glanced to the side and met her sly eyes. It shouldn't have been possible. His guard was not down. He was not weak. Even his father, the Liege Lord of the 3rd, could never take him by surprise, yet he couldn't sense her attack.
"I knew it..you interfered during their birth. Wha..t did you do?.." His voice cracked. "You..bitch.." he fell on his knees. "you can't..get away..killing me."
"I won't kill you." Lyla smiled. "No one can get away after killing a governor." Lyla retracted her tail. "But I cannot let you report what you just saw."
Robert fell on the floor unconscious.
She then walked near 101. Leaning over, she gently tapped his face with her fingers, "I finally found you." Her face brewed a pleasant smile. "My summon."