Arlo's mind had been absorbed by the Grimoire, his vision began fading while Octavia's voice slowly drifted into nothingness, he only saw blackness as far as the eye can see. There was nothing in the room he was in, he looked down but couldn't see his hands or body, he turned around and looked everywhere but still saw nothing but the abyss. He began experiencing a feeling he had long forgotten, he felt anxious and claustrophobic, he began hyperventilating. He felt sharp mind breaking pain as if he was constantly being stabbed all over his body, since he wasn't in the body of a skeleton in this dimension.
It was too overwhelming for him, he felt as if his head would explode. He tried calming himself down but that only made things worse, how long has he been there now? 5 seconds, maybe a minute? That's probably right, but for Arlo it felt like hundreds of years. His mind become more blank the longer he spent his time there. By the second minute, he had fully calmed down, his emotions become suppressed, he only had rational thoughts, not letting any useless emotions getting in his way, it wasn't the same as when he was controlled by the demon lord, this was different since he could still think for himself and make his own decisions.
A voice suddenly appeared in his head, it was the abyss again "GOOD, GOOD. YOU'VE FINALLY TAMED YOUR EMOTIONS. NOW FOLLOW THAT FEINT RED LIGHT BEHIND YOU"
Arlo turned around and followed the small dark red glow that he saw. He made his way there, but saw visions of his party being eaten alive by the abyss and begging for help, he walked past them with no emotion and reached the red light. It was a sword, it was his moon metal sword, but this time the aura was red instead of white, it had an aura like thousands of souls were trapped inside it, but he placed his hand on the hilt with no hesitation. His head became filled with the noise of tormented souls screaming in agony and begging for mercy, he was unfazed and turned them into background noise.
His vision came back to him, his emotions having returned as well. There was indeed something different though, his moon metal sword had the same red aura as the one from the abyss, and the voices from the souls were being heard in his head here too. They were pretty noisy for him with his emotions back, but he began concentrating on whipping out the mummies with no problem.
"Hey Carlos, you back? I can't hold on any longer" said Octavia with visibly more wounds now.
Arlo nodded and began swinging his sword at the mummies. His first attack was basic, he swung his sword from over his head, disintegrating any mummies who got hit and leaving behind a dark red aura. By now he had 52 seconds left, so he grabbed Octavia's wrist and made a path forward so he could get in a corner and wipe out the rest of the mummies from there.
By the time he had made it to the corner, there was only 30 seconds left, that was plenty of time to prepare his stance. He stared by bringing his sword to the right, with his right hand holding it up to the level of his chest and his left hand reaching across his chest to grab the hilt. He swung his sword to the left with all his might, twisting his entire body from waist up with the motion to make it even stronger.
The blow wiped out a huge number of mummies, but a lot of them still remained unharmed. There was 20 seconds left so he prepared the stance once more and swung again. A small amount Mummies still remained so he went for another swing, but with 10 seconds remaining he noticed something before his third swing, there were mummies falling down from above. He looked up and saw even more coffins above him, there were thousands of coffins going up and mummies jumping out of them. He took care of all the mummies on the ground and with 4 seconds remaining he began making a stance to take care of the mummies above him.
3 Seconds... He took leaped up. 2 Seconds.... He put his sword over his head. 1 Second... He swung his sword forward.
"ABYSS EXTINCTION" shouted Arlo while letting out his last bit of strength.
He swung his sword with all his might but..... The time limit was over before the attack could hit. His arms gave up mid swing and his sword fell off his hands. Was this really the end? Although he could easily survive with his skeleton body, the same couldn't be said about Octavia.
"LOOKS LIKE YOU'VE USED UP ALL YOUR POWER. NOW I'LL WATCH AS YOU DESPAIR FROM YOUR FRIEND DYING HAHAHAHA" said the abyssal voice with joy
Arlo didn't want to see another friend die, he still had regret from Krause dying, Octavia's death will only make his mental state worse.
"NO, I'M NOT DONE HERE YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!" shouted Arlo while smashing the pummel of the sword with his skull, the force of his movement cracked a big chunk of his forehead making it more fragile, but the sword that flew further up wiped out most of the mummies. He fell to the ground and was cushioned by all the corpses under him. Arlo picked up the sword with his teeth and dealt with the few remaining mummies.
"MUAHAHA, JUST HOW GREEDY CAN ONE MAN GET. TO THINK THAT SOMEONE WOULD USE MORE OF MY POWER WITHOUT PERMISSION. BRILLIANT IS ALL I CAN SAY. THAT WAS A GOOD SHOW, IT WAS MORE THAN ENOUGH PAYBACK FOR USING MY POWER" said the abyssal voice with the tone of joy from having witnessed something very entertaining.
Arlo's continence began to slip away as he saw the face of Octavia rushing towards him. Octavia picked up his head and placed on her lap.
"You did a great job Carlos" said Octavia while patting Arlo's head.
The doorways began reappearing a while after they defeated the mummies and standing by the doorway they had come from were people, it was they rest of the party. Their faces were filled with astonishment from the tens of thousands of mummy corpses. Alice broke the silence.
"Umm... There were only a few hundred last time I was here"