When I exit the forest I notice that Kayda is gone. I know she was right next to me on my right, but all of a sudden she vanished when we exited. I look around and see nothing but mountains. I look back and see a stone forest instead of one made of wood and leaves. What the hell is going on?
I walk back into the forest and everything comes back to a life filled with green and brown, and once again I exit and everything turns into stone again. I can't explain this so instead of investigating it further I go to find a nearby village of some sort. As I walk all I see is mountains after mountains, with a few stone trees scattered around, still don't know what is going on.
I wander for hours but I find nothing and I am starting to get hungry. I look around for some wildlife or vegetation, but nothing is alive, just stone. As I walk my hunger grows faster than I can imagine so I choose to stop and take a break. I look behind me to see how far I traveled and to my dismay, it appears I haven't moved at all. What the hell is going on here?
I look up into the sky hoping to see clouds and a bright blue sky but the sky is a dull grey, and there are no clouds to be seen, and that is when I notice there is no wind. Where the hell am I? Unwilling to go any further in this mysterious place I head back to the stone forest, but when I enter it doesn't change. I am stuck here in a place without life.
I once again leave the forest and lie on the ground, staring into the lifeless pale grey sky that looms over me. Wherever can I be that is so lifeless and grey? Just then I hear a voice behind me, one of immense darkness and malice.
"You are in a fallen reality, one derived of all life and hope, the result of Nakatsu's futile efforts to stop me," Remarks existence himself, Dreith Maze, "All chances of your survival are gone, give up and suffer the consequences." I hear the bright ring of a sword being drawn and the next thing I know Dreith's blade is upon my neck.
Knowledgeable that struggle is worthless I throw myself forward, the cold and painful pinch severing my neck swiftly killing me, and within seconds I am facing existence fists ready, prepared to fight him.
"Fighting me is only ever going to bring about one result," He states, while he wipes my blade of his black sword on his blood-red neckerchief, "Just give up and accept death, it is your destiny, your purpose." He swiftly twirls his blade and springs himself towards me, but I jump into the air unfurling my wings and evading his attack. "Stop running, you have no weapons, I know you lost your sword a while back, and using those wings will only prolong your suffering, you cannot escape."
Instead of trying to hit me out of the air, Dreith just snaps his finger and a chair appears behind him and he sits down. He crosses his legs and pulls out some sort of book and starts reading. I look down at him and shout at him from the top of my lungs.
"You coward, come and fight me," I shout, "If you are as powerful as you say you are, then kill me." This coward is getting on my nerves, he just sits down as if this is just some sort of game for him.
"Coward? I am no such things," He replies smugly, "If anyone is a coward it is you, there you are sitting in the air where I cannot reach you, so I am just relaxing waiting till you come down here to continue our battle. How dare you have the audacity to call me the coward when you are the one running away with your tail between your legs." What pisses me off more is how he casually licks his finger to turn the page of his book and pretends like he said nothing.
Obvious that this is going nowhere I decide I should strike, I dive down on Dreith and attempt to land a strike on him while he is distracted but before I even come close to making contact with him the chair and book he was previously using were gone, and he had cut off my leg. I didn't feel my leg get cut off at first, it happened so fast, but fuck when the pain did register, god damn did it hurt.
The cold and burning sensation left a painful feeling where my leg once was and I lie on the ground feeling the blood from my missing leg soaking the ground around me. While I lie there Dreith comes upon me and looks me in the eyes.
"You foolish child, you failed to even come close to harming me this time," He laughs, although the laugh isn't a nefarious one like you would expect from a man as evil as him, "Next time we meet I won't go easy on you, I will take my leave now, I wish you luck without your left leg because I show no mercy." And with a quick snap, he is gone, and I lie there bleeding out, the pain-numbing all senses below my waist.
I sit there waiting for death to overwhelm me any moment, but it does, and I lie there for hours, unmoving. After about eight or nine hours I presume my vision starts to fade from exhaustion rather than death. As the darkness envelopes me I can feel a faint breeze brush my cheek and then nothing.
In my rest, I have a dream, not a special dream or anything, just a dream, but the dream feels real, In this dream, my leg is still gone and I find myself in a beautiful field of grass that looks purple instead of green, and lying in the grass is a scythe, a massive scythe, two times my height, and shaped in a crescent moon shape.
Alongside the long black shaft reads 'The Mithrian Moon', which I presume is the name of this monstrosity, and then the dream ends. When I wake up I find myself in a soft bed staring at the roof of a wooden structure, a lodge I assume. Just then I hear a door open and someone enters the room that I am in.