"What the hell is this?!"
Avis appeared in front of Sky and turned the screen around. All of Sky's information has been replaced with a single piece of text.
"When the system user becomes one with ether, their status will read as such," Sky read aloud.
Sky grew curious about the information; aside from everything being greyed out and whatnot, there was something else of particular interest.
"That…" Sky said, pointing to the information, "that isn't something you'd normally see on a normal status." Avis moved closer to Sky to read the tiny, barely legible text.
"Are those numbers?" Sky asked.
"You worried me for a second there. I thought there was some flaw with the system, such as not being able to read your damn status." Avis said sarcastically. "Those numbers are the system's updates over the centuries. The numbers you're looking at are its current version. Originally it was version 1.8, and now it is an astounding 2.0. It made great efforts to gain that little number, so don't belittle it!" Avis said proudly with a smug grin. He then looked at Sky's status page. "Anyway, thanks to the system's stubbornness, we obviously can't view your status yet, so why don't we do something more useful and get out of here."
"Isn't my body still mush?"
"When you did that whole breathing thing, you should've seen how excited the system was. It quite literally pieced you back together in mere hours. You are now a free man enslaved by the system, hehe~."
Avis's face was one where a simple smile would mean a heinous crime was being committed. His grin grew even wider, if that was at all possible.
Sky blinked, and his surroundings darkened. The sky, trees, and grass were gone, replaced with dirt in his mouth, the croaking of frogs, and a sparkling black sky. Sky felt pain, pain that made the pain he experienced in the dream world seem like a paper cut. It was a sharp, excruciating pain that stabbed all over his body.
"Ugh… What's going on?" Sky groaned as he tried to pry himself up.
"Did you think you would be fine after having your bones turn to dust and be healed back?"
"I guess not..."
A pinging sound echoed around Sky, and a prompt appeared within his vision.
"Body restructure completed.
"Nerve restructuring process beginning..."
"What now?" Sky moaned.
"I may have exaggerated a little when I said you were fully healed."
"I'm going back to my mind space."
"Wait! We need to find shelter first. It's not safe out here!"
"How do you expect me to move in this state?!"
"Just give it a go. You'll be able to move in no time~."
Sky lay on the ground, trembling with immense pain caused by the slightest movements. His body felt overly sensitive, with every fibre of his being making him aware of them.
"Raagh!" Sky groaned as he forced his body to kneel and then stand on its own.
"...Nearly there."
Sky groaned as he moved his body about, trying to become accustomed to his very lacking body structure. The pain ranged from an intense stinging feeling all over to a burning, splintering agony.
Avis floated above him, impatiently waiting for him to simply move.
"Can you hurry up?"
Sky eyed the little beast before continuing his staggering steps towards the top of the crater. When the Darkness dimension tossed him out, it just so happened to brutally smash him into the ground, causing a small crater where Sky lay. His muscles ached, as did his bones and every facet of his body. Sky took a few more steps, but gradually his pace slowed as the crater's edges were steeper. Eventually, a hand reached out passed the crater's edge and gripped the ground surrounding it. He was finally out.
Sky was on his knees. He was barely conscious at this point and was struggling to stay awake.
"Tired already?" Avis taunted.
"Avis… what's happening to me?"
"I'm pretty sure you're just going through some kind of rewiring. It'll be like this for a short while, so be patient, little Sky~."
"Little Sky? Is that the best you can do, fur ball?"
"Hmph, I came up with 'meat bag' earlier, but I thought it was too crude."
"You think?"
"Enough of this, let's just go."
Using a strange technique, Avis managed to lift Sky up and levitated him off the ground. Sky's body was still weak, and he wobbled under Avis's smooth movement. A short while after travelling into the forest surrounding the crater later, Avis dropped him, seemingly at random. A small chuckle followed as Sky tried to remove his face from the muddy dirt. 'I really hope this is mud.' he thought to himself.
"Alright, alright," Avis said between chuckles, "You done playing in the mud?".
Sky tried to crawl back up, but he quickly gave up on that idea due to the slipperiness of the mud and simply crawled towards the direction Avis floated towards. He slipped and tossed around, trying to get his bearing straight until a sneaky slithering sound crawled around Sky. Within the corner of his eye, he saw a large shadow wiggle about. Sky froze still as the slimy creature crawled over his hand.
He looked around for Avis and found him nonchalantly floating towards the slithering creatures.
'Don't provoke them?! They'll see you!' Sky shouted within his mind.
In response to the sudden shouting from Sky, Avis physically flinched.
"You dimwit! Don't you understand that only you can see me?! Don't shout in your damn head. It hurts!" Avis shouted as he shot forwards toward the creatures.
Sky quickly scrambled to kneel and crawled towards a nearby rock. He did his best to keep himself away from danger as he heard hissing erupt from the slithering creatures.
"Leaving me to do all the heavy lifting, huh?" Avis said as he floated towards Sky with the live serpent-like creatures, except instead of multiple bodies, there was a multitude of heads hosting themselves on a single serpentine body.
The slithering creatures squirmed in the air, trying to free themselves. Sky reached the safety of the rock wall and watched as Avis casually floated alongside the bizarre creatures. The slithering creature's body was about four feet long with twelve beady, irregular yellow eyes looking upon everything with hostility. Each of the heads had razor-sharp fangs, and upon closer inspection, Sky noticed that the fangs were serrated. Avis looked at Sky, smiled, and then pointed with his maw towards the mass of creatures.
The creatures tried moving towards Sky and were suddenly stopped, frozen in place. "Now, now, little snacks, where do you think you're going?"
"You couldn't have just picked me up from here?"
"You ungrateful jerk, do you not realise that I just saved your life?"
Sky ignored him and crawled to a large boulder where he was able to stabilise with them. When he turned to look at Avis, he saw the fur ball chomping down on the beast's heads one by one. He then tossed the body towards Sky and said, "There's your portion.".
Sky looked at the decapitated body and came to the conclusion that he could eat them if cooked correctly. Just the thought made his belly rumble. "I think I'll cook them." Sky said, surprised at his lack of disgust for the slimy snake.
"Sounds like a plan," Avis said as he floated closer towards Sky, "You can get the firewood, and I'll find a good spot to eat this delicious thing."
"Do I look like I can get firewood-"
Avis interrupted Sky, "Can't hear you~. I'll grab you when I find a good spot.
Sky sighed and continued his stagger away from the mud pit and towards the dry ground. As he walked through the beautiful forest, he picked up pieces of wood scattered around. Then he stripped the bark off of the branches and then broke them into smaller pieces.
It didn't take long for Avis to come by and guide him to a small covering under two stones leaning against each other. He set up the fireplace, and Avis, unexplainably, set fire to the stripped wood. After a short while of cooking the small creatures, Sky could enjoy his fill. The slithering creatures tasted like chicken, albeit a bit tough, and he was pleasantly surprised at how filling they were. Avis floated over to Sky with a sly grin and asked, "Had your fill already? You didn't eat their venom sacks, did you?" Sky's face flushed white and looked down at the remains of the serpentine creature.
"I didn't see any..." He said, unsure whether he did or not.
"Good, because those things are incredibly poisonous. A single drop of venom from those sacks could kill a human." Avis said as he began devouring the leftover cooked meat.
Sky sat there in silence as he stared at the remains of the creature he had just eaten. He felt his stomach churning and his throat burning. He started gagging and tried to vomit, but nothing came out. It felt like his insides were on fire. He clutched his stomach and writhed in pain on the ground.
"What's wrong with you?" Avis asked between bites.
"I think I ate the venom sacks." Sky managed to get out before he hurled the chunky meat from his mouth.
Avis started laughing before saying, "I was just kidding, Sky. The venom sacks are made from the antidote. Just relax and let your body process everything."
Sky calmed down and stopped vomiting, but the pain in his stomach still lingered. He sat there for a few minutes before getting up and dusting himself off. "You could've warned me."
"And ruin the fun? No way." Avis said with a toothy grin. "Now then, we should get going. We've wasted enough time here." Avis said as he floated off into the distance. Sky staggered to his feet and walked behind Avis.