Klein grabbed onto a sharp outcropping by the stone statue's left ear a meter above the surface of the water. He attempted to push himself out of the sea, however, his body was being dragged down by the arms pulling him down from the depths.
His palms bled from the force of his grip on the stone, and yet he could still feel himself slowly slip back down under the water.
Cough. Cough.
'Huff... Damn it...' Klein cursed and tried to kick those greedy arms away from him, to no avail.
As each moment passed, he was swarmed by more of those bony, starved ghosts, and he wanted nothing more than to burn them all away.
A bony arm broke the water, aiming to pull him down by his head, and he barely managed to evade that terrible fate.
The pull was getting stronger, and he felt his arms about to rip away from his body, the gash on his palms becoming deeper and more painful.
As Klein's suffering continued, he inspected his mana pool and briefly noticed that it was recovering slightly faster than usual.
Then, in his desperate gambit for survival, he waited for several torturous moments and cast [Soul Scream] when he had just enough mana to do so.
A shrill scream reverberated from the depths of his soul, causing the red waves to crash, momentarily stunning all the dreadful arms encroaching on him.
Using the second he had brought, Klein mounted the stone statue, his body entirely leaving the dark waters, and immediately made to climb it as swiftly as he could.
He desired to reach as high as possible so those abominations in the water wouldn't dream of reaching him.
'Huff... Huff...' Klein coughed out more water, feeling his lungs burn.
He made it halfway up the stone pillar, failing to reach the open palm, before he collapsed on his back, breathing roughly.
Wheeze. Wheeze.
'By... The... Circles...' Klein laughed for a second, before coughing up more, feeling his insides burn with more intensity.
He turned his head sideways, his eyes making contact with the bubbling surface of the sea, where the arms were awaiting their delicious soul meal.
He could still hear their faint whispers in his soul, and those hungry arms continuously searched the air above the surface.
[Tainted Soul...]
[Taken Blood Of Your Blood...]
[Dead Soul...]
'What on Mr. Weathers' beard are they talking about...?' Klein thought grimly, then paused.
He observed the commotion more carefully, and a strange and suicidal thought approached him...
'They... want to eat me... do they...?' He thought, a mad grin slowly surfacing on his face, on the brink of erupting into gleeful laughter.
He slowly got up to sit, and carefully slid down the stone pillar, just a meter away from the reach of the tallest bony fingertip.
He waited for his mana to recover sufficiently, and focused. He recalled the sensation of [Soul Steal] from earlier - how a large hand emerged from his soul and squeezed that terrifying knight into dust.
He thought about the difference between his crude cast, and the more refined cast his soul had conjured.
He played with various forms in his mind, thinking about the various elements of the magic circle and the inceptions infused within.
He wanted to adapt the cast slightly, opting this time to form his attack into the shape of a string and hook.
'Like going fishing' Klein thought with an inward laugh, the piercing green light in his child-like eyes a terrible premonition of what was about to visit the unsuspecting greedy abominations.
He conjured the cast carefully, trying his best to recreate the image he formed in his mind.
Flutter.
The cast wasn't perfect, or even acceptable for a combat mage, but since he had already experienced the spell once in the soul space earlier, he found it slightly easier now to use it.
Completely emptying his remaining mana, the spell was activated. A cyan light emerged in the form of a crude hook with a thin rope tied to its end, its other end held in Klein's bleeding hands.
Truthfully, the showmanship was unnecessary, as the spell did not interact with the physical realm, and therefore, 'holding' the string was simply a feature of Klein's playfulness.
Nevertheless, he 'threw' the hook, accurately finding one of the arms in that dense swarm. It passed through the arm and pierced into something less substantial.
'There we go...' Klein tugged on the string. The hook flew back to him, along with a squirming black centipede on its tip. Klein grabbed the thing, observing it slightly with curiosity, wondering whether or not the centipede was the true form of the arm, or if the arm was the true form of the centipede.
Leaving the existential questions aside, and without further delay, Klein pushed the hook deeper into the dark insect-like creature until its struggles ceased. Then, faint black essence flew from its remains and into his soul.
'Hmm... The effect seems to be minuscule...' Klein thought, attempting to compare his current mana recovery rate with earlier.
[Petra's Soulspells] had clearly indicated that one could use [Soul Steal] to strengthen one's soul, and elsewhere stated that the strength of one's soul would increase one's mana recovery rate.
That being said, Klein surmised that perhaps the creatures in front of him were too weak to elicit any substantial increase in his soul.
However...
Klein's primary purpose was to turn the entire situation back on the little buggers out of spite and a morbid sense of irony. And also, no matter how weak they were...
Klein looked at the swarm which continued to increase despite the loss of their comrade.
'Many a little make many a lot... or some such' Klein smiled. He felt that the sum benefit this swarm would bring him would be rather substantial.
'And also, this makes for great spell practice...' He began to cast [Soul Steal] once more when his mana had recovered sufficiently, recalling the errors he made previously, fine-tuning the cast to be more efficient, quicker, and with less mana wastage.
So he sat there leisurely, bleeding from his torso and hands, preparing another fishing hook to catch dark soul-centipedes in the crimson sea, surrounded by the desolate floating wreckage, a strange eerie statue, and the strong nauseous smell of iron.
Beneath twin moonlights of crimson and blue, and smiling with ease in the face of the dark whispers that constantly assaulted him.
Nonchalantly, as if nothing was wrong - as if he were a simple young man eager for his next catch.