Lokus stumbled back, initiating the swiftest retreat he could muster, but the demon was simply too fast, and in moments, it was upon him.
He was thrown onto his back, a pained scream echoing through the forest as the demon's serrated claws sliced open his stomach like rotted fish and feasted on his entrails.
Tears flooded his cheeks as his entire being was consumed by immeasurable pain. The demon had no regard for his comfort, dining on his flesh with the poor table manners expected of an animal.
The loud CRACK of one of his ribs being snapped off cut through his screams, and his body went slack as his vision went white. The demon continued to eat to its heart's content, chewing on Lokus' bones and ripping his flesh with its sharp teeth as its victim twitched erratically on the grass.
'How is this better than an execution?' Lokus' pain-addled mind managed to think. 'I'm just going to die here anyway.'
He couldn't help but think that the armored man was full of it. All of that talk, all of that bravado, only to send him off to die in another dimension. Regardless of what that man thought, Lokus' blood was on his hands.
Lokus' death was his fault.
The demon's three ears twitched as it snacked on its catch. Raising its head slowly, its yellow eyes seemed to pierce through the darkness of the forest to land on a certain point.
With a low growl, it bent at the knees as if to protect its food, but a rumbling roar that shook the trees dissuaded it of that notion and it immediately turned tail and ran.
It took several seconds for Lokus to blink away the spots and tears in his vision. When he tried to sit up, he almost blacked out from the pain, and flopped back onto the ground.
'I can't… feel my legs…'
Raising his head by the slightest of margins to look down at his legs, he breathed a shallow sigh of relief when he confirmed that they were, in fact, still there.
The rest of him, though…
THUD!
Lokus dropped his head, looking up at the trees above with a self-deprecating smile. His condition was bad, really bad.
Other than the fact that his stomach was open and exposed to the elements, the demon had devoured several of his organs and had even taken a few of his ribs.
His blood was flowing out in thick rivers, and he looked like a turkey someone had intended to gut but stopped after the initial incision.
He still had his lungs and heart, and parts of other organs, but it wasn't enough to stay alive.
'I'm going to die here,' he thought, sighing through his nose. Even an action as simple as that was immensely painful.
For some reason, he found the thought immensely amusing.
Eighteen years. He had spent eighteen years looking for power. And the moment he got it, he was sent to this hellhole because of some arbitrary law that he had never heard of.
Lokus paused. That's right, what about his Frost affinity? It wouldn't replace his organs, but it could at least keep him together for a few more minutes.
His survival instincts kicking in, he pressed his hands against the edges of the gaping hole in his stomach and clenched his teeth, drawing on that well of power within him and expelling cold using Frost Aura.
A hiss escaped through his teeth. The cold he conjured was enough that even his more resistant body was affected by it. Which, of course, was exactly what he needed, but it still stung.
He didn't stop until a thick layer of frost covered his exposed organs, acting as a very temporary, very weak second skin to hold them inside while he tried to think of something to save his own life.
He clawed at the grass around him next and tore some of it out of the ground, popping it into his mouth and chewing thoroughly. When it reached a certain consistency, he spat it out and started rubbing it into the smaller wounds.
This was a trick he had learned years ago. It would do about as much as the cold did, but this method was far less painful and would more than suffice for these minor injuries.
"Hoo…"
The next part would be the most painful, by his estimation.
Slowly, carefully, he started to move, shaking in agony all the while but just barely managing to get past it and stand. He staggered a few steps forward, only for his knees to give out mid-step.
His shoulder collided against a tree, which he braced against for support as he panted heavily.
When he felt that he was ready to keep going, he pushed himself off the tree and stepped forward cautiously, his yellow eyes locked on his knees and feet as if expecting them to betray him again.
Thankfully, they didn't, but Lokus didn't get very far before he collapsed.
He fell onto his hands and bloodied knees, sounds that sounded like a cross between a squeak and a cough coming from him as his vision blurred.
[Warning! You have been poisoned by Demonic Grass!]
An intense, unearthly chill spread through his body. His lips turned blue and goosebumps formed on his arms and legs as death itself seemed to caress Lokus' figure.
Completely beside himself, his arms moved of their own accord, shoving grass into his mouth by the handful as he greedily gulped it down. The temperature of his body continued to plummet as he did so, but Lokus didn't seem to care as he downed mouthful after mouthful of grass.
It was only when his body convulsed that his hands paused, and a semblance of sense was regained.
'What was I doing? What's happening to me?'
"Agh!"
His convulsions ramped up in intensity, and the cold within him became biting as thousands of tiny icicles seemed to pierce his flesh.
The frost holding his stomach together cracked under Lokus' constant movement, blood spilling out and onto the grass below.
If Lokus had the state of mind necessary to notice, he would find that the blood that came out was pitch black, like drops of the night sky.