Deathrace

[The soul.] Achilles muttered while staring at the glowing orb.

Crack!

Before he managed to rejoice however, multiple hands rose up near him again, aiming to take away his life.

Just as Achilles thought that he was a goner for sure, the hands suddenly shuddered. Then they wriggled madly, as if they were afraid of something.

'What's wrong with them...? Wait! What's happening!?'

Over the edge of the horizon, the landscape was slowly breaking into pieces of glass, then disappeared completely, leaving behind an empty white void.

The speed at which the landscape was vanishing was increasing by second and second. After a moment, he had figured out what was happening:

'The Mindscape is getting destroyed!'

This phenomenon had happened once before when Achilles invaded the Mindscape of his body's former host.

After seeing the event unfolding twice, he was sure that this was the signal that the soul artifact was about to form, if this thing would produce an artifact.

The hands soon disintegrated into nothingness as the Mindscape was getting destroyed more and more.

'This is my chance!'

Achilles tried to stand up and rush to the soul but his body failed to obey him as it fell down with a thud.

[No...no...]

[...Get up you piece of shit.] He used all of his remaining strength to force his tattered body to get up.

He was once again unable to get on his feet as his face landed on the ground again. Achilles' soul was truly exhausted and injured that he could no longer control his spirit body probably anymore.

At this point, the white void was only a few thousand meters away from him and was coming in faster than ever, as if wanting to consume him.

Achilles was on a deathrace against time, and he was losing horribly!

[Come on, come on....work you piece of junk.] He kept mumbling to himself while trying his best to get up.

Eventually, thanks to some kind of miracle, he stood up with wobbling feet.

'Fuck...so painful...'

His lungs felt like it was breathing lava, his brain seemed to have a concussion as he couldn't think clearly, and his ears were also ringing which made the pain in his head even worse.

Every part of his body was in pain due to the wounds his soul accumulated along with his attempt that over exerted what he was currently capable of making his spirit body and soul's injuries became more horrendous.

Tread! Tread! Tread!

Achilles slowly moved his dying spirit body to where the soul was — despite it was only a few meters away from him — the glowing orb seemed to be miles away from where he was standing.

'Fuck!...Everything's all blurry...'

It was getting harder and harder to breathe, his feet were like someone had poured lead into them — making them extremely heavy.

The white void was now only less than hundreds of meters away from Achille, despair was slowly creeping its way into his heart.

All he had to do was to take a few more steps — a very simple task that anyone could accomplish...yet, it was like a nearly impossible mission to Achilles.

[Why...is...it...so far?]

The white void was so close to Achilles that he could make out every single detail if looked carefully.

This made him strain all of his muscles just so that he could move a little faster, blood was beginning to spurt out of his body like a mini fountain.

Boom!

[ARGHHHH!!!] Achilles' left eye suddenly exploded, sending a shower of blood out on his face. He truly looked like an eyeless demon that came from the bottom of hell itself.

Although surprised by the sudden pain, he did not stop moving even for a second and only covered his left eye out of natural reflex.

He was hell-bent on ending all of these damn shenanigans!

Thanks to the dirt worms on his right side acting as his missing eyes, he was still able to see where was he heading.

Finally, after so much effort and hard work, he had arrived where he needed to be.

Achilles gradually outstretched his right hand and was mere inches away from where the soul was. He was about to finish dealing with all the shit that had tried to mess with him moments ago...

...However, that was what he had thought because...his dogshit luck had other plan in store for him.

Just as he was about to touch the orb, the last remaining land crumbled into smithereens.

[No!] He desperately tried to reach for the orb, even if it was just a single touch then it would all be fine.

...But the poor young man...seemingly did not make it to that final step.

...Achilles fell into the white abyss...and completely disappeared

At where the soul was, a small silhouette of something laid on top of the former and it was squirming slowly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Somewhere faraway, a silvery-white hair woman was inside a meeting room listening to a bald man reporting something.

All of the sudden, her brows furrowed and she turned her head to where the window was.

This action of hers surprised everyone in the room but they did not dare to utter a single word out of fear and reverence for the individual in front of them.

The woman looked at the window for a long time with her brows knitted tighter by seconds.

"...Something's wrong..." Sia spoke while contemplating as her pale blue eyes gradually became a dull grey color.

[...Mark?]