How To Learn A Language

As Achilles clenched his head from the chaotic thoughts that were slowly invading his mind, he stared intently at one of the runes, trying to peer through its secrets.

What he couldn't see before was slowly revealing itself in front of him. The intricate and profound patterns were beginning to bind themselves together, forming a clear picture.

To understand a madman, you need to become mad yourself as well.

Achilles had to admit that this was true because the more his crazy thoughts invaded his mind, the more he realized how beautiful and aesthetic the patterns of the runes were.

He continued trying to decipher the mysterious runes further, trying to conclude the principle behind their creation.

Despite the previously complicated set of runes becoming more systematic and organized, they were still very profound and deep.

Achilles could still see an ocean of knowledge and darkness mixed together and hidden beneath the runes.

It made the task of making sense of its principle an extremely mental overloading task.

Achilles was slowly peering through the meaning and how the runes functioned, but he could still not find out where was it one true core principle.

Without understanding the rules of creating runes, he would not be able to replicate them in the future.

'Come on, where is it?'

He was looking through every part of the runes but to no avail, the core detail made up of it was hiding somewhere beneath that vast black ocean, lurking in plain sight.

Achilles was close to figuring that out, but he was forgetting something...a detail he had left out.

...But what was it?

His desperate search soon came to an end when his mind could no longer handle it and he had to exit the evil spirit stage, which was something he could activate at any time if he was in his spirit body.

[Haa...haaa.] His red eyes glowed in the shadows as he breathed roughly

His mind slowly stabilized as the ever-changing runes became chaotic once again, but this time it seemed a little easier to make heads and tails of...or was it his imagination?

But in any case, he had failed to decipher the runes.

The set of ever-changing shapes and patterns was too complicated and vast for him to understand, it was simply outrageous that such an absurd tongue could exist in this world.

While he was still feeling annoyed by his failed attempt, the cultists had finished writing the runes around the eye symbol.

Although their faces were paled and they looked like they would faint any second now, the group of people still stood on their feet.

[These guys are still alive after losing all those blood...I don't know if I should be impressed or grossed out anymore.] Achilles mumbled while looking at the group.

The cultists stood in a circle holding each other hands, they began chanting something that got completely censored out in Achilles' ears:

"&#&$**@?$&<#*@?'^$&?"

Soon after they finished chanting, Achilles' vision suddenly got engulfed by darkness.

'Huh?'

He soon lost consciousness.

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

"...Tsk." Achilles clicked his tongue when he remembered that particular memory.

He was still feeling bitter because of his inability to decipher the runes, a chance to directly witness them being created was something that would happen once in a billion years after all.

"Haaa...It is what it is. There's no changing what was."

He had other matters that needed to pay attention to, anyway.

Namely, why did he experience an illusion like that? What was the meaning behind that illusion? Etc...

'Questions, questions again...' Achilles scratched his cheek in annoyance.

He felt helpless when he had so much important questions but no valid answer, like something was intentionally toying with his life while watching him struggle.

And he had no way but to follow the damn scheme.

"Hmmm...forget it." Achilles shook his head dejectedly, then continued: "I should try to replicate the runes, I might gain some insight into how they work."

"Practice is the key to perfection after all."

With that in mind, he got a piece of paper and a pen, recalling what he had tried to learn.

He drew the first pattern that would create the very structure of the rune. Then began drawing other parts that would define what the rune symbolized.

After a while, he had finished creating his very first rune and the result...was obviously a failed product.

'It does not resemble what I saw at all!'

It seemed that without the required dark emotion and another factor that would determine whether a rune would be created or not, which meant, there was simply no way to replicate what he saw.

'I still should retry it while letting myself be overwhelmed with the corruption inside my mind next.'

Of course, the next attempt was another failure since the rune was still missing its most important element to manifest itself into existence.