Swimming Aimlessly

Achilles swam aimlessly to wherever he thought the soul was. He was diving at maximum speed despite having a head-start against the white void.

This was only natural since the current condition of his body could only be described as horrendous. Even if he was swimming with all of his might, the speed was still pitiful compared to when he first arrived here.

And the Mindscape was destroying at a terrifying rate, which made the white void approach at a speed that was much faster than what the indohyus had displayed.

If this keeps going, he would be a dead man in no time!

'Come on! Come on! Come on!'

Achilles desperately swam forward as he felt his soul's injuries getting heavier and the painful feeling in his head becoming worse by seconds.

The white void was closing in fast as the distance between the two was now less than a hundred meters and it was continued being reduced non-stop.

'Gods! Faster! Faster! Faster!' Achilles repeated the word inside his mind like some sort of mantra to keep him going.

While he was still mumbling like a maniac inside his brain, the ground underneath the floor began cracking up faster and soon crumbled.

'No!' Achilles screamed in his mind at the sight and immediately swam up diagonally.

Now not only that he had to deal with the white void coming up from behind him...but also from below!

As the distance between him and the white void grew terrifyingly short, he was getting more and more impatient as his soul was reaching the limit of what it was capable of.

That was until he saw something glimmered

faraway, Achilles had seen this light twice already so all it took was just a glance for him to know what exactly it was.

'Here I come, baby!'

He forced his soul to squeeze everything it had to support his spirit body. Such action was quite stupid since it could seriously damage one's soul, but he was at the end of the tether now.

There was a saying that said "Desperate times call for desperate measures", after all.

Besides, ever since he devoured the boar he could feel his soul became more resilient as a bonus other than an increase in strength.

If his estimation was correct then he could handle this for another minute or so before sweet, loving death embraces him.

Achilles kept swimming as the faint glimmer grew brighter and bigger, at the same time the white void was now so near behind him that it felt like it would swallow him whole any second now.

'Come on! Come on! Almost there!'

The glowing orb was so close that he could practically taste the sweet flavor of salvation.

And this time, it seemed that Lady Luck did not turn her back on him.

Achilles' worms hand touched the orb lightly just as the Mindscape completely disappeared.

Before he fell down to the white abyss, he had managed to utter a single word:

[Devour.]

The dirt worms began squirming crazily as they dashed to the soul, devouring it whole.

The torturous race had finally ended...and Achilles' vision was covered by darkness again.

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

"Blergh!!" Achilles vomited a mouthful of blood and knelt on the stone cold floor beside the Corrupted.

His eyes were bloodshot and his breathing was erratic as he tried to regain his composure.

After a moment, he pushed his hands on the stone floor to get himself back up. But fell his face on the floor with a thud instead.

'Fuck! It's just as painful as before! Is this the result of forcing your soul to work beyond what it's able to?'

When Achilles entered the boar's Mindscape, his soul was also heavily injured, and the white void which literally burned him made his mind seem like it was being crushed, his lungs felt like they were breathing fire.

This time, he felt as if his veins were about to burst and his heart along with his brain felt like they wanted to implode.

Even though the two times were similar, Achilles sensed that he couldn't endure it just as easily as the last time.

It was an extremely gut-wrenching sensation that could easily make a normal person passes out.

He was either lucky...or extremely unfortunate to not faint right away.

'It's like there's lead in my body! So hard to move...'

Even though the pain stemmed from the mental, his body was affected greatly by it, making it almost an impossible task to move his limbs.

Achilles bit on his lower lip a little, then used all of his willpower to stand up and move to the bedroom. He almost tripped and fell multiple times along the way, but somehow...he was able to walk to the table near the bed.

He grabbed 2 pills of different colors from the bunch on the table and downed them in his throat without the need for water.

These pills were given by Sia for gods knew what reason to him. They were supposed to help him heal his soul damage and recover his essences.

It was unwise to trust a stranger giving pills to you since who knows, it might not be the same pills like when Sia fed to Achilles earlier.

His subconscious, however, urged him to take the pills without any hesitation. It was as if it knew that nothing would happen to him, and that Sia could be trusted...But why?

Achilles naturally couldn't pay attention to his hidden feelings because he instantly lost consciousness and landed his back on the floor.