Source Origin(29)

Cades didn't know how long he had been under but he awoke completely healed, remnants of a foreign energy that could be both his own active that had once again started on it's own, something the other him failed to realize again and again, or perhaps even something coming from those four beings looking down at him from above, from the worm with the eye, from the giraffe-like spider with the holden eye, from the creature that could not be described completely, from the old man, all of them were a possibility, but still, he was healed as he woke up.

It was a small shock to be back here, though he didn't know why, he had expected to be dead already, but instead they had seemed to have been waiting for him to recover and wake up, the being that was intent on sending the next person to fight him already hovering above him with a glowing silver eye, tiny hints of orange deep within it, something that Cades was now completely sure meant something, something he had absolutely no way of figuring out right now.

They didn't need to say anything, he already knew what the being was, he felt the name as he had done with the former one, the first challenger, he felt the name of the gigantic worm, the teeth now looking yellowish and broken as the silver illuminated them in a ghostly light, and he felt that it was true, he felt the name of It which lives to die, as he had done with It who carries the moon and once again, he refused to believe the name completely, an irrational fear taking a hold of his heart as he looked at the endlessly long worm that could crush him with but a mere thought, or perhaps just a mere movement of one of the countless arms on it's body that now seemed to be bigger than even Cades old home, a home he missed very much.

What being lived to die, that was the question, what kind of creature would be born just to kill itself and presumably achieve something, and why would that creature be alive for presumably endless centuries and millennia from what he could tell, why would a being carry the moon, and which moon would it carry, and what else was there to eve near, what what was the name of the indescribable creature standing in another one of the cardinal directions he had no way of telling apart once more.

Why would a being so intent on dying still be alive, why would it live just to die, why would it yearn, or perhaps simply long, for death when it could just kill itself and get it over with, why would it be when it's goal was to not be, and why would such a being reside on this gigantic hand that held up Cades entire existence, his live, his story, his pain, right now, why and why, why were there so many questions he was asking himself, why could he not just go away, why could it not just begin the next fight...

And just as he thought that a woman appeared, long golden hair dirtied by years on the battlefield, a story that he could see with his very own eyes, flowing back and forth, her body relatively uncovered compared to him, covered in light armour above the cloak in some places that seemed to keep it down despite not really being effective seeing as almost everything was uncovered aside from the neck and ironically enough the hips, both parts he wouldn't really aim for and both protected by only a faint string of a golden metal he had no interest in figuring out the identity of.

She wore a mask made of wood that shone in a faint golden light bearing an expression that seemed to be happy but instead hid a great deal of fear and pain, so much that Cades could not even begin to understand the depth, though he knew that it was perhaps as great or even greater than his own, he had no way of figuring out what had happened.

As he looked at the greyish red cloak fluttering around, the tighter places being there as if to show him what he should not attack, asking him to please be kind with the strings, weak and fragile they seemed covering some areas of her body, as if to extenuate those parts of her body, he knew that he should be the first one to do something this time around, opting to overtake the opponent, eerie and seemingly even more powerful than the one before, at least in some ways, with his very own magic.

Cades had witnessed the skill of the former opponent, he was unable to do what he did, but he was able to control the area, the terrain and the air as he had done before multiple times, he was able to cast the magical shields as he had been inspired by by the gigantic walking hog and the mage with the magical apparitions on the wooden world where he had killed Manug, someone who he as tempted to even call his friend.

He violently expulsed his own mana, pushing the woman who wasn't standing too far away over a bit and causing her to slightly stumble as she had still been new to this arena, not realizing what this place was for from what he could tell, perhaps not even realizing he was there at all.

Cades thought that he would be in control over the area this time, being able to create barriers and walls of condensed mana wherever he wanted, his mana even getting the change to regenerate while he'd be passed out, but instead, the first one to truly attack was the woman, lunching forward at him with a speed greater than what should be possible without magical reinforcements, intending to end this quickly and take care of Cades with her mask still smiling happily, hiding a great pain he, for some reason, cared about.