Grey cleared his throat with a bit of a cough. "You’re welcome?"
His smile would have looked a bit sheepish and another hint hopeful had his iron jaw not made him look like more of a monster than the giant standing over him right now.
The vampire pimp unfortunately didn’t take very well to his joke. The popping of his eyes slowed and the look he gave Grey intensified.
It really felt as though all the blood in Grey’s body was about to flood out from his pores, ripping free from him and pooling into Valdris’ mouth. It wasn’t just a vague feeling coming from fear, it really felt that this was exactly what would happen if Valdris pulled just a little bit more.
"How."
It didn’t even sound like a question, it sounded like a command. And honestly, Grey wasn’t the biggest fan of that. If he was, he’d probably pay more attention to those sponsors that kept bothering him every moment of every day.
There was no real function to turn them off, but at this point he had suffered being burned alive from the inside out. No amount of zapping they sent at him was going to change his mind. If anything, it would just make him ignore them all.
Imagine the audacity of paying to watch someone put their life on the line in a competition they didn’t even sign up for and then complaining when they didn’t survive the exact way you wanted them to.
Grey pressed down the feeling. He was finding himself getting angry again.
"She was a bit, you know," Grey made a circle at his temple with his forefinger and whistled, "not all the way there. She was pretty easy to kill all things considered. A shame, really. She had nice hips."
Valdris nodded. "Her hips were, indeed, quite nice."
The two men nodded and sighed at the shame of it all.
"Then her tome, that should be on your person, yes?"
Grey’s lip twitched. "Her tome?"
Valdris’ gaze became a hint dangerous. "Do you think I cannot—."
BANG.
A blood light erupted from Amunet, ripping through the air and slamming right into Valdris’ chest.
The giant vampire was sent flying back...
Or rather that was what Grey hoped would happen.
Instead, Valdris took a slight step back, looking down at his chest and frowning. His suit was ruined, blood scorched marks forming a hole around where the attack had landed.
The ruby tree around Amunet crumbled. She fell to a knee, gasping, hacking, and wheezing for breath. She couldn’t control it at all.
Grey could see her attempt to stand several times, but it had all been useless.
’... Shit.’
Valdris pulled at the burnt edges, an anger slowly building up in his eyes.
’Oh great, just leave it to this fucked up world to craft a monster more worried about its manicure than the fact we literally slaughtered his babies a few hours ago.’
"You deserve death."
"Oh come on." Grey muttered, gritting his teeth and tightening his grip around his curved blade. The effects of Esmeralda’s blood were very much still on it and should make it considerably sharper for a good long—.
BANG.
Grey didn’t even see it coming.
The hand swiped at him and sent him flying.
He rebounded against a tree, spiralling off of it and into the Fog of Chaos a moment later.
He hacked out a mouthful of blood, rolling and rolling until he came to a languid and pitiful stop.
Spots of blood dotted his sight, the world feeling like it was fading away from his perspective.
A groan left his lips and he tried to look at the state of his body, but there was nothing but endless darkness around him. It all felt so...
Arms grabbed at Grey’s body. They latched onto his wounds, and somehow then lost their forms and peeled into him. They started leaching out pieces of him.
’Amunet...’ Grey managed to think through his jumbled thoughts.
She was going to die. There was just no way that she could survive.
Grey found that he was very reluctant to let this happen. She was the only person who treated him like an actual human since he got to this godforsaken place.
But he couldn’t even see beyond what was happening right around him, let alone what was happening in there. And he was pretty sure one of his arms and maybe even one of his legs was mangled beyond recognition.
Grey tried to feel around for his blade. If he could kill himself, they could get a do-over.
However, he couldn’t find it no matter how he felt around. His mind was so jumbled he forgot his chainsaw was on his back. But maybe it was a good thing he had, because at that moment, he saw something on his screen that made him freeze.
His checkpoint... it was greyed out.
’Why is it greyed out?’
He looked at his Energy Reserve and his heart skipped a beat. No, it was still at over 20 units. His checkpoint shouldn’t be greyed out, he should be able to—.
Grey’s pupils constricted. ’The Fog of Chaos...? It’s stopping me from reviving? How many damned rules and exceptions does this bullshit have! FUCK.’
Grey coughed, trying to crawl his way back up. He had a feeling that the only reason he was alive at all right now was because his Metal Body was at Level 8 now, and even then he had ended up in a mangled mess.
A pain ripped through Grey’s body as the tendrils of darkness made their way to his heart. It gripped around him tightly, squeezing as though the core of his lifeblood was a damned stress ball rather than the only thing keeping him alive right now.
Grey grunted. What was happening? Why was the Fog of Chaos attacking him like this?
Even if this did normally happen, shouldn’t the blessed bracelet be helping him against it?
Nothing seemed to make sense anymore. There only seemed to be one option left.
Grey made a move to pull Esmeralda’s Eye from his inventory, but the result left him shell shocked.
His inventory didn’t respond to him at all.
The darkness had completely infiltrated it.
That was when Grey recalled the description of this Legendary item.
’... Be wary, young one. The Fog of Chaos comes for all who command a piece of what should be its own...’