The rumble of the carriage was starting to make Grey more sick than even the smell was. He wasn’t someone who got motion sick often, but there was something about the swaying and lulling that was pulling him in too many different directions at once.
Though, the smell was definitely not helping.
’This isn’t normal.’ Grey thought with a frown.
He didn’t dare to move around too much. The good news about hiding away in this carriage was the fact that they were expecting people to be alive inside of it. But he still didn’t want to push his luck too much.
’They’re also way too quiet...’
Grey had been ready for it, but no one in the carriage had made a single sound after he appeared. He didn’t exactly look human right now. The Skrill Mask wasn’t good for his charisma.
But there wasn’t even the slightest groan unless he counted that look in their eyes.
Grey felt his stomach flip in his gut and his frown deepened.
’I’m not imagining this. Something is wrong.’
A cold sweat poured down Grey’s forehead. It was almost that feeling when you were too hot, but covered in way too many layers at the same time to properly relax.
He felt a bit lightheaded, and it was only when he focused on that exact feeling that he realized what was wrong.
’My mind. Shit.’
Wherever they were taking the group, there was definitely some sedative effect being added.
But it seemed widespread. How were the guards leading the carriages holding up just fine?
Grey looked up, not daring to move too much. He caught a glimpse of the driver and found that he was wearing a mask.
’Fuck. Is it a gas?’
Grey didn’t smell anything different, but who said a sedative had to have a smell? This was probably his fault. This dose was definitely for Blood.
After Grey made the big man fall asleep, they had doubled his dose.
But rather than feeling sleepy, Grey just felt sick. It was like his body was trying to fight back against an infection but didn’t quite have enough. So instead he just ended up sick.
’Focus. Focus. Focus.’
Living Dawn and Center of Balance weren’t helping at all, and Mental Fortitude seemed to be the weakest of his Mind Resistances despite being at Level 8 just like the others.
This was either a stat issue or the three abilities he had weren’t good at this sort of thing.
Mental Fortitude helped break illusions, Center of Balance calmed his emotions, Living Dawn cleared his mind, but none of them were a universal status clearing method.
There was still Abyssal Anchor as well, but it was the lowest of them all at Level 4 and Grey got the feeling that it was a lot like Living Dawn.
’If it’s a lot like Living Dawn, why didn’t the helm force it to improve too?’
Grey frowned, realizing a hole in his logic.
All of the abilities he had were personally comprehended by his lonesome other than his Vampire Lord Abilities. He crafted his Helion Frame himself, and his Paladin Frame Abilities evolved by his hand.
By comparison, his Vampire Lord Abilities were actually starting to lag behind. He had even advanced all of his Helion Frame Abilities to Active Link, but hadn’t managed to do the same with all of his Vampire Lord Abilities.
Each one was still at Passive Link.
Grey focused every bit of his attention on Abyssal Anchor. He couldn’t afford to pass out here, and he certainly couldn’t afford to be too sick for battle even if he did.
The moment he did, it felt like he had been yanked down into an endless darkness, his body freefalling endlessly.
’Infinity.’
The words seemed to be thought by Grey. They were spoken in his voice, said in his tone, and yet he couldn’t quite grasp why it was he felt that they hadn’t been his own thoughts at all.
It felt like the world around him was much larger than it should be, like his mind had an endless amount of space to expand.
’Why does this feel like more of a Mind Enhancement than a Mind Resistance...’
That thought was Grey’s own, but it felt so far away that he couldn’t quite grasp the train of logic he was trying to go down.
Everything was so far away, so very far away... even himself.
And in that endless darkness, he felt light, lighter than he had in forever.
There were two ways normal people could react to the feeling of being small. The first was insecurity, the second was the exact opposite. The latter was a feeling of comfort that came with knowing not everything was on your shoulders, that everyone was dealing with the same mundane issues you were, and in the grand scheme of things, what choices or mistakes you made didn’t matter all that much.
Normal people, anyway...
To Grey, this small feeling was the reason he was stuck in this game world that wanted to take his life and punish him for surviving. It was the reason he didn’t know if his grandfather still breathed, if his friends were still alive, if there was even anything of Earth to return to.
He was so small, they all were so small.
It was why they were here to be poked and prodded at for the entertainment of trillionaire aliens who treated them little different from animals in a zoo.
Grey didn’t want to feel so small. He didn’t want to be consumed by or accept this endless darkness.
He wanted to grow until he consumed it all, until his mind expanded so far he could fill every nook and cranny of it all, until he wasn’t just being sunk by the Abyssal Anchor...
But had instead become it.
A pulse of radiant darkness sparked beneath Grey’s eyelids and the space of his mind explosively increased, the feeling of fatigue fading as though the situation had completely reversed.
—
Lv4 Abyssal Anchor > Lv10 Abyssal Anchor
—
The anchor was no longer what dragged down Grey’s mind. Grey’s mind had become the anchor that dragged down everything else.
And the moment his clarity returned to him, he realized the carriage had stopped and the flaps to his own had been ripped open.