(The Time-Stilled World, Altar Room, Leo's POV)
"Don't look at the casket... don't look at the casket..."
Leo kept mumbling the words inside his head like a broken mantra, as he forced his eyes forward and moved with deliberate steps toward the stone table at the far end of the room, refusing to acknowledge the looming sarcophagus that lay between him and his target.
He knew that nothing good would come from him turning his gaze towards Zharnok's casket, or his painted mural, and hence he mentally forbade himself from even looking there.
*Step*
*Step*
Step after step, he inched closer to the table, despite the mounting psychological pressure.
However, the moment his boots crossed the invisible line that placed the casket in his peripheral vision, Leo felt his vision double, his mind go blank, and his legs nearly give out beneath him, as though some unspoken pressure had curled its fingers around his skull and had begun to slowly squeeze him.
His eyelids drooped, feeling unnaturally heavy, and the struggle to stay conscious turned even more intense, as his eyes simply refused to co-operate with his will anymore.
'No you don't! You can't sleep yet! Not till you're safely out of this world—' Leo reminded himself, as he grit his teeth and pushed through on sheer willpower alone.
He stumbled forward, half dragged, half propelled by sheer will, as he managed to make his way to the stone table with a couple seconds left to spare.
'This is it, I hope they're not unexpectedly heavier than they look—' Leo prayed as he reached out to pick up the two blocks of origin metal, only for a scream to involuntarily escape his lungs, the second he touched them.
"ARGHHHHH—!"
He nearly dropped them right then and there, as a blinding pain erupted through both palms, searing his nerves like the metal had been forged in the heart of the sun.
It felt hotter than molten lava, as despite looking mundane and unassuming, its surface temperature was as hot as red hot iron, even though it did not radiate any heat to its surroundings.
A normal man would have dropped the blocks the second they touched them, however, Leo did not let go.
Pushing through the pain, he gripped the blocks of metal hard, as despite the mind numbingly hot objects tearing into his flesh, he activated [Stormflash Traverse] and instantly vanished from the altar room in a blur of blue lightning.
Yet just as he escaped, just as his previous anchor point flared beneath his boots and he vanished in a blur of motion, the world around him responded to the theft—not with noise or light, but with gravity, like an invisible force collapsing inward, folding time and weight around him in a slow, inevitable crush
Because that was when the casket began to tremble.
And the pressure in the air, which had already felt like a dense fog pressing against his skin, suddenly surged to monstrous levels, growing so heavy, so suffocatingly thick, that it felt like a mountain had been slammed onto his back, flattening his lungs and crushing the strength from his bones.
The soul of Zhanrok was stirring in response to its treasure being stolen, and the sheer aura it exuded was impossible for Leo to bear even for a single breath.
*TREMBLE*
The altar chamber, once dim and unmoving, now pulsed with something ancient and malevolent, as Leo felt a dreadful awareness crawling into his spine and burrowing into his thoughts, as it threatened to choke the breath from his throat with nothing but presence alone.
[Parallel Processing].
He triggered it with gritted teeth, and at once, the chaos slowed, as his vision stretched, his heartbeat fragmented into smaller, more measurable fragments, and his mind began dividing the incoming flood of information into parallel threads, each one trying to keep him alive.
His second teleportation point came into view the moment he rematerialized, right beside the cracked archway which was the entry point into the altar, where his instincts screamed at him to move again—because from the periphery of his sharpened vision, he caught a flicker of dangerous motion.
The priest.
It was no longer still.
Its faceless mask now glowed with ghostly violet light, its eyes burning through the fabric of the world like cold fire, as it gazed towards Leo with sheer unbridled fury.
The incense stick it once held had been replaced by a divine sword now, that glowed with blood-red runes dripping with killing intent.
And it was chasing him.
No—not chasing. Gaining.
Leo teleported again, and looked back again, only to realize with rising horror that the priest, despite merely running while he was teleporting, had already halved the gap between them.
'No. No. That's not possible. He's not supposed to be that fast—'
He realized, horror gripping every cell in his body, as he activated [Stormflash Traverse] again, slamming unbelievable amounts of mana into the next checkpoint with reckless speed, as he teleported forward in a blur of light, now reaching halfway across the open corridor.
'Can I make it?' he wondered, as he could feel the ghost gaining on him, however he only had a short distance left to reach safety.
By now his hands were trembling.
His breathing wasn't regulated anymore. His chest rose and fell in short, panicked bursts, and his thoughts—though split and clear—were repeating themselves, looping with dread.
'This will be close.'
He pushed off again, stumbling slightly before stabilizing mid-step, as his eyes locked forward—because just ahead, maybe twenty meters at most, was the teleportation gate he had activated earlier.
It pulsed with pale blue light, shimmering with barely-contained energy, as it gave him hope to escape from this cursed castle at once.
He needed one last jump. One last breath to reach it.
But then—he saw it.
To the right.
Standing not even 40 meters away, like a statue born of war and metal, was the Silver Armored Guard.
It already had its blade half-drawn, its posture coiled and perfect, like a killing machine awakened to exterminate a mischievous rat.
Its intent was so sharp that it sliced the air around it without moving, as just looking at it, Leo couldn't help but feel like—
'It's over.'
That was the thought that came unbidden, uninvited, before he forced it out.
'No. Not yet. Don't think like that. Move.'
He told himself, but his legs didn't respond as sharply now. His body was lagging by fractions of a second—fractions that mattered.
Because the pressure he felt boring down on him from all directions was no longer something that he could simply shrug off.
Behind him—the priest with the divine sword was closing the distance between them impossibly fast.
To his right—the guard, poised to strike, was on the verge of unleashing his attack.
And behind it all, like a suffocating curtain of malevolence, Zharnok's soul was rising, and with it, so was the pressure in the corridor, until the walls and the ground below his feet itself began to tremble.
He was running out of time.
He was running out of space.
And even though the gate was just ahead—so close that he could almost feel the dimensional energy tugging at his skin—the seconds left before impact, before interception, before annihilation—
Felt both too long.
And not long enough.