[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
Belial looked down at a ruined forest, watching from a place too high for any human to reach. It was covered in stone, as if a giant had thrown a boulder at the trees, collapsing it into thousands of pieces. The ruins were so large they spanned the entire forest—or the miles of the forest he could see, at least.
But suddenly the world started to shift, time flowing in reverse. Days turned to nights on repeat for what he assumed was at least hundreds of years, most likely more.
The wet stone shook and the water jumped back into the sky, the sun rose in the west, birds flew backwards, the ruins rebuilt themselves, centuries unraveled, and he found himself staring down at stone walls so large they'd take a week — maybe more — to climb.
Twisting in different directions, the stone walls covered in moss and algae formed a maze so large that he couldn't see the entrance, nor the exit. A problem, since he knew he'd most likely have to find the exit based off of what the awakened described their nightmares to be like.
Time finally stopped flowing in reverse, returning to a normal pace, and he found himself now on the ground, walking behind a group of people through the forest, carrying their luggage.
The sky was gloomy and the ground was wet, so he could tell it had just stopped raining. His shirt was also soaked, leaving him cold and shivering, especially when a breeze blew by.
He wore a soaked white collared shirt, dirt staining it slightly brown, loose brown trousers, and black boots that were tearing—clearly old. Easing his anxiety, there was a dagger attached to a leather belt around his pants.
After walking for a while in silence, his shoulders started to feel sore from all of the weight on his back, but he had the feeling he couldn't afford to fall behind, so he continued walking, integrating himself into his position as a bag carrier.
'Status.'
***
Name: Belial.
True name: —
Rank: Aspirant.
Soul Core: Dormant.
Memories: —
Echoes: —
Attributes: [Breathless], [Ghost Blood], [Silent Death]
Aspect: [Smoke-Bound]
Aspect Description: [A boy, not alive nor dead, not human nor creature. Born from the fog surrounding the Hollow Mountains, you believe yourself to be human.]
***
He'd heard of people being put into an inhuman body during their nightmares, but never the first. Everyone was human during the first.
Still, human or not, he wasn't complaining. At least it seemed strong. Maybe even a sacred aspect.
As far as he could tell, his situation wasn't nearly as bad as some of the stories he had heard of—his aspect even gave him attributes. Still, he kept himself on his toes just in case. He didn't know any of these people around him, and he didn't know where they had been walking for all of this time.
'One… four… seven… ten. Ten including me,' he counted, keeping a mental note of how many people there were.
One man was ahead of the rest—clearly the leader. He was tall, had dark gray hair and a long beard, had wide, confident, shoulders, and with every step he took, Belial could see his feet plant into the ground, ready to fight at any given time.
Four others followed directly behind him with their swords sheathed to their waist, and behind those four warriors were three archers, all carrying a quiver on their back, bows in hand.
Finally, there was one boy. A child, chained up to two of the archers hands.
Belial grimaced for a moment as he looked at the boy. He had no eyes. They were completely cut out, leaving two gaping holes in the boy's face.
Not wanting to look at the grotesque sight any longer, Belial decided to finally see what his attributes actually did.
[Breathless] Attribute Description: "You do not breathe unless you choose to. Every human breathes; so what are you?"
[Ghost Blood] Attribute Description: "Your veins flow with ghostly smoke instead of blood."
[Silent Death] Attribute Description: "If you will it, your killing blow will be silent."
He didn't even realize that he hadn't taken a single breath in or out the entire time he'd been in the nightmare until he looked at his first attribute, and while the third one did catch his eye for a moment, the second attribute was the one that got his attention the most, Looking at his thin arm, instead of blue veins, his were white. He could even see a milky white substance flowing through them.
Though it did catch his eye, even he knew it was most likely purely cosmetic. Maybe it'd evolve if he passed the trial, but his first and third attributes were the most useful right now.
Snapping him out of his thoughts, someone finally spoke—the man leading the group.
"We're here," his eyes narrowed as he held his hand up, signaling those behind him to stop.
'We're… here?'
Looking up ahead, Belial furrowed his brows. There was nothing. Just the same forest they had been walking through in silence all this time.
The leader then looked back, past the warriors, and past the archers. "Bring the boy."
As soon as the words left his mouth, the boy with no eyes started pleading, his voice cracking, and his words completely incoherent. His tongue had been cut out as well.
The boy wasn't even able to cry as he begged with words that didn't come out right.
"Silence him before they find us!" The leader shouted, and as the boy reached the front of the group, one of the warriors unsheathed his sword and hit the boy in the back of the head with the hilt.
As the boy fell to the ground unconscious, Belial finally spoke. "Who will find us?"
The leader, sheathing his sword while unsheathing a dagger, answered his question, "The wraiths, you fool. Did you not think to inquire about where we'd be going and how dangerous it would be before accepting the job?"
'Wraiths…' he tried to think back on his teachings and remember which nightmare creature that was, but he'd never heard of such a thing, meaning it was either weak and had gone extinct, or it was in an unexplored region of the nightmare realm.
"And what do you plan on doing with the boy, Mr…" Bel asked, also inquiring on the man's name. Though he already knew the answer, he decided to get confirmation.
"Gilus. And once we enter the maze, the wraiths will be alerted. We need to smell like death, otherwise they'll easily track us down," he said, and then looked back at the child, "The little thief will be our sacrifice."
'Little thief, huh…'
"I see. That's all." Belial saw no point in fighting. The plan was solid. He knew it wasn't morally right, but the boy was already blind, couldn't speak, and was apparently a thief. He'd be completely useless even if he did decide to kill the warriors and archers to save him, not to mention he had no confidence in killing Gilus with only a dagger. Maybe if he had a sword, but even then, the boy was useless. No point.
Gilus quickly stabbed the dagger into the boy's eye and through his brain, killing him immediately, and then he stabbed the boy in the chest and pulled down, gutting him.
He then stuck his hands into the boy's torso, and covered his face and body in blood and guts.
"Come," he said, and one by one, all of the members of the group came and covered themselves in the child's blood, intestines, and guts.
'How vile,' Belial thought as he knelt down, cupped his hands, and sunk them into the boy's stomach. He could still feel the heat of the blood and the innards twitching from the fresh death. Ignoring it, he pulled his hands out, and showered himself in the boy's blood.
He then stood up, and watched as Gilus and his fighters walked forward into the forest. But as they walked, they suddenly disappeared.
'Hidden behind an illusion,' he thought, following after them.
On the other side of the illusion, gigantic stone walls greeted him. They looked at least ten times bigger than they did when he was looking at them from the sky, and the walls were less worn down than they were before, making them now impossible to climb because of their smoothness, plus the algae and moss covering them would make them slick since it had just rained.
To the left and the right of the maze's entrance, there were seemingly never-ending walls. He didn't think it was even possible to just go around the maze.
Finally looking away from the towering, never-ending walls, and toward the group, Belial could see that they were all just as stunned as him—even Gilus.
"Hand me the bag, boy," Gilus said.
Belial finally took the heavy weight off of his shoulders and got momentary relief as Gilus pulled a long and thick rope out of the bag, and then gave it back to Belial.
He then tied the rope around his waist first, and then went around tying it around every member's waist, with Belial at the end of the rope.
"We've come this far, I don't plan on having someone ruin it by wandering off on their own and getting us all killed by the wraiths," Gilus said, looking at Belial.
'Don't look at me, old fool.'
'"We've comes this far', huh… looks like this body was traveling with them for a long time before I came along."
Feeling the rope tugging him forward, Belial followed them.
'And into the maze they went.'