Chapter 276 Within Death

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"...Nngh..."

It was total darkness. For a moment, he believed his eyes were shut as all he could see as he laid on his back was nothing but blackness.

Where am I?...Last I remember, I was fighting Dread...I was falling through the sky, I think, he thought.

Against his back he felt the rough texture of what felt like wood, scratching his back as he wiggled his shoulders, unknown if he even had a body to move until that moment.

There was a subtle noise meeting his ears, like soft ripples of water, gently bouncing against the object he laid on.

"Nn..." He quietly groaned.

As he sat up, holding his face in his hand as he felt as though he had just woken from a comatose state as his body felt sluggish and his mind was still adjusting to consciousness, he began to remember.

Wait a minute...He thought, I think...I died, right? Well, maybe not, considering I'm even conscious.Diiscover new stories at novelhall.com

Though that thought process brought him to move his hand away from his face as he looked around, still finding nothing but darkness around him. It was clear he was "somewhere", considering he could hear whatever he was sitting on sifting through unseen waters.

It's dark, he thought.

As he raised his hand, he conjured a small, orange flame above his palm, bringing light into the shadow-filled, unknown area as he finally saw just where he was.

"Huh...?"

It only raised more questions than answers for him, seeing what was around him: he was sitting on a shifty raft that slowly crept through a seemingly boundless stretch of pitch-black waters.

The sable sea was unnerving in its quiet calmness, an eerie sight, unable to see anything past the surface.

In that same regard, there was no sky that he could see; only the darkness of a silent void.

"Where am I?" He mumbled.

The first thought that came to mind with such an inhuman landscape was the Astral Realm itself, however, he had already been there on multiple occasions–this was not it.

Still, that initial guess did bring him onto a line of thinking that frightened him, sending a shiver over his body as he stood on the raft, looking around at the quiet, dark sea.

...I might be dead. Is this...the afterlife? He thought.

There was no way for him to certify whether he was right or wrong, but there was something else that caught his attention: in the far distance, nothing more than a speck as it was leagues away, was a tiny light. It seemed to be exactly where his slow-moving raft was heading, leaving him only to sit down and wait it out.

As he looked up, he found the dingy raft stopped in front of a piece of solid ground; a surprise to him.

He was able to see it due to a lonesome, wooden post that held a lantern producing a small flame that was vibrant in the abyssal sea.

Land...? He thought.

Crawling off of the raft, he stepped onto the island before him, finding the soil to be chilled and slightly damp, producing squishy steps as he stepped onto the trail before him.

There was a single sign etched with only two words: "Go forth."

Glancing around, it didn't seem like he was up for options, glancing back to see the boundless stretch of the black sea before looking forward again.

Well, there's it's either that or back into those dark waters...He thought.

Neighboring the enigmatic trail were deathly weeds, grown taller than the perplexed Dragonheart and bearing a gray shade, devoid of any life.

He kept a small flame above his hand for light, though it didn't do much to ease the eerie sensation tickling his spine as he walked forth, guided only by the sounds of his own feet stepping through the soil.

There wasn't any wind that glided by his ears; no whistling of nature or even the nightly crickets of critters in the grass–only silence and the dirt trail ahead of him.

...It's hard to believe it, but I really must've died, he thought, well, I guess it's not much of a stretch after what I did.

He tried to distract himself with thoughts, though it was impossible to shake the blanket of anxiety wrapped around him as he slowly moved along the gloomy trail.

It wasn't clear to him where he was being led by the trail, or if it truly led anywhere; all he knew was that he had to follow it. This trail was the only semblance of direction he had in this unknown place.

The trail was as straight as an arrow, unchanging except for the lifeless, hollow-gray weeds that seemed to only get taller as he walked forward. It wasn't something he noticed until he stopped, looking around to find the dead grass to be towering over him now.

"Was it always this tall?..." He mumbled.

He already knew that likely wasn't the case, but he continued on anyway, keeping the light-bearing flame close to himself to combat the natural chill of the realm.

It wasn't more than a dozen steps forward that the path finally came to an end, however, it didn't leave him at a destination he had hoped for.

"...What?"

Before him was a field of the tall, gray grass, looming over him like a desolate, fickle wall. Though it wasn't something he wanted to accept, it was clear this was the only way forward, leading him to step into what resembled a hellish corn maze.