Chapter 36: Realm Of Madness [32] Faithless Man Saved By Faith In His Faithlessness

Leonidas could feel his sense of self running thin, like sand slipping from his fingers. It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say he was forgetting why he had even done this in the first place.

Bam—!

He slammed his head into the ruby wall of the container, blood dripping from his forehead, but it worked. He snapped back, his mind coming to a jarring stop as implications of what had just happened to him ran through him like cold water after waking up.

Hurry...I must hurry.

Abandoning every shred of...everything, Leonidas dived straight into the imaginative world, the black void greeting him with a similar cold indifference.

His cerulean eyes calmly gazed into the void, then raised both his hands, massive pieces of ruby forming from nothing.

They moved in tandem, working like a singular body. They were massive, like petals of what had once been the pinnacle of Bloom.

The beautiful crimson metals multiplied, from one to two, and so on. When all the petals were formed, he set out on the next task.

Leo...

Who am I?

The answer was right on the tip of his tongue, but it just couldn’t come out. He did not know who he was, nor what he was doing in this dark void.

Who...?

He thought again, not knowing. Alongside his disarray, something else occurred, something that made him more confused than ever before.

A dull gray color began seeping into the void, bringing with it the abstract feeling of nothingness...of desolation.

Looking at the mist ignited something within his heart, a sense of creeping unease.

The man didn’t remember who he was and what he was doing...but he knew that should the mist touch him...he would cease to exist.

The flames of his soul would die out, and fate would cast him out.

Fate...why does that word sound so similar...

The man felt frustrated; his face, which had once been something beautiful, something to be worshipped by all, was now just a writhing mass of white.

The ghastly smoke moved closer, but the man was too distracted to sense its advance.

Fate, fate, fate. What was the word...?

He could just not remember, despite his best attempts. It was as if not only fate, but god himself had abandoned him, leaving him to suffer.

Was I ever devout? There is this feeling...deep inside me that tells me I was faithless.

As if struck by lightning, the man—or rather Leonidas—staggered. He clutched his face, which had begun to reassemble, his skin regaining its pale color.

Faith! I’m Faithfully Faithless. Yes...how could I forget?

He was supposed to be the one who would betray every promise he would make, but how could he do it without dying? Or worse, living as a husk.

Leonidas glanced around. The abstract smoke had stopped its haunting advance, like a legion of undead unable to touch the ground.

But...

It’s not retreating...is the damage to my identity permanent?

That would be less than ideal, but there was no time to think. The flow of time in both worlds—real and imaginative—was relative, which meant that his body was probably bleeding like an overflowing geyser.

Definitely less than ideal.

Leonidas quickly got back to task, and the petals pulled themselves together, twisting and wrapping over each other, forming a flower bud, a cone-like shape that narrowed the further up it went. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Now all that’s left is the rea...Huh?

He glanced around, a weird shape of crimson stood in front of him, a gray substance flowing towards him, difficult to describe, almost abstract in nature.

What is going on?

He didn’t know; one moment he wasn’t, and the next he was.

What was I thinking abo—Faith!

Leonidas screamed in his mind, taking back control. His identity was slipping faster than imagined, but it didn’t matter anymore.

He was done.

Son of a wet-bellied wuss.

With a curse, Leonidas left the imaginative world and cut the flow of Insenium that was suppressing the intelligence factor of his identity.

His eyes snapped open, and pain hit him like an avalanche. Leonidas bit his lip, barely keeping himself from voicing his previous curse. The putrid smell of blood hit his nostrils with the force of a peasant jumping on a piece of bread—devastating.

Blood covered his entire being, which made him chuckle.

Heh, I’m acting like a real blood bender now.

His ribs were broken, his ligaments torn, but he was still alive. Suppressing a groan, Leonidas poured every last bit of Insenium into the flower bud he had constructed in the imaginative world, forcing reality to accept it in all its glory.

His ball was still tumbling, and with a final, deafening crash, it came to a halt. Leonidas heard the sound of glass shattering and realized it was a side of his shell that had broken, crumbling like sprinkles on a cake.

A rigid wall of vermillion covered everything around him, blanketing the space into near darkness, except the sliver of light that escaped from the hole in its tip.

With shaky steps, Leonidas stepped out, blood dripping in the silence.

It was obnoxiously loud, uncomfortably so.

Turning, Leonidas touched the shell he was in...and it crumpled. The structure collapsed, as if it had lost its integrity, covering the surface in a glittering layer of glass.

"Now that...was one hell of a ride." His tone was full of indignation, quiet and hollow.

Leonidas took a few steps forward but collapsed. His legs had no energy left; in fact, none of his body had any energy left to spare, other than his brain that is.

It was running like an athlete on drugs.

Art’s world was weird...to think they would have such a variety of metaphors.

Slowly, the smile left Leonidas’s face, his expression falling until nothing but an ugly look remained.

Darkness was draping over a dark, desolate domain of death. He was damp, disfigured, and done with his life, no distinction left, a decaying life.

He had almost lost himself just to live.

"For fucks sake!"

Leonidas punched the wall behind him—the very same he was leaning on.

"Why the fuc—"

He passed out.