14xx/07/08 Johannes Calendar

68 days since arrival…

The second rift is a nightmare.

After so many battles in this accursed land, I was expecting more of the same. But the malignant nature of the gods and whatever else that exist in this world decided to screw with us, and dropped actual honest to god monsters down there.

I know we should retreat the moment an actual skeleton fired a single crossbow bolt into Oskar's shoulder, but hubris and pride drove us deeper. Usually, the monsters are always a sorry facsimile of human women, even the abomination down in Tartarus Rift followed that principle.

Yet, as the first wave crashes upon us with fury of the fallen, we found ourselves in a whole new world.

The location is as I expected; abandoned steel corridors with monsters galore. I know that the lack of adventurers means that the creatures down there will be restless and hungry, so we rested for a while before entering the pit. The first creature we fought are skeletons in old chainmail armour, with not a single hint of pleasurable flesh on sight. With rusty maces and swords, they made their hateful intention clear.

They were a troublesome lot; almost limitless in number and tireless in combat, the battle was far more tiresome than I remembered. But the worst was yet to come.

Just as we turned around the corner, we found ourselves face-to-face with a very horrifying creature. Even thinking about its form makes my head hurt. Two things come to mind when I remembered them; tentacles and massive goat-like maw. Everything else was too dark, only illuminated by the light of the stars. The platform we fought was suspended in the infinite void, so we have no option but to fight.

It felt like fighting in a dream; your strikes felt slow and dull, while your nightmare is fast and unrelenting. Thankfully, whatever organic material this nightmarish vision is made of, they still bleed, and if they can bleed, they can be killed. After the final blow was struck, we found ourselves within the metal corridor with a large box full of Dark Stone. Curiously, among the gemstones was a small pocket pistol that glowed with malicious red haze, as if the flintlock has been cursed by an utterly hateful entity. Considering that it came from our eldritch foe, it is not far too fetched to think otherwise.

The experience left us shaken and demoralized, visions of doom kept swimming in our eyes, ringing with malcontent whispering. Our corporeal body is mostly unharmed, but the same cannot be said for our spirits.

Such bizarre and foul the encounter was, I almost welcomed the sudden eye-candy that ambushed us not long after. She was 7-foot-tall woman with thick curves all around with long blue hair and a pair of crystalline blue eyes that looks like they were formed from jagged pieces of ice. She wore a revealing set of yellow robes, and a strange iron cage as a makeshift helmet. Her skin was grey like stone, but has the softness of women in its texture. Curious.

With a wave of her hand, she summoned several fighters to the front. They were nothing more than floating decapitated heads with only a spine attached to them. Flying corpse-head while disgusting, is not truly horrifying.

The horrifying part is that I saw Hito was among them, brandishing a longbow.

These walking corpses took the form of our friends, their rotting heads twisted into a familiar yet grotesque visage. As they moved on to attack, a shadow of their former body flickered into reality, striking with unnatural ethereal weaponries. It doesn't draw blood, but the sting is as real as cold steel. They were mostly silent, save for the instant they attacked, which they emit a piercing wail that disturbs the very soul of their victim.

What's worse is that the bitch fazes in and out of reality in a puff of blue smoke. Every time she appeared, a vision of doom flashes briefly in our mind. Horrific imagery depicting our loved ones was the norm. I have lost track of how many times I see my friends raped and killed brutally in-between each flash. I tried to finish the fight early, but she was a slippery bitch that turns every fatal shot into a grazing wound.

Again and again, the visions come. Kael surprisingly held his own, despite the tears that flows his words remain clear as crystals. Oskar and Captain stood steadfast, but the horror in their eyes betrays the mountain of stress they must endure. Natsuki has stopped firing, curling up behind Oskar in catatonic terror. Despite us cutting through the sorceress's goons with ease, we were on the verge of total collapse.

And then, it happened.

I found myself standing on a courtyard of an opulent castle. Men and women in various states of injuries surrounded me, each fighting for their life with decorative armaments that looks far too priceless to be used in a real war. Yet those weapons are used with terrifying efficiency against angelic creatures that surged from the hole in the wall. To the skies, I see a shimmering wall of forcefield that blocks every incoming attack, both projectiles and angels alike. A grim surge of hope galvanizes my muscles as I saw my comrades push back the angels back through the breach. If we can hold the line, the magicians will seal the breach.

Then, an arrow fell beside me. Then another. A warning came from behind me. I looked at my hand for a second, admiring the beauty of my sword. It looked familiar, yet very new. As if coming to an agreement, I swiped upward, cutting a large swath of arrows that would've impaled me horribly.

My heart sinks into my boot as I realised that the barrier above has disappeared, and the angels are swooping inside with blades and bloodlust. Right above the gate, I saw two individuals; one is a tall angelic blonde girl with blue eyes that were filled with contempt. The second one is a man in plate armour, but his surcoat was the same purple colour as mine.

With a nonchalant wave of her hand, a massive fireball hurtled toward me. I swung my sword with all my might, sending a blue wave of magical crescent projectile to intercept. The energy pierces through the fireball, but it didn't extinguish the flame that engulfs me afterward.

My vision returned, and I found myself in the present, fighting the bastard sorceress. How long was it? I'm not sure. I'm not even sure if the fight is actually real. The world was in slow-motion; my comrades on the verge of a mental breakdown as their mind returned from their nightmare again. The ghostly foe we fought were on the backfoot, but all they need is for us to falter once.

Suddenly, a hateful scream struck my brain, like a psychic wave of pure rage. It was Sophie who howled in my mind. I didn't know what battle was I entrapped in within that vision, nor do I know of the comrades that fell within that memory. However, I understood clearly. It was the scream of a betrayed woman.

The bullet pierced through a couple of her guards and right into her throat. The sorceress in yellow coughed wildly, the graze finally struck her windpipe. But it wasn't enough. Sophie hasn't had enough. I haven't had enough. I will not let that bitch Houdini our ass again. So I did what comes natural.

Sophie was empty, but she's still a 9-pound amalgamation of wood and steel. We swung our way in, as close as I can get. The sorceress summoned a few more soldiers, I simply tossed Sophie above them and toward the sorceress. I was pushed back, but Sophie reached her objective. Mid-air, she turned human and then tackled the bitch into the ground.

The sorceress's bodyguards moved to save her, but they turned their backs on us. We cut through their ranks easily, making them rout as they struggled to figure out what to do next. The sorceress tries to teleport away, but Sophie was like a feral python. After a brief struggle, Sophie violently broke the sorceress's neck. It was brutal, her cervical bone was completely snapped in half!

But it was finally enough.

Our foes disappeared again, fading into nothingness just like their mistress did in Sophie's deadly embrace. When we reached her, she was hugging a yellow coat wrapped around a burlap sack. The yellow coat is fit for a king, but age and weather has dulled its lustre. Yet, as I held the fabric, I can feel an otherworldly power that was woven within the fabrics itself. The inner pockets were filled with Chaos stones and plain gold coins.

The burlap sack however, emits a sickening rusty scent of blood. I was given the honour of cracking the sack open, and regretted it immediately. The blood is still fresh, pooling at the bottom of the waterproof sack. It was Oskar, snarling even after death.

Perhaps it was too much for him. The one who lived was completely silent as he numbly gazed upon his own dead visage. A slain doppelganger? A clone? Perhaps a family member? Nobody knows, and nobody is willing to question it any further after we buried the cadaver underneath a tree overlooking the ruined village.

The battle has sapped our will and strength. The Captain decided that enough was enough, so he gave us all a feather each and told us to teleport back to the port.

So we got back to Iliasport, get ourselves a room, then slept, fucked or drank our sorrow away. I ain't got much energy for anything other than writing this damned log, so I'll just punch in for the night after this.

Item Acquired!

Malevolent Treachery.
A small flintlock pistol with a cut-down barrel. Its range is horribly short, but some spiteful entity from beyond ensures that pocket pistol will fire its runic musket balls with tremendous force. Best used in point-blank range upfront against an unsuspecting foe.

Evasive Royal Robe.
A beautiful yellow robe fit for a king, but now tattered from weather and age. Has a strange energy that helped its user to dodge most attacks.