Michael sidestepped through the tight crevice, pushing himself forward with all his might. The crack had gotten much more tighter than he predicted, forcing him to dismiss his armor just to fit.
The only reason he could still even move was thanks to his poor nutrition in the outskirts.
He spent several minutes, possibly even half an hour, languidly squeezing through. Sometimes his path was blocked, forcing him to somehow crouch down and crawl sideways, other times climbing and cutting himself on the jagged rock. The effort it took considering his unusable right arm and his mangled legs was incredibly exhausting.
Michael had to even painfully push his misaligned rib back into his body so it wouldn't scrape against the walls and get him stuck.
The chilly mist caressing his sensitive skin was as soothing as ever, and the treacherous darkness blinding his eyes was impenetrable like always, but even that was a plus. Michael had been using his blood sense the entire time to find his way, sometimes discovering dead ends that would've undeniably been the end of him.
His control over his sense was still amateurish, but it was only getting better and better.
At the beginning, everything he sensed through his blood was vague and blurry. Looking down the tunnel with it was equivalent to his old crappy drawings of a rectangle, only so much worse.
Now, Michael could somewhat discern the more intricate details, no longer only able to sense the basic shapes of his surroundings. He could distinguish the small outcroppings of sharp rocks and recognize more of the complicated shapes.
If at first all he could sense of the tunnel was a hazy rectangle and himself as a collection of spheres and ovals, now he could sense triangles for the jagged rocks and cylinders for his fingers.
'It's kind of like... what's it called... 3D design? I think I heard something about that in one of the webtoons or web novels I've managed to read.'
Not only had his blood sense enhanced, his natural control over his blood has also improved.
When he lost lots of blood before, he felt an exhaustion he never experienced before. It was as if his soul was dangerously low on energy, or he thought at least. He didn't really have the knowledge to make such an educated guess.
'Is it tied to my blood being the essence of my being?'
Either way, the problem was mostly solved as he learned how to adequately control his blood enough for it to not leave his body. Occasionally, some drops would fall, and because the amount was so tiny, he found it difficult to control amongst the debilitating pain and strained concentration. He was slowly growing fatigued and weary, not only physically but also mentally, but at least the mysterious exhaustion was gradual.
Considering the huge leap in improvement, it still took all his focus to maintain. It was much easier than before since he had been using it for hours, so he was slowly becoming accustomed to these new feelings.
It would still be some time before he could skillfully control his blood and his blood sense like an extension of his body, but the recent developments proved he was on the right track.
Michael's intense engrossment was slightly severed when a single drop of water fell on his forehead and dripped down his face. That was when he noticed a faint, foul stench pierce his nostrils, while the air became thick with like he was in a jungle, making it hard to breathe.
'I don't know what a jungle is...'
Such a thought didn't matter once he felt more water drop on him.
'Is it raining underground? Just how does that make any sense.'
For the next few minutes, the liquid continued to drizzle on him while the awful smell and thick air only became worse and worse.
Michael carefully descended a ledge, pushing against the tight walls to keep it slow and controlled. Once his boots touched the ground, he could tell something was wrong.
Instead of the usual rocky, rough floor that crunched beneath his feet, it was now mushy and soft, squishing and squelching with every step.
'What the fuck? Oh my Spell, the smell...'
Michael continued his maneuvers, grabbing outcroppings and pulling himself through while stepping on the disgusting ground until...
"Ah! Fuck!"
He yelped after grabbing an outcropping and felt something soft sink between his fingers, drenching his palm in a gooey liquid.
'What the hell is that!? That's disgustin- argh it smells like shit!'
Michael grimaced in disgust but he kept moving, this was the only path he could take.
As he moved, the fleshy substance enveloped the entire crevice. His breathing was shallow in the thick air and his face was constantly scrunched from the revolting stench. The drops of what he hoped was water continued to drip on him, saturating his hair with something sludgy.
Despite everything, he still couldn't imagine a word to describe his excitement. Just within his blood sense, he discerned an exit.
'Finally!'
Michael continued pushing through, hesitantly grabbing the mushy walls until finally, after so long, he escaped the claustrophobic nightmare.
With just a single step beyond the crevice, what he saw made him tremble.
He found himself in a large, open cave utterly covered in a dark, fleshy substance leaking filthy liquid like an infested nest. Meaty vines hung between the chamber's pillars, and across the room stood several piles of flesh, convulsing and pulsing like the hearts of a living organism.
The surroundings were illuminated by a faint glow originating from a dense, eerie mist hanging above. It looked almost like a night sky with the vivid palette of indigo and violet and small nexuses of light painted across like burning stars. It was creepily familiar to the beautiful night in his First Nightmare, a sight he would never easily forget.
Michael staggered back in nauseating disgust, the rotten stench and humid air churning his stomach. When he took the shaky step, he nearly fell back when everything up to his left shin sunk into the fleshy ground.
In that same second, before Michael could even react, his mind was consumed with agonizing pain.
The corrupt flesh pierced his ankle and melted his skin, saturating his foot in a familiar gooey liquid and releasing a gas that Michael knew, if he breathed it in, he would undoubtedly die.
He was being consumed.
In the corner of his eye, beyond the phantom of his mother smiling wickedly, terrifying figures of revolting, black flesh emerged from the walls. They easily towered Michael and were eerily human, as if they were the past victims of this same trap, swallowed by the maws of his monster.
No, this monster didn't have maws... this entire cave was it's maw, and Michael walked himself into it.
He was truly lost and didn't know what to do, he could barely even think through the suffering.
Why... why had he been cursed to only know pain in this godforsaken world. The outskirts, his First Nightmare, the blizzard, the cave and this damned abyss, it had been hell after hell, after hell. Why can't the nightmare just end?
"Stop asking dumb fucking questions."
Michael clenched his teeth to muffle his miserable screams and summoned [Wolf's Wrath], lowered the serrated edge enhanced with [Sweet Nectar]...
And swung at his ankle.
"All you do is ask yourself why you deserve this nightmare when it's so fucking obvious. It's easy to see that it's all your fault, and I'm blind."
But of course, it wasn't going to be that easy as his clouded mind controlling his unskilled discipline couldn't deliver a clean strike. He hopelessly struck again, only to hesitate at the last moment, simply just making it worse.
"How could you be so comically useless?"
Michael got the curved blade stuck in his bone, leaving him with no other choice. He wailed in anguish as he sluggishly sawed his own shin.
Racing against the slowly approaching figures, Michael cut through the entire bone, twisted his body and pushed forward, ripping the skin and muscle barely connecting his shin and ankle.
It seemed his blood repelled the fleshy floor from devouring more of him, but that didn't really matter as the endless figures never ceased their unhurried steps and never stopped emerging from the walls, growing from the ground and falling from the ceiling.
Michael extended his blood sense all around him, pressuring his distressed mind with even more crippling weight.
He ran - or at least tried to - across the cave to find anything, any path to escape this flesh pile. He crashed into pillars, toppled over the meaty vines and slipped on the wet ground, but he always continued his relentless escape.
He limped on his broken leg, he crawled on his misaligned ribs and slammed into walls with his shattered arm. It looked quite comical, like a game of cat and mouse. He would just run around the maze of flesh, turning around or ducking under the colossal figures of wet, pulpy mass.
Michael tried slicing them with his dagger to draw blood but it was fruitless. These beings weren't human, nor were they biological creatures. They didn't have veins, thoughts or hunger, they were just black goo and flesh. He glanced at the piles of pulsing mass dotted throughout the room, about five. They were probably the hearts.
Sadly, attacking them would only lead to his death. The figures may have been chasing him, but he could see how they would always converge near those piles, protecting them. They would probably turn fiercer and feral if he dared to come near.
Though he really didn't care, as he already found an exit.
On the other side of the chambers, far beyond what his blood sense could reach, the faint glow from the dense fog above illuminated the top of a ledge where the flesh stopped.
That was his key to escape.
Michael raced around the outer edges of the cave as fast as he could, pushing off the pillars and walls to dodge the attacks from the figures. He was losing too much blood, but ironically enough, that only made it easier to control. It would be fine for now since most of it came back into his body, but that was only for now. If he spent anymore time than he needed to here, he would die.
He dodged the stumbling advances of the mindless monsters following him, sometimes being grabbed and getting his bones shattered with their iron grips, even through his mantle. Even though they were severely slow, they could easily shorten the distance since all he had was a broken leg.
Nevertheless, their crude, lumpy arms were easy to sever, but that didn't lessen the threat one bit. Michael could only sever one arm at a time, and there were several dozens of these figures at this point.
It took a few minutes, but Michael managed to find his way though the rot and fungus and slammed against the wall, abruptly stopping his momentum.
The exit was high up, so Michael would have to climb on the flesh.
The concept alone would've made him sick, but he couldn't exactly think. Michael had experienced a days worth of the most excruciating agony and torment he had ever suffered in his life, and the only repose he had was a different kind of nightmare.
Between all the physical torture numbing his mind, his mother was always there to berate him, whispering things into his ears he never wanted to remember. He couldn't even escape in his dreams since he would only see his wife, and she would deliver him the punishment for the sins weighing on his heavy conscience.
He couldn't escape his nightmare, only dream of an end.
Michael dismissed [Wolf's Wrath] and tightly clung to the wall of flesh. He pushed himself up with his broken leg, and supported himself by biting into the rot. Filthy liquid burst into his mouth, but the monster knew not to do anything, otherwise it would experience soul-wrenching disgust yet again.
He steadily made his way up, forcing his stomach to withstand the unbearable taste. Michael climbed and climbed, reaching higher and higher. He lost his loose grip countless times from his body's uncontrollable quivering, but he never stopped.
After what felt like an eternity, his shaky hand reached over the ledge and found support. He tiredly pulled himself up and over, laying on the floor drenched in rotten blood.
He used all his remaining energy to desperately crawl forward until finally, the feeling of flesh squishing between his fingers was gone.
Michael escaped.