I was barely managing to stay awake, I felt drained, being drained.

"Drop weapon," Zanir said, "quickly!"

It wasn't that I didn't want to, I couldn't drop her. Whatever it was that was flowing out through my hand, it was going fast and violently, enough to make my hand tense tightly around the handle, to the point that it hurt.

"I-I can't!" I said.

The white fur on the handle was getting thicker and spreading to my hand when Zanir reached out to take her out of me, but the spike at the bottom of the axe's handle stretched out, taking even more energy from me, attacking him much like the Arda did, but he caught the black tongue at the base of the spike before it reached his head, pulling at it and kicking my hand at the same time, releasing me from Moon's grip.

She fell to the ground as he let go of the tongue-spike and I instantly felt lighter, not better, but not getting worse either.

"You need control arda, tell to stop, sleep."

"Sleep?" I asked.

"Arda will know," he said.

Not very helpful.

I checked to see if there weren't any of the smaller bugs around before moving away from Zanir's help and sitting next to Moon. I don't think she was trying to kill me, despite me having 'killed' her, I didn't notice any ill intentions towards me from her, from our 'talk', and It didn't feel like she could fake any of that.

Moon? I tried.

Nothing.

Do I have to be touching her? I wondered, reaching out, using only my index finger to touch her in the middle of the flat part of the blade, so I wouldn't be trapped in that pull again.

Moon?

I know, it isn't your fault.

Don't worry about it, he's a friend. You have to try relaxing,

I'm not sure, I don't know how it works for you... can you try something like sleeping?

The flow of energy being drawn through my finger eventually started to slow down, stopping completely after a few minutes. The fur and the different shape and color of the spikes started to fade, moving towards my finger, forming a circle around where I was touching. When she was back to her original form, the only thing different now was an engraving where my finger was, shaped like the moon.

I laid down, relieved. Every time I stopped to contemplate my current situation, I'd see how surreal it all was, and how I've been just going along. I mean, a few seconds ago I was literally communicating with an axe, or bug axe, how do you even start to wrap your head around that? Not that I had any other options, it was either roll with it or accept that maybe I wasn't going back home, to give up.

"Up, still dangerous here," said Zanir.

Everywhere down here is dangerous, I thought.

"Right," I answered.

I picked up Moon and got up, probably trying a little too hard to not think towards her. I didn't want her to wake up from her sleep, or whatever it was that living weapons did when resting.

We went back running, despite my exhaustion and wounds, I just thought of it as training, there would probably be situations on the way out when I'd need to keep running to stay alive. I was getting used to it, actually, the pain, I don't even remember if we ever just walked together when in the tunnels.

When we got back to the small cave, I just slept, whatever it was that Moon drained out of me, not having it made me very tired, so much so that before closing my eyes, I felt slightly afraid that I might not wake up, but not enough to stay awake.

The first thing I noticed when waking up was how thirsty I was, Zanir wasn't there, so I helped myself to some water from the jug, and I was hungry too, so I ate the food that was on the bowl. The second thing was the improvised bandages around my torso, I looked underneath it and was surprised to find the wounds seemed halfway to fully healed.

How long did I sleep for?, I wondered.

The third thing I noticed was my arm, the purple black bruise was now three-fourths of the way up my arm, I couldn't move my arm from the elbow down anymore, the limb was completely limp, despite the rock-hard skin.

At this point, keeping my arm was a gamble, I still hoped that I'd get out and there would be some kind of cure, but if there wasn't any cure, or any way to stop the spreading, it would be best to cut it now before it covered more of my body.

"I should probably cut it off..." I said, voicing my thoughts.

I didn't even know if I would be able to, I obviously didn't want to, but I was running out of time. At least when the time came, I could ask Zanir to do it, I don't think he would mind.

I was still looking at it when Zanir showed up at the entrance, bug parts in hand, and a few fruits.

"Maybe way of curing your arm," he said, putting the bug parts aside and throwing me one of the round yellow fruits.

What? I said, catching it.

"How?! Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Dangerous, needed more time to prepare, you could die."

I clenched my jaw.

"I'm going to die anyway, if I don't do it."

"You said, maybe should cut it off."

Fuck that, I didn't suffer all that hellish training to get out of there with one arm missing, if there was a way, I would do it.

"How?" I repeated.

He paused, looking at me, as if considering telling me or not.

The fruit was the size of my fist, had a velvity soft texture to it, like a piap. I bit into it.

Sweet.

"Come," he said, finally.

I followed, picking up Moon. He grabbed the water pot on the smaller hole near the cave and we set off.

We ran farther than ever, too many lefts, rights, ups and downs for me to remember the way back. We passed by tunnels of varied sizes, staying close to the walls, avoiding the larger bugs. On this trip alone, I saw more bugs that could kill me than all the time I've been down there, a few of them were ardas, completely white, all about the same size or smaller than Moon had been. None that could have stood against Zanir, but still quite troublesome.

Whatever the destination was, it was a long path, with ways up than down, making me tired quicker, but strangely enough, the lights seemed to be gradually dimming out, the crystals were fewer and the roots were thinner, and It might have been my imagination, but it felt a little colder. When I couldn't see the details of anything more than a few dozen meters in front of me, he reached for his white bag and retrieved a crystal the size of a finger, then he opened one of his wooden tubes and poured a white liquid over it, the crystal started to glow, brighter than most.

Cool, I thought, astonished, I wonder how that works.

It reminded me that there was a lot I still didn't know about that place.

"Here," Zanir said, stopping.

A giant lake loomed over us, if not for the light of the crystal on Zanir's hand, I could have fallen in it, a scary thought. The body of water was so big that I couldn't see the other end of it, and the few lights scattered around the place were too far to reach the whole lake, resulting on the underground darkness giving it a deeper feel to it, an overwhelming feeling. The empty dome had some of those pillars you often see in caves, too, except with massive proportions, and there weren't as many roots and flowers, but still quite a lot, and the roots were all thicker than usual.

Zanir walked to the border and carefully filled the pot.

"Wha-"

He gestured for me to stop talking.

Pot full, he slowly backed away from the margin. "Dangerous, there, stronger than arda," he said.

I couldn't even imagine that.

"What now?" I asked, quietly.

"We wait."

"For what?"

"One that took your arm."

The centipede? It was around here? I thought, wary.

"Why?"

"You put sernaz on arm, maybe heals," he said.

"Sernaz?"

He pointed at Moon.

The soul-like ball of light?

"Like what I did with Moon?"

He nodded, "But first you learn how control Lu."

"Arda Moon took much Lu from you because no control," he said, " Lu should flow balanced, or you die."

"That was Lu?"

"Sit," he said.

I obeyed, like our last 'Lu session', legs crossed and back straight.

"Close your eyes, try remember feeling of Lu flowing," he said, "Lu all around us, you can use, get strong. Stronger."

Was that what happened last time too? When my legs suddenly became faster?

I closed my eyes and tried, thinking of the gentle wind feeling, its warmth. It probably took almost an hour, and I was beginning to think I went mad for have even tried, when something actually started to happen, just not like last time. What I felt was more similar to the pain I suffered after first waking up in the tunnels than what Zanir did to me, instead of a gentle wind, a violent thunderstorm of pain struck my head, then began to course through my body.

No longer sitting, I was thrashing on the ground. It was hot, a raging fire inside my body, boiling my blood, with some places being stabbed while other parts had small explosions. Zanir held me down with his knee on my back and his hand on my head, the pain slowly fading.

"Breathe," he said.

That was something he always repeated whenever I got too exhausted or started panicking too much during our trainings, and it was starting to stick, I took a deep and long breath before he even said anything, then exhaled. Checking my body, there were no visible wounds—besides the ones I already had—only the lingering heat and pain.

"Opened too much. Lu rushed in. Controlling Lu is hard," he said, "but you need to focus. No ti-"

"-time, I know," I said,

I know better than you, I thoght, remembering Asha.

Taking a bath was easier, now that we had a whole lake to take water from. There wasn't enough fruit and the monsters around the dome and nearby tunnels were mostly as big as the beetle had been, but we had to eat somehow, I had to eat, so Zanir made me hunt as training. I saw monsters of all kinds, learned that Zanir called them all 'the sectioned'—or at least that was how I translated as—apparently due to their body structure, and the arda were the strongest ones, aside from some very rare exceptions that he mentioned but I never got to see, luckly. At first he assisted me, but eventually I got used to it and managed to kill most of them without his help, but with only one arm it was still hard.

I still did my cycle count, it was fairly accurate, or as accurate as it could be without a clock, with a margin of error of a few cycles due to the time I was blacked out or when I stayed awake for too long training Lu control and I didn't know if it passed one cycle or two. The training was hard, I wasn't sure of exactly what I was doing but it was like controlling the flow of a very strong current, making sure the right amount passed through me and stayed, he made some breathing metaphors and said something about 'Ilis' or 'Nere' but I didn't really get it.

It was the cycle two hundred and three, my arm was completely taken by the poison, now, up to my shoulder. Just in time.

We found it.

I wasn't sure if it was the same one, or just one of the same species. Round body divided in sharp arcs that gave it more of a horizontal rhombus shape, sharp thick legs, it looked almost exactly the same in every aspect but size and color, the pinkish color I remembered was now a dark purple. He was one of the biggest sectioned I'd seen so far, not in height, but in length. it reached around my stomach in height, thick as a old tree trunk and around fifteen meters long.

"Remember, try not to kill it," Zanir said.

Easier said than done, I thought.

Moon.

The engraving glowed softly, then spread outwards like a wave throughout the axe's body, changing her as it passed. In a couple of seconds she was in her full form, white fur on the handle, claw on the back of the head and black spike at the bottom.

I inhaled deeply and slowly let the air out. Then I charged.

I ran towards it, body low, fast. The centipede raised its head meters off the ground, while walking with dozens of other legs, and dove onto me. I jumped left and kept running, aiming for the joints and cutting three of its legs before it turned in my direction again while blocking my path by moving the other end of its body. Successfully encircling me.

Too many legs to cut.

The centipede pounced on me, but I avoided it again, jumping over its body. I ran outside the circle, cutting four more legs before trying to cut its carapace, but it was too hard, the creature quickly bent outwards, hitting me sideways with the stinger—which resembled a sharp, black rapier, thick as a broom—that sprung from the end of its body, sending me tumbling a long distance of the very uneven floor. Though I couldn't feel it anymore, by the way it bent, my left arm was definitely broken, and I had several small wounds around my body.

I lost no time, immediately getting up.

The creature straightened itself again and rushed towards me.

I took a deep breath and focused on all the Lu I accumulated by training and killing dozens of sectioneds. I was fast and Moon was strong. Using Lu was like controlling the strenght of a punch, I could go all out but my body wouldn't be able to handle, specially my legs, Zanir kept doing something to me throughout my training that made them too fast, I found that if I used that for too long, they started to hurt like they were about to fall off, so I left it as a last resource.

Sooner than I would've hoped but I guess it's now or never, Moon.

I lunged, closing the distance in an instant, going over the beast and using the back side of the axe, nailing the claw in its head, but the creature still lived. It arched its body, trying to hit me with the stinger from above, I quickly pulled the axe to defend against it, managing to cut a part of it while deflecting to the side, but the momentum was strong enough to make it perfurate my left shoulder before I could try another swing. It hurt so much I almost fell, but I managed to brace myself.

The creature started writhing, so I hit its head with the spike once again to secure footing, the centipende's responde was to raise its body, bringing me with it high enough that I dangled from the axe.

It turned its body upside down and began letting itself drop, then picking up speed, back facing the ground with the intent of crushing me.

I put my feet on its back and kicked, pulling the axe free and falling from a few meters high, I gasped, my back hitting the ground hard, but managing to roll out of the creature's descending body.

I got up and looked, it was slow in recovering from the impact, that was my chance. I jumped on top of it and ran along its back, going for the head, but it noticed me, pouncing in my direction, the movement of the rest of its body making me trip backwards. It almost felt like it happened in slow motion, I saw the blue pincers of its mouth opening in the air, ready to bite me, so before my foot left the ground, I turned the misstep into a jump backwards, using all my strenght to rotate my torso and bring Moon's blade into the centipedes head. The creature still ran into and under me, sending me tumbling.

Never stay down, I got up alarmed, wincing as I realized my ankle was badly sprained or even broken from the last jump, panicking at the lack of grip on my right hand. I look at the ground near me but couldn't see Moon.

The centipede, I remembered, looking.

It wasn't moving, Moon fixed in its head. I carefully aprochead it, the creature moved, buy only slightly, more like a twitch. Zanir told me that to see the soul, you had to defeat the creature alone, to show your strength so it would respect you and maybe show itself.

That had to be enough.

I closed my eyes and put my right hand on its head, trying to feel its soul—or sernaz, as Zanir called it. I saw a light, despite my closed eyes, a string.

Found it.

As I saw its whole life up to that point, I found out that it was indeed the one that had poisoned me. It managed to survive, got bigger and stronger because, killing way more sectioned than I did. It was smart, patient in how it got strong, only lost because it underestimated me.

A deal.

You'll be bound to me, but alive.

Are you sure? You don't have to die.

What could I say? I was losing it, the light was becoming harder to make out. It didn't want to be restrained. Unless...

...What if I told you that if I ever let my guard down, you'll have the chance to take over my body?

Hopefully I wont't regret this.

It's a deal, then.

I took my hand off it, pulling the string of white light from it. Like Moon's soul, it didn't have any weight to it, just a string of light about one meter long. Moon fell to the floor as the creature's former body began to crumble to ashes.

Zanir approached me, unsheathing his sword, transforming it.

I nodded, as he pulled the stinger out of my shoulder and I was reminded of the pain all over my body.

He grabbed my left hand and extended my arm, parallel to the ground, then brought the sword down near my shoulder, cutting my arm off with his flaming sword. I tried not to scream as to not attract other sectioned, so it came out as a long groan of raw pain. Blood started to gush out of my shoulder, so he cauterized it with his sword. The pain made me fall to my knees, almost passing out.

With a trembling hand, I put the string of light in the arm on the ground, sending Lu to it, the sernaz wormed its way inside, changing it. Dark purple, almost black, scales with the shape of the centipede's carapace began to grow from under the skin, tearing it. The joints that diveded the fingers in three sections were covered by round thicker scales, like tiny shields.

When the change was mostly done, I touched the end of the arm to my stump, stil sending Lu through it. Pain like hundreds of nails were being hammered on my shoulder made me drop completely to the ground, the arm bending violently in different angles, making cracking noises.

I was sweating cold, with wavering breathing, in pain and dead tired by the time it was over. Still laying down, I tried moving my arm. It worked perfectly, though I had to concentrate on circling the Lu inside of it.

So, how should I call you?