Chapter 8: The Pit

As we walked deeper into the forest of Procella, the light behind us faded into nothingness. Soon, I could not see anything. It was completely dark.

‘Good thing I have a spell for these occasions.’

I gathered energy in my eyes and tried to convert it into light, but the moment particles of light appeared from my eyes, Cedric covered my eyes and stopped me with a quiet but sharp whisper.

“Don’t!”

I almost fell backwards when I felt his hand cover my eyes, “Hey! Why not?”

“If you cast Conscpicio, the light you emit will attract the darkness to us. Right now, Anna can’t tell where we are, but if you have eyes flashing out from your eyes, then you’ll draw her attention like a month to a flame, which is fine if we want to fight her, but now’s not that time. We need to get to the Recorodor as quickly and safely as possible. So be on your guard, especially you, Cogito.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve been here already, and I haven’t.”

“No, there’s another re—”

Before Cedric could finish his sentence, I plunged into the ground without warning.

Cedric shouted, “They’ve found us! Quick, get away Cogito!”

That was the last I heard from Cedric as I fell deeper and deeper into the abyss. Cedric’s shout had grown faint and then no more.

‘Oh shoot! What do I do! I’m falling too quickly. If I hit the ground, I’m done—’

I hit the ground.

‘No, something is under me, but it’s not dirt.’

I thought my body was going to splatter into pieces when I smashed into the ground, but nothing happened. I simply stopped falling and had landed on some sort of platform. I looked around but couldn’t see anything. I could only see darkness. Using my ears, I tried to listen for some sort of sound, but there was nothing, only silence. I felt lost in space. There wasn’t even any wind blowing against my skin.

That was when I heard an elderly voice creep out of the darkness, “Ah, could it be? Yes. I remember you. My little play toy in the darkness.”

I jumped at her voice.

‘Where is she speaking from? I can’t tell.’

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Aww, don’t you remember me, Gratus? I’m sure you haven’t forgotten about me. No, I made sure of that.” Chuckling in an eerie manner, she continued, “Try to remember your youth, when you were just an innocent child. I came out of the darkness and greeted you with a welcoming hand.”

The hair on my skin crawled up my body. I had a vague idea of who she was. It had been such a long time since my days as a child, but now, it was coming back to me. The one thing that I had never forgotten: my fear.

“Terra!”

“Ah, you remember. I’m flattered, Gratus.”

‘Her voice… It’s coming from there!’

I crept towards the location of her voice while asking, “How could I ever forget? You were the one who crept in the darkness and enlightened my imagination to horror.”

Chuckling once again, the grandmother-like voice continued, “But you escaped me last time. You grew too strong for me, but this time, it looks like you’ve lost a bit of your power. Now, you will di—”

From behind me, the rumbling of a huge chainsaw cut her voice off. My mind scrambled as I tried to think of the best action to take. The sound of the chainsaw grew louder as it approached me from behind, so I dove out of the way, rolling to the side.

“Conspicio!”

Light flared out of my eyes revealing the surrounding darkness. I looked at where I was standing and saw the chainsaw embedded into the ground where I had been standing.

‘Where’s that old lady?’

I looked around, but could not find any sign of an elderly lady. Instead, I saw a devilish looking clown grinning at me with its sharp teeth, red hair, and white skin. Its clothes were baggy, and it was flipping a dagger into the air.

Before the dagger landed in its palm, the clown laughed and said, “So you think you can see me, eh?” while throwing two small hidden daggers at me with its other hand.

The two daggers headed straight for my eyes. I tried to dodge, but the clown pointed its index finger at me, and my body froze.

‘I can’t move!’

I watched in horror as the daggers pierced my eyes.

‘No! Huh? Wait, it doesn’t hurt?’

When I pulled the daggers out of my eyes, I noticed that the light in my eyes was distorted. I could not see the clown anymore.

‘Did he just disrupt my spell with daggers? I need to gather more energy into my eyes.’

While I was gathering energy in my eyes, I felt a silk-like object constrict me.

“I’ve got you now!”

‘What the heck?!’

I felt something crawl into my pants.

“No way!”

I hit my leg, trying to kill whatever was crawling around in my pants, but as I did, more insects crawled up my legs. I felt them on my skin, and as I swatted my pants, I also felt them climbing up my pants. In my panic, I cast Conspicio once again.

…

‘What?’

“Conspicio!”

…

Nothing happened.

I yelled out again and again, until the insects crawling over my body had reached my face. Some of them found their way inside my mouth. I closed my mouth shut and grinded them with my teeth.

‘Disgusting!’

I could hear and feel the crunching of the bones inside my mouth.

“You fool! Do you really think you can beat me with such a simple spell?”

As Terra laughed at me, I was covered by a multitude of unidentifiable insects as I collapsed onto the floor. I could not see anything, but I heard the chainsaw again rumbling above me. I tried to escape, but the silk that I had been wrapped in did not break. It was hopeless, but despite my powerlessness, I let my mouth form a faint smirk as the chainsaw came down on me.

Laughing like a crazed mad scientist, the old voice echoed through the darkness, “I did it! I’ve banished the great Gratus! Now there will be no hope for Clautz!”

But I interrupted his wild-like joy with a question.

“Do you think you’ve really got me?”

He sounded surprised. I could not see him, but I heard his stammering, “H-h-how?”

“I’m no longer a child, Terra. If you think your little creeps and horrors can scare me, then think again.”

I got up the ground and revitalized the light in my eyes, which lit up with a golden spark that dispersed the darkness. I could see Terra for who she was. She wasn’t a clown, and there weren’t any insects or giant chainsaws either. They were all illusions. Terra was a small pitiful child that was useless without his illusions, and there he stood, helpless against my revealing eyes.

“Trying to take advantage of me was a bad move, Terra. I was scared at first when I remembered all the suffering you put me through, but did you seriously expect me to not remember how I defeated you?”

Terra looked at me in horror and tried to reason with me, “Gratus! You can forgive me, right? I only did this because of Anna’s orders. She ordered me to! I can’t go against her orders. Please! Don’t kill me.”

“Since Anna is trying to kill me, I will make sure to banish her from Dominia and obliterate anyone who tries to stop me, including you.”

In response, Terra burst into a laughter of rage and lunged towards me with all of his might.

“Regardless, you’ve still lost a majority of your powers! How can you defeat me like this?”

I shook my head and dodged Terra’s charge by jumping over him using one of my arms on his shoulders as an anchor. When I was above him, I slammed let me weight drop on him and pinned him to the ground.

“It may be true that I’ve lost a majority of my powers, but I’m starting to remember a lot. Unfortunately for you, I’ve remembered the perfect spell to defeat you. Remember this?”

Pointing at Terra, I gathered the energy from within me and focused it at the tip of my finger.

“Adustum!”

After hearing what I had cast, Terra screamed and tried to dodge the zooming light, but he was too slow. The light zapped him in the face, and he collapsed onto the floor dead. The moment his head hit the floor, the surrounding darkness I was trapped inside disappeared.

I was surrounding by towering walls, inside some sort of pit. I tried to see where I had fallen from, but it was too dark.

‘There’s no way, I’m going to be able to return from there.’

I looked around to see if there were any other ways out and spotted a cave to the side of me.

‘I guess this is the only way to go?’