Level-Up Apocalypse: Surviving With The Assimilation System
Chapter 193: Black Sand

He flipped himself back just as the blade passed by his head, only landing with a slight wobble as he felt the strength in his legs fading. It was a peculiar feeling; like nausea, only intensified and more unpredictable.

'It's something with his ability–it has to be. I can't focus, my mind is foggy and my body won't work properly–it's not normal,'

he deduced.

However, it hardly seemed to be the case for the pale-haired predator, who happily engaged with the nameless killer.

"You're not very talkative, are you?" Crow asked as swept his cleaver for the man's abdomen, though missed by a margin.

There was no response as the imposing figure immediately retaliated, stepping in close.

Crow morphed his body into a slender, slithering form, slipping by the brutal stabs and slashes from the sinister man.

["

Serpent Shift

"]

As though becoming almost like a liquid, devoid of a skeleton, Crow compressed his own body, slipping between the man's legs before bulking up. It wasn't just back to his usual physique, but beyond it as his body became engulfed in dark-brown fur, presenting curved horns at his head:

["

Minotaur + Orc Shift

"]

'Full strength—!'

Crow excitedly thought.

Enjoy new tales from M V L

With a hand threefold as large and a bicep even more overwhelming, he swung his cleaver towards the nameless man's back—

Squelch

.

"Ah—?" Crow let out with a blank stare.

The cleaver only hit the air, in turn replaceing that the only one suffering wounds was Crow himself. Like bullets punching through the hunter's skin, multiple stabbings appeared across his body.

It was a worrying sight for Finn, seeing the only ally he could rely on in this moment so easily outmatched. None of it was flashy; the killing prowess of the nameless man was something in a different realm entirely–quickness, precision, aggression, violence–all perfectly honed.

Finn watched Crow drop to his knees as the dozen knife wounds spurted blood out, deciding to take action himself.

"Hey!--" He shouted out, seeing the man without an identity for a split-second.

Attempting to take the focus back onto himself proved to be a mistake as he found the knife-wielding sin dashing through the dim room, arriving right in front of him before he could do anything. That anxiousness; the nausea–all of it wore down his reflexes and ability to act so much that he barely managed to raise his own weapon before–

squelch

.

'I…'

An unformed thought surfaced in his mind.

Right in front of him, low like a beast on the hunt, the nameless killer had stuck his blade into the assassin's gut again. Feeling he steel lodged into his stomach, Finn raised his arm, forcing himself to try and defend himself, but–

It was too late.

The stranger tore the blade to the side, ripping open Finn's belly as though gutting a fish, cleanly and without any resistance. All he could do was watch, looking down as the knife was removed only by virtue of cutting across his abdomen.

He dropped his blade, attempting to hold himself together as his own intestines spilled into his hands. A mess of crimson poured out as he stumbled back, attempting to regulate his breathing before he dropped to his knees.

'How did this happen?...Am I going to die? Am I dying? I couldn't even tell…what happened. Everything about this–it just feels off…It's not right–this person, they're not human,'

the thoughts flashed across his mind as his vision grew weary.

In those brief flashes of consciousness, he witnessed Crow on the receiving end of the knife again, cut across the body, stabbed just as he was–helplessly. Finn fell onto his stomach as a pool of warm crimson flooded beneath him.

"I…" He weakly exhaled.

Keeping his hand on his stomach with some sort of futile notion he could keep his insides where they should've been, he gasped out as his stomach burned like an oven. As his eyelids grew heavy, one look at the stranger across the room finally gave him something to sleuth–

["

Major Arcana: The Devil

"]

'Ar…cana? What is this guy? I can't…feel anything–it's fading,'

his thoughts loosely formed, held together by mere string.

Like a black smog, a haze filled his mind as the overwhelming warmth that radiated from his stomach turned to a chilling frost that gripped every inch of his body. Through every pore of his body, life left him in a hurry.

Everything went black–

["

A single misstep in this messed up world, and this is how you end up.

"]

A soft wind whispered against his ears, brushing against his body with a rough grain. It felt as though he'd been in a peaceful sleep for some time, though everything was left foggy. What were simply breaths of the wind turned to distant howls of agony, of sorrow.

As his eyelids slowly opened, he found himself staring up at a hollow sky, devoid of anything but a dark fog.

'What…is this?'

He questioned.

In the void above him, it looked as though distorted faces looked back at him, their wails blended into the wind that passed by. He carefully picked himself up, placing his hands against what appeared to be black sand.

It took some effort not to fall back over as he stood up, breathing out. Finally adjusting, he began to see where it was he woke up–

A vast, black desert where screams echoed in the distance, though he couldn't quite see where they came from.

'This place…I've seen it–it was in one of the killer's tapes. Hell…He said he went to Hell,'

Finn recalled as his anxiousness began to rise.

Coming to that conclusion only made his heart thump as his blood felt as though it vibrated in his body. It was a concerning realization, one that made him question if he had begun dreaming, hoping it was that.

He pulled up his shirt, checking his stomach to attempt to certify what was real or not–

"Ah."

Across his stomach, a visceral scar revealed itself to him along with another pair of smaller scars. Seeing those emblems of past wounds resurfaced the last memories he remembered; the unsettling encounter with the nameless killer.

Down to the smell of rusted steel in that room to the sensation of having his gut torn open, he remembered it clearly–after all, it wasn't something forgotten so easily.

'Did I die? Is this Hell? For some reason, I'm not all that scared–it's just…empty,'

he thought, looking around the black desert.

He began to wander aimlessly, trudging through the dark sand as the wailing wind brushed past him. There was no correct direction to walk, it seemed. All of it seemed exactly the same, without aim, without purpose.

The temperature was humid, with the passing winds hot enough to coax a sweat. It was uncomfortable to breathe, as the air was thin and grainy. He hiked for what he could only imagine was an hour, replaceing himself ascending a mound of sand, reaching the top–

"Not even close, huh?" He mumbled to himself as he caught his breath.

Ahead, as far as the eye could see, the lonely desert continued on without any seeming end. The only thing he could do was continue moving one foot in front of the other, hoping it'd lead him somewhere.

Hours, perhaps a few, maybe a dozen; he moved forward through the aimless wasteland. It was all the same, every step of the way; the same, coal grains that shifted beneath his boot, the cries of agony hidden in the wind, the void looking down at him.

At a certain point, seeing the exact same, unchanging scenery after hours of hiking, he began to question it.

'Am I making any progress? Is it a loop? I can't tell,'

he thought.

After enough hiking without making any seeming progress, he came to a stop as he regained his breath. It was tiring, though not from the walking itself, but the humid wind.

"What the hell is up with this place? There's nothing here—it's just…sand," he questioned as he continued his monotonous march.

After enough dragging his feet for what could only be hours more, he tripped when descending a slope of sand.

"Nn…!"

Face-first into the downward hill, he slid down without much grace. It was another little act just to rub dirt in the wound.

The grains tasted painfully putrid, like a torment to his taste buds of spoiled meat and charcoal. He spat the sand out of his mouth, gagging as he did so.

"Nnng…" He groaned as he picked himself up, coughing out whatever pieces of sand made it past his mouth.

Straightening himself out, the groaning continued, though not from his mouth. After countless hours in the empty, vast desert, something finally sticking out to him made him alert.

"Hello—?" Finn called out, looking around.

Piles of sand to the west, more to the east, north—something stuck out. A person was sitting crisscrossed on the sand, swaying somewhat as they looked aimlessly into the distance.

It looked to be a man of a lifeless complexion with unkempt, burgundy hair.

"Hey? Hey!" Finn called out, scrambling over to the first sign of another person.

There was a delayed reaction to his words, as though there was no hurry from the individual in acknowledging he was there.

"Oh…? A fresh soul," the stranger remarked with a hoarse voice. "What foul machinations did you perform in your life to end up here, I wonder?"