Neo was mindlessly wandering about the shadows of the dungeon, everything he looked at had a vibrant blue hue.
That was just a part of the night vision ability though, which had still been trying to get used too.
Out of instinct he reached back, and fiddled with the strap that was slung from the pommel of his jagged blade.
It had been quite some time since he had seen Chase nor Poppy.
He glanced around, feeling a strange sense of foreboding, something that he hadn't felt in nearly a decade.
Like something powerful was brewing relentlessly, and was doing it somewhere very close to him.
What could he possibly have to fear though? He was the son of the king of serpents!
Yet it still didn't sit right with him, even though he had known that Poppy of House Aries was an extremely capable warrior.
Chase; however, he knew very little about. The boy was a Stray who had survived a year in The Dark Forest, which meant that he was either hiding plenty of things... Or had been the embodiment of luck.
Neo was more inclined to lean toward the former.
He felt a crunch below him, and lowered his gaze.
His stomach dropped, as he noticed that he had crushed a mimic's lifeless skull with the bottom of his shoe.
"Ew..."
It was the first time Noe had ever seen a mimic. It had an abnormally large head, and hundreds of teeth that could probably cut straight through metal.
However, there was something terribly wrong with the corpse.
Whatever had killed it, did quite an exquisite job at doing so in the most inhumane way possible.
Every single tendon on the mimic's dead body had been severed ruthlessly, and its limbs had been carved into mangled strings of flesh.
For a second Neo remembered a strange fact he had learned from Professor Zelenna, earlier in the year she had said that when monsters are chained for long periods of time: they truly start to embody their monster classifications.
Mimics were known as devourers, and beasts of deceptions. But just how far could a mimic go exactly?
"Hey!"
A friendly voice called out from behind Neo.
The hairs on his arms rocketed as high as they could physically go, and he immediately knew just how wrong everything felt.
"Hey Chase..."
Neo said, not daring to take a look at the other boy.
Then he noticed the flames Chase had been using for light had came into his peripheral vision.
He turned his head slowly, just so that he would know if he had to react quickly or not.
'What the hell...'
Chase's source of light had turned to a neon green flame, that danced as if it was raw chaos in the palm of his hand.
"You see Poppy yet?"
Neo asked, resting his right hand on his waist band. His jagged serpent blade only a couple inches away from it.
Chase looked different, not in a bad way per say. More so that he had grown an inch or two, and his eyes had taken on a much more vibrant green.
"Yeah, she's fine... Just really trying hard to clean this place up."
Neo looked up and down Chase's tattered figure.
Intricate black markings were swirling across his body, as if the runes that he had dawned were alive.
One that was swimming around the base of his neck had sent Neo into a spiral of insanity.
"How..."
Chase raised an eyebrow, and gave him a questioned look.
"Why do you have that..."
On his neck was something that Neo had hoped that he would never have to see again.
A terrible memory invaded his mind, making his want to rip his own eyes out at the very sight of the sigil.
It was the sigil of destruction...
The same sigil that Neo's brother had used to nearly strangle the life force out of him.
A deformed ram's skull was flowing like water along the Stray's neck.
The mark that connected one to the very core of the lowest layer of the tree of life.
'Terror...'
"Where is Poppy?"
Neo asked, a sense of demand leaking from his voice.
Then Chase gave him a terribly crooked grin.
"That vessel was weak... This one though, had so much potent-"
Neo drew his blade before he could even finish speaking.
His blade had already went down upon Chase, but a loud clang echoed through the dungeon.
Chase had simply put a hand up, and deflected the blade with his bare arm.
'No blood...?'
The creature's figure began to turn into a terrible husk of Chase, a single horn had ripped itself free from the crown of the boy's head.
Flesh and blood flew from his body, as tendrils began to escape from the Stray's backside.
Neo's eyes widened, as the green flames nearly engulfed him.
He knew that if he was even slightly grazed by the flames, then he would never be the same. As if the very flames threatened to rip out the core of one's existence.
"What the hell are you!"
Neo demanded, feeling his feet drag across the ground. Recoiling from his unbalanced dodge, he tried to regain himself.
But the monster inside of Chase's body had already been upon him.
He tried to deflect the cobalt sword, but it had already ripped into his shoulder before he could even lift the handle of his own blade.
Neo was being outmatched by a scumblood's body.
Trying to get one good slash on the thing that resembled Chase, he felt his arm get crushed by a terrible pressure.
"Too slow..."
Chase's voice hissed.
A pair of skeletal hands ripped free from the stone floor.
They wrapped around Neo's ankles, and pulled him down.
He tried to scream, to yell for help, yet the dread he felt was too much.
He knew he was going to die.
His life flashed before his very eyes, as Chase's face grew even more deformed. His jaw ripped apart, revealing a terrible maw.
As darkness enveloped everything around him, Neo remembered his brother's face.
'I don't want to die...'