Chapter 374: Dasha’s Great Hunt
Bodies were everywhere.
The way of the Dark Tower remained absolute. It remained stagnant for the past hundred years. Bodies were left. Bodies were thrown. Bodies experienced death as they lay in the waiting area.
Within the waiting room of the Dark Tower, on a floor in the mid-fifties, a fighter named Taz curled in agony. An unwellness had settled since yesterday, an inexplicable heaviness in his belly. He fought through it anyway. It was but a distraction, after all.
Every move of his seemed a little bit faster, however. Sick and faster? Did he take one too many potions? Did he take an unstable potion? Yes, that had to be it.
"Fuck..."
Sweat poured from every inch of him, soaking through his clothes, and a dull, throbbing pain radiated from his bones.
Taz groaned, rolling onto his back, staring up at the stone ceiling of this...this waiting chamber. The fighters ignored his groans and complaints, attributing them to fatigue from a previous battle. Some idiots in the waiting room pushed themselves for no good reason. This was not that. Taz had won four battles with mild comfort and called it quits thereafter.
His stomach. He was faster and yet he knew something was horribly wrong. His belly felt swollen, as if filled with lead, and every breath he took was a laborious effort.
This was the waiting area. Nerves were normal. Nerves were expected. Nerves could feel like this. Vomiting, dying, feeling weak and sad and pathetic...
Were these nerves or—
A sudden, sharp pain sliced through his body, and Taz cried out, clutching his stomach. He felt his bones shift. Slowly at first, then faster until it became an unhearing burn and turn. A sickening crunching sound accompanied each turn. His skin rippled, muscles bulging unnaturally beneath it. Taz tried to scream, but his voice was lost in a gurgle of blood and saliva.