3001 Paths to Death - A Lite litRPG Looper

The box did not glow; it wasn’t a light, and darkness did not recede. It was just there. The closer I got to the box, the more I understood what I was seeing, which made me more clueless about what was happening.

The box grew in size. First, it was the size of a stone. Then, it was as high as my hip. Judging by its current size, I had a way to go.

My pace quickened. I no longer crawled; I jumped through space. As I closed the distance with each leap, the box quickly grew to my size. It grew taller and taller, becoming the size of a room, and finally, when I arrived, my box was the size of a house.

I looked through the semi-transparent walls and saw a man resting against a wall. His eyelids fluttered, and beads of sweat dripped to the floor.

If I could get into the box, maybe I could use the puddle of mana. However, the way back was far, and I had just arrived. I rested my hand on the smooth wall, and as I felt around, my hand slid across the glossy surface.

I walked around the entire box, inspecting it thoroughly. The building was like a large block of ice. Even the temperature radiating from it was cold—a sensation I hadn’t experienced in a long time. Even now, the coldness was faint.

I strategized ways to enter the box and then started punching. My frustration might not have been as tempered as I thought. My punches snapped with a hard impact. The box didn’t budge. Each blow I delivered had no effect, and I found myself once again punching into nothing. I continued to hammer at the unbreakable barrier with my fists.

It took longer than I was proud to admit to calm down. Once I did, I no longer paid attention to the prison. Instead, I walked to the other side, where the lonely resident rested his back against the wall. I finally got a good look at the man inside.

The man wore shredded armor, and there was a gaping hole in his chest plate in the front and back. I could see his muscular chest and back through the hole. His dark tan skin displayed several large scars. There was no evidence of the spike that had impaled him.

He had short trimmed hair on the sides and longer on top. It waved and curled into its own style.

His broad shoulders were relaxed, and his arms rested on tucked knees. The prisoner’s eyelids continued to flutter as he breathed deep in a rhythmic pattern. Unlike his bronze skin, his face was pale. Deathly pale. Instinctively, I reached out to my face, checking my forehead and cheeks for temperature. I felt nothing unusual.

The prisoner was weak. His body looked crumpled and broken. As soon as he broke his trance, he would die and end up back in the box. How long could he last like that? How long could I last?

I was the prisoner, and yet I existed outside his prison. He was dying. I stood far from death’s doorstep. We were the same and yet so distant—separated. I didn’t need to be here. I could walk away from the box, and as long as the prisoner kept his trance, I would be free to live.

The realization struck me like a bolt of energy.

The man inside the box was no prisoner; he was a sacrifice, and the box was not a prison but a means of preservation. As long as he remained in solitude, I could live. I sensed the tendrils of my salvation pulling me from this mindscape. I resisted the call, remaining with the liberator for a moment longer.

“Live for them,” I said to the man inside the wall in a reverent voice. My hand reached for his slumped shoulder and rested on the glass above his back. “I will survive, and I will save them.” The promise lingered in the air, and as the words made their way to the prisoner, his shoulders slouched a little less.

I examined my broken self. Instinctively, I knew I might not see him again, or at least not like this. I wanted to acknowledge and let him know his sacrifice would not be in vain, but I could not wake him.

“Thank you.” I gave him one last look and then opened my mind’s eye.

The tendrils pulled me from this chasm in my mind. I fluttered in the dark, flying toward a distant location. One I’d never seen before.

I woke up standing in a puddle of water. My hand stretched out. Blue refreshing mana accumulated on my fingers. As I raised my head, the battlefield became clearer. Tenty laid on the ground next to my impaled body. His body and face sprawled from when he died.

My old body was now frozen. The mana I sensed from the ice encasing it was my own. I looked over myself, not my dying frozen body on the pike, but the new body I inhabited. It was my mirage, an ice clone I created of myself and enhanced with mana. I thought my clone vanished when I was first skewered, our connection severed. I was wrong. Not only was my clone present, but it was now me, a vessel for my soul. Somehow, the tendrils I felt inside my mind pulled my soul into the clone... a transference of some type.

Tenty was right. My mind had blown wide open. I couldn't contain my smile and laughter.

When my amazement wore off, I looked around for my friends. They had long since perished. I was not fast enough. Their deaths hit hard. A pit filled my stomach and grew when I thought of my excitement seconds ago. The taste of bile teased my mouth. I wasn’t sure what would happen when I escaped my mind prison, but I wanted a chance. I thought I would have a chance. This was not good enough.

“No,” I said, rejecting this outcome. I needed to return sooner. I closed my eyes and, with my outstretched hand, connected to my mana freezing my dying body. I closed my hand, commanding the mana to crush.

I woke up standing in a puddle of water. My hand stretched out. Blue refreshing mana accumulated on my fingers. As I raised my head, the battlefield became clearer. Tenty laid on the ground next to my impaled body. His body and face sprawled from when he died.

My friends were still dead. I was not fast enough. “No.” I needed to return sooner. I closed my eyes and, with my outstretched hand, connected to the mana, freezing my dying body. My hand closed as I commanded the mana to crush.

They were still dead. “No.” I closed my hand again…

“No.” I needed to be faster. I stretched out my hand again…

“Please,” I said in a muttered tone, begging for a better outcome. My hand stretched again…

“Damn it. No.” My hand lingered. I wasn’t getting any closer, but I could not accept this. I commanded the ice to crush.

“You can still save them.” I cut off the mana and looked for Tenty. I heard his voice clear as day to the right of me.

I had so many questions I wanted to ask the faceless voice. One rose to the surface above all others. “How?”

“How was anything accomplished?”

I took a deep breath and reconciled myself for the deep waters ahead. To save my friends I needed more power.