Red thought he was dreaming. It looked as though the images reaching his sight were being filtered through a thick ruby-tinted glass. Everything around him appeared more distant as if separated by a transparent red film.

At first, the boy thought the problem was his blurry vision so he closed his eyes. Pure darkness. When Red opened them again, the crimson colors were still there. Not only that, but they had changed. Darker-shaded wisps floated irregularly past his sight as if they were alive, too fast to examine. His depth perception confirmed to him that this wasn't some sort of hallucination, but rather something happening in the environment around him.

And then, a smell came. It was a sweet and metallic fragrance that started to invade Red's nostrils. It was soft and unassuming at first, but it grew stronger until there was nothing else the boy could focus on. The scent was so thick and overwhelming that Red felt like he would vomit on the spot were he able to gather enough strength to do so. And yet, under his drowning senses, he felt a familiarity with the odor.

'Blood...'

Not his. Not the spider's either. There was not enough flesh in the underground to make a smell this strong. It almost made Red forget about his pain, but replaced it with something much more insidious and terrifying.

And then there was the silence.

No noise of spiders. The boy thought he had been teleported to another place for a moment, but looking around, he saw the same rock surface he had become so familiar with. His gaze moved up to look for his previous opponents and he witnessed the army of spiders completely frozen in place, including the bigger monster.

Their image was unclear to Red beyond the crimson colors, and the youth thought time had come to standstill. However, his hypothesis was quickly disproven. The giant arachnid who had just been ready to attack the human started to slowly crawl away, its large legs pulling its body up the webs. It tried to distance itself from the human and even the blinded eye seemed to be a lesser concern for the monster.

The rest of the spiders also followed its lead, the movement of their superior causing a chain reaction. All of them retreated onto the ceiling while warily watching the boy.

'Why am I not dead?'

Only now did Red have enough time to ask himself that. His mind was sluggish, too tired to think too deeply, but even then it didn't take much effort to figure out the reason. This ray of hope gave him a renewed will to live and after struggling with his aching body, he reached down to the side of his waist and grabbed something out of his pouch.

It was no longer burning, but Red could feel a tingling sensation against his skin as grasped the stone. Spiritual Energy. Bringing it up to his face, the boy examined the same crystal he had extracted from the insectoid's brain. The surface of the rough gem was now completely crimson, entirely free of its usual green glow. It was as if the small red threads that previously occupied the object's gleaming surface had taken over and purged all other color. The darker tinted wisps around the boy were all originating from the stone as well, and when the youth tried to follow their trajectory with his eyes, he discovered they fizzled out a few meters away.

The boy didn't know what was happening, and he couldn't be bothered to figure out how it had happened at this exact moment either. Red raised the stone up. Immediately the spiders above hissed in alarm and started to retreat even faster, evidently afraid.

'This...'

Weirdly, it didn't take long for the smell to stop bothering his senses and the mysterious feeling to leave his body. The crimson environment around him remained, though, and it showed no signs of fading away. The youth felt extremely compelled to study the stone, but he was aware he couldn't give up on the opportunity to flee immediately. Who knew for how long the spiders would be intimidated? He pocketed the stone again and started to act.

Struggling to move, Red rolled around. A shooting pain rushed up his right side, a feeling that the boy was all too familiar with. A broken rib. Adding this injury to his ruined shoulder made him doubt his chances of walking again so soon.

Taking slow breaths, he closed his eyes and tried to overcome the pain. It was difficult, even with his experience. Red felt that his failing and tired body would collapse on the spot if he pushed himself too hard. But he couldn't remain here, not now that he had been given a second chance.

Cold sweat poured over his face as the strain made his whole body burn hot. The youth gritted his teeth and tried to gather his strength. He recalled the first major injury he had gotten in these mines, the same broken rib he had to fight through as Viran ordered him to follow. It was a matter of minutes to do a task as simple as getting up back then, but now the boy didn't even know if he had that long to spare.

Red pushed himself to his knees. Searching for support, he grabbed onto a stone spike with his single functioning hand and tried to pull up. His grip almost slipped from the surface, but the youth didn't let himself fall to the ground like before. Still, it seemed no matter what he did or how much pain he fought past, he was unable to gather enough force to get up.

He fell to his knees once more, his vision darkening.

'...Is this a joke? All of that just to pass out here again?'

Red refused to accept it. Being given a second chance, only to fail because of his wounds. Maybe the blob was right when it told him he was cursed. The boy thought to try again, but he knew he didn't have the strength in his body to keep going and if he tried it he would most likely just pass out.

The youth thought about some other plan, but none of them would matter with his injuries. Eventually though, Red had an idea. The image of Viran in his fight against the insectoid came to his mind. More specifically, what he had done with his Spiritual Stone. He didn't have one of those, but he did have something similar. A stone flowing with Spiritual Energy too.

Fetching the crimson gem once more, the boy felt the power flowing through its hard surface. He didn't know if the man had used some special technique to transfer that energy into his body or what the consequences of the method were, but they couldn't be any worse than dying. Red just remembered that Viran had used the stone and an open wound. Looking down at his shattered and bleeding left shoulder, he could confirm both of these conditions were fulfilled.

'I hope this works.'

With no more delays, the youth tried to carefully shove the stone into his shoulder. A sudden bolt of pain shot through his body when the object made its way in, and he almost passed out again. However, other than that, nothing else happened. No energy flowing into his body, no miraculous recovery. Nothing.

Red grunted. Perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised there was something more to the process than merely this, but he wasn't ready to give up on the idea yet. It just so happened that his left shoulder was part of his upper arm vein, which he had already completely opened.

Fighting through the agonizing pain for as long as he could, the youth concentrated on his spiritual vein. Recalling the image of the human figure in Viran's hideout wall, he tried to push the gem further into his flesh until it was in contact with where he thought his acupoints were located. More blood started pouring down his wounds.

Red couldn't judge how close he was, so he just kept pushing, flesh and bones giving way. Right as he felt like he was about to pass out, something seemed to flow into him. It was slow at first, but suddenly it barged in like a torrent. Another torturous feeling spread through his body, but with it also came strength. This energy traveled into his opened veins and seemingly reinforced his body.

The youth felt his fatigue being washed away. This sudden injection of power awakened his tired senses like a bolt of lightning and Red shot up to his feet with a single motion. Crimson-colored energy moved under his skin, following the paths of his already opened veins. It was extremely painful, like hundreds of ants crawling and biting his flesh at every second. But he didn't collapse.

Finally, the pain disappeared just as quickly as it had come. In a daze, he looked around and noticed the red aura surrounding him had become somewhat weaker. Red hurried and removed the stone from his shoulder. The glow of the gem had waned, but the spiders didn't seem eager to approach again. His wounds hadn't disappeared either, but the boy felt as if they couldn't hinder his movements anymore. In fact, it was as if these injuries didn't even exist.

'Is this how Viran felt?'

He could move his left arm unhindered again, and his entire body had seemingly returned to prime condition, but he knew this wouldn't last for long. Studies and considerations would have to wait until Red was through the chamber.

Looking around, the youth was just about to continue on his way, when he suddenly remembered something.

'My cleaver.'

How would he be able to cut open the spiders' webs without his weapon? Just the iron knife wouldn't do. However, he remembered his cleaver had been embedded in the monster's eye. Red wanted to curse his luck, but he still tried to look around for the weapon.

Thankfully, though, the boy eventually found it not far away from his location. The large spider had likely knocked it out of its eye socket while it was wailing in pain. The blade was somewhat corroded by the arachnid's glowing blood, but most of its sharp edge remained. Red could only hope it would be enough to last him the rest of this chamber.

The youth started running through the stalagmites in the direction of his destiny. Eventually, the stone spikes started to disappear, and he was faced with the same blockade of webs in front of him. This time, however, he threw caution to the wind. Since the spiders didn't dare to approach him, what was the point in sneaking around?

Red started to part the threads in front of him, carving a wide path to the other side. Monsters were alarmed at this invader that dared to barge into their nest, but as soon as they saw the red aura surrounding the human, they immediately stopped in their tracks. The boy was able to see more spiders that had opened their Spiritual Seas watching him, but even they seemed afraid of getting closer.

'There was no way I was making it through this.'

The webs in front of him seemed to be endless, and they extended for hundreds of meters. Red couldn't imagine he would have successfully sneaked through without making a single mistake. Now, though, he didn't need to.

Eventually, the number of threads in front of him started to diminish and the path ahead became clearer. The boy heard something else too, a rumbling sound that grew louder and louder the further he advanced.

With one final cut of his cleaver, the last web in his way was parted and the rest of the chamber was revealed to him. It didn't close off though, and instead, the room led to another opening into an even larger space, bigger than anything Red could imagine.

That, though, wasn't what caught his attention.

In the distance, he saw it, reflecting thousands of moonstone veins. It sneaked around enormous stone pillars and split the gigantic cave in half. It was moving water, more than he had ever seen in his entire life.

A clear river appeared in his vision. Red had finally reached it.