Seconds had passed by and nothing happened, even the nauseating aura had disappeared which made Apricus let out a sigh of relief, as he got ready to meet the glass creature in the air once again.
However, moments later something at high speeds crashed into the glass creature shattering it into a million pieces with an explosive sound. The force then landed into the pond, making Apricus jump back a couple of meters.
Surfacing from the water was a tall muscular man, he had long white hair in a pony tail reaching his lumber spine, with strands falling onto his face. His blue eyes had the fierce look of a tiger, his sharp eye brows enchanting them further. A perfectly smooth circular mace with a white handle and golden engraving rested on his right shoulder as he stared intensely at Apricus, Then he spoke in a grainy and deep voice.
"Don't worry boy, I'm not here for you, quite the opposite actually."
Just before Apricus could respond the reindeer had once again appeared near the pond, and then the man spoke again.
"Oh, and my name is Genso."
With a grin he instantly appeared beside the reindeer, covering his mace in a blueish aura. Then he brought it down on its head intending to smash it in, however out of expectations the reindeer had received zero damage. But Genso did not stop there, covering his fist in a blueish aura, he struck the ribs with full force, unfortunately dealing zero damage once again, leaving Apricus shocked out of fear and surprise.
'Such destructive blows yet it did no damage, that reindeer isn't ordinary. Wait no that man, Genso is a scarier monster.'
The reindeer remained unmoved however instead of a soul coated attack, this time Genso dropped his mace, took and step back, and simply punched the reindeers ribs with a normal punch, surprisingly breaking its ribs and spine, and before it could be sent flying he sliced its head in half using his bare hands.
After sending the reindeer crashing into half a dozen trees Gensen simply concentrated soul onto the tip of his fingers making a concentrated ball of pure soul, then sent it flying towards the reindeer. After a small explosion the remains of the reindeer were set on fire and he simply walked towards Apricus.
However as Genso approached Apricus, Apricus suddenly went on guard, but only a few seconds later a flood of hundreds of memories flowed into Apricus, overwhelming his mind and five senses, causing a scream of agonizing pain, knocking him out.
1,281. The number of times Apricus had died over a course of one day. 2 to the power of 1281 the equation for the multiplier of pain Apricus had felt on his final death in the loop. The extremely clear memories and recollections of all 1,281 loops simultaneously flooded Apricus's mind, being so vivid he could describe every single second in all of the 1,281 loops. The pain, the battles, the deaths, the stress, and much more, all of it, were ingrained and felt in Apricus's mind, soul, and body, knocking him out for two entire months.
When he finally woke up, he was in a spacious room made out of a cloud looking substance, in fact it looked so much like a cloud he would have thought it was indeed a cloud if it weren't for the fact that it would have been impossible. The room itself held a wooden closet with engravings of a dragon, a small night stand made from the same material however this time it had engravings of clouds on the side, a desk, windows above the bed, and then the bed itself was made out of a squishy like wood with flying snake engravings and a comfy mattress with a thick blanket. All of it was white with golden engravings on each pair of furniture other than the desk, which was brown and held no engraving looking quite out of place.
As Apricus slowly got up with a tired look, and looked out the window, his jaw almost dropped, as instead of solid ground made of soil or dirt what he saw was clouds.
'CLOUDS! Why are we on clouds and why's everything made out of those clouds! What is this place?'
Stammering with shock in his eyes he fell back down on his back recollecting his thoughts, however just at that moment the to the room opened as Genso came in with a plate of multiple mouth watering foods such as a peach coloured steak along with multiple sauces, various vegetables, and a apple sized spiky purple fruit filling the room with a very delicious aroma, making Apricus drool from only looking it at.
In his typical grainy voice Genso joyfully voiced his happiness.
"Ah, I'm so glad my food is mouth watering from the aroma alone alone, but here you go."
Although Apricus should have been slightly more wary he was simply too hungry to care and so he dug in.
"Thank you for the food!"
The aroma was quite deceiving as the taste of the food itself was ten fold more tastier then the aroma would suggest. The peach coloured steak was cooked medium rare with the perfect amount of juiciness making it taste incredible. Enhancing the taste even further in different directions with the three sauces provided. One was a bright green thick sauce tasting quite sweet, melting instantly on the tongue and making the steak taste sweeter. The other sauce was a bright red runny sauce tasting slightly spicy and salty, however this made the flavours of the steak much stronger, making this Apricus's favourite sauce of the three. While the final sauce was bright blue which tasted like a weird mix between a banana and a chicken leg combined with mustard, although it weirdly tasted good.
The purple fruit and vegetables all tasted pretty good making Apricus's stomach inflate, after that he simply fell on his bed patting his stomach.
"That food was really good, although aside from that it's time for questions."
Simply laughing Genso replied.
"Thank you, I assume you have a plethora of them so I'll start from what you're wondering first."
"My name is Genso and I am the right hand man for the chief of Aria, the village in the northern side of the sky. I took you here from the Crimson Forest when you fell unconscious."
Apricus was slightly shaken but he did not let it show on his face, instead he had even more questions.
"If that's the case then what about the loop and those Unholy Creatures."
Genso simply massaged his shoulders as he replied.
"Well, if you want to know more let's meet for real, face to face."
Apricus, slightly shook but then simply nodded.
Then they both disappeared.
*****
A vast mountain chain, looking like it was made from Thassos Snow White Marble, towered over where the village Apricus rested in from the east. As a figure was standing on one of the peaks overlooking the village, when suddenly a figure appeared behind as a grainy but jolly voice echoed.
"Quite impressive for someone of your category to make a clone from purely your soul."
Irritated, Apricus simply stated quite letting Genso continue speaking facing Apricus's back.
"I won't ask why you decided to leave a clone but I will continue. The loop was created by an Unholy Creature residing within the brain of the reindeer, as a trait that reindeer was immune to all attacks that contained even a tiny bit of soul which is why I couldn't damage it the first time around."
"Due to the Reindeers Soul Ability every time you died you'd come back to life with no memories of your death, and after 1500 loops your mind would have melted, losing your humanity the Creature would have gone into your head and then look for stronger foes. Don't be ashamed though the purple eyes and even the reindeer were both Corrupted Pseudo-Curseds, and they both attempted to devour you because you happened to be in their split territory, although purple eyes couldn't kill the reindeer due to its immunity against soul infused damage putting them in a two way deadlock."
Apricus had a somewhat similar answer to all this so most of this was not a surprise however he did wonder one thing.
"That red leaf with soul infused into it was your doing, so why didn't you directly enter, why throw in a leaf risking detection."
Genso chuckled
"It was a risk but I was also simply saving myself, if the soul infused leaf managed to interfere with the reindeers ability I wouldn't have had to risk death while you may have saved yourself but unfortunately that ended up as a failure."
"So what do you want? Why go through all that trouble to help me."
Genso suddenly became uncharacteristically serious, his face darkening.
"Well you see, we are in need of assistance."
Apricus finally turned to Genso with a confused expression.