The lifeless, battered body of the archer that Cades had slowly began warming up to was now thrown across the field in which they were fighting, if one could even call it that.
And at that moment it was all over for Cades.
He just watched.
He did nothing, he didn't even know if he could do anything, to him it all seemed to be so.. meaningless, as if it was all for naught, which it was.
There was no maybe, no perhaps, no 'if', nothing, there was no way that he could see in which he could possibly survive, no way in which Manug had survived, no way in which he could possibly defeat that invincible b#stard, no way to do anything other than to pray, to fight and to continue.
That was all he could do right now, he could only really try to somehow fight back, either that or he could do nothing at all, but that was not a possibility for him, not in this situation.
And as such he readied himself, ready to try desperately to end up different from the once so beautiful archer that was now a lifeless corpse, having been tossed aside like a worthless piece of junk that had been completely used up would have been by him, especially a one time usage something, like he would've done had he been on ehetria right now, and had nothing happened.
Why did all of this have to--
At that moment he was hit square in the stomach once more, throwing up a bit of the blood that was already in his mouth due to the previous impact as he was thrown away at a great speed, hitting one of the trees that only really started growing quite a bit away from the endlessly tall giant in the middle, far away from the orange mushrooms, far away from the only way to solve this.
He had no idea how far he was away now, how could he even know that, he had no idea if he as even facing the opponent or not, he didn't even know if he had already died or not, he didn't know whether this, this horrible sensation was the feeling of death or the feeling of being controlled by the mushroom, but either way he began feeling how his mana was slowly, ever so slowly starting to diminish due to the endless power of the sickness once more.
He felt how he was losing magical energy with every breath he took, going closer and closer to the door of death, like a puppet being strung ahead by an invisible, grinning puppeteer that was already drooling over getting him in his collection.
And as he laid there, unable to stand up, covered in a pool of some warm liquid that he assumed to be his own blood, he felt something, something soft, something hard, something that was both and none, he felt how his torso was being hugged by a kind of giant serpent, and then he felt how he was being lifted atop the ground, ending up with his feet dangling uncontrollably.
He felt something caressing his arm with small fingers, as if it was treasuring what it felt like, as if it wanted to posses, no, protect it.
He felt how his arm was ripped off, his heart screaming at the unimaginable pain that he had felt never before, a pain that was unrivalled even by the time that he was on the tree and his body was much more broken than it was now, a time that he could not remember except for the endless pain, but this pain, this pain was abnormal, he could simply not feel it.
He had it, it was within him, not at his arm or where it used to be, the pain was him and he was the pain, and that was it, it was it, he was pain.
But as if that wasn't already enough the flying snake brought him closer as he heard a wet thump, it caressed his face now, and soon after something was pressed into his left eye, the same side as the arm he had lost... at least he thought so... and the eye was gone, causing even more unimaginable pain, but not physical, no, it was all in his head.
It was the pain of all those screams combined, or at least that's what Cades thought.
He felt as he was thrown away once more, he felt intervals of pain this time, so perhaps he was ricocheting of something but he wasn't really able to tell now, it was all ove ranyways, couldn't he just rest...
But he wouldn't... or rather, he couldn't... he didn't know why, but he just wouldn't close his eyes to embrace the release of sweet eternal death, of the puppeteer that now began to smell like trabaras, his favourite fruit, the previously invisible puppeteer that now seemed to have a beautiful smile, but no body, the puppeteer that would care for him, help him...
He felt a new pain, one that he hadn't felt before, a pain near his ears, and soon after, when he once again was thrown away, he heard no thump, no nothing, he could barely see, no, he couldn't see, not anymore any ways.
It was dark, silent, warm and gooey, as if he laid on a bed of warm, wet grass.
He felt as he was being thrown over and over again, and then he felt.... as something called for him from beyond the beyond, from the realm of the mortals, at first he didn't think, but then he started to get better, he started to understand something.
But at some point, after he was kicked once more and left, presumably since the being thought he was dead, it stopped, the being no longer did anything, he could barely feel, he could not hear, he could not see, but he was alive.
Something began burning on his inside, turning runic sequence after sequence, as if activating something, something which he had no way of feeling right now, no, he was already almost in the hands of the puppeteer.