Last chapter, Seric and Karia both continued the paths the set out on, Karia's being simply walking to the other side of her blue path while Seric had to run over triangles in a path of water using a mysterious white boat in the white path, all the while being chased by a bloodthirsty squid. He was excepting defeat, until he realized just in time that he could utilize the ability to kick the boat and stop it at the same time using the joystick while the squid was close enough to do some massive damage. This led to Seric's victory, and even though he sustained many injuries, including his severely damaged foot, he did not feel a thing and only thought about his first victory. Now, Karia has met back up with Seric at the end of his path, but Seric has just been pierced in the crotch by one last attack from the squid.

Seric's P.O.V.

"Ugh..." I start to slowly open my eyes, and the first thing I see is Karia's face above mine.

I'm also laying my head on a surprisingly soft and squishy surface, which was odd considering the floor should have been the same stone type structure as the previous room.

I then realize where I am and I immediately panic and roll off of Karia's lap onto the floor. I try to form a response, but my tired state and panic mixed together to turn all of my words into a giant clump of mumbled noises.

"Hey, calm down. I'm the one who put you there after all." She says in a kinder tone than usual.

I try to stand up, but the moment I do fall back immediately because of my injured foot. "You sure as hell took some damage back there. I'm surprised that you even managed to make it back here."

Karia says.

"Believe me, I'm just as surprised as you are." I laugh awkwardly, still embarrassed over where I just was a few moments ago. I look behind me, expecting to see my boat behind me floating on the open path, but it isn't there.

"Hey Karia, do you know where the boat went?"

"No clue, the second I pulled you off of it it disappeared out of thin air."

"That's weird, but I should be able to summon it or something anyways if the reward I heard was right."

There's a few moments of awkward silence until Karia breaks it, "By the way, you shouldn't move a lot right now. Like I said your body's in pretty bad shape, but like I thought you're regenerating. I don't understand why it's doing it so much slower than last time though..."

I look over my body and see that it's still covered in wounds, but they were healed for the most part, except for the two parts where I was directly stabbed which are bandaged. I then get even more flustered when I realize that she had bandaged 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 which meant that she saw 𝘪𝘵.

"Um... thanks for wrapping me up, Karia." I say looking away, ignoring my concerns to avoid any more unnecessary awkwardness.

"Yeah, you're welcome. Honestly we better find a doctor to come with us because I sure don't have the stomach to deal with what I just did again."

I then look down and I start to blush like mad.

She then looks at me in disgust and yells "I was talking about your foot wound dumbass! I looked away and used my blessing to cover your stupid twig!"

She now had a tiny hint of red on her face as well, which even though I was practically about to scream from embarrassment, slightly amused me.

I'm also hurt by the fact that she shunned my manhood, so I muster up the courage to get my revenge.

"Hey, if you didn't look, how'd you know it's a twig?" I then smirk, trying to look cool, only to be met with silence.

I look up and see veins popping out on Karia's face, along with a fierce blush. A few seconds afterwards she recovers with a smug look on her face,

"So you figured it out, eh? Yeah, I did have to look and that's the most pitiful excuse of one that I've ever seen."

I then gape my mouth with a depressed look on my face and don't respond, until Karia coughs and breaks the silence once again.

"So, what did you have to do in your path anyways Seric?" She says with a victorious look on her face.

"O-oh, well..."

***

I then explained what had happened, and her response is not what I expect to say the least. "Pfft, you got all that done to you by a squid? How manly."

I look at her in shock. "Hey! That squid was really strong alright?!"

She looks at me and laughs, "Sorry, sorry, I was still a bit pissed off about before. Go on."

I'm about to be petty and not respond, but since Karia apologized and since I don't want to look immature I reluctantly respond,

"Ahem... Anyways, as I was saying now we get to keep the boat that you saw, but what about your path though, Karia?"

"Beats me, all I did was walk through a boring empty blue hall and found a pedestal with nothing on it."

"Aw boohoo, that must of been horrible."

We then both share a little laugh together, and start to ease the tension between us.

"But seriously though, I wonder why my blue path had nothing on it, not even a reward." Karia ponders.

"Yeah... wait I just realized, isn't it pretty unsafe to just stick around in here?" I ask.

"We've already been here for a few hours, if anything was going to happen it probably would've by now. Besides we should try to figure out the blue trial before we leave anyways."

I nod in agreement, and start to think about what we could have missed in the blue trial.

"Hey, Seric?"

"Hm?"

"The hells that blue light in your pocket?" She says looking at me curiously.

I look at my pants and I'm in shock, thinking that maybe this was one last trick from the squid, until I realize what it most likely is. With caution I reached into my pocket and pull out the source of the intense glow, and like I predicted it was what I thought it was.

The entire room now had a deep blue tint to it, and the luminous object is now hard to even look at for more than a few seconds at a time.

"Wait, Seric... isn't that the cube you bought back at the Sailors Bazaar?" Karia says as she squints her eyes.

*A/N (Go back to Chapter 3 if you want a recap 😉)*

"Yeah... but why is it glowing now...

"Wait... its probably glowing blue because of the blue path! This is probably what was missing on the pedestal!" I realize, but my question now is what kind of sketchy coincidence this is...

Karia looks at me weirdly for a second until she responds,

"Ohhhh. Nice eye kid. But what do we do with it now? Get a free flashlight or?"

"Haha, that would-"

"Grab."

I hear an undeniable voice in my mind that freaks me out, but nonetheless I follow it and clench my fist, along with the cube. To my surprise, the cube went through my hand like I'm a ghost, and is absorbed inside of me.

You probably would have expected something like me screaming or making the room shake with my newfound kickass power. To my disappointment, nothing happened. At all.

"So? You feel any different?" Karia asks looking at me in anticipation.

"...Nope." I say with a sigh, too disappointed to care about how weird that was.

"It had to of done something, I mean I don't think anyone else could just suck a cube through their hand unless it was meant for them." She tries to reason.

"Good point... well anyways, I'm feeling a bit uneasy about this place so can we go now?" I reply.

"Yeah, sure." Karia then walks over to me and bends downwards so I was facing her back.

"Here, climb on."

"What?! Karia I thought you took too much damage from before, it's fine I can-"

"Seric. Thanks for worrying about me, but just get on." I then sigh and crawl over to Karia and put my hands on her shoulders and positioned my legs next to her.

She then stands up grabbing my legs in the process, and starts to walk towards the open exit at the other side of the room

"I owe you one, Karia." She nods in response without a word.

Karia once again sets up her damaged Hide of Aegis without my reminder, and we are walking through the winding hall's which seem to be directly connected to the dome we came out of.

"Ah, finally the exit!" Karia says as the outside of the trail was now visible in front of us.

"Let's keep going, we don't know what could happen." I say nervously.

Of course I have to say that, and all the gray rock that previously lit up the area had now changed completely. All around us is pitch black and we stop, until hundreds of countdowns appeared all over the hall.

"Time To Crush: 20 Seconds..." I say as I read one of the timers on the wall.

I look forward and oddly enough, the time on one of the countdowns in front of us was 22 seconds. I'm wondering what was happening until behind us we heard a loud "SLAM."

We both flinch and look back on impulse, and see that there was somehow a counter floating in the air. "Wait... it's not floating"

Another loud "SLAM" filled the room.

"HOLY SHIT THE CEILINGS ARE CLOSING BEHIND US KARIA!" I yell as I hold onto Karia tighter.

"Damn!" She responds as she starts to run towards the exit at a pace that's much slower than when we escaped Vegahold.

We're about halfway towards the exit when Karia doubles over in what seems to pain and fell to her knees.

"Shit! Karia come on the time's running out please get up!"

"Seric! I can't carry you anymore! I'm sorry but you've gotta run!"

She then, to my complete surprise drops me to the floor.

"KARIA WAIT, PLEASE!"

She continues to weakly jog forward, with no seeming intention of coming back for me.

Knowing this I try to stand, but just like before I fall to the ground over and over.

The slamming sound is coming closer to me.

"KARIA!!!!!" I yell hopelessly, with tears drenching my face.

A/N: So, do you guys hate Karia right now? Or do you think that she did the right thing?

Be sure to consider voting or commenting if you enjoyed, and see you next Friday!