The eleventh step.
Vwoomp.
"Ghgh..."
Stab. Pull. Drag.
The twelfth step.
Vwoomp.
"Ghgh..." (He had stopped screaming now. It was no use anymore. Just a dry moan.)
Stab. Pull. Drag.
This became his rhythm. Not the rhythm of life, but the rhythm of survival. A mechanical, miserable motion.
The cold was devouring him now. It wasn't just external cold anymore. It was the deep cold of blood loss shock, compounded by every icy pull of "Mana" from his chest.
He could no longer feel his toes in his good right boot. His left leg was just a block of dead wood, throbbing with a dull, sickly pain.
The fifteenth step.
Vwoomp.
The void. The feeling of dryness was now... constant. It was no longer a "pull," but as if there were an open hole in his soul, and the cold winds of this world were blowing through it.
Hah... hah...
He started panting, even while waiting for the "cooldown." There wasn't enough oxygen anymore. Or maybe his body just didn't know what to do with it.
The sixteenth step.
Crawl. Stab. Pull. Drag.
The blue-green light of the fungi seemed to... swim. Shapes began to dance and ripple.
No. Don't close your eyes. Don't pass out.
Tak... Tak... Tak...
He was shivering so violently that the crowbar almost fell from his hand with every "stab."
The twentieth step.
Halfway to the Gate.
He looked behind him.
The trail he had left. It was a dark, glistening trail... his blood... stretching from the cave entrance. A clear sign for any other predator.
Faster. You have to be faster.
But he couldn't.
One... two... three... (The counting was slow now, stuttering in his numb brain).
The twenty-first step.
Vwoomp.
"Ahhh..."
This time, there was no void. It was pain.
A sharp scream, not from his leg, but from his chest. As if someone had thrust an icy hand into his chest and ripped something out.
I ran out.
Whatever "Mana" is... I ran out.
He collapsed on his face onto the wet moss, panting.
No... no, I can't run out now. Twenty meters. Just twenty meters!
He placed his hand on the pile again.
Come on. Please. Anything.
"Shadow Step!"
...
...
Nothing.
No Vwoomp. No dryness.
The pile didn't move.
"No..." he whispered. "No, no, no, no, no!"
He hit the pile with his weak fist.
I failed. Twenty meters away. I failed.
Tears. Again. Hot, desperate tears.
What now?
Crawl? Crawl to the Gate? Leave the bodies? Go back empty-handed?
No.
No.
He looked at his hand. It... it consumed something. But... does it come back? Does it refill?
How? Do I eat? Do I sleep?
Or...
He looked at the dead Shadow Goblin corpse he had left behind at the cave entrance. Do I need to kill more?
No... I can't even stand.
He lay there, face on the moss, the sweet smell of rot filling his nose.
One minute. Just... let me rest... one minute...
No. If I sleep, I die.
Hyun-Soo.
The image. Her pale face.
"Ghghgh..."
With a cry of rage and despair, he started doing the only thing left.
He gave up on "Shadow Step."
He grabbed the ear of the nearest goblin corpse, digging his fingers into it.
Stab. (He stabbed the crowbar in front of him).
Pull. (He pulled his broken body).
Drag. (He pulled the corpse with him).
Grrrrr...
The corpse was heavy. Heavier than hell. It moved... maybe two inches.
Two inches.
Twenty meters.
Impossible.
...But it moved.