13 The Fiery Realm
As Akiho sat with closed eyes, the sounds of life around slowly got quieter and quieter until he couldn't even hear anything anymore.
He frowned as a bad premonition rose in his heart.
"Ouch!"
He slowly opened his eyes but he quickly closed them as blinding lights hit his eyes!
"Wow, now I wasn't prepared for this...!"
As his eyes slowly got used to the bright lights, he finally could observe his surroundings.
It seemed the author finally did some work and not just lazed around all day long because finally instead of the overused cliche void, he found himself in the world of burning fire!
Everywhere where Akiho looked he could only see fire and destruction! Although he didn't feel the temperature, Akiho could tell it was probably higher than anything reported on earth before. The earth was charred black and was full of deep cracks. Not to mention the sky which besides being blood red was missing a sun...
"Now this is certainly interesting!"
He murmured as looked at the flames licking the tip of his finger but he didn't feel anything. Looking around the hellish landscape he suddenly felt like something is calling him!
Akiho thought for a moment and then decided to just follow his instincts after he couldn't really do anything else...
Slowly traveling through the fiery realm toward what Akiho could only presume is the middle. He noticed the flames around him got brighter and brighter.
"What is that?!" Akiho wondered out loud after more than half an hour of walking he came across a strange flame.
This flame wasn't bright yellow but instead a strange mix of blue and white! Looking at the strange fire in wonder he put the tip of his finger into the flame.
"Ouch!"
Surprised by the sudden pain, he quickly pulled his finger out of the fire. But what really shocked him was that instead of burns he had a thin layer of ice on his finger!
"It seems luckily I don't have any permanent injury..."
Akiho examined his finger and noticed that the ice already started to melt away and seemingly there wasn't any injury under it. Sighing in relief, Akiho quickly reevaluated the danger level of this realm.
After looking at the strange flame for the last time, Akiho slowly started moving again but this time he was more cautious.
He didn't even have to walk for a minute when he again noticed another special flame! It was green and somehow it was more viscous and small drops were dripping from it... Noticing the strange phenomenon Akiho stopped for a moment to observe it more clearly.
"There is no fucking way this is a dream, my brain is not creative enough to think this shit up!"
The 'drops' falling from the flame when reaching the ground started loudly sizzling and corroding a part of it away!
Akiho could watch the only satisfying phenomenon the whole night but after a few minutes he reluctantly decided to move on.
Traversing the fiery got landscape again Akiho started noticing more and more kind of strange flames. At first, he still examined a few but as he got further he slowly became overwhelmed.
He probably came across flames in every color of the rainbow!
Just to list a few, Akiho found a gray flame from which small transparent-looking ghosts flew out of it or a pink-colored flame with hearts instead of smoke!
But the strangest was by far the fire made out of pixels...
As he went forward Akiho became more and more excited as he could feel the strange welcoming feeling was getting stronger!
But as he got closer the journey became harder as well!
As the special flames got more and more regular around him, it was getting harder to find a safe path forward. He felt like he was trying to go through a deep swamp where a wrong step means death!
Not to mention the very end, where Akiho felt like even if he just accidentally look at a fire around him his soul would be just eradicated!
He was on the brink of giving up and just turning around and leaving this hell but the stronger and stronger welcoming feeling empowered him to move on!
Finally, after more than an hour of physical torture, Akiho found a big 'clearing' with no flames on it.
"Huff-huff!"
He fell to the ground, exhausted, heavily panting for air.
"Fucking, hell I thought I was a goner!"
Cursing between two breaths, Akiho gathered enough strength to lift his head and look around. At first, the clearing seemed empty but then he noticed something in the middle.
A golden flame emitting a powerful holy aura.
Gathering all his power remaining Akiho dragged himself in front of the flame and looked at it curiously.
He could feel the unimaginable power hidden in the flames and he knew it was calling for him! It wanted him to touch it!
Although the temptation was big, after the last three hours, it was instilled into his mind to not touch any flame with a weird color! So he just started at the gold flame for a good minute.
"Fuck it what's the worst that could happen?"
Before he could change his mind, he put his hand on the flame.
The golden fire pulsed as got brighter and brighter, emitting a blinding bright white light. Akiho tried to shade his eyes with his hand but as it got brighter he had to close his eyes.
"What the... Ahhh!"
Akiho screamed in pain when suddenly the golden flame started to spread on his hand slowly burning away every cell. Out of reflex, he tried to jerk his hand away, however, it was stuck in the golden, like gorilla glue to the hair!
Just when Akiho thought it was the end as the fire spread closer to his head, the golden flame actually started healing his body.
Not just healing but the flame regenerated his previous cells stronger and better than before!
"Ahhh!"
Akiho screamed uncontrollably as the golden fire destroyed and regenerated his cells. Even with his impressive willpower, he could only bear the inhumane torture for a minute. In the end, he fell unconscious because of the pain!
<[=]>
*Chirp-chirp-chirp!*
The meadow was field fierce chirping as a few birds were engrossed in debating on Fermat's Last Theorem.
"Oh shut up, let me sleep!"
But it seemed not everybody appreciated the scientific exchange! As a red-haired young boy angrily shouted half asleep.
To express his point even more he angrily swept with his hand in the direction of the birds, accidentally sending a big torrent of flames.
"Chirp-chirp-chirp!"
Not wanting to be the new item on the KFC menu the birds quickly flew away while not forgetting to throw nasty curses at the boy!
The boy finally fully awakening because of the birds' loud chirping with a soft sight slowly stood.
The red-haired young boy was actually Akiho who looked a little confused and disoriented.
[A/n: Yep I just did the lamest transition, just because I can!]
But suddenly the memories of almost three hours in the 'hell' started to flood into his brain.
"What the fuck was that?!"
Akiho shivered just from the thought of the torture he suffered by the golden fire! Suppressing the painful memories, he quickly collected his thoughts and looked around again.
He noticed he was back at his slightly damaged 'private' training place. But what really shocked him is that seemingly at most max a few minutes passed since he entered the 'hell', judging from the position of the sun!
"It feels like it was just a bad nightmare! But that can't be!"
At this point, Akiho started to doubt himself. After all besides in bad fanfiction and dreams where else could you just suddenly appear and reappear in a completely different place without the time changing?! And he already checked and he didn't find any physical change on his body.
However, Akiho was sure that it wasn't a dream either! After all the unbearable pain was real, no doubt.
There are only two possibilities left!
"It's either magic mushrooms or a bad fanfiction but not for me to decide, I guess..."
Deciding that there is no point in musing about things you don't understand, he just wrote this up on the to-do list. Which at this point was probably longer than Santa's naughty list...
"Whatever, I should just get back to practicing!"
Akiho grumbled as he, re summoned the small flame into his hand. But something was strange, while before, the flame behaved like how he wanted it to.
This time felt like the flame was a part of him, he felt one with the fire! No, he felt like he is, the fire!
Suddenly gaining some enlightenment he closed his eyes and started lowly chanting a weir mantra.
"I'm the eternal burning flame, the start and the end of all civilizations, I'm one with the flame and the flame is one with me because I'm the Fire !"
Chanting, again and again, Akiho's messy thoughts cleared one by one until only the mantra remained.
When he finished chanting the third time suddenly Akiho stopped as a feeling of bliss came over him.
He felt warm in his whole body like a flame burning inside of him, no it felt like he was the flame!
But that wasn't all in a two-meter radius around him he could perceive anything as if it were his domain where he could do anything!
"Aghh, this felt much better than post nut clarity!"
Akiho comfortably moaned as the feeling of bliss slowly faded until it completely disappeared and he could only reluctantly open his eyes.
"Umm, can somebody tell me why the fuck is my hand made out of fire?!"
He became confused and then shocked when he noticed that where his right hand was supposed to be, now was a hand-shaped flame...
[A/n: Thx, for the 300k views! Although its probably way too over bloated... ]
