Axel was back in his room. He first took a shower to refresh himself. Now he was in a lotus position on the floor of his small training room, and he closed his eyes as he entered his secondary aspect chamber. The familiar view appeared in front of him. A calming and powerful sensation swept through his entire body.
That which always remained dormant within him started to awaken and bubble in power, in excitement. A silent shift occurred in his being, something which only a land filled with death, destruction, and blood could do for him.
His routine had somewhat changed. When it came to tackling the overwhelmingly powerful demon phantom of his, he was now focusing on mastering his energy sense, how to see the world through the lenses of the demonic energy all around.
He remained there for an unknown amount of time, immersing himself fully in that foreign way of sensing the world, himself, and the surroundings. When he felt that it was enough, he opened his eyes, his runic eyes shimmered in golden patterns. He was trying to see if he could use his normal sight and energy sense at the same time, because energy sense wasn’t exactly a visionary sense, while it does provide him a weird kind of sight, but it wasn’t that at its core.
Not to mention, that sight in itself somewhat crippled his ability to fight properly against the demon phantom. So, he had to improvise and use the passive effects of his runic eyes, coupled with energy sense as a backup sensory ability. Finding a perfectly balanced state between the two, he started running through the thousands and thousands of dead, stepping over them one after another, yet that barely bothered him anymore. It wasn’t even a concern for him any longer.
The horrifying landscape of his secondary aspect chamber now seemed less and less unnerving to him, and perhaps without him even realizing he was changing, he was changing into something that he would not recognize one day.
He finally reached the point where he could see his hideous and grotesque demon phantom sitting on a large rock, and gazing towards the scarlet radiance in the sky. The scarlet light landed on him, and again that dark encroachment of his mind began without a second of delay, but he held on, with all the willpower he could muster; he endured and fought against the sinister and sweet whispers of peace and rest that threatened to swallow him whole.
He stepped forward, keeping his eyes still open. He had fought countless times by now with this phantom, but no matter how many times he tried to fight against it, using only the energy sense, it effortlessly killed him. Eventually, he had no choice but to listen to it. To confront his sin, if the scarlet radiance high in the sky was his sin, then it would mean he cannot truly escape from it by simply fighting while keeping his eyes closed; maybe it wasn’t the right process.
Step....step.....step........
With each step he took, he approached closer and closer, then stood right behind his grotesque and large demon phantom. It didn’t get up immediately and continued to look at it in the sky. It spoke in its inhumane voice, which sounded more like shrieking,
"I see, you still don’t get it yet, do you?"
Axel asked with annoyance, "What are you talking about?"
It finally decided to get up and turn towards him, its fully red and monstrous eyes also had that same runic pattern as his own. Just looking at its enormous frame and disgustingly hideous figure made Axel tense internally; it wasn’t about being afraid or not, but simply an effect of its demonic presence. It was something that simply radiated evil, just by existing.
Seeing it remain silent and not speak, he asked again as the pressure on his mind continued to build in a compounding manner, "I am keeping my eyes open, and resisting the light of the scarlet radiance, isn’t this what you mean by ’confronting’ the obsession? My obsession?"
Axel felt the neutral gaze of the phantom that was looking at him from above change slightly; its facial expression also changed, but the monstrous demon was too hideous from him to understand what its face meant; he could only read its gaze, and there was contempt, mockery, disgust, and even disappointment.
To agree to his thoughts, the demon even shook its head in disappointment and stated, "What a disgrace.", "What a failure."
Anger rose from within Axel, this fucking bastard just what was up with it, he did exactly what it asked, now it says these things, you truly shouldn’t listen to the words of a demon. Without waiting a single second more, he attacked the phantom with all of his might, while continuing to resist the pressure of the scarlet radiance.
The demon also smiled while showing its bloody teeth as it attacked him. Their clash generated a powerful shockwave as it shook the surroundings and created a giant crater underneath. Many dead bodies that were around their clashing point were crushed into meat paste. As more blood splattered everywhere, and body parts and organs spread everywhere from the mangled bodies that withstood the brunt of their attacks.
Axel vomited a large amount of blood after being killed by his demon phantom, again. After vomiting up the blood from his breathing system, he gulped down the potions nearby. He felt weakened as usual because of being killed by his phantom. He sighed to himself in slight disappointment. He lasted 5-6 minutes at most. Until the scarlet light was successful in completely encroaching his mind, again.
And at that very opportunity, the phantom shoved its large hand right through his chest as usual. His consciousness was forcefully thrown out. At least, he was able to last much more than he usually could when only using the energy sense and keeping his eyes closed.
Maybe there was indeed some truth to the claims of his phantom; perhaps confronting it was indeed the right way, especially because he was able to hold on against the demon phantom quite well, even though he was on the defensive, pretty much the whole time. But it was doable; the main problem was actually enduring the scarlet light. But he could not think of any easy solution for it. He couldn’t bring any of his runic weapons inside the secondary aspect chamber, or craft any inside it.
So, he could only try endlessly and increase his mental defense through the brute force method of constant failure.