Journey Of A Legend

Chapter 82: Nightmare

Darkness...

Ice cold and pitch black darkness...

"Wh... where am I?"

In a place where nothing could be seen, felt or heard, Greg was standing in the nothingness.

"How did I get here? Wasn't I on the stage a moment ago?", asked Greg with a confused expression as he looked around.

However no matter where he looked at, he could see nothing more than darkness.

"Okay, let's see. What could lead me here.", thought Greg and started to think back.

What he remembered was that after seeing Joe's power, he too decided to push his body to the fifth level of the Body Grade.

In the beginning he was beaten to the point where his body could hardly move again, but luckily his body's healing helped him to move forward everytime.

As time went on, not only did he get used to it, but also felt that under that small amount of time he got kicked, punched and hit in several ways, he started to reach a bottleneck.

Of course it wasn't a suprising fact at all, because the one who hit him almost a hundred times so far was no other than Gerald, who was at the 4th rank and also he was specialized in the body field.

There was no one better than someone like him, who could make Greg to push the tempering process to the verge of breakthrough under in such a short amount of time.

"Okay, until that moment, everything is clear.", said Greg quietly and continued to think.

When Gerald saw that he got stronger and stronger to the point, where Greg could dodge his attack almost easily, he decided to make him unable to move again, so as a result he broke Greg's leg and punched him away.

"And there where everything gone dark and I found myself here.", said Greg and sighed hopelessly, but suddenly something strange happened.

Before him, slowly a white light started to form and bit by bit it grew size.

It wasn't long when the light before him enveloped his whole body, making Greg to cover his eyes because of the sudden light change.

*Chirp*

Hearing a sound akin of a bird's chirping, Greg slowly put his hand down and looked around, but the moment he did his eyes widened in an instant.

All around him trees, bushes and different colored and shaped flowers could be seen with uncountable amount. Everything before him just looked incredibly beautiful and mesmerizing.

But the reason of his shock wasn't the breathtaking scene before him, but the three figures before him.

One woman, one man and a child.

He couldn't see their faces, because all of them stood before him with their backs looking at his way, but somehow their appearance, shape and the feeling they gave at him made his eyes instantly wet.

*Drop...Drop...*

"M..Mom? Dad? Is... Is that you?"

Not caring about the small teardrops on his cheek, Greg wanted to step forward and turn the two, which looked just like his parents, but when he wanted to move, strangly he found himself unable to.

"Huh?"

Noticing this, Greg looked down, but saw nothing strange about his body, so he raised his head back up to look at the three figures again, but when he did, his face paled.

Before him, the previous beautiful scenery couldn't be found anywhere, but instead something more horrific appeared.

Just as he told on the party, a woman's body, which looked exactly as her mother, was entangled with a strange looking plant type creature, which parts went deep under the skin, making the sight very disturbing.

Seeing the exact same sight, which haunted him almost every night from the moment it happened, Greg wanted to move and help her mother, but just like before he was unable to.

As he struggled deep inside to move, the body before him slowly started to deform and change shape just like at that time.

Greg tried everything he had to move, but strangly his connection with Alice and with his Soul Stone dissapeared, leaving him unable to do anything. He was just like any other normal person.

"Ah, wait! Where is he?", asked Greg hurriedly and looked around to find the boy, but strangly, he couldn't find him.

As he looked around in the hope to find the boy, who was theoretically him from the past, suddenly the woman's eyes looked at him and her mouth opened.

"Why...?"

Hearing the quiet voice filled with despair, Greg turned his head to the side slowly only to see the woman's hateful eyes looking deep into his.

"Why...? Why didn't you helped me? Why?"

Hearing her mother's exact same voice, which was filled with hate, disgust and despair, huge and thick teardrops started to form in his eyes, but because he was unable to move, he couldn't clean them away.

As he was looking at her mother suddenly a hand grabbed his neck from behind and a faceless man leaned close to his ear.

"Why... Why was you so desperate to continue walking? Why?"

Not knowing what to say, Greg's mouth started to tremble a bit, but still couldn't do anything.

"Why? Why didn't you help me? Why did you just stood there? Why? Why? WHY? IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! EVERYTHING! IS! YOUR! FAULT!", shouted the woman angrily as she looked at Greg with deep hatred in her eyes.

Seeing her mother like that and hearing what she and the faceless man said, Greg's eyes let out huge drop of tears, while his mouth moved slightly.

"I... I'm... I'm sorry... I really do sorry..."

As he said that the scene before him turned back to the darkness, but a second later the previous scene appeared before him again, but this time the appearance of the woman and the faceless man was much more disturbing.

Again, they blamed Greg about the past, while telling him similar things as before and a while later everything stopped and started from the beginning.

Greg just stood there, unable to move or to do anything and watched the sight hopelessly, while tears flowed down his face as he mumbled sorry each time he was blamed.

And just like that, time fly by unknownly making Greg's expression slowly turn sour and emotionless.

After God knows how much time went by like that, but suddenly a quiet voice started to sound in the void around Greg.

"g... gr.... greg.... Greg... HEY GREG! WAKE UP!"

Hearing the voice, Greg looked up to the sky emotionlessly, but after seeing a white light floating before him, a little color with a tiny confusion appeared on his face.

"Hey, don't let yourself to be consumed by this power. Luckily I arrived in time."

In an instant, the white light before him exploded, while erasing the sight before Greg under seconds.

While this happened, Greg's expression slowly started to change back to normal, while two arms folded around his neck and a half transparent head leaned closed to his ear.

"Sorry that I was late, but everything will be alright, I promise."

Hearing the gentle voice, Greg's unfocused eyes and expressionless face finally started to change back to normal.

And after a while, the scene around Greg changed back to the stage.

As he looked around him, he found himself on the stage again, where he fought against Gerald, but with the only difference, that Mila, Roy and Gerald were lying on the stage unconsciously with blood all around them, while before him Joe was kneeling on the ground and looked at him with a blood covered body.

"Wh... what happened?", asked Greg strangly, but the moment he started to move a white staff appeared at his neck out of nowhere.

"If you move an inch, I have the right to kill you right here and now."

Hearing the familiar voice, Greg turned his head to the side, only to see Cloud's ice cold expression looking at him.

Greg didn't know what was happening and wanted to ask something, but suddenly the shield around the stage collapsed, while the figures slowly walked in.

One was the old man called The Saint, while the other was Mistress of Fortune.

Walking close to Cloud and Greg, the old man looked around and a while later clapped his hands, resulting in several white lights enveloping the unconscious bodies on the stage.

"Cloud, you can rest with ease. They just got driven close to death, but luckily they didn't die. They will be alright with time, so please relax."

Hearing what the old man said, Cloud nodded and put his staff down, but still continued to look at Greg coldly.

Still not understanding what was happening, Greg looked around him but the sight made him utterly dumbstruck.

Broken parts of the stage with blood were everywhere. Even Roy's bloody metal armor laid broken among the cracks and debris here and there, making Greg even more confused.

As he was looking around, The Saint looked at him and asked in a deep voice,"So? Feel to explain yourself?"

Looking at the old man, Greg thought for a while but in the end shook his head.

"I'm really sorry, but I can't remember anything. The last thing I can remember of is that my leg got broken... Huh? Really...my leg!"

Realizing that he was standing, Greg looked down and in an instant his mouth widened in suprise.

Seeing that his left leg was unhurt, and it wasn't hurting at all as he moved it here and there, he couldn't say anything for a while.

"What in the word just happened here?", asked himself Greg and looked at the three experts before him with a confused look.