The beetle, which was the size of a large basketball, slowly walked around, seemingly unaffected by the heat around it. Lyrian stopped to look at it for a few more seconds. Flying a few feet above it, Lyrian noticed that its several eyes began to follow him around in the air. It was creepy to behold.
He couldn't forget that his shadow form could still be seen. After noticing this, he quickly moved on.
Nearing a corner of a giant wall-like structure of purple stone, Lyrian suddenly heard raspy and deep laughter coming from the other side of the edge. He stopped just as fast as the peals of laughter suddenly ended.
"Haruuh?" This noise came from one of the laughing voices. Lyrian could tell that it was a voice of confusion. As soon as this sounded, all the voices quieted down, as if to hear something.
This was an instant indicator to Lyrian that he had been sensed by an intelligent species. Maybe a demon of sorts... He suddenly began hearing loud footprints, which became louder, making him hurry to think of a way to hide himself.
He didn't want his shadow to somehow be destroyed, forcing him to return all the way back to his body and start his journey all over again. After all, he had now traveled over 10 minutes away from his unconscious self.
Looking around, he noticed that the wall next to him was also shadowed, so he pushed himself against it. To his surprise, his shadow figure blended into the shadow on the wall flawlessly, completely hiding himself.
'Wow... I didn't know it could do that,' he mused in surprise, 'What a useful skill.' He happily thought, knowing that this skill was in the hands of none other than him. At least, to his knowledge.
Just as he thought this, multiple large figures suddenly made their way around the corner. They were undoubtedly demons, that was for sure. Each of them towered up to 20+ feet tall, but some were much shorter, and some were much taller.
There was a blue-colored one that was around 30 feet tall. He was extremely skinny, so much so that his most defining feature was his ribcage which poked out of his skin. The demon had two large horns on his head and held a large club in his hands.
Lyrian noticed that they all shared this fact. Each one of them held clubs, all different in size. The second one out of the four was a 20-foot fat one that had a giant red belly. Its entire skin was a deep red, and one could tell how gluttonous it was from its protruding stomach.
Its face was horrifying to gaze at, more so than the blue demons. It had saber-toothed tiger-like bottom teeth, and its horns were a dark black color.
Another one was very short, having a stature of 13 feet, which was small compared to the others, and had a tint of gray as its skin complexion. And finally, the last one, a purple one, was a 25-foot behemoth with a bodybuilder-like physique.
They all looked around cautiously as they took slow footsteps to not scare away the thing that they heard just moments ago. Each one of them sniffed frequently, trying to find that delicious scent of some sort of aura that they had never smelt before.
Suddenly, the red demon looked at the wall behind it. As soon as it did, Lyrian felt threatened.
'Calm down... it's not like he can actually kill me.' He thought to himself, trying to ease his nerves.
The demon peered at the shadow on the wall for a long time. He was sure he felt that aura once again from there. Slowly, he walked closer to it. Upon reaching a mere 5 feet from the stone, he placed his nose directly in front of Lyrian's shadow form before taking in a large sniff.
Lyrian felt himself being pulled from the stone but didn't allow himself to be overpowered. With this, the demons gave up on their search. The fat one seemed to be enraged by this. He slammed his club on the ground in anger.
Soon after, they all began walking away. Lyrian let out a mental sigh of relief. It felt as though he had been holding his breath for the past five minutes! He took a look around, seeing the endless Purgatory around him.
'I have traveled for a while, and these demons are the only very interesting things I've seen... I wonder where they are going.' He thought to himself, traveling down the wall while still being blended into the shadow.
As soon as he reached the floor, he quickly darted from one shadow to the other, following behind the demons as he stayed invisible to their eyes.
They traveled for a while, and Lyrian couldn't help but still notice that his feeling of being watched, which existed ever since entering this purple domain, still persisted.
At random times he heard loud noises around him as he moved, which was from the moment he exited his protection barrier. He attributed these noises, which sounded like loud booms, or stomps, to the extremely loud noise of Purgatory, but now he was more suspicious.
He noticed that he hadn't heard those distinct noises when he hid from the demons. That was when he was fully stopped. He hadn't heard it before exiting his barrier either.
'The thing watching me... maybe it's following me.' He suspected, looking around as he moved from shadow to shadow, still following behind the demons.
A few minutes later, the demons finally led Lyrian to a place of entrance. It was a giant gateway, which was sealed by a burly door made of purple metal.
As soon as the demons arrived about 100 meters away from the gate, they stopped, looking at each other with excited expressions on their faces. They exchanged glances at the gate, then back to themselves, then back to the gate again.
'Hmm.' Lyrian questioned what this was that they were doing. Suddenly, they all lunged forward towards the gate, and at that exact moment, Lyrian heard that familiar noise once again.
In a mere millisecond, a giant figure flew across his vision and landed in front of the great immense force before letting out a thunderous, soul-rattling roar that boomed through the entirety of Purgatory.
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