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Edward kicked aside the mangled corpse lying in his way and looked down at his student. The tall young man lay curled beneath a tree, one hand pressed over the enormous wound in his abdomen, his brows tightly knitted and his lips utterly bloodless. His fingers were bluish white with cold and looked stiff, but he still refused to loosen them, holding them tight against his abdomen to keep his organs from spilling out. On this bitter winter day, Richard had neither frost nor snow on him. The wisps of white mist escaping his lips marked him as the only living thing that still held any warmth.
The bodies strewn around them had already frozen solid. Snow fell into their torn limbs and their eyes, wide with unwillingness to die, and remained unmelted for a long time.
"..." He couldn't even maintain his Marionette state anymore?
After watching quietly for a few seconds, Edward erected a Wall of Spirituality around them, pressed his cane against Richard Ernst's shoulder, and rolled him over from his side. He saw the young man's wounds repeatedly heal and tear open, blood pouring from his abdomen. His eyes were vacant, his unfocused pupils staring vaguely at some point in empty space. His breathing was erratic, his face covered in cold sweat and blood, and he seemed immersed in a dream from which he could not wake.
Loen, then, the Devil thought.
He crouched down onto one knee, raised Richard's head, and straightened his face. "Look at me."
"Wake up." Edward stared into his eyes. "How disgraceful, Richard Ernst. You actually let a Nightmare's dream trap you?"
Hearing his name spoken in that tone drew some response from the dreambound Richard. His vacant eyes struggled to focus again as he summoned the last trace of