Once again, the little boy with golden eyes gazed at nothing inside his cave.
However, unlike the previous night, and similar to the one before the previous night, the boy was sweating and shaking as he experienced Fear. Fear that stoked his coming end, and all he should do was give in and let himself be ended.
Unfortunately, the boy with golden eyes had not done that. Instead, his arms continued hugging his knees, and his head remained resting upon his forearms, all while his golden eyes stared at nothing.
Then, just outside the opening of the small cave, a thin and short leg with raptor-like claws became visible. It flexed the claws just like a cat flexed its paws before placing it on the stone floor and scratching on the stone to produce sounds unappealing to most creatures with ears.
Screech
Only after the screech produced no results as well, did the rest of the creature enter the light-filled cave. It winced once or twice before the whole body of the raven/cat Nightmare Creature reared its cat head on top of a raven’s body into visible light.
Once again, its reveal failed to produce the results it usually got from prey. On the contrary, once its whole visage appeared, and its diamond-irised eyes gazed at the boy’s golden eyes, the boy slowly ceased shaking out of Fear.
It was as if the mystery had been revealed, and before his golden eyes, there was no longer any danger.
Just a hideous creature.
Then, when the Fear completely broke, something else woke inside the little boy’s head.
First, it was recognition, if vague, as if the mind was still groggy from actually waking up. Then came alertness. Then came preparedness. Then came the rolling when the raven/cat pounced at the boy. Then came the little boy’s rush for the hideous creature. Then came the smashing on the cave wall. Then came the neck-snapping, and only then came the dissolving and absorbing of the Pure Essence.
Only after everything was done had the boy’s mind fully woken. With its waking cry, the little boy’s body began to glow golden, and within seconds, the little boy grew to be a teen.
“It worked.” Adamu iterated after shrugging off the stupefaction forced upon him. “This proves it. Only within the Illusion do I gain Pure Essence for slaying the creature.”
Nodding with relief, Adamu looked around, then at himself.
For a moment, he focused very hard on his Spirit Body, which he currently exhibited, and imagined himself wearing clothes, only nothing changed. His Spirit Body remained naked. Nodding once with confirmation, Adamu imagined his recent acquisition, the vine-threaded leaf underwear.
Even after a few moments passed, nothing changed with Adamu’s Spirit Body. However, he did not give in as he had caught on to a familiar sensation. Focusing harder and harder, Adamu felt a popping sound, and all of a sudden, he was no longer a naked young teen but a teen wearing vine-threaded leaf underwear.
Touching and exploring the contraption, Adamu sighed in slight relief. “It seems even without energizing something it can be brought inside the Illusion if one is familiar with it. This begs the question of the criteria since I should be much more familiar with my past gear than simple vine-threaded leaf underwear.” Considering it for a second, Adamu remembered just how he had appeared in this world in the first place. Then, his mind settled on the little boy he became for each of the nights he had been in this world. “Almost forgot about the anomaly of my current existence. Is that why the little boy appears? A reminder that I was no longer Adamu? But then, again, clearly, I am not the boy who should have replaced Adamu either.”
“Soo… A composite of both? Or something else entirely?”
Shaking his head at the ethical existential conundrum, Adamu sidelined it and focused on his tender feet. There, he imagined the worst pair of footwear in existence. It took a fair bit of concentration, but eventually, the pop came.
The footwear came in the form of rough bark, smooth bark, leaves, and lots of vines to tie everything together. It was ugly and cumbersome to wear, but it would do the job until either the acquisition of better tools or Essence.
The best-case scenario was both.
With the footwear, Adamu made his way outside the ‘birthing’ cave. Through the ordinary darkness, he reached outside the cave and once more faced the fairytale-like environment thanks to the Silver Light illuminating the mountain valley, the river coursing through its middle, and the forests adorning the sides of said river.
Having learned from experience, Adamu dared not set his gaze on the sky. Instead, he found a relatively hidden yet good enough spot to monitor the surroundings. With that as the goal, Adamu stayed in the spot for quite some time.
During that time, only one thing could be assured with certainty in his mind.
The Night was not even close to being safe for him. On the contrary, it was extremely dangerous as a multitude of sounds echoed from the forest. Even an idiot without any forestry experience would have noticed that fact because there was an unnatural amount of activity spreading to his ears.
Almost as if the whole forest was in the middle of a massive conflict.
There is no way I am going in there as I am now. Adamu affirmed in his mind. That means either I find some good bait or I continue being the bait.
Whoosh
A shiver and a hastily raised arm on his right side was all Adamu managed to muster before something collided with his body.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The instant pain and distinct triangular impression on the upper parts of his right forearm hinted at the assailant. Still, Adamu had no chance to confirm it because the momentum of the assailer pushed him to the ground, and Adamu allowed the momentum to force him into a rolling motion.
Thud
Roll
Urgently rolling off the momentum forced on his Spirit Body, Adamu felt the creature hit the ground quite hard alongside his right arm. Right after his mind recognized that fact, Adamu executed another roll. It was painful on the rough stone grounds, but it was well worth it when the second roll dislodged what could only be a raven/cat.
Although still not confirmed, Adamu still treated the target as such. Hence, right after the dislodgement, he ignored any retaliation from the raven/cat creature in favor of grabbing the head or the neck.
A scuffle later, the snap echoed, and the creature dissolved into smoke, with the reward going to the winner.
“Damn it…” Adamu cursed as he felt the throbbing of his right arm, right where the raptor-like claws ripped into the replica flesh for what constituted his Spirit Body. Either way, it hurt just the same, or even more, because there was no physical barrier between the wounds and the damage done to his Spirit.
Luckily, although it remained to be proven inside the Illusion, Adamu was quite certain that the actual injury would not translate that well to his actual body. As such, all Adamu expected to have upon the shattering of the Illusion was just a headache, with the recovery period corresponding to the extent of the injury upon his Spirit Flesh.
Unfortunately, Adamu was also bleeding. And that was much worse than the Spirit Flesh wound since, in this case, he was not bleeding real blood but his Spirit in the form of Spirit Blood.
Sometimes, symbology was more than just symbology. Hence, if Adamu did not stop the bleeding and the Illusion failed to shatter, right this very moment, a headache would be the least of Adamu’s problems.
The problem was that Adamu had no way to deal with the injury to his Spirit Body since his current Spirit Body was a reflection of himself outside the Illusion. If he was powerless there, so would he be here while in his Spirit Body. Therefore, without the possession of a medium in between them to buffer the reflection, in the form of Mana or some other profound power, the wound would heal at the same rate as his actual flesh did.
After a quick reflection of his knowledge, Adamu tried flexing his right hand, but all he got was twitching.
“Man, those claws dug deep. I should retreat before another swoops down on me.” With that said Adamu’s left hand clamped as much of the two puncture wounds as one hand could and rushed to his refuge.
At least, as much rushing as a dark cave passive way allowed him.
On the way, however, he admonished himself for the failure.
It was unmistakable now, with hindsight telling him, of his mistake of underestimating the creature after slaying three of them in quasi-favored ground due to the narrow cave passageways.
After all, the raven/cat was an ambush predator with wings. Clearly, it preferred the open ground to glide in and kill its prey. Adamu had unmistakably hidden himself, but evidently, he underestimated the creature.
“But then… that begs the question of why they would enter such unfavored hunting grounds,” Adamu asked himself while trekking through the darkness. “Undoubtedly, it is somewhat smart, so it should have avoided this cave from the start. And yet, clearly, that was not the case. In fact, it's the complete opposite with multiple of them bastards wandering inside to… find… me.”
“Oh… It's my fault.” Adamu finally realized.
Soon enough, Adamu reached his hideout and settled inside with his back leaning on the cave wall. That done, his left hand picked up the right and angled it for him to take a better look at the bleeding injury.
Poking around the wound slightly, Adamu noted the lifelike representation of the muscles and veins' interactions, especially when he pressed the injury, causing more blood to rush out. “Quite accurate structure despite being fake.” Thinking for a moment, Adamu considered his options now that he was not in life-threatening danger.
Focused on his left palm, he opened the palm. Upon it, he envisioned a big leaf appearing. It took much less focus compared to the abstract underwear he made. Then he placed that leaf over one of the puncture wounds and focused once more.
This time, he tried his best to envision the leaf as a healing leaf. Evidently, it wouldn't work since Adamu was quite aware of the leaf not having such a function. Thus, when nothing occurred, Adamu wasn't discouraged. To be otherwise would mean he had succeeded in mentally tricking his own mind into knowing otherwise, and that was very hard to accomplish.
Even if he accomplished it as he was now, if even possible in this lifelike Illusion at all, it would take far too much focus out of him.
So Adamu forgoed that path. Instead, when the healing effect failed to manifest, he envisioned the leaf sticking extremely close to his skin, with the point being that the more he focused, the tighter the bond between the skin and the leaf would be.
After feeling the drain on his focus, Adamu knew he had succeeded. As such, he urgently focused once again on another leaf to manifest and to be glued to the other puncture wound.
Done with the procedure, the focus drainage finally caught up to Adamu.
Nevertheless, aside from the tiny bit of focus continuously being spent to keep the leaves in place, it was well worth it.
Done administering first aid, Adamu closed his eyes and remained motionless.
His goal was to lower the amount of focus he spent while the Illusion lasted. As such, he employed a meditation technique for emptying the mind of wandering thoughts.
However, he did not dive too deep into the meditative trance.
Not after the last realization of being a very juicy piece of Spirit Flesh, Adamu had a feeling that the blood he had bled outside and on the way to his ‘birthing’ cave would attract another of the creatures. He only hoped that it would be one and not more.
However, as time passed, his conjecture of being very juicy upgraded to extremely juicy since multiple clicks reached his ears.
Hastily standing up, Adamu tried flexing his right arm, and while it was much better than before, it would be a useless arm for the incoming fight. A reminder reached him of the possibility of summoning a vine to tie the crippled hand to his chest only Adamu had neither the time nor the focus to spare.
“Third day, and I am already at a disadvantage!” Adamu said and shook his head in disappointment. Mostly on himself, but considering the many things bothering his mind in these three days of his birth, he cut some slack on the admonishments.
Instead, he stayed as far back as he could and waited.
It did not take long for the signs to appear. However, it did take longer than it should have. Only if the sounds were what Adamu’s thought imagined, it might have been a good thing because multiple shadowy figures appeared near the opening, and all of them sported wounds on their bodies.
Either way, the raven/cat creatures flinched multiple times before eventually entering the cave and angling their cat-like heads at Adamu.
In an instant, Fear began to bubble from his body, but this time, Adamu purposely failed to control said Fear. And it was for a simple reason. The Fear conditioned his body to produce copious amounts of adrenaline.
As such, he would become stronger and faster at the cost of hyper-focusing his vision.
Though, it mattered little in his current case.