Merik was feeling uneasy.

Fair enough, he had had a lot of unusual experiences as an Overseer, that were inexplicably dreadful and horrifying.

Still, the moment these greyish mists started to spread all over the hill, enveloping that faint silhouette of a woman, he instantly knew that something was off. And this sudden throbbing behind his head was also warning him as well.

And, there was Cora. The fiery junior on her first job. Merik knew that he could rely on her in certain aspects but unfortunately, not in something he couldn’t even fathom.

The world they live in was mysterious and more so dangerous than they were intriguing, all in all.

Even if he hated to admit, best solution here was to wait for reinforcement. Because as reckless as he was, he wasn’t the type to blindly rush into things that he had low chance of coming out unscathed.

He wasn’t stupid nor hot-headed.

He could cover the area and keep checking on these mysterious, greyish mists and only if he considered it manageable, he would go in alone.

He was looking at Cora leave and glanced back at the top of the hill. “It” was gone and with its disappearance, an eerie voice suddenly erupted in his head. It was a screaming, similar to a shrilling of a woman in despair.

“DON’T COME HERE. DON’T COME HERE. DON’T COME HERE.”

With these shrills, the throbbing behind his back intensified to the point of hurting his head. He didn’t understand certain things but it was now confirmed that this entity that they were facing was something he foreign and worse, it had a way to mess their minds up.

It was a right choice sending Cora away since they had no means to deal with psychic attacks.

But then.

He saw that Cora was dazedly walking towards the thick mist

“Cora, what are you still doing here? I told you to go back, Cora. Cora!!”

Despite his warnings, she kept walking towards the mist with dazed eyes and even got past him.

Merik grabbed her hand but as soon as he touched it, the throbbing behind his head made his mind go blank for a moment. Then, assaulted by the extreme pain, he screamed in terror before letting go of her hand and dropped helplessly onto the ground.

He first saw a scene of a woman and two children doing mundane things in their house. Then the scenes abruptly changed to that of Cora’s, from where he started meeting her to her own life in her own village. These recurring visions assaulted him like waves of excruciating headaches.

These headaches were like thunderous drums, banging on all his senses, making him unable to form a single rational thought. The intensity wasn’t lowering as well.

He gradually had to lie on the floor, rolling left and right.

Being assaulted by this heartrending pain for what he felt like eternity, he didn’t feel helpless. What he felt was ... rage. The intense rage coming straight from deepest depths of his heart.

Rage. Rage. Rage.

How dare she!? Who do you think you...

Right then, just like a melted droplet of water on a sizzling hot frying pan, his headaches stopped and got melted away like they weren’t even there in the first place. He gradually started to regain his senses and sat on the ground.

He checked his neck and saw that there were still remnants of black fire burning faintly.

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“Rage, huh?”

Merik instantly looked to see that Cora was already gone – into the condensed and dreadful greyish mists.

Merik gritted his teeth before slowly getting up. These overwhelmingly painful mental assaults made his mind weak and everything was somewhat distorted. The azure lantern was still there, on the ground, seemingly out of this world, shining in the dark.

He held the lantern in his left hand and his revolver in his right hand before slowly stepping into the mist.

Carefully treading onto this eerie hill with heavy steps, Merik thought that he would feel immense cold from these greyish mists but to his surprise, it wasn’t cold in a bit.

To the contrary, he felt absolutely nothing but sensations his revolver and the lantern. He could feel his feet landing onto the ground in a cautious rhythm. He could feel his breath slowly escaping his mouth. He could feel his own heartbeats, thumping with somewhat nervousness.

And yet, he felt that the rest of his senses were close to being numb. His vision was filled with endless fogs and his hearing, the faint yet echoing footsteps from his leather shoes. The extreme silence and the disconnection of one’s senses could lead ordinary people to insanity.

Which meant that if Merik enjoyed listening to his own heartbeats through this madness inducing silence, he might well be already insane.

Merik chuckled at the thought.

He more or less guessed the reason that he was immune to this situation – main reason being his power and the other, being his endurance towards supernatural matters since he had had a fair share of experiences in his life. Being immune was being a bit wishful because the psychic attack from before wasn’t completely gone.

It was there, eating away at his nerves ever so slightly. It was small but not negligible. But nothing he couldn’t manage.

Still, what he didn’t understand was what made the creature this powerful – even manipulating their minds.

Even when acquiring Dream Goddess’s powers, Laurance wasn’t able to pose this much of a threat.

Merik didn’t drop his guard, not even a moment, as he moved slowly through these thick mists. At least, as long as the lantern was with him, he would be safe. Physically.

Because Light was absolute.

Right at the end of his thoughts, he saw a faint shadow amidst the mists. He raised his guard, gripping his handle on the lantern harder. He then pointed his revolver at the shadow.

But then, another shadow appeared beside the first shadow. And another. And another.

They kept appearing distortedly before filling Merik’s entire vision. Even under his careful observation, he was surrounded by countless shadows of the woman and distorted mental echoes kept intensifying at an alarming pace, putting his mind in its deadly grasp once again.

These shadows weren’t doing anything to him... yet, but this state of stillness was slowly pushing his firm ground onto the edge.

Despite the numbness of his own senses, he could feel that a cold sweat slid onto his face.

Before it reached the ground, a lone shadow suddenly lunged towards him, catching Merik’s off guard, amidst the dreadful shrills.

Without budging a single facial muscle, Merik simply side-stepped to dodge the shadow and instantly pulled the trigger twice towards the lone attacker.

Of course, the bullets were already imbued with the black energy.

Once the bullet pierced the shadowy figure, an ear breaking shrill full of pain screamed out from it.

“HOW DARE YOU. HOW DARE YOU. HOW DARE YOU.”

The figured jumped towards the countless shadows and left behind a small piece of its... seemingly part.

Merik endured the annoying throbbing behind his head but he didn’t loosen his mind since he was still surrounded by these figures.

The figures did nothing but distortedly drifting behind these condensed greyish fogs. But Merik’s focus was on the shadow under his feet.

After making sure that the tiny shadow didn’t lunge again, Merik hanged the azure lantern near it to see the attacker.

It was a hand. A blood soaked-hand slowly burning with blackish flames. And that hand was twitching.

Seems it got hurt. At least, my bullet works. Good to know that.

The figure escaped leaving behind its injured part. Looking at how it dealt with its injury, Merik understood that the creature was more than intelligent. If not, the creature would already be consumed by his unfathomable yet deadly blackish flames.

With this, Merik seemed to hold the upper ground, but the truth was that he wasn’t doing so good, as well. Because his power while unbelievably strong, was a double-edged sword and furthermore, these constant mental assaults and the numbness were starting to take a toll.

The figures were still there, surrounding him so he couldn’t drop his guard, but at the same time, it was too risky to advance.

“Should I just run through these shadows and take a risk? What should I ... hmm, what is that? Is that blood?”

It was a blood trail. A bright red human blood trail leading towards the hill. He charged through these shadows and the mist, sprinting to his maximum speed. At least, he knew what he had to do now.

“Cora, hang in there.”