Hale could only lament that he didn’t see this coming. He knew that this warped world was highly dangerous and he should have been clued in by the book that the one who owned it was of some sort of darkness concept which would make the night the most dangerous time. But, all these changes to his personality he wants to make, they can’t be made overnight, it's something more incremental than that. To always be alert was not something you could just turn on, but something you had to work on.
Hale used Shadow Gait to switch his direction, putting a lot of pressure on his ankles. He landed on the ground hard and slid a few feet from his momentum. The shadow creature lunged at him from a few yards away but Hale took a moment to steady his mind and extended his inky blade from his arm as far as it could, extending just an inch longer than the creature’s own reach. They both lunged, Hale expecting to take more cuts from this battle, but as he pierced the skin on the creature's chest it popped like a bubble. A dense black smoke was reabsorbed back into the night, and the area became just a bit darker.
Some of his wounds had reopened from using God’s Blood. Hale could only lament that he fell into such a situation but decided to try and learn from the situation. The bleeding stopped as the ink pulled the wounds closed again but a simple venture to get water set back his healing for a while more, not to mention that it was unbearably painful.
Hale eventually caught his breath and centered himself and decided that there was no point in going back to the cave. Using Shadow Gait he got to the top of the tallest tree he could find to get a lay of the land. His eyes were drawn to the city in the distance, the tall buildings poked up over the tree line. He hopped off and set off in that direction to keep up in the sky with Shadow Gait.
-
As the morning light broke the horizon Hale’s midair footholds became unstable and he fell from the sky rather ungracefully as he barely controlled his descent’s speed with Shadow Gait. He landed on the empty highway leading to the city. He walked the last mile on foot.
As Hale walked down what he can only assume is the city's main street, he became considerably more solemn. This city was weird. The buildings didn’t make sense, with strange designs that seemed to defy gravity, a building that seemed to go infinitely up into the clouds, tall 20 story buildings that got exceedingly thicker the higher you went. Some buildings had normal looking gardens, but sideways on their walls, upside down balconies, so on and so forth. Hale walked along this street but as he turned around he saw they were completely foreign. The buildings had shifted around him, and the worst part was that he never noticed it happen.
That’s when he saw down one of the roads there were three dead bodies about 20 yards away. The smell of blood assaulted him. It was almost too much. He went on high alert and slowly approached the bodies. He found they were consumed and their brains eaten. It didn’t take a big leap of logic for him to conclude that it was an abomination.
He went up to the three bodies. Their clothes were torn apart and strewn around. He rummaged through what was left of their gear and found a new pistol and two magazines for it. He took that and put it in his waist belt, taking his old one that still had a couple bullets left and put it in his backpack.
As he was finishing up looting he felt a baleful aura, one of hysteria and insanity. It made his eardrums pulse and it felt as if someone had reached into his chest and was squeezing his heart. He darted into the alleyway that connected to another street, taking refuge behind a dumpster.
Soon, he heard two pairs of footsteps coming from the main road with the bodies. It baffled him, not expected to hear humans but that eclectic, insane inducing aura worried him, it had a distinct feeling of vibration.
He tightened the grip on his gun and readied for a showdown. He tensed further and was ready to flee as fast as possible, he had already thought of multiple escape routes, thankfully the alley was in shadow so he could use shadow gait to gain a high ground advantage.
But, suddenly the two footsteps stopped and a deep voice called out, “You’re only in the awakened realm, there’s not much point to hiding.”
Hale cringed, he had put to memory everyone that was there when they fell into the warped world and he was sure there was no one who sounded like this, but with his gun in hand and in darkness he at least some assurances even if the person was in the resonance realm, after all, even in the resonance realm conceptual coating couldn’t stop bullets. At least, not completely.
He stood up from behind the dumpster, his gun held behind his back. He saw a man in his mid 20’s and a young Asian woman probably around his age, although she looked haggard and listless. That strange aura was emanating from her, and seemingly not of her own fruition. But, the moment her glazed eyes slowly passed over Hale she shivered from head to toe, her eyes gaining some liveliness. She couldn’t help but cover her mouth in shock, and her aura revealed her emotions, the air around her seemed to gain color as it shifted through the rainbow and drum beats reverberated through the air followed by guitar strumming and instruments no one could name.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Hale could only take her strange reaction in stride and said, “You weren’t with the original teams? Where did you come from?”
The man disregarded his questions and asked one of his own, “Are you Shea or Crest?”
Hale violet eyes constricted. This guy and woman were both in the resonance realm and were obviously enemies with one of the groups, but which one? Hale could not lie by saying either but it came down to a 50/50.
Hale steeled his nerves and tried his best to restrain his unruly aura and closed his eyes for just a moment longer than a blink and in that moment that his eyes were closed he used acquisition. Within the land of stars he saw many stars related to the pair in front of him, hundreds actually. This would take a while.
Hale ceaselessly parsed through the stars in the formation related to the two strangers, he slowly waved his hand past each star and as he did he got a glimpse of the aura of the information held within. After 3 hours inside the land stars he found one that gave him the feeling of the warped world they were in now. He took the chance and grabbed hold of it and the star slowly sunk into him and information appeared in his mind like he had always known it.
Hale’s eyes opened naturally, giving no indication that anything had happened or that his consciousness had just spent ours tediously trying to find a secret. However, he couldn’t hide the dimming of his irises as more than half of his energy was used even though his energy reserves were nearly unrecognizable from when he first awakened. He could do nothing for it, stealing secrets from someone an entire realm above him was much more taxing. In the end he answered, “I am here with the Crest family.”
He learned from acquisition that they had been dispatched by the Order of the Self after the Crest family pressed some sort of help button. Hale could only assume it was Rose Harsch before they fell into the warped world.
The man narrowed his eyes at the reply. But, before he could think any further about something strange he had caught onto, the woman with him shot forward towards Hale. Hale nearly pulled his gun but his instincts told him she had no intention of hurting him.
He was proven right as she stopped just a foot before him, their faces uncomfortably close to each other. She crooned softly, almost afraid to scare Hale away, “I really like your concept.”
Her voice was soothing, and she spoke with a rhythmic cadence. She took a deep breath and suddenly that horridly confusing aura seemed to relax and retract somewhat.
Hale couldn’t help but inquire, “What’s wrong with you?”
The man interjected with a snort, “Humans were never meant to control the ubiquitous.”
He didn’t seem to want to explain any further and Hale couldn’t bring himself to ask. The woman spoke again and this time she was staring at Hale like she wanted to devour him. “My name is Xia Ru, you can just call me Ru and he is Nathan Boone. We’re from the Order of the Self.”
“Nice to meet you.” Hale greeted while stepping back to get some personal space.
She stepped forwards once again getting just a bit too close to him as she swooned, “Let’s travel together we were going to the Crest’s encampment anyways.”
“The Crest’s have an encampment?” Hale questioned. Had more time passed than he thought?
“Yes, have you not gone there? We assumed you were a scout.” Xia Ru mused.
“Oh, well I ran into a little trouble but I didn’t realize how much time had passed.” He confessed.
“Can we get going already?” Nathan interrupted as he released a wisp of his aura, the clanging of metal reverberated in the alley.
Hale reluctantly fell into their group as they walked through the empty city. They walked side by side down the center of the carless streets while Ru was just a little closer to Hale than he’d like. This was definitely a situation he couldn’t really understand and he knew it wasn’t love at first sight, he wasn’t that good looking. But, he definitely didn’t miss that change in her aura.
They walked through the streets as an abomination sprung from out of one of the building windows. It slammed to the ground, leaving cracks in the street. The abomination had gray sickly skin and had strange body proportions. It walked on all fours but stood straight up, but that was just how long its arms were and it had spinal bones poking out of its hunched back.
Its wide mouth opened to over a foot and a half wide as it readied to jump at the three of them. Hale tensed, ready to escape at any moment. He still hadn’t healed from his previous wounds and had no chance against another abomination but to his astonishment the two strangers from the Order of the Self took action with a practiced ease.
The man, Nathan, who was in the resonance realm waved his hand through the air. The loud clanging of metal permeated out from him and chains as thick as arms shot from the ground all around the abomination slithering around it as if the chains were snakes. Nathan clenched his fist and the chains tightened around it, binding it on the spot. Nathan glanced at the woman, Ru, and she nodded. Hale saw her mouth move as if she were speaking but he heard nothing. However, his ears began to pound as if he were next to speakers at a concert, to his disbelief he could even feel the bass in his chest but he could hear anything.
The abomination struggled against the chains but as Ru “spoke” its deformed ears began to bleed, then its nose, then its eyes. Eventually it bled from all its seven orifices and went limp. Dead.
The chains retracted and the two of them continued walking completely unfazed by what had just happened.