Light flashed as a claw narrowly missed Silas’ head, prompting the Nightweaver to quickly raise his knife and drive it into the mutant’s skull. Mouth still open from its desperate attempts to rip his flesh from his body. The corpse fell against the chain link fence just as another mutant came running to tear him apart.

A week had passed since Silas joined the little Wayfinder group and for a week he hadn’t left the Refinery. Every day, over a hundred mutants attacked the compound led by a dozen Voiceless every time. Without exception, all combatants were required to join the defence. Silas woke up to the sound of an alarm bell since his first morning here.

The long-limbed, thin form of a Voiceless was tossed haphazardly through the air in his direction, Silas just stepping out of its way before it hit the street with a distinct crunch. Looking up, a Sergeant quickly followed in its wake and finished the creature off. Sending a short glance at each other, they both ran in different directions.

Silas did his best to avoid the Voiceless as without his guns, he could really only dodge them. He didn’t have the speed or strength to fight back against their reach. In fact, only the Sergeants and Wayfinders they had were assigned to do so. Without risking the noise of a firearm, only they could use their strength to combat its speed.

He, instead, weaved between the basic mutants with the other guardsmen and slaughtered them when he had the chance. His technique was shoddy at best, using his superior reflexes to eke out victory. With their speed, it wasn’t difficult for him to dodge long before their attack made it near him, close the gap, and then pierce through its skull.

Another spray of black blood slid off of his leather coat, his hand leaving the grip of his knife still embedded in a mutant’s skull. Silas ducked, avoiding the wide swipe of another’s claw and sweeping its legs with his own. As it fell onto its back, Silas stood straight up, stepped over and stomped his boot into its skull, covering the cobblestone in a smattering of grey matter, bone and black blood.

The sight nearly made him retch and yet, another part of him looked on coldly as he snuffed out just another flawed existence. This thing was a person once, now just a terrible mockery of its past life. A distinct sense of dissonance overcame him, struggling to accept that this was life now. Then he bottled it up and moved on.

After another fifteen minutes all that lay in front of the fence were grey corpse after corpse, forming small piles along its length. Nearly two weeks later and now the mutants all looked gaunt and thin, with pallid empty eyes and all semblance of humanity stripped from their figure. Even their ragged clothes had fallen off, torn to shreds from the fights with who knows what.

Still noon, shift one was working the refineries while shift two slept and rested, split into a twelve hour day and night shift. As such, the compound was rather empty when Silas collected his rations for the day and returned to his little room against one of the buildings.

It was still lifeless, Silas refusing to place any pictures or furniture of any kind with the idea that there’s no small chance he’ll eventually move. Not to mention that he knew where home was- he could find that all before leaving Ironside.

Sitting down on his cot, he briefly cleaned his glasses and then ate his lunch and idly measured how much energy he used in the fight. Once he was done eating, he pulled out the bloodstone and gauged what was left inside. Its red colour had dimmed significantly, allowing for the black to spread into what space was left behind.

He had to slowly circulate his blood energy through his veins in large amounts, getting them accustomed to the greater flow of energy and refining them. As new Gates open, the strength and quantity of blood energy increases and the veins get refined again. The issue was the large influx of power from opening the gates being more than the body can naturally handle, not to mention the catalyst required for opening them.

The last vestiges of blood energy inside the stone finally disappeared and Silas felt an indistinct bottleneck, his veins threatening to burst apart with anymore energy. With the stone’s help, he managed to shorten potential weeks of cultivation into a few short days and now only lacked a suitable catalyst.

Yet the Shop was no longer an option and the barracks was in who knows what condition. Other Wayfinders may own some, or at least have the points required to buy some. The issue was finding a way to trade them.

Wayfinders could independently trade Points between each other, but it needed to be a willing contract formed through the Lotus. It acts as a guarantor and will enforce the deal, even if one party decided to back out.

But Points were also valuable, only earned by missions. Assuming one didn’t need them for resources, they could still buy techniques, arts, weapons and armour. Convincing them to trade Points for anything else was a hard sell.

What was left for the day after Empyrean cultivation was learning to perceive world energy again. Over the week, he had managed to slowly extend the range of his spirit from each speck of fear energy. After a few days he was able to focus his spirit on several anchors at once, sensing the world energy around each speck.

It was like a web around him, allowing him to sense energy in a small radius around him. Ten or so feet, just enough to cover the entire room.

Earth Energy was the vast majority, followed by blood and life energy. Everything existed in fairly equal amounts after that. The tainted, disgusting energy that both Silas and Cassandra noticed prior was only found out in the fog, something he called Corruption like Davids had in the past. Assuming it’s what mutated these people, it was safe to say they were the same thing.

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Now, he wasn’t really training to increase the amount of anchors but rather figure out how to make an anchor for his spirit without needing outside fear energy. To do that, he’d have to project his own fear energy. Cassandra was able to do so, but hers was pure soul energy and according to her, very limited in range.

Today, however, Silas had a new idea. Inspired by the idea that the mind is instead the spirit, he took to thinking of other mundane sayings or thoughts and seeing just how applicable they are. For example, eyes being the window to the soul.

Caisus and the other kids mentioned his eyes flaring up whenever he used his fear energy. Likewise, it was required in using Aura Sensing. If that was the case..

Silas slowly pooled fear energy within his eyes like he did with Aura Sensing, replacing the blood energy entirely. He found it to similarly trigger Aura Sensing but that wasn’t the point, instead waiting for his eyes to fill up completely.

Once they felt full, he slowly tried to push the fear energy out of his body through the eyes as gently as possible. As he did, speck after speck of purplish blue fear energy appeared in the air around him, mere feet away. The expenditure of energy was considerable.

Filling his eyes took 10% each and all of it had to be consumed just to achieve a sensing radius of five feet around him, yet Silas couldn’t complain at all. It was a method that could be practised and if he could practise, he could get better.

His spirit attached to his own fear energy no differently than others, making it a suitable anchor for his energy perception. As such, he could use it when he’s alone as well. A grin slowly spread across his face as the ideas passed through his mind. Was that part of why consumption was so great when he commanded others? It was filtered through his eyes?

Hours passed by without him knowing and night had long fallen, prompting Silas to quietly leave his room. He greeted the last of the civilians as they left the Refinery escorted by guardsmen, recognizing a few of them from their rest time. He usually left long after most had gotten ‘home’ from the shift change

Silas made his way to the cots where most of the guardsmen were already sleeping, happy to see that even fewer of them had kept an X next to their cots now. A small reputation had spread now, civilians believing his very presence spurred nightmares away. Well, they weren’t entirely wrong.

It took several hours for Silas to make his way through the some two dozen guardsmen, manifesting the Nightmare Seed and allowing it to ease their dreams. With every nightmare refined, the veins on it grew a little brighter and the scales a deeper black. Barely enough to notice.

When Silas finally finished up with the last nightmare, he picked up some rations from the boardhouse and made his way around the fence, bringing it to the guardsmen posted there. After exchanging a few nice words and lightening the mood the best he could, he went back to his room to finish the night.

Instead, Amus and Cassandra were waiting for him there. The former remained as stone faced as ever, still wearing his plate mail he had when Silas first saw him. Cassandra was no longer in her armour, instead wearing a simple white blouse and trousers.

“Dream based? Sleep based? Your pathway is rather enigmatic, Nightweaver.” Cassandra smiled, standing a few steps in front of Amus. “Your energy perception technique seems to be advancing faster than mine, as well. Many talk about how the fog moves through your entire room during the day.”

“It’s improving with difficulty.” Silas nodded, stepping around the two and into his room. He had procured a small table, a chair, an end table, and a desk for his room. The chair was simply moved to wherever he needed to sit at the time. “Uh, please, if this will take long, shorten it. I’m exhausted.

He tried to speak in the gentlest tone possible, not hiding his exhaustion. While his need for sleep had been cut in half physically, the mental exhaustion still remained present.

Cassandra looked at Amus who then shook his head, leading the woman’s smile to turn wry as she looked back to Silas. With a deep breath, she spoke again. “Right. What do you think people need most when the world ends, Silas?”

“Food. Water.”

“Right. Which, thanks to our efforts here and the dwindling numbers, remains mostly accessible. But what else?”

Silas looked past the duo and outside of his room, gazing through the fog at the patrolling guardsmen. His shoulder, his only remaining injury, suddenly ached as if to remind him of the answer.

“Medicine?”

“That’s right. Medicine. And we’re running out.”

“Do you expect me to get it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m the weakest Wayfinder here,” Silas scoffed, taking off his glasses and cleaning them. Similarly, he took off his overcoat and placed them both on the end table next to him. “I’m hardly the person to bear that burden.”

“On the contrary, you have the most diverse skillset and the greatest ability to escape. You’re faster than the magic pathways and more versatile than the Sergeants. You have solutions other than fighting.”

The Nightweaver looked at her, running some scenarios in his head. Sure, this was true, but he also didn’t have the strength for if the only solution was fighting. His guns were his strong suit in that regard, something that would make him a walking target for all mutants in the area. Just as he was about to reject her, she spoke up again-

“We’ll reward you with points.”