"Don't. You. Dare. Pass. Out."
The string of five words echoed in John's head as he repeated them like a mantra while struggling to remain conscious. At the same time, in the recesses of his muddled mind, he was shocked at just how close the roar had seemed.
"Stand. Up."
Though John thought and even imagined the action, his body failed to move. Instead, unable to hold it any longer, he vomited onto the sandy street.
Because John couldn't see it, and senses were in disarray, he didn't notice that unlike what he would have expected, his vomit was dark brown and extremely foul-smelling. It wasn't that John would have found the sight unbelievable or concerning, just that it was precisely what he would have expected if he had suffered a cultivation deviation and needed to rapidly expel the impurities in his system.
Strangely, as dark and ice essence filled the newly emptied space in his body, John's mind felt slightly sharper as his nausea significantly lifted. Yet, instead of finding anything strange, he just attributed it to the high he often felt after being ill.
John grunted in pain as he struggled to regain control of his body. It seemed as if with every heartbeat, his death was approaching and all he could do was helplessly wait. Deep down, he feared if the roar, which seemed to be around half a mile away appeared any closer, he might die.
"I fall here. I die. I stop, I die. I need to keep moving."
After the dark and ice essence continued to fill the gap in his stomach, it started to sluggishly spread throughout his body. At the same time, just like when he confronted the group earlier, it seemed to wrap around and protect the light energy. However, no matter how John tried to direct his essence, he found that excluding the energy directly around his core, he had no control. What was even weirder was his core, as if it had become a second heart, had started to release small, pulse-like beats.
With each pulse, the suppressive feelings in his body retreated. "This... Am I awakening a new ability in the face of death? But if I am, why does it feel... so natural. Like I was born with it?"
John was only shocked for a moment, instantly pushing away the questions that bombarded his mind before hardening his resolve. He knew if he missed this chance, he might not live to regret it for long. At the thought of dying, staring at a sand drift ahead of him, John recalled a memory of his children playing on a beach.
Remembering their smiling, cheerful faces, a sound escaped his throat that almost sounded like a growl. At the same time, a tiny portion of his soul power unintentionally leaked from his body.
"Get up, John. You're not done yet."
[Intrest]
John felt a vague, strange feeling wash over him but paid it no attention as he bit the inside of his cheek. The pain sharpened his mind, and after what felt like a herculean effort, he was able to force himself to his feet. After wobbling slightly, John moved forward in a half sprint, half stumble. As he did, unknown to him, the energy in his body flowed smoother. The dark essence became darker, the ice essence more light blue, and the gold seemed to glitter with intensity.
After he reached the next intersection, a flurry of movement caught his attention on an adjacent street to his left. However, even though he turned his head in that direction, his vision still hadn't recovered enough to work out any particular details from the fleeing silhouettes.
The thought that he should turn left and follow the group, letting them clear any dangers, only appeared for a moment before John instantly dismissed it. There was only one direction he honestly didn't want to move in, and that was left. It was from there that the haunting, feminine screech that should belong to Sillithias came. While she was considered the weakest of the three, she was also the most cunning and vicious. It was said that none of her victims ever had good deaths.
Irritated and slightly anxious about his slow speed, John tried to productively distract himself while his body gradually recovered. Believing that Sillithias' screech came from the right, the booming roar to his left should belong to Baros. If that was the case, John thought that the one behind him should be Akarhia.
While he had only heard Akarhia once, that was something special in its own way. She was the most mysterious and secretive of the Void Lords. It was rumoured that she was as likely to ignore you as tear your guts out and hang you from a tree.
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However, the one thing that was known as fact about Akarhia was also the most worrying to John. Apparently, she was a huntress that, when she had selected her target, would never give up. As John had the suspicion that he may be the target that drew the Void Lords, the idea of gaining such a being's attention made him feel slightly hopeless.
"To my left, the brute. My right, the sadistic torturer and behind me the unrelenting huntress. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place."
A chilling thought, which caused his steps to hesitate a moment, suddenly occurred to John. While he was heading in the direction that the yellow crystal in his mouth pulled, it was also extremely convenient that the Void Lords had appeared around him in positions that encouraged this. His chosen route, at least from the stone gifted by his great-grandmother, was also the only viable route.
Thinking to this point, John felt like he could cry. Yet, from the strain on cheeks, he found he was actually smiling. Now the sense of dread had diminished, or he had gotten used to it, he discovered that one of his most bizarre habits had returned.
When he felt like his luck had run out, and was at the end of the road, John would always break out into a manic grin. It had unsettled his former comrades almost as much as his enemies. Yet, whenever he felt it, John would shiver. It was a sign that the supposed curse that seemed to affect his bloodline was brewing. One that had lead to both his fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers untimely deaths.
John shook his head, the smile faltering but not completely fading, as he focused his mind.
"No. Why would they need to herd me anywhere? With their strength, it would be like playing with an ant." John chased the idea away. However, it only allowed his thoughts to drift to the people that had been his comrades for years.
It was mainly due to the memories elicited from his unintentional smile. Yet, their happy faces and locations of the good times slowly warped into the hatred and disgust as they arrested him.
John stopped himself from laughing bitterly out loud at how nostalgia twisted logic and reason. "Even though they did that, I still miss them. Brothers for life... How fucked up."
The urge to lay down and curl into a ball appeared for a moment before instantly vanishing as John remembered the black goblins figure. "Fuck... This... is a soul attack."
After shivering violently, John circulated his essence and tried to dispel the depression and heavy feeling that seemed to be growing at an alarming rate. At the same time, he thought about the happiest moments of his life. However, most had been spoilt by time. In the end, he could only think about the births of his children and each of the milestones he was present for.
Feeling the urge to give up slowly dissipate, John let out a foul breath of dark grey gas. It swirled for a moment, looking as if it wanted to re-enter his body, before dissolving under the bright sunlight.
"Void Lords..." John's pupils dilated as his footsteps hastened. "Baros... should be around a quarter of a mile away, and isn't even focused on me. Yet his domain and indiscriminate soul attack can still affect me so much."
"On the news, they said it was all hype. Overexageration from soldiers wanting to boast. But... if just the sound of their voice can affect me so much, they must be as powerful as the heroes and lower gods... Is this why the Voidlands have never been tamed?"
"For fuck sake. Nothing is ever easy." John sighed, noticing that his speed was nearly at what it was before. The feeling triggered an intense sense of Deja Vu, having been in a similar situation a couple of times in the last hour.
Once again, the cold chill of an unwanted premonition crept down his spine as a saying his mother often repeated resounded in his mind. "There is no such thing as coincidence."
Just as he was contemplating about what was making him feel so anxious, excluding the ever-present threat of death. Many things crossed John's mind. At the start, it was just his brother's warning, the appearance of the void lords and their positioning. Then he thought about his great-grandmother's vague messages and the items she had given him, mainly the crystal and letter.
Nimbly leaping over a beam of metal sticking across the road, blacky-blue essence with gold flecks flowed from his skin and reinforcing his ankle as he landed funnily. Yet, instead of being happy that he had avoided injury, John's frown deepened. "I'm... stronger?"
While he hadn't paid much attention to it, mainly as he was worried about other things, John suddenly realised that his strength had been steadily increasing. He wanted to attribute it to him returning to his peak and flexing his core for the first time in four years, yet John knew that wasn't accurate. The abundant energy surging through his body, like a roaring river, was many times purer and more volatile than it had ever been before.
His frown continued to grow as John thought about the strange events and used his senses to trace the flow of the energy in his body. As he tracked the paths it took, no longer following the channels of a typical humanoid, he became more and more shocked. Initially, John had thought that the stagnation and uncontrollable energy was caused by the power contained within the roars and the hidden soul attacks, returning to normal after a brief period. However, now he focused on it, he found that his essence was moving in a completely different way to how he had trained. It looked eerily similar to what he understood to be how a monster's, a highly intelligent beast with an evolved core, energy would circulate.
"I'm getting stronger from the roars? It's changing my body? But How? What-"
John's thoughts were interrupted as he came to a sudden stop. For some unexplainable reason, he suddenly felt as if he was being watched. At the start, the sensation felt uncomfortable, but within seconds, he felt as if he had been dropped into an icy river and broke out into a cold sweat.
Slowly, defensively lifting the essence blade, John turned around and scanned the area behind him. After thirty seconds, the feeling of being watched intensifying at an alarming rate, he was unable to locate the source.
[Amusement]
"Shit."