Gorn faintly smiled: “That’s correct. As you already noticed, I have a peculiar ability that allows me to control my shadow.”

Pausing for a moment, he looked far away towards the ground. After a few seconds, Gorn continued: “I just recently found out about it, so I don’t have much information regarding this matter. However, apart from the very visible advantages, there are a few inconveniences as well. My emotions become harder to control, and I also have some weird dreams.”

Lora looked at him with worry visible on her face: “Can I help you with something?” her long, red hair fluttered in the wind, and her face made it hard for someone to say no to her.

“Of course you can,” said Gorn in a normal tone. After hearing his answer, Lora’s eyes flashed with emotion. She was definitely expecting for him to refuse, or to say that the twins were enough.

“What can I do?” she asked excitedly.

The black platform below Gorn fluctuated, and soon, a black, simple chair took form. He sat down, and said: “At this particular moment, you can help me by massaging my feet.”

His answer was very unexpected, everyone making a weird face. Gorn was in no particular rush, so he waited patiently. While she processed the new information, he spoke to the twins. “Mara, Nora.” Gorn simply said their names.

“Yes!” the twins answered in unison.

Gorn smiled, then said: “I want you to massage my shoulders.”

Without much delay, the twins got behind his back, and started to massage his shoulders with great care. At this point, Lora was still thinking about what he said. She wasn’t sure what was the meaning behind his request.

Seeing that she was thinking too much about it, Gorn turned towards Elisa: “Can you massage my feet?”

“Of course I can.” The initial, unusual surprise brought forward by his request lasted only for a brief moment in her case. With a nice smile, she came towards him, and sat at his feet, massaging them.

Right now, Lora’s face showed some regret. She wanted to take action, but it was a little too late. With a sour taste in her mouth, she kept quiet.

The atmosphere several kilometers up into the air was rather chill. Except for the wind, which fluctuated here and there, everything was peaceful. Gorn quietly enjoyed the massage while thinking about some solutions to their situation.

‘The current circumstances are very vague. The need of a stable base is vital at this point,’ thought Gorn. This aspect was very important, both for him, and the girls.

There wasn’t any room for more hesitation, a decision had to be made sooner than later. ‘I’ll go look for that flying island.’ After more than a few minutes, he finally made his mind.

However, before going in that direction, he had to be sure that Norman wasn’t able to track him down. ‘I used my shadow to keep track of him, so I wonder, didn’t he do the same to me?’

His concern was well-founded, but at a second analysis, it didn’t seem very likely. By judging how things went down, such a case appeared to be very improbable. Despite that, Gorn decided to carefully analyze everyone, himself included, for anything unusual. On top of that, he decided to wait a few more days to see if Zeto, or somebody else from Norman’s side, could track them down or not.

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After some more time, he spoke loudly: “I’ve decided. After a few more days, we will leave this area. Until then, I want all of you to pay close attention to the surroundings, to see if we are followed or not.”

His voice was clear, and had a good amount of determination in it. No one refused, or said anything against it. And so, the waiting game began.

.

.

.

Three days went by in the blink of an eye. During this time, Gorn did everything in his power to make sure no one followed them, or had any tabs on them. The girls also spent most of their time looking around with great attention. Slightly changing their location multiple times made this process even more effective. Thankfully, no one was on their tail as far as he could tell.

“Thank you,” said Gorn while touching the twin’s hands, stopping them from massaging his shoulders and neck. During these three days, they would often take care of him by giving him a massage even if he didn’t ask for it directly. Getting up, he said: “We are leaving in five minutes, prepare yourselves.”

There wasn’t much to prepare, except mentally speaking. Gorn’s shadow fully recovered by this time, and seemed even stronger than before. The situation was going to become dangerous, so his shadow reacted on his own. In a matter of a few short moments, half of his body became engrossed in black patterns that extended to his right eye. The pupil also changed its form into some sort of symbol.

Gorn felt a huge wave of power flowing through-out his entire body, and a desire for slaughter that was getting higher and higher. All his senses were tensed to the maximum, and he was eager to proceed.

“Are you ok?” asked Nora, from his side.

Gorn’s corners of the mouth went up into a very disturbing smile. He looked like he was about to go on a killing spree. Eerie, and scary looking at the very least.

“I’m fine, everything is in control for now.” He looked far from fine, but apparently, he was still in control.

‘I can do this, I can control it!’ thought Gorn, refusing to fully suppress his shadow. After all, in that state, he felt a lot more powerful.

“Ok… I trust you!” answered Nora, getting even closer to him. She was the most comfortable with him in that state.

Gorn bought two short bows at ten thousand gold, and a few steel arrows, and gave them to the twins: “There will be better stuff in the future, but for now, this will have to do.”

The black platform broke apart into tentacles that grabbed everyone. Nora and Mara were close to his side, while everyone else was at the back. Activating his stealth ability yet again, Gorn started to advance at a steady pace. While he didn’t know exactly where to go, he had a general idea of the path he had to take. Those days spent at the city library coupled with his movement abilities made it easy and efficient to make a good sense of his surroundings, and location.

The girls gulped, their hearts beating increasingly fast. Mara and Nora tightly grabbed the short bows, ready to shoot at any moment. Gorn was a few hundred meters above the tallest tree, and carefully moved forward.

When being close to the city, it was fairly safe to travel at higher altitudes, but he had no idea if the same could be told about the place further away into the wild. Every step had to be cautiously taken. As for going to the top of the immense present mountain peaks, it wasn’t an option. He clearly remembered the scary red-tailed fox from the past. The mountain peaks were the foxes' territory.

After a few tens of kilometers, the reapers that could be spotted on the ground became visibly bigger, and fiercer. After a few hours, Gorn stopped for a short moment. Looking ahead, he saw a big passage like space that formed between two gigantic mountains. Past that, it was basically uncharted territory, and was speculated to be adult reapers' territory.

According to what Sara told him, the flying island should be on top of that passage, and mountains. Her group explored the vicinity of that left mountain, and was unable to go further. Seeing so many ferocious reapers on the ground, Gorn was quite impressed that the city expedition managed to reach so far.

The secret to that, was, of course, the numerous big trees that allowed for some kind of shelter. Unfortunately, red-tailed foxes that could walk on air also started to become more, and more common, making the trees less and less safe.