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The green sprite sat on her back.
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Listen, I can —
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Midnight roared. She roared and roared, shaking her body and trashing furiously as she ran, yet she could not shake him. Instead, the purple one jumped onto her as well, both clinging to her neck and pulling at her ears with gleeful shrieks.
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Poor little shadow
So, so sad
So stupid and mad
And yet she owns
Such delicious bones
-
Midnight roared through their jeering until all the cavern walls roared back at her, with her, and that pushed out all her anger and then all her angst, and that brought her senses back. She would not be driven like prey, she refused to die ridden like livestock.
image [https://glasswizardchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/The-Glass-WIzard-Webstory_Psychological-Fantasy-Magic-Webseries_The-Duckman_Midnight_Anger-and-Angst_How-2.png]
How did her wizard do it? How did he, with his disturbingly poor instincts and senses and close to no innate knowledge understand new things and new places and new enemies and new skills so well on his own, when he had been nothing but helpless as a —
------What did she see when she was pushed out of the darkness?
Nothing. Midnight did not see the sprites’ attack coming, and it left no traces on her body.
------------What did she feel?
She raced through expanding tunnels, ever-growing chambers and caverns that sprawled wider with each passing moment. The air grew heavy and dank, the walls slick with condensation, and the breath more pronounced. The scent of snow, ice, and herbs hung thick in the air, signalling the presence of the frozen wilderness that shaped the southern reaches of the mountain, but also of witches. She felt the sprites on her back and the hunger of the shadebeast.
With each leap and bound, Midnight pushed herself to the brink, but no matter how fast she ran, no matter how skilfully she hurtled through the treacherous terrain, the ripping darkness kept up. He effortlessly maintained pace with her as she twisted and turned for dear life, her heart, breath, legs and thoughts racing. She slithered through confining passages, leapt across rock pools, and vaulted herself in and out of jagged crevasses within the caverns they crossed, sometimes doubling back for several sections when her darkness sense alerted her to narrow passages or dead ends ahead. Could he not close the gap between them? Was she always just out of reach, or was this more than hunting? Was he toying with her? Was he directing her? Where to? Why? — Too many questions, the wrong questions, for now.
---------------------What did she feel when she shifted?
Midnight shifted but found herself thrown back into her pathera form right after.
-
Still stupid, still mad
---I guess she wants to be dead
-
The sensation of being pushed out of the darkness was disturbing, leaving Midnight momentarily disoriented and off-balance. It was as if she had been struck by a heavy blow, yet her body remained seemingly unharmed. It was a strange dichotomy — the sprites did not harm her body but affected her still. Midnight grasped the importance of this distinction —
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Listen.
-
Leaning against her neck, the green sprite crept forward. His words were a humming whisper in her right ear, a stark contrast to the piercing metallic screeches that had defined his voice until now.
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From the darkness he will rip you, as have we.
As long as I can eat you, so can he.
-
With that, he sank his oversized maw around her ear and tore it right off. The searing pain brought another surge of anger, but before Midnight could retaliate, both sprites flung themselves off her, darting to her right and left flanks, where they took turns snapping at her tail mid-flight.
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After you, dear friend, one bite for you and one for me
After all, she’s just so full of herself, full of stupidity
Full of herself, full of herself, and no transparency
Full of herself, full of herself, enough for everybody
-
Midnight flicked her tail erratically. Then, suddenly, she realised — there was no damage to her ear.
What?
The pain had been real, but the injury was not. The ear was still there. Midnight could adjust it just fine. Again, the sprites’ attacks had left no physical trace, their malevolence manifesting only as sensations in her mind.
How?
Midnight's mind raced with fragments of conversations and understandings transmitted by her wizard. There was something — She had been there when Yves had learned about dimensions. For years, he had shared everything with her. While she had not comprehended every detail at the time, Midnight had always listened, and all that she had heard resurfaced now that her mind was capable of grasping such challenging concepts. Her thoughts spiralled into complexities that felt foreign yet oddly intimate. It was an acceleration, an expansion, an evolution so rapid that this new understanding felt disturbingly foreign. Amidst this mental whirlwind, a distinct fragment of knowledge took shape: as a beast, Midnight was more than her physical form.
Her all was two things; her body and her energy. One did not hold the other. Her Rothar could be harmed. It could be harmed independently of her body. This was it. The sprites attacked her Rothar, even in her transformed state of darkness. Every time Midnight shifted, they assaulted her beyond the confines of her body.
What did that mean?
It was a revelation that struck at the heart of her understanding — not all of Midnight turned into darkness. When she shifted, she shifted her body, but not her Rothar.
Was this why so many beasts had still recognised her presence?
Her midnight stalker ability had been to hide well within the shadows. After her venom transformation her body had truly merged with the darkness, but Midnight had never thought about Rothar. Her focus had been on expanding her senses and travelling swiftly, not on concealing her presence — These were the wrong thoughts.
Had the shadebeast also affected her Rothar?
Midnight had not been able to touch him without her darkness claws, but upon contact with his darkness, she had felt her paws rupture — just like her ear!
Would the same happen to her if she shifted and then fought him?
Yes, if her Rothar remained the same when she shifted, it could be attacked regardless of her physical form. The sprites had spoken of exactly that, of ripping her.
Had they actually warned her?
Did they mean to say that she needed to shift her Rothar into darkness before fighting the shadebeast? To keep the Rothar safe from harm? To transform with her all?
Was that the “true affinity” she was lacking? Did the sprites mean to say Midnight could be like the shadebeast?
Midnight struggled to compare his existence to hers. She did not even know if he ever shifted in and out of the darkness, like she did — that was just it. First with the DΔϢΠΙΠƓϛ and now facing the shadebeast, Midnight had sensed entities more intimately bound to the darkness than herself, but until just now, she had simply seen this as their innate existence. Because they were so different from her, she had never considered that they might once have been beasts like her. She had not asked herself how she could be more like these others. Midnight only ever thought about how to become a better herself.
But this was what wizards did, was it not? The child wizard, who just a year ago struggled with walking and feeding, looked at the 200-year-old Master Luminary who was so different from him and so superior, and yet he asked himself, How can I be like him? And even this most powerful Master Luminary still looked around and asked himself, Why can the witches do what I cannot? How can I learn what they do?
How could Midnight be like the shadebeast? How was he different from her?
Midnight could not feel his presence as she did with other beasts. He was right behind her, but he had no tangible energy signature. The whole time he pursued her, she did not perceive him as a distinct being but rather as a dynamic distortion of density, a conscious ripple within the very fabric of darkness. He was not restricted by matter, passing in and out of the walls unhindered — just like her darkness claws had with the stalactite pillar!
So the darkness Midnight controlled outside of her body was unrestricted, like the shadebeast, but the darkness she shifted into, the darkness she became, was not. During the last days, Midnight had shifted to move faster and to access difficult paths, overcoming the traps and silently trespassing the territories of various beasts. She could sift through impossibly small passages and crevasses, but she had nonetheless adhered to the existing tunnel structures. She had never considered passing through walls. Even now, the idea unsettled her greatly, and besides, she was still carrying her wizard’s messenger strings and the two Rings of Light, which she surely could not take with her — but these thoughts were beside the point!
Why was he better? Why was he more?
Compared to the shadebeast, Midnight’s merger with darkness was incomplete. Was it possible that she possessed this ability but had not yet felt it, or did she have to acquire it? Midnight struggled with the implications of this newfound understanding. Could she learn to shift her Rothar alongside her body, enabling her to pass through walls and obstacles like the shadebeast? If her Rothar became darkness that split and merged like he did, he would not be able to rupture this part of her.
Why did he not reach for her and rupture her already?
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Midnights still could not discern whether he was hunting or skilfully directing her; whether he could not catch up with her or whether he held back and prolonged the chase on purpose — but for what purpose?
They raced into the grandest cavern Midnight had seen since entering the mountain. Its sheer size dwarfed even the expansive crystal golem chamber. It was a giant pit, its depth exceeding 800 meters, the breath surging upwards thick with the scent of ice. Entering near the ceiling, Midnight found herself perched on a narrow ledge that clung to the cavern’s rough-hewn wall. She dashed along as far as she found footing, before launching herself into the air, hurtling towards a platform 30 meters below. The impact was harsh, sending a cascade of loose rocks plummeting into the chasm below. Midnight rebounded swiftly and dashed across a series of protrusions and precarious outcroppings that jutted out from the cavern walls at varying heights.
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image [https://glasswizardchronicles.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Glass-Wizard_Fantasy-Adventure-Magic-Webnovel-by-The-Duckman_Depressed-Wizard-Online-Webseries_ArtGlassWizard_Albweiss-Mountains_Midnight_Ice-Cavern.png]
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While the sprites spiralled downwards on their own erratic path, Midnight dashed along the walls with reckless abandon, plunging headlong into the cavern's depth with daring leaps. As she descended, the temperature quickly fell, and the moisture in the air crystallised into a deceptive, slick layer of ice that coated the jagged surfaces. Midnight struggled with the perilous conditions, her claws failing to find purchase in the brittle sludge. The shadebeast hunted her undeterred by the icy terrain, traversing effortlessly over the frozen surfaces.
Did he want her to go there?
What was down there?
How could she shift her Rothar?
Midnight only knew how to feed the darkness with her energy. Before encountering the DΔϢΠΙΠƓϛ, she had fed the darkness outside of her. Should she do the same with the surges she felt underneath her skin, just feed all her —
The shadebeast caught her mid-jump between platforms. Midnight twisted to hurl her darkness claws at him, but his towering form of ever-reforming darkness simply fell into her. He overwhelmed her in size, mass and strength, his power amplified by the sheer force of his leap. Without losing momentum, the ripples of darkness surged into her, finding no resistance from her body. With his maw gaping wide, he passed straight through her. As he landed on the platform below, Midnight, thrown off course in her futile attempt to defend herself, plummeted further downward.
She had no control over her body, no means to resist the excruciating sensation that engulfed her. What she had felt with her ear and her paws was nothing compared to the agony that now flooded her being. Midnight felt herself being torn apart from the inside out — she went limp, numb, senseless, she descended into nothing —
Her lifeless body crashed onto a protruding ledge one hundred meters below, the impact jolting Midnight back to consciousness. Pain washed over her, followed by a wave of stomach-turning sickness. Her body writhed uncontrollably, her face contorting, her legs convulsing like those of a dying arachnid. Almost all her Rothar was gone, not merely eaten by the shadebeast but so violently ripped from her that it had ruptured her very essence. Midnight felt the devastation with uncanny clarity; it was the first sensation that had reached her after the nothing, it had come with the sickness, it had brought the sickness. Her essence, the core that anchored her Rothar and linked these energies to her body, was destroyed — all but the fragment of darkness essence bestowed upon her by the Gods. This part was still there; a mere fragment of Midnight, yet in itself still whole amidst the ruins of her being.
-
---Eighty-nine, ---eighty-nine
She came around --just one more time
--To no avail
-----------Shift with your all
--------Or fail ----------- and fall!
-Ħ𐌄Ꞧ𐌄 Ħ𐌄 𐌂Ꝋᛗ𐌄𐌔!
-
The shadebeast leapt down from high above. Midnight was a bundle of jittering mess. She strained to push herself up and out of harm’s way, but her legs refused to obey. Instead, she thrashed wildly, her movements erratic and uncontrolled. In her desperate attempt to rise, she inadvertently hurled herself off the narrow ledge.
She plummeted almost to the ground, her convulsing body colliding repeatedly with the wall, where ice and stone tore bloody wounds. The shadebeast followed swiftly, landing above her the moment she crashed onto a wide, ice-covered ledge, where he pinned her down with his sheer mass, leaving her incapacitated on her back. Midnight had no means of evasion or defence; her body thrashed and tore without control, and every time her limbs went into the rippling darkness, more pain seared through her.
Unfazed by her futile struggles, the shadebeast lunged forward to sink his teeth into Midnight's throat. In his first strike, he tore the messenger strings from her neck and flung them aside, down the chasm. With his second bite, he sank his teeth deep into Midnight's throat, ripping Rothar from her with savage force.
-
Too full of yourself, to fully commit
This little shadow is still half-lit
Half-darkness, half-fit, an utter dim-wit
Of you he’ll get rid, before you get it
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He was ripping her apart, eating her alive. Midnight convulsed under the brute force with which his darkness rippled through her and tore at her Rothar. His intrusion shook her to the core, from where he tore one fragment of essence after the other.
-
He got you, he got you now
Good show, good show
But time to take a bow
--------So we can take your bones
-
Amidst all the excruciating pain and the disturbing sensations, there emerged a part in Midnight that wanted to welcome this death, a part that acknowledged she had been bested by a stronger beast of darkness who had hunted fairly and given her many chances to defend herself. This part of her truly wanted to surrender herself to this male, and at the same time understood that he did not need to be given. He was a taker and he had earned her. He deserved to devour her.
The other part of her had noticed the torn messenger strings and remembered her bond and duty to her wizard. This part clung to the decision and demand she had made for their shared path when embracing the darkness. In the same way he must not cling to the loss of light and sight, Midnight’s life must not end with her torn beast essence. She must not lament what she had lost to the shadebeast, but instead emerge from what remained — the God-gifted essence.
As the shadebeast descended once more to wrench the last fragment of essence from her trembling body, Midnight seized control using the darkness within her. There was no external darkness to manipulate or weave around her; the shadebeast pressed down on her entire form, his massive shape fully engulfing her. But Midnight harboured darkness within herself, all those currents that she had sensed coursing beneath her skin.
Just as he surged forth to strike, Midnight jerked her head towards him, shielding her throat with her own maw, their jaws intertwining and interlocking as they both snapped at each other. The shadebeast clamped onto her upper jaw, or rather, onto the darkness beneath it, while Midnight’s lower jaw embedded itself in his neck.
Were they two beasts of equal strength, Midnight would have had the advantage – the ability to tear into his neck while he could only rip at her face. But the shadebeast's size, raw strength, and the sheer amount of darkness he had amassed exceeded hers. Even as Midnight used her darkness within to direct forceful strikes with her paws and claws, he remained impervious to her thrashing, simultaneously encasing and restraining her beneath him. The struggle raged on, with Midnight exerting all her darkness to maintain her position, clinging onto his teeth as he attempted to wrench her head upward and tear her jaw apart.
She was vastly inferior, but in this short standstill, Midnight began to grasp at what the sprites had meant by true affinity. The demand triggered a torrent of thoughts that shifted all the overlapping and overwhelming words into a new mess. Everything in Midnight screamed to block the flood of thoughts and just claw and bite and hold on. There had never been so many words within her. It took every ounce of focus to remind herself that the thoughts were her own, that they were her. She needed to learn like her wizard, learn how she could be more.
Until now, Midnight had shifted in and out of the darkness, seeing her pathera form as a default, as if activating and deactivating an ability. She had switched between her natural beast essence and her darkness essence, linking the former to her pathera form and the latter to her darkness gestalt. And while merging with the darkness, she had still retained and carried along her beast essence and all the Rothar tied to it — just like she felt darkness surging underneath her skin right now, even though she remained in her pathera form.
Midnight had clung to her former self, continuing to draw energy from the Alladharian Dimension and maintaining her Rothar even after her encounter with the DΔϢΠΙΠƓϛ. But Rothar could not be darkness. In the dimension of energies, Rothar was something, while darkness was nothing. In the Material Dimension, darkness thrived where light was absent, and in the Alladharian Dimension, darkness embodied the void where no energies lingered. Despite this, Midnight had endeavoured to conceal her Rothar within her darkness, to obscure something within nothing, substance within void, to hide a voice within silence.
Midnight had decided that neither she nor her wizard must cling to what they once were, that they must not live for the broken parts within and the barred paths ahead of them. And so, as she burrowed her teeth into the shadebeast for dear life, she purged her all from the feeble remnants of her diminished Rothar. The knowledge already lay within her, as did her control. She commanded her darkness to emulate the shadebeast’s onslaught; to tear away every last strand of Rother from her original essence.
As her darkness obeyed, she surrendered the broken fragments of her beast essence to the singular fragment of darkness essence. Once again, Midnight lost all ties to her physical senses, knowing they would not return. From the nothing emerged the senses of darkness. She felt the surges of darkness within her attach to her darkness essence — the link that from now on defined Midnight’s existence. The darkness wove through the torn remnants of her beast essence, which now felt strangely alien. Within an instant that felt like an eternity, Midnight sensed the darkness essence shift, reaching and embedding its strands into this essence, connecting, claiming, and consuming it. And as only the darkness essence remained, the surges of darkness within expanded from under her skin to envelop every part of her being, from her teeth to her claws, from her fur to her silver eyes — unfettered by the sprites, Midnight transformed into a true being of darkness, not by concealing herself within, not by delving into it and merging, but from within, from her God-given core.
-
Now it was her darkness against his. A surge of emotions coursed through her, a volatile blend of euphoria, determination, and aggression. As the shadebeast now tore and forced his rippling darkness into her, Midnight pushed into him with equal ferocity. Alongside all that had made her more, Midnight felt the insatiable hunger that the DΔϢΠΙΠƓϛ had instilled in her.
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