"Dear child, I know this will get to you in one way or another. I had plans to let you mature and experience the world without my influence, but I fear things have been changing. I noticed that around the time you were born, something has changed in the world we live in and the parallel plane of spirits. The world is under some kind of strain, tiny cracks and tears are appearing in space constantly, though they are gone before anyone can notice them. I'm probably not the only one who has noticed this, but there are bigger things to worry about in the minds of common people.
"I wish for you to understand the inner workings on this world, and that requires you to eventually travel out of the Forest of Shadows. I do not know how you will do it, but if there's one thing I know for sure, us, children of Arathaniel are clever and scheming. You are someone unique in this world, you must be careful in your travels. I'm giving you the ability to understand the language of both humans and beastmen, you will meet them both in your travels.
"Lastly, the most important thing in this world is information. In order for you to understand how this world work and in order to make your own discoveries, you have to see the world laid bare. Make use of both your blood and spirit core to achieve success, control the spirits all around us. It will not only set you on your own path, but it will also be useful in combat."
Orou woke with a start, his mind repeating the information he had heard in his mind. He started to move and as he did, the thin layer of blood fell off of him. He looked around only to see the same scene from before, three rottings bodies and a crater. There was no sign of life around him, no birds chirping, no rabbits hopping about. Orou scanned the area intently, looking for any signs of danger that might be lurking around but after a few minutes, he gave up on the pointless search.
Orou slithered around the battlefield, thinking about everything that had happened so far. After waking up, he felt as if a fog has been lifted from his mind, he could associate words with actions he had seen. Orou realised that the actions of the humans in front of him were as clear as day now, they had "betrayed" each other, the reason being a thing called "greed." Looking back at it, he still believed the actions of these humans to be foolish and illogical
As he reached that train of thought, he felt unexplainable anger start to cloud his mind. Although he had experienced such an emotion before, it has never happened with such an intensity.
A moment later, he was back to normal. He kept recalling everything he had experienced so far and he felt a strong sense of emotion attached to each of his memories. "Love" and "respect" towards his creator, "anger" and "disgust" towards the humans in front of him. This boggled Orou's mind as he had never even felt some of these emotions he was feeling now.
Orou still couldn't wrap his mind around the first part of the sentence in his mind, but as he recalled what the voice said, he started to try and feel around him. Throughout his life, he had occasionally felt things he could not see with his eyes. These small things were present everywhere he went, but he had clearly felt them when his creator was attacked or when the beasts were attacking the humans recently.
He was told to manipulate the spirits around him, but he didn't know how he could do that. He tried everything he could to no avail and finally, the only thing left on his mind was to make the damned spirits move. He willed it with such an intensity that he stumbled back when the spirits actually started to move, floating closer to him, breaking his concentration.
Regaining his composure, Orou cleared his mind of all distractions and willed the spirits to move to him. It was hard, the spirits did not want to move closer to him, in fact, they didn't want to move at all. Orou had to forcibly grab them and make them move closer. They moved at a snail's pace, it seemed like it would take forever for them to arrive near him.
He continued this for a minute and it seemed that the spirits weren't moving at all. Time passed and he grew more frustrated by the second, his mind racing in order to figure out what he was doing wrong. With an even fiercer intensity, he willed with all of his strength for the things to move closer, to approach him and stay there.
This time, something seemed to snap as he felt something inside him boiling. The waves that have been ever present in his body were growing fiercer, slamming against his body from inside. With a burst, the spirits rapidly approached his eyes, making them appear like two blue spheres shining light.
This, however, provoked an even more intense reaction from within him. The waves which were rampaging within his body all had a goal this time as they headed towards his head and towards his eyes. They turned from blue to red in an instant, his mind going blank from this sudden reaction.
All this said and done, both the spirits and the thing inside of him calmed down. He felt a resonance between the spirits and the waves in his eyes. He looked around and saw the things he had been trying to hard to move closer to him. There were small wisps floating in the air, looking like they were constantly moving. Focusing in on one of them, he saw that the spirit was completely blue. Although it was blue, Orou could see through it just like if it was transparent.
Wondering what would happen, Orou willed the spirits to move. It was much easier now that he could actually see the spirit and visualise it in his mind. The spirit in front of him raced through the air before reaching his mouth. He opened it up and willed the spirit to go inside, before closing his mouth once more. Unfortunately, he felt nothing happening, it seemed like he couldn't eat them for breakfast today.
He tried looking at himself to see if he was made out of spirits. It seemed like the spirits were simply phasing in and out of his body. He didn't know how but as he looked at himself, he found himself staring at himself in an out of body experience. He freaked out and moved away from himself, and the feeling that accompanied him moving was excellent, it felt like he was swimming in the air, able to move anywhere he wanted. He circled around himself for a while before carefully inspecting himself.
The most important thing he could see is that in his eyes were two circles. One was blue and the other - red. They were overlapping and constantly rotating around each other. In the middle he saw a complicated formation, it seemed like multiple circles overlapping to form an intricate drawing that made his head spin.
If one were to assume that you had to manipulate spirits and draw this formation close to where his eyes were, he had no idea how he actually managed to do it. He saw that the drawing was faintly covered in blood and the spirits around him were almost attracted to it. Without him having to do anything, the spirits were moving closer to him and staying put in this intricate formation.
Other than that, he tried to look inside of him in order to see what these waves that occasionally helped him were. He tried his best, he even sticked his spirit head inside of his body but in the end, he found nothing of note.
Losing interest in himself, Orou started to freely fly around in the air. The feeling was addicting as he started to fly even higher in the air, but he found out that he couldn't fly higher than 5 meters from his body. It was like there was an invisible barrier around him, he simply couldn't move past it.
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Time passed and Orou felt himself fading from wherever this was. Seconds passed and he found himself back in his body, his mind and body exhausted. He could still see spirits around him, but he felt the blood flowing from his eyes back into his body. He took a last sweep over the battlefield and this time, he actually noticed something. Where the sword once exploded he saw the spirits behaving differently than usual. They were frantically moving around, swirling above the crater.
Orou being a curious snake from birth started to quickly slither to the crater before his spirit vision ended. He stood at the edge of the crater and peered downwards. The spirits were circling around a spot devoid of any spirits. Once more, he slivered down into the crater and looking at the place devoid of spirits. There lay a completely cracked crystal, one which Orou saw shining the brightest on the sword the man he recognised as Markus now held.
He looked closer at the crystal in order to see what was so special about it, but he couldn't see anything special about it now that it was cracked. He prodded it with his head and the second he did, it dissipated to ash before his eyes. Orou looked at the place and saw that it was still devoid of spirits. He felt spirits leaving his eyes so he moved out of the crater, still pondering about why the place was devoid of spirits.
He felt that it was a shame that the bodies were already rotten or else he would have eaten them. Orou noticed that once more, his body had significantly expanded. He was born a month ago, but his body was already over 4 meters long. He figured that he would be able to eat a human if he found one, though he didn't really feel like hunting them because of the advice the voice in his head gave him.
As Orou prepared to move out of this area, he felt an overwhelming sense to devour everything living just to feed himself. He didn't know if it was because of the flower or the spirit vision, but his mind went blank. He had experienced this once before and almost died, so this experience left a deep impression on him. He resisted this urge to the best of his ability, but it seemed like that was not enough as he started sprinting out of this area devoid of life further into the forest.
Once he saw anything moving, he immediately lunged to devour it, often times devouring it whole without killing it first. He made his way forward through the forest, killing even the smallest creatures in front of him. A rabbit was innocently hopping around, minding his own business when Orou shot out like a streak of lightning. His mouth was like an endless black hole as this time, he bit down on the rabbit, piercing through the rabbit's head. The next moment, it was already in Orou's stomach.
Orou was just about to charge forward for his next pray before he felt a burst of wind approaching his back. Although he was not in the right state of mind, his sense of danger was working ever more so than before. Before the wind could reach him, he made the decision to rush forward without looking at his assailant in order to dodge this strike.
It seemed that while Orou was fast, the thing attacking him was even faster. Orou felt talons strike his back, leaving five deep gashes on his body. Orou whipped his head around in order to see who was daring enough to attack him and sure enough, it was the eagle who had harassed him previously.
Intense hatred burned through him, how dare this eagle keep provoking him so many times. Almost instinctively, his vision sharpened and he saw spirits surrounding the eagle's talons. These spirits were spinning at an extremely fast rate as he saw a green light surrounding the eagle's talons. His whole body was covered by a thin layer of spirits, seemingly protecting him.
Orou didn't need a prompt to start attacking. Before the eagle got the chance to fly up and away from him, he felt the thing inside of him roiling and pulsing, almost as if answering to his anger. His vision turned completely red, his body slightly shivering. Time seemed to slow down as Orou shot forwards towards the eagle. He was aiming at a spot that was not protected by the spirits, a spot below his right wing. As he shot forwards, the eagle lifted his right wing as if anticipating his attack and struck out with a talon.
Orou could see that the talon was wicked sharp, he still felt pain from his back from the previous attack. He was gushing blood, but that didn't stop him in the slightest. Seeing that the talon was heading straight towards his head, he shifted his attack towards the eagle's left wing. The eagle's talons struck his body once more, five more deep gashes added to his body as Orou cried out in pain, but his attack arrived a second later. He bit down on the left wing with all the force he could muster, drawing blood and injecting his venom into the eagle.
As he did, he left a surprising amount of resistance from what he could see to be spirits. They were gathering towards the spot where he bit and reinforcing it, but this only gave Orou an opportunity for attack. As he was holding the eagle by his wing and injecting his venom into the eagle's bloodstream, he moved his tail with surprising ease as it picked up speed and shot towards the eagle like some sort battering ram.
Normally, he wasn't able to use his tail for much, but once he woke up, in addition to having grown, he could manipulate his tail with much more ease than before, even being able to use it as a weapon against enemies. The eagle heard a huge whoosh coming from the snake and as he looked over, he could only see a huge tail rapidly approaching him. The eagle flapped his wings in desperation, trying to fly away but Orou was holding onto the eagle's wing and pinning him down.
The eagle could only look with desperation in its eyes as the tail approached him. Orou saw the spirits retreating from the spot he was holding onto with his fangs and spread throughout the eagle's body, but it was far too late for that. The tail hit the eagle with such force that the eagle was blown away tens of meters from Orou, the side that didn't manage to get reinforced by the spirits was crushed into a bloody pulp, the side that did get reinforced wasn't looking much better either.
Orou thought that the battle was over before being shocked, he looked over to the eagle and saw that it was still breathing, though it was losing blood at an alarming rate. Orou could tell that the eagle hated him with all of his might, but he could also tell that the eagle was feeling smug, looking at him like he was a dead snake.
It was too late to notice that in front of the eagle's beak was an overwhelming number of spirits. He had never seen so many gathered in one place, with the exception of the fight in the tower. Orou imminent doom approaching as he darted out of the way of whatever was coming. He didn't get far before he saw a completely green half crescent shooting out towards him faster than his own tail struck at the eagle. In his spirit vision, he saw something weird. The spirits at the edge of the crescent were completely green, their shapes differentiating from the rest of the spirits. They were leaner and taller as multiple green spirits formed a line that was the edge of the crescent. Even without his spirit vision, he saw that this crescent was most certainly not good for him as the edge of the crescent was reflecting the surrounding light, shooting towards him.
At his current rate, he was going to be split in half without any chance to react. Even with the waves inside of him boosting his speed to his limit, he could only get a little bit further before the crescent was already before him, threatening to end his life. Orou had never felt as much panic in his life as he's currently feeling, but his body kept moving forwards despite his hesitation. This was likely how the eagle felt before he had blown it back with his tail
Adrenaline was pumping through his veins as he looked towards the rapidly approaching crescent. His body was working to its limits as another burst of speed came from his body. He managed to get slightly further but it was too late, the crescent had already reached him. Orou watched, almost in slow motion, as his tail was separated from his body. His eyes didn't leave the crescent as it didn't stop there and continued to travel further, cutting apart everything in his path.
A second later, the feeling of shock reached him as he opened his mouth and hissed in pain, blood spilling from the place where his tail used to be. Orou changed his direction and bolted towards the paralyzed eagle. He arrived there a few seconds later and bit into it once more into the eagle. He started to wrap himself around the eagle, crushing it even further than it already was, killing it if it didn't die from blood loss already. He opened up his mouth and started to slowly but surely devour the eagle.
Pain filled seconds passed as he concentrated on devouring this eagle. He got it down relatively quickly before looking back towards the trail of blood he made while charging towards the eagle. He felt something inside of him rapidly sending out waves towards his rear, and each time it did, he felt this pulsing pain.
Having seen the wide variety of beasts that chased after the blood flower, Orou knew that this eagle wasn't one of the apex predators of this forest. He finished his meal, exhaustion was catching up to him after the wave of adrenaline was gone and slowly, he slithered deeper into the forest.