With one last heave with the shovel, and a final pat on the loose dirt, was the grave finished. Taking a deep breath, Clay placed his hand on the massive oak tree, underneath laid the body of Jim. He formed his palms into a prayer.
He was by now means a religious person, but it felt right at the moment to pray for Jim to have a successful passing – not that he knew what came after death – he just hoped that Jim found a peaceful place he could finally rest at. Kneeling down, he touched the crude cross, made out of thick branches. There was not much more he could do in his current situation.
“You can rest at ease here. May this tree protect your grave, until your soul passes on.”
He sat there kneeling for a moment, listening to the sound of the wind and the chirping of the birds in the distance. It was these serene moments of calm that provided him the respite to his worries. If he could, he would have stayed longer, but he still had to find Mia – if she was still alive, that is.
He said he would protect and care for her, but he wouldn’t be as foolish, as to not consider that she could be dead. Over the last few hours – since he survived the encounters with the ants – became his memories clearer. They were still disorientated, but he realized that it was very unlikely for Mia to have survived so long on her own.
Looking around himself, he could see how the leaves lost their luster, and how it grew colder. It seemed like they were already in the middle of autumn. Concentrating he tried to remember, when all of this began…
It took him a few good seconds of thinking, but eventually he remembered. He wasn’t sure about the date, but he knew it was the end of spring, when that light came and changed everything.
So about four months have passed since then, maybe longer. Sighing, he decided to not think about it. He just had to go to the city and find out for himself if she was still there. But only tomorrow, the sun was already setting and his injuries, were still not healed. Especially, the venom coursing through his system was a real problem. He was glad that burning essence helped his body in cleansing the venom, because if not, he wouldn’t know what he would have done against it.
He dragged his battered body back to the village, his hand resting on the makeshift handle of wood, that he made for the black sword from the royal guard. It proved to be a pretty good weapon, so he decided to use it as a replacement for his shattered arming sword.
Choosing an intact building in the outskirts of the village, he decided to settled down there for the night. His abode for the night was a room on the first floor. Sitting down on the bed and relaxing his muscles, he realized how tired he was.
If he laid down and closed his eyes, he was sure to immediately fall asleep, but he still had to test something. Sitting crossed legged on the bed, he closed his eyes, feeling inside of him. Quickly, his surrounding diminished, sounds muffled, as he felt his own heart.
Inside his heart was, something that appeared in Clay’s vision to be something like a lake. He couldn’t physically see it, but in his mind it was a beautiful blue lake, that shimmered from time to time, like a jewel. This lake was his essence, somehow securely stored in his heart, unable to escape.
Concentrating deeper, he felt a swirling mass of light blue surroundings his heart, flowing around it similar to that of a river. If he waited long enough, he would witness how a drop gradually formed from this river. With time, it would condense to become as pure as the lake below, and eventually fall down, fusing with it. This liquid was concentrated essence.
Even with hazy memories, he had recognized this energy in an instant, memories emerging of him testing a great deal of things with it. Most of its capabilities still eluted him, but condensing raw essence that acted similar to gas into a liquid was well in his capabilities.
Focusing inwards, he tapped with his mind into the liquid, willing for it to burn. In a flash, the liquid ignited like oil, forming an ethereal flame. When his heart bumped, stuck a part of his essence tightly to his blood cells, being carried along his veins through his whole body.
While the liquid burned and expended itself, he could feel how the river surrounding his heart accelerated, moving faster to replenish what was burned. The essence continued to slowly burn as it was carried through his body, releasing a strong energy that filled his body with strength. His previous tired state was immediately pushed away, as his head cleared and his muscles rejuvenated. Tensing them, he could feel the inhuman strength that laid hidden.
In other parts, helped the essence with the recovery of his body, burning the venom that was scattered through his body, while in other parts it stuck to cells, accelerating cell division helping immensely in recovery.
While most of his essence stayed in his body, some was given to the atmosphere, similar to vapor from a boiling kettle. This vapor was the substance that eventually formed his aura.
Essence can help in both destroying and creating matter – of which Clay didn’t know yet what the long term consequences were – but for now it was the only tool he had to his disposal to give him an advantage over the physically superior beasts.
As his memories recovered, so did his dormant passion for this mysterious energy. Compared to others were the current events not something that bothered him much. He didn’t really understand it himself, but once the grieving for that what he lost passed, remained only one thing – wonder.
He was always interested in the supernatural and being able to learn it first hand? The feeling was hard to describe, which was also why he was so thankful for Jim – he was the reason he survived after all.
No matter, the important thing was that Clay knew (thanks to his rather obsessive interest) quite a lot about essence. There were still large holes in his memories, but those would return eventually. The thing he already remembered, were the two most important techniques he learned over the past four months: aura and enhancement.
That was at least how he called it. Enhancement was just the burning of liquefied essence, the very process he was currently undergoing to cleanse his body from the venom of the ant. The effect of enhancement was simple, as it improved overall physical capabilities for as long as he could burn essence.
Aura on the other hand was a lot more complicated. It was a by product of burning essence, a formless mass of essence similar to that of vapor or mist. It could be influenced and guided around his body, which always functioned as an anchor.
With his body as anchor, rotated a swirling mass of essence about a meter away from his body, his aura. He wasn’t able to see essence, but he could clearly feel it.
It felt like a cooling breeze was surrounding him, clutching close to him, like mist that followed wherever he went. Being surrounded by aura always felt comforting, especially for someone like him, who was so sensitive towards feeling essence.
In truth, it wasn’t all that complicated. It just followed its own rules, and only once it began to burn did inexplicable things happen.
Yawning, Clay stretched his tired body, he could experiment with his aura another time. His body was by now mostly cleansed of the venom, and he felt comfortable enough to sleep without fearing to succumb to the venom.
Finally closing his eyes after an eventful day, he could feel how his consciousness promptly slipped away. Besides all that happened, there was a slight smile on his face.
******
Snapping his eyes open, awoke Clay abruptly from his slumber, frantically observing his environment. Noticing that he was still fine and didn’t lose another arm in his sleep, he sighed in relief. Despite being relatively sure that he wouldn’t be attacked, he still felt thankful for not being awakened by some beast, that tried to devour him in his sleep.
Stretching his stiff body, he felt like a newborn baby. It was surprising what a good amount of sleep could do sometimes. Feeling inside of him, he knew that the venom completely vanished from his system. His outer wounds, had all formed a thick layer of scab, while the skin beneath began to heal.
He could definitely fight without problems. Having confirmed that his body was in acceptable condition, he began to scavenge the house for anything remotely useful, on the top of the list being clothes – his current ones were after all covered in blood and torn all over.
Stolen story; please report.
Thankfully, he found what he was looking for without a problem and was even able to find a set that fitted him quite nicely. That out of the way, he grabbed his bag, throwing it over his left shoulder – still irritated by his lost arm, that made it quite hard to comfortably hold onto the strap. There was not much he could do besides adapting to the loss. His right arm had to stay free so he could move in the case of an attack.
It’s true what they say. You only realize how important something was to you once you lose it. Shaking his head, he tried to see the positive. It could have been a lot worse, if he for example lost his right arm, (which was his dominant one), as this would have given him a lot more problems. It was no joke how heavily he leaned to using his right arm, so he was grateful that at least his ‘inferior’ arm got lost.
Besides, it wasn’t all bad he still had a stump to wiggle around, which was at least enough to keep the strap from slipping away from his shoulder. Holding on to said strap, he checked his equipment one last time.
On his left side were his sword and dagger strapped to his belt. On the right, he had a hammer that could be useful as a last resort weapon, but mainly to quickly build some sort of shelter. For the same reason were some nails and string in his bag, with all sort of other stuff, but mostly food.
On the point of food, Clay couldn’t remember the last time he ate so much. He had now ravaged through a few houses and must have devoured something close to ten thousand calories. He faintly remembered that he had done something similar in the past, but he couldn’t quite recall it, seemed like it wasn’t something he really wanted to remember.
Being satisfied with his equipment, he finally had everything prepared and was ready to look for Mia. Cautiously making his way out of the village, he felt inside of him tapping into his lake of essence and setting it ablaze, mentally trying to guide the mist outwards.
After a few seconds, he stopped holding the essence that left his body in place, forming his aura. It had a size of about three dozen meters.
If he had to concentrate on other things, he wouldn’t be able to hold his aura so far from his body, but just walking didn’t take much concentration. It was a bit risky, but he decided to fully trust his aura, not paying much attention to his other senses. If he remembered correctly, then not many beasts should be able to hide their aura.
Like this, he carefully entered into the forest, striding along the road that lead back to the city of Churchville. By now the road was already covered by small grasses and bushes and it some cases it split open, revealing the green that grew underneath.
The roads between Churchville and the few villages surrounding it never got much attention, so it wasn’t a surprise to him that they broke quickly. It also seemed like many beasts were still avoiding the road, or they just moved away, due to the threat of the ants.
But he wasn’t worried, with their queen dead, they would slowly go extinct over time by the other beasts roaming the forest. They had no means to reproduce and without commander ant, they weren’t, that well organized. He had only ever seen two, so he felt relatively sure that not many remained.
Besides his expectations, he reached the outskirts of Churchville without encountering even a single beast. That was quite the surprise for him. He knew that he wouldn’t encounter many, because of the mentioned threat of the ants, but not even finding a single one was more than a little ominous.
Well, he couldn’t really complain about reaching Churchville easily, so he entered the city without prolonging it any longer. Compared to the village, was the city in an even worse state. Several houses were in ruins and nature seemed to take the place over just, as quickly as in the village.
Further in, he noticed how the surrounding green became scarcer. The inner city seemed to be still untouched, by nature. Sadly, the countless bones littering the street didn’t help in relieving any of his worries. Who could possibly survive in such an environment?
Nonetheless, he kept on going deeper and eventually found something out of place. The corpses or more accurately the remains of various beasts began to litter the streets, but strangely they were not eaten, which was unusual compared to the other remains he had seen that were eaten down to the bone.
They rotted, and the stench was almost unbearable, even for corpses did they smell strangely strong. Even more peculiar, were the strange deep purple patches that covered each of the corpses, as if they had some kind of disease before dying–
His thoughts were abruptly interrupted, when he smelled something sweet. At first, it appeared pleasant, almost comforting, but it quickly became cloying, going from pleasant to straight up sickening.
The foul stench of corpses was swept away in an instant, replaced by this new odor that felt disturbingly out of place. His unease deepened, the harmless sweetness now laced with a sense of dread. With each breath, the smell intensified, morphing from sweet to a burning sensation in his nostrils, as if the very air had turned toxic.
His vision blurred, and he became lightheaded. With another breath, he lost his balance and fell to the ground. Something was very wrong.
He didn’t quite recall what he was doing here, or who he even was, but instinctively he reached inside him, tapping into the lake in his heart. From one moment to the next it awakened to life, burning intensely, as newfound energy was carried through his body, clearing his mind.
Pulling himself from the ground, he puked a mouthful of blood, that was way too thick for his liking, while the surface of it shined in an unnatural purple. He was poisoned with something and without losing another thought he tensed the muscles in his legs and shot off straight to the direction where he came from.
No wonder the city and its surroundings were abandoned, the city was a fucking toxic wasteland! As if struck by lighting, Clay remembered, My sister's condition is rather particular, she is breathing poison– How could he forget something so important?! The reason why Mia wasn’t with Jim to begin with was, because she was surrounded by a thick smog of deadly poison.
Touching over his nose, Clay’s saw his hand stained in a crimson red. It seemed like this poison only grew stronger over time, and he of course had to breathe a shit ton of it. This whole situation was just great.
How could he be so carless and stupid? Shaking his head, he concentrated on getting as far away as possible. His breath sounded like that of a horse that ran for hours, when he finally reached the outskirts of the city.
The poison overwhelmed him the moment he entered the region with the strange corpses, so he felt safe in the outskirts that were several hundred meters away. Breaking down onto a beautiful chestnut brown couch, he bled all over it in seconds. Not only his nose, but his eyes and ears too, bleed, which was more than a little worrying.
His whole body felt like it was boiling from the inside out, and he panicked. He didn’t know what to do, the poison just spread too quickly for him to react. Should he try to find some antidote? No, the poison was of supernatural origin, some random antidote would do nothing.
He had no other option, but to rely on his enhancement and hope that it could cleanse the poison. Lying on the couch, he concentrated inwards, steadily continuing to burn his liquified essence.
As long, as it burned, he should be able to survive. With this in mind, passed time. Clay couldn’t tell how much – too engrossed in keeping the fire inside of him burning – it could have been mere minutes or hours.
He soon only had half of his essence remaining, his situation unchanged. He had to do something, so he just felt deeper inside of him, not only concentrating on his heart but observing his whole body.
It took time, but eventually he noticed what looked to be a deep purple patch of sludge burning hidden besides his lungs, slowly absorbing the surrounding essence. Witnessing this, it dawned on him. No wonder the situation didn’t change! This poison absorbed his own essence to fuel itself.
If he hadn’t found out about this, then he would have unknowingly continued to feed the poison exhausting himself, until he would be dead. He was desperate, so he tried all sort of things, like pushing the poison out or stopping his enhancement, but nothing worked. The only option left was to somehow overpower it.
At some point, he focused all of his attention onto his own essence, willing the surrounding essence that flowed through his veins to gather.
At first, the essence only flickered, but soon they flowed together, fusing into a bigger source. Directing them, he surrounded the batch of poison, quenching it from all sides. The purple sludge burned intensely trying to desperately defend itself, but it was overwhelmed soon enough.
With rejuvenated hope, Clay continued to find and quench every source of poison he found. His whole body sweating, feeling like he was getting eaten from the inside out. Each batch of poison he cleansed caused a deep sting of pain.
But he ignored it, he had no other choice but to continue, if he wanted to live. He could accept dying in battle, but not like this! Not by some poison! He continued to burn his essence until he finally noticed an effect and felt his symptoms alleviating.
When he only had a quarter of his essence left, he saw a change. His essence was beginning to slowly absorb the poison too. Additionally, he could feel how the river surrounding his heart shrunk, as it was refined into more liquid he could burn.
When only a tenth of his essence remained, did he realize that the river surrounding his heart, was almost completely dried up. The once grand river was by now reduced to a mere stream. His essence and the poison were in a desperate struggle, like that of two armies refusing to give ground, his body their battlefield
Once his essence lowered even further, felt Clay, his body weakening considerably. He laid on the couch, which was by no drenched in a color of red. His breath strained, and his skin searing hot.
The fight continued on, and he lost track of how much time passed long ago – just focusing in directing his essence wherever he found the poison – until something finally changed. All the poison gathered in his chest, near his heart, like a mass of death that tried to consume him whole.
With one last strain, he willed all of his essence to surround his heart in a circle. At some point, neither the poison nor his own essence seemed to gain any ground, unable to defeat the other. He was barely able to keep conscious.
As both continued to absorb each other happened something unexpected as they began to fuse and condense, but he was finally unable to keep awake, falling into darkness, as his consciousness slipped away.
