For a long time, all Don could feel was pain and all he could see was darkness. He was going in and out of consciousness and could barely hear what was going on half the time.
"What should we do with him? should we just dump him somewhere?"
"No, let's wait a bit"
.....
"Here's to getting out of that hell hole!"
""""yeah!""""
CLINK
...
"So are we there yet, I heard that place has the best- Hey, what are we going to do with all this rubbish?"
...
"Let's just sell him off to some merchant, they don't know the difference between art and garbage anyway"
"You're so intelligent Viscount!"
.....
Throughout, whether conscious or not, he kept thinking of Laire village. His parents who just want to live peaceful simple lives, his siblings who were planning to head to adventurer's school, He also thought about Solomon who would be angry if he did not come out and help him fix his sibling's messes and how Malcolm still needed help with the arena. He also had not finished that book he was reading, and he had not yet gone through the awakening ceremony or finished school or given his mom another hug or... or figured out what those scenes meant. Why he awakened his powers early, what even were his powers?
He wanted to know.
"I can't die yet... not until I see the world... for.... her"
Suddenly the image of a girl became clearer than day. She looked like she was in her early 20s, she had a freckled face, green eyes and black curly hair. She was staring straight at Don as she said,
"What is your name?" Than a calm soothing voice answered her.
"I have already told you my name, haven't I?" The girl shook her head.
"No, what is your REAL name?" The man hesitated for a second before putting his hand on her cheek and saying,
"It is whatever you want it to be." The girl looked down in disappointment.
"You said you were leaving soon, could you not at least tell me your real name?" The girl looked hopefully into Don's eyes.
"I cannot tell you my name, as it would draw too much attention but... whenever you need me, just call out for %&$!*#$% and I will be there." The girl looked a little confused.
"Wait what did you say?" The voice chuckled a bit.
"Call me AEGISEUS"
As Don recalled that name, he felt his heart tremble, the blood that was slowly seeping away from his body started to circulate through his veins again. He began to feel the energy in his body glow. Without thinking about it, he began to heal himself.
It was going very smoothly until it got to his chest. The energy inside him started to work crazily to heal him up, his whole body started to glow a bright goldish yellow and a symbol started to appear in his back. The symbol looked like a pair of wings.
After an unknown amount of time, Don finally woke up from his spell.
As he woke up he heard the words he was dreading to hear.
"Beast horde" He could only hear snip bits of the conversation between the merchants, but that was enough for him to become very frightened and concerned.
"It is east at the edge of Vernia...some weird forest or somethin.... heard a child went missing...a horde was approaching.... trying their hardest to evacuate...how many will survive..." Just hearing the conversation pained Don's heart. If only he had been there, he could have warned everyone.
He needed to get there, even if it was late. He needed to help. As his will became stronger, he began to subconsciously use his powers. He needed to get out of the sculptor and so he began to crush the earth bit by bit. As he used the power more, he began to control it better.
Soon he broke free of his shackles and without even looking at the confused people around him, he ran to where he guessed Laire village was.
Or at least that was what he wanted to do but instead of his legs moving a part of him that he had never known existed started to move instead. Wings. Dark grey wings that were moving awkwardly in the sky.
Maybe it was due to seeing the scene of himself flying for many years, or the fact that his head was not screwed straight yet but he just kept on flying and did not think of the details.
After flying for an hour or so he finally realized that what he was doing was abnormal. Humans don't fly-or at least his parents did not fly and that was true to every other human he knew too. Yet here he was flapping his wings although very clumsily.
As his mind wondered, he suddenly saw smoke coming from afar. It was Bloom village, the farthest village from the dark forest.
"I am almost there!" Don exclaimed as he saw the village in the distance. He started to fly even faster in excitement and was planning to pass the village to quickly get to Laire village.
"HELP! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!"
"WHERE ARE THE ADVENTUERS? WE SENT THE CALL HOURS AGO!"
"This is it...it's over. I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"
Don tried to close his ears but the sound of their pain made his heart ache. 'I need to find my family but... I can't just leave them here to die..."
Don hesitated for a long time not knowing what to do. 'Someone will help them I am sure' Don tried to console himself but he knew whatever help was coming was not for a long time.
As Don was about to leave, he saw a man try to protect his son from a horde monster. he only had a kitchen knife in his hand as he fought a level D Tiger Striped Tarantula. The son yelled illogically as he saw his old man being beaten up like a battered toy.
Don who had been ready to turn a blind eye finally broke.
"STOP IT!" He remembered how he would always lend a helping hand without hesitation, he would try to make everyone in his village have easier time. He can't just leave when he sees a person in need.
Suddenly his eyes started to glow a yellowish gold. He raised his hands up as colorless energy started to flow around him.
Involuntarily he turned to the father and son pair and tried to heal them.
The father who was being pushed around like a rag doll suddenly felt a warmth all around his body. This warmth made the pain slowly go away. As he was feeling the calming effects of Don's healing, he was thrown a few meter back by the Tiger Tarantula.
The Tarantula did not even put that man in his eyes and crawled over to the crying boy in the corner.
The man seeing this was filled with rage as he ran towards the Tarantula. The warmth energy coursing through his body immediately became hot as he screamed in anger.
The man tried to harm the Tarantula by stabbing it with his knife. Tarantula sneered as he saw this. There was no way that measly knife could hurt him.
The tarantula unexpectedly felt a sting of pain as the knife pierced through its hard body. It screamed in horror as he realized he was hurt.
The man was also surprised once he realized that he had actually injured him. He did not think about too much though and grabbed his son quickly and left. The tarantula was about to follow him when he was blocked by a flying boy.
"Stop! I-I don't want to hurt you!" Don yelled at the Tarantula.
The Tiger Striped Tarantula looked at Don with interest. ' This meal seems a little tastier' It thought.
It quickly gave chase as it tried to grab onto Don's wings while he was flying away. Don on the other hand tried his best to not get eaten.
Once they had entered a more vacant area, Don stopped. He slowly turned his head to face the monster with a serious glare. He took a deep breath as he steadied his mind. He knew what he had to do. The part of his powers that he was always trying to suppress... he would finally let them out.
As the Tiger Striped Tarantula was nearing closer to Don with a scary face, Don settle to the ground and put his hand on the ground. The energy whirling around his body turned from gold to black and an ominous feeling could be felt around Don. Once the Tarantula felt this presence, he took a huge step back and started to sweat in fear.
It suddenly felt like the positions were switched and now he was the prey. Although this monster was just one of many henchmen and had little say on what he does, he was not foolish enough to go against such an odd creature. He quickly decided to leave and find a weaker snack for him to munch on.
As the Tarantula was crawling away, the trail leading from Don to him started to turn black, as if it was rotting away. As soon as the trail of black reached The Tarantula, he also started to turn black but unlike the ground, it was a living thing. It quickly started to screech for help as it felt its life force being violently sucked away from him.
Where was this energy going to? On the other end of the string, Don's arms became filled with the life force of the Tarantula. As he was being surrounded by new foreign energy, his face started to detort in pain. Although he felt like if he even stopped concentrating for a second, he would die, he still kept going.
It was only a few minutes after the Tarantula was hit by the dark energy that it meekly dropped dead on the ground. Although it was just a few minutes, the amount of brain power used almost drained Don out.
Even though the worst was over, Don could not rest as he felt the power of the Level D Tiger Striped Tarantula coursing through his veins.
Almost like a symbiont, He is able to give others energy, and he is also able to take energies back. Don's body felt really uncomfortable as he felt his whole body's senses heighten. He could hear the sound of monsters coming closer like an avalanche.
15 maybe 20 monsters where at level E while the rest were level G monsters. It seemed that the level D Tarantula was the leader of this horde section but, instead of leading the pack, he decided to wonder off to eat some lunch.
As the horde started to move closer to him, he slowly stood up and stared at them with an air of superiority. Other than the energy, he seemed to have taken a bit of the Tarantula's personality as well.
Don flew up as he spread out his level D energy, easily suppressing the Level G monsters. He then, created golden web like energy and entrapped most of the Level E monsters in webs. Only one of them was able to evade the golden webs.
This monster was known as swift panther. It had white fur, purple eyes and long, quick legs. Although it was not as powerful as most monster, it substitutes that for its sharp claws and stealthy fighting style.
Though Swift panther was at the disadvantage since Don was level D and they were in an open space, Panther did not hesitate to attack. Don tried to dodge the panther's claws only for the panther to move mid attack as it twisted its slender body to give Don a blow.
Luckily, Don's body had also become as tough as the Tarantula or he would have died for the second time this week. Don did not hesitate to bring out the move he had reluctantly learned in martial arts class, Flaming fists. He tried to land a punch to the panther only for the panther to swiftly dodge it. The panther then came back for a slash but it still only left a few scratches.
As the fight continued on, Don could barely land a few blows while the Panther was landing every single attack with ease although he was doing little damage. While Don felt really useless at this moment he continued to persevere.
As the fight went on, the Panther started to become slower, if people did not know any better, they would think that the panther was getting tired. Of course that would be very unlikely seeing as Panthers have large pools of energy and would fight to the death with all their strength.
The Panther was very distressed as the pride of his life, his speed started to slow down while Don was getting faster and faster. He started to land hits, and with The tiger striped Tarantula's strength versing Panther's low constitution, he fight ended quickly once Don started to land some punches.
Don breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the Panther was down. He finally realized how important those martial art lesson were that he never paid attention to. Don quickly shook his head as he tried to calm himself down. He had just killed 2 monster who were way out of his league in a matter of 20 minutes and his hands were still shaking.
Although he had accidently killed creatures before this which allowed him to find out that he could do more than healing, since he had always carried a more passive mindset, he refused to use such powers.
Another reason he never used his powers was that it took a lot of brain power and would give him massive headaches. After sucking the life force of the tarantula, he was already at his limits, even sucking in a little of the panther's speed to get an edge made his head feel like it was about to split open.
Don looked at the monsters caught in webs and sighed in relief. It seemed like they would be stuck like that for a while. Don made sure to trap them in another wrap of golden webs and then flew off to Laire village.
He hoped that he was not too late.