With the ever looming threat of of the rapidly closing encirclement, Aadam decided to make an immensely reckless decision. Rushing forward towards the ghouls, figuring that they would be easier to break through over the hellhounds, he raised his shield forward trying to carve a path to safety. However, rather than his intended result, he was quickly greeted by the hand of failure as he was repulsed back by the outstretched arms of the ghouls, flinging him back into encirclement, demonstrating their strength.
Falling on his back, he was repulsed back into the encirclement, landing him in hot water once again. As the encirclement began to grow tighter and tighter, he scanned his magical reserves once again, they were only about 1/16th full barely able to pull off a tier 1 spell. During his brief moment of distraction, his armor was ripped into by the lunging jaws of a hellhound, who had capitalized on his moment of weakness.
Screaming in pain and frustration, Aadam locked his shield between himself and the hellhound, earning himself what should've been a brief respite. If it had been honorable combat. However, there is no honor, no glory, only survivors. The ghouls ran in from behind, latching onto his blind spots, eagerly tearing away at his flesh.
Furiously roaring, in a mixture of pain and frustration towards his own weaknesses/helplessness he thrashed around, wildly flinging the ghouls away from him. Weary after expending all that effort, he hastily raised his shield fending off yet another lunge of yet another one of the hellhounds.
Tired, exhuastion began to sink in, the adrenaline pumping through his veins tirelessly began to peter out, leaving a husk of a young man, one who has seen to much shit for one day. However, he wasn't given the privilege to rest, sensing his weariness, the wraiths began to approach, further sapping away at his strength. Slowly prying his mind open, to turn into their own fucked up playground.
Aadam was running on fumes at this point now and he knew it. He acknowledged he was stupid to enter here without preparations, he would learn. If he survived that is. Checking his reserves once again, he discovered that during this brief exchange it had barely gotten up to about 1/12th of his total reserves, not that his reserves were anything to brag about mind you.
In a fit of desperation, his mind began to overclock, thinking of various potential ways to hopefully escape, preferably with all of his limbs. However, most his ideas ended with him being devoured whole, him feeling all of the pain. As the circle tightened and more of his stamina sapped away, the pressure began to astronomically rise, causing him to finally develop a feasible idea, one that may or may not blow up in his face, but that was all he had.
Standing up from his crouched position, he began to draw mana not from the environment, but rather from the natural magical bodies of the wraiths. Essentially draining away at the very essences of their existence, converting it into his own power. Drawing their natural magic into himself into order to give a kickstart to his reserves.
With wails of despair the wraiths faded away as their magic was absorbed by Aadam, leaving only the ghouls and hellhounds. Guiding his magic through his body, he let out and arcane burst of energy as he shouted "аркански спукване," disintegrating the various monsters surrounding him.
Seeing the results of his handiwork, he stumbled almost falling to the ground. However, this time, learning from his mistakes, he turned away and fled from the scene, wary of what attention his display may have caused.
Not 1253 meters away, he glanced over his wounded shoulder and bore witness to the cruelty of the Graveyard, nay the world. The undead swarmed the scene if the battle, tearing away at their own kin as if it were the first meal they had in what was probably years. Various other wraiths floated around the battlefield, silently absorbing the miasma of their fallen brethren that Aadam had failed to collect.
Speedily fleeing away from the battlefield, he now turned his ind to greater, more pressing concerns. Shelter. Nowhere was safe within the graveyard, nowhere. Therefore, he would have to find one of the relatively safer locations to hunker down for now.
Pulling out Bixby's map, he began to follow the route to what was marked as the abandoned caves.
Now normally, in a place such as this, typically one would vehemently stay away from any abandoned things, primarily due to their tendency to be haunted. However, in this scenario, there were simply no inhabitants, as noted on the map.
This is because the abandoned caves were actually within the small part of the Graveyard that humanity had been able to reclaim for themselves.
Trekking out, he limped his way to what he hoped would be a safe place to rest. The sights surrounding him began to blur, as his eyes drooped further and further, threatening to close constantly time and time again. However, the dire need for safety/shelter would rear it's head every time that the notion of sleep sprouted. For without a form of shelter, he would quickly be picked apart during the rest of the night. His flesh devoured, without him even knowing a thing. The terror fueled his actions. Every time the sweet lull of sleep would call to him, he would violently shake his head to rouse himself awake, pictures of his gnawed bones scattered throughout the Graveyard, the only testament to his existence, a pitiful legacy, For even bones fade to time.