In that split second Fergus immediately shouted deep in his head.
'Shadow Shift!!' In a moment between life and death, his consciousness cleared like never before as he performed the prosaic level combat tactics he had trouble executing in the past.
Tendrils of darkness wrapped around his legs like thick, unrelenting vines.
Immediately, overwhelming sensations filled his mind as he could feel every single shadow in the surroundings every single layer of shadow casted behind every single thing in the environment a few meters.
Deluding him into thinking he was a god for that split millisecond, it was a one in a life time opportunity that all awakened desperately seek but couldn't hope to find in their lifetime.
If he could savour the moment, just a little longer, he would be greatly enlightened.
Calling him a sage would be considered ludicrous. In a moment between life and death, he broke through.
But sadly, if he had waited just a little longer, he would undoubtedly die and very miserable at that.
Not waiting to savour the moment, he focused his mind to the shadow casted directly behind the old man as his tendrils of darkness surrounding him coiled around his legs like tiny wires.
Once the tiny tendrils immersed into his legs, his currently faint black coloured legs, suddenly buzzed.
His leg muscles vibrated at a very extreme high frequency sometimes and then a low frequency soon after.
His muscles constantly oscillating between a high and a low frequency in a non rhythmic technique.
He focused all his attention on feeling the shadow flickering behind the old Man. Then just like that, he vanished.
Shua!
His figured flickered as the terrifying bullet missed him by a millisecond. He disappeared from his spot.
The moment Fergus disappeared, the silhouette of a person was revealed, as Fergus figure was blocking the person. But now that he had moved, the person behind him was instantly revealed.
It was Archie!!
Archie was heading straight for yhe serum with his hands in the air focus was set on retrieving the serum in the air regardless of the risks involved.
As if he felt something, Archie's eyes immediately cleared as his pupils moved ahead. He watched in despair as the bullets came for him.
Archie still recalled the voices of those who he called family and those he chose as friends.
When he informed them of his dreams to become an awakened, expecting their unconditional support but instead, he received their contempt and disdain The cost involved to raise an awakened is an astronomical figure.
Impossible for a normal household to afford. The cost of an ordinary bloody orb would bankrupt any rich household.
Arch obtained the bloody orb fragment working as a scavenger. It was a normal day as usual. He went and searched through the garbage site hoping to find something valuable.
He was usually lucky sometimes, and would find something worth at most two geno point.
At the time, when he found the blood fragment he didn't know what it was as it looked red and also very solid appearing like the fragments of a brick although he was ignorant but inclined with his habits he kept it in his bag together with some other things he couldn't recognize.
After a week of getting people to appraise it, and people naming it as just a fragment of a piece of brick. He gave up, believing it to be a fragment off a piece of brick.
Yet, he was on a channel, looking to entertain himself after working. He mistakenly saw a station which described vividly how to recognise a bloody orb with a simple indicator_.
Firstly_ The colour if a bloody orb is obviously red.
Secondly_ A bloody orb is in the shape of an orb.
Thirdly_ A bloody orb has a soft and hard texture to it. Touching it would feel like jelly.
And lastly,
By submerging the orb directly into a pool of blood.
If the pool of red blood turns turns crystal clear, then it might just be a bloody orb, If there is no reaction, it is certainly not a bloody orb.
It was an hypothesis the author came up with through stumbling on some important files but no one would be Willing to take such risk just for some hypothesis they saw in the internet.
They could either die, or break the bloody orb, losing an astronomical sum of points.
Arch saw the post, although he felt skeptical about it, he recalled owning several orbs which he found at the junk yard.
He recalled going out in a hurry, although he couldn't be called rich, he wasn't all that poor either. Also getting several pints of animal blood wasn't hard at all. He just needed to beg the butcher who resides three streets ahead of his.
Getting the blood and separating them into 3 Paul's of blood, he straightforwardly searched for the five red coloured orbs, he placed one orb each into the three bucketss of available blood waited eagerly for miracles to happen.
But sadly enough, after an hour of no reaction, no, there was a reaction...
They melted inside the blood after an hour which is quite laughable since that wasn't the reaction he expected. he realised today wasn't his lucky day.
Placing the remaining two orb inside a new pail of blood, his eyes inadvertently caught sight of what was appraised to be a brick fragment.
He shrugged, he might as well try it out. He immersed it in a pool of blood, when suddenly, it wasn't even five seconds yet the colour in the blood started fading at an exponential rate. Turning into a transparent liquid in thirty seconds.
Back then, Archie froze in shock for over an hour before coming back to his senses.
He had thought about the scorn he received. Now, he would prove to everyone that as long as he persists, he could achieve anything.
The little flame of hope that was almost extinguished from his heart rekindled into a blazing glow.
That day was considered the happiest and important day of his life.
But now,
Death!