The hand lowered gently until the finger touched Veric's forehead and a pulse of energy traveled along the arm into him. The beasts around him seemed to be wary of the floating arm and were blocked by an invisible barrier every time one of them gathered enough courage to attack. Veric noticed this and felt slightly relieved, but this was short lived because a strong pulse traveled down the arm, causing a burst of pain. "W-what did you do? My head feels like it is about to burst!" The voice responded in an enthusiastic manner with laughter sprinkled in between, "That's because it is Ric. I put a little origin energy in your Pituita- no you call it the Vital Core, where sorcery originates from. This is the pure energy that controls the creation and destruction of- nevermind that's not important. Right now you should begin channeling it to your heart before it melts your brain, it's not exactly meant for this type of application." Veric could almost hear the voice smiling as it finished speaking which drew his attention away from the pain enough to give him time to glare in it's direction.
He then closed his eyes and focused on the foreign energy thrashing around in his head. It was extremely tyrannical, pushing and devouring the sorcery energy that was already present, growing bigger as it fed. Veric heard the voice quickly comment, "Oh to channel it, just imagine it being guided to your heart on train tra-, em carriage roads!" Ignoring the first thing that the voice half-said because it made no sense, he imagined building pathways for the energy to travel on that led to his heart. He didn't believe that the voice would try to kill him in a roundabout way when the wolf beasts would have done just as good a job without it's intervention. Slowly the energy started traveling on the imagined path and leaving the head , lightening the pressure but everywhere it touched as it was moving seemed to burn, twist, and change.
'This is the power of the Origin energy I stole, it can create where nothing exists and destroy until there is nothing.' the voice thought with non-existent eyes that glowed with excitement and anticipation. 'It's tyrannical nature can't be tamed by just anyone. The person needs strong conviction and most of all, the will to endure the pain of wielding it. Please, finish it!' Veric was echoing that last sentiment because the pain of the burning energy was proving to be too much for the young, starving, and mutilated boy. The last part of the pathway that would connect the vital core and the heart would not materialize no matter how hard he tried. 'It won't go! Come on, move!' The voice was watching the struggle and lost hope. 'Damn it, this is my only chance, I need him to make it!' "Do it boy, this is the chance you need to do what you said you would before! Use those feelings, use the rage you felt!"
Veric started feeling the hatred burning opposite to the energy in his heart. He thought of the faces that Anthony and Rachel made towards him. He thought of the gods who were responsible for putting him in this situation. He kept feeding the hatred in his heart until it turned into a blazing rage. Almost as if it found the most delicious food in the world, the Origin energy rushed to the heart and merged with it, completing the pathway. Veric felt the connection being made as his heart changed. The flesh started being covered by black veins that slowly pulsed to a different rhythm than the heart, drawing in a formless and colorless energy in miniscule amounts that permeated through the body. As the energy touched the wounds it stopped some of the bleeding, just enough to keep Veric from dying of blood loss.
Veric was trying to focus on the new feelings in his body when he snapped open his eyes and heard a panicked voice shout, "I used too much energy, I can't keep the wolf beasts away for much longer!!" At that time the floating arm dispersed and the barrier keeping them at bay lost stability for a moment and a wolf beast with one eye rushed in before the barrier went back up. Veric faced the wolf beast while backing away in the direction of the crevice. He could now barely feel how much the beast hated him, and he could tell that it wouldn't let him go too easily if it caught him again. In a quick motion, Veric dove backwards, hoping that his bloodied and mangled legs will give him enough distance to make it to the crevice. The wolf beast saw the target of its hatred about to get away and pounced with all its strength. As they both neared where they wanted most, the wolf went to close its jagged teeth on Veric's leg. Veric stomped on the beast's snout, propelling himself into the crevice completely with the remnants of his upper arm and shoulder grinding against the tight walls, painting them with blood. Swallowing down his pained cries, he kept moving forward while listening to angered howls echo behind him.
After crawling for about five minutes with no sounds of being pursued, he felt safe enough to stop and rested his back against the wall that had a sort of glowing moss growing on it. After a short time when he caught his breath, he weakly raised his right hand and with effort, released the bone shard. It fell with a light clatter on the floor and the blood that covered it glistened in the ambient moss light with it being unknown if it was mostly his or the wolf beasts. Now that he had time, he opened his hand with his palm facing down and activated his sorcery. As bandages, ointment, a couple vials of brownish-red liquid, a small bag of rations, and a large bag of water materialized, he smirked. "These damn collars and control devices never completely worked on me." "What do you mean?" a voice asked next to him. Veric looked over and jerked his body to the left which made him fall down because of the lack of an arm to catch himself.
To his right there was a young woman that looked to be a few years older than him, giggling at his comedic display. "Are you talking about that collar and this remote?" she pointed at his neck with one hand and with the other held a familiar looking device. Veric couldn't help but shudder upon seeing the controller, not even noticing the attractive appearance of the woman. He alternated between staring at the young woman and the device before answering, "Yes, that remote controls this collar which has an energy stone embedded in it. When the device is used, the collar turns on and forces the activation of sorcery. May I have it back?" The young woman handed it to him and asked with slight concern in her voice, "Does it hurt?" Veric grabbed it hastily, upturned his hand and it disappeared. After it was gone he breathed a sigh of relief and started using the water in the water sack to clean his wounds while talking to the woman. "It uses energy that didn't come from the vital core but from the crystal, I was told that it hurts because the crystals come from beasts and beast energy isn't compatible with people."
After he said that, he had finished cleaning the dirt and semi-dried blood out of the wounds. He reached over and grabbed a vial of the brownish-red liquid and opened the metal cap. Before he drank the liquid he stared at the vial and thought of Josh, he was the medic for the team and this was all his equipment. He taught Veric a little first aid and about the health potions that he made himself. They weren't high quality or great at all but he would always say with a flashy and slightly crooked smile, 'They are good enough to keep the person alive while we run around like headless chickens looking for a real health potion or healer!' Veric felt a lump in his throat and stinging in his eye as he swallowed the bitter medicine along with the memories, feeling the fire in his heart flicker as he also remembered the ones who betrayed him.
He was feeling the poor healing process when he was brought out of his stupor by a question from the woman. " So you said that the collar doesn't completely work on you, why is that?" "My name is Serena by the way, not that you asked!" She added in an irritated tone. His eye twitched a little as he thought, 'I am busy trying to make it to where you won't be talking to just a corpse in a few minutes.' "Every different type of sorcery has unique attributes, I know that some fire users can shoot fire out of their hand, some their mouths, and some...can bind it to things like knives in the form of runes to make a throwable bomb." his eyes flashed as he explained and his heart fire grew a little. He continued, "My dimensional sorcery allows me to have access to a medium sized pocket space, about 5 cubic meters, and I am able to store alive and not alive stuff like animals, plants, and rocks. Though if i keep them in for too long the animals might starve. My special attribute is that I have one cubic meter of space that whatever I store in there will have it's time frozen, even fire. Anything in there can't be forced out."
After seeing him struggle to tend to his wounds with his one hand and the end result failing to resemble anything that looked to be first aid, Serena took the ointments and bandages and started applying it for him. After a little resistance in the beginning he allowed her to help, mostly because the pain from the wounds and the medicine was making it hard for him to even touch them. He looked at her as she worked for a while until he couldn't hold back his questions anymore. "Why are you helping me? Who exactly are you? Your voice sounds like the one I heard in the cavern that belonged to an energy beast." She looked at him as though he was stupid before rubing in the ointment in a light wound a little harder than necessary. "Rude little shit, I am not a beast and you should know that I used a lot of energy just to help you and give you the origin seed I valiantly stole!! As for helping you, I hoped that you would be the best person to help me with something." Veric sat up and looked her clear in her eyes, "Why me though?" She looked at him and reached out with her hand. He saw it clearly and as it touched his chest he noticed it was slightly transparent. "Because of what is in here. There is one thing that makes us the same Veric." Her voice deepened and a small but terrifying smile crept along her face. "I want to kill the gods too."