The words in his line of sight made Nash feel both perplexed and muddled, which was somewhat understandable because of many reasons.
First and foremost, his soul, something he until this very moment thought could only exist solely in his body, was teleported or at least pulled into an unknown separate world known as the Forgotten Lands, a place where the only living beings were him and the skeleton!
Secondly, he had to travel three days and three nights straight without rest through different landscapes just to climb a ridiculously huge mountain with a crazily long serpentine staircase on it as a trial, which as a bonus, inflicted an almost unbearable amount of imperceptible pain and torment on him, which almost drove him to the edge of insanity if it were not for his sheer will to keep going and keep focused.
As for the eerie and seemingly eternal light which consumed and erased everything and anything it had engulfed around the Forgotten Lands, Nash could only shake his head helplessly and try not to think about it as it only made him feel an aching headache instead of comfort.
No, what he tried to figure out the most at the moment was something he so far thought was impossible; the way he acquired his newly found power, his Soul Eye!
According to the description inside of his Special Character Status, all of his four special powers that had been yet to be gained could be obtained by challenging The Ancient Path only! Yet, for some unknown reason or because of a miracle, he acquired one of these special powers through a trial in a place which was not even The Ancient Path!
All these things made Nash so baffled that he couldn't even talk or move for more than five minutes as he had to digest and clear his mind as a result!
Only after five entire minutes, when his mind was tranquil once again with all the previous doubts placed into the back of his mind could he take a deep breath and take a closer look at the description of his Soul Eye.
'A power to see the unseen? What should that even mean?' Nash touched his chin as he immersed himself into his thoughts, but as he couldn't come up with a reasonable explanation he just sighed in his heart and decided to activate his Soul Eye to find out the truth.
Whoosh!
Immidieatly, a strange tingling sensation that was neither painful nor comfortable appeared in his right eye while the scenery around him seemingly remained the same as it was.
'Strange... Except for this scarcely irritatable sensation in my right eye, there doesn't seem to be any change at all. Not even my sight got sharper or my vision larger, maybe it is a defective ability?' as such thoughts emerged in his mind, suddenly he felt a soft tug on his arm, making him shift his attention to the side, only to see as Amy looked at him right in the eye with her pretty silver eyes akin to two silver stars.
"We need to go. It seems several beasts on the Warrior Rank are approaching our location, their numbers rather high according to Erys." Amy said calmly with her indifferent face, but when she saw Nash showing no sign of moving or reacting to her words, she frowned and raised her hand to see if he was even listening or not.
However, just the moment she raised her hand, Nash suddenly moved too and grabbed her by the wrist, catching her completely off her guard!
"N-Nash? W-What... What are you doing?!" Amy stuttered with widened eyes as she watched Nash intensely staring at her hand, almost akin to someone who just saw another being's hand for the first time.
Nash on the other hand didn't reply to Amy's question as he simply was too immersed in the sight in front of him and just held Amy's hand in his hold while turning it here and there slowly.
"No... Something is not right. I could swear I saw it so why can't I see it now?" Nash muttered quietly under his breath as he loosened his grip on Amy's wrist and after pondering for a while he said calmly, "Can you please move your hand again?"
Amy seemed hesitant at first but seeing as Nash's attention was solely on her hand without caring about her previous warning, she clenched her teeth and quickly waved her hand from side to side.
"This..." Nash's eyes immediately widened and watched with stupefaction as every time Amy's hand moved, another hand with the same shape but in a half-transparent state as hers materialized out of her hand, moving before her real arm in the same direction!
But the greatest part was not that, but the moment where the translucid hand suddenly stopped moving and began to change directions while the real hand followed suit in the very next second and tracked the translucent hand's route almost like it was dragged on a string or something like that!
Only when the half-transparent hand stopped completely next to Amy's side and the real hand caught up with it did everything go back to normal, but even then only for a split moment as the next one Nash saw something that shook him to the very core!
Observing everything with his right eye, Nash watched as a second Amy with an identical shape and look but with a translucid form got separated from Amy's real body and moved backward, only to be followed by her real body and merge in the next second!
"Nash... Are you feeling... okay?" while Nash watched all this with a somewhat stupefied expression, Amy asked with a slightly anxious face, thinking that Nash was acting slightly creepy ever since he regained his consciousness, especially with his intense stare and eerie silence.
"Huh? What? Yeah, I am feeling great, why?" Nash snapped back to reality when he heard Amy's question and quickly deactivated his Soul Eye to avoid the essence in his body getting depleted.
"So you finally decided to come back from your daze, huh? Great, now we can go." as Amy and Nash looked at each other in silence, suddenly Erys' figure appeared between them out of thin air, her crimson eyes peering into the distance with slightly squinted eyes.
"Amy said a few beasts are approaching us. Why didn't you take care of them already then? With your strength, it should be child's play, no?" Nash asked as he shifted his gaze toward the direction where Erys looked at, but alas, as he had no power to see through the dense forest in the distance he could only shake his head and glance at Erys instead.
"A few?" Erys showed a cold smile when she heard this and said indifferently, "There are more than a hundred beasts in less than a mile away! Although they move rather slowly, if we won't move now, they will definitely reach us about in ten minutes! If you think that I can fight against a hundred while protecting the two of you at that time even though I am a full Rank above them, you think too highly of me."
When Nash heard Erys, he looked slightly surprised but once he thought about it and realized she was right, he quickly regained his calm and indifferent complexion before nodding, "I see, then we should get going. We will come back later."
Thus, without wasting any more time as he already wasted a lot until now, Nash began to run with Erys and Amy following him closely from behind and the three didn't stop until they have finally arrived back at the palace.
"Welcome back! How was the trip outside? Found anything useful?" once the three arrived back at the underground palace, Uncle Ben waited for them at the entrance with a wide smile that made Nash smile slightly but made Amy's small lips form a grimace like she just saw a gross cockroach crawl out of a hole on the ground.
"Not really, or at least at the moment I don't know if I should consider what we have found outside something as a good thing or not," Nash said with a shrug and as he looked around, asked, "Anyways, did you succeed with what I have asked you to do?"
Ignoring Amy's disgusted look on his skin, Uncle Ben nodded with the same smile and said, "Although there are still two more branches, I am mostly done, yeah. You won't be disappointed in the candidates."
"Perfect." Nash showed a thankful look when he heard his uncle's words and quickly said, "Erys will help you with the rest so don't be shy to use her help. "
"Haha, I won't." Uncle Ben showed an even wider grin and after exchanging a few more words with Nash he walked away with Erys on his side while Nash did the same, but instead of following his uncle his destination this time was his room; too many things happened today and he had to clear his mind before attempting to proceed on.
As for Amy, she just merely stood where she was, her eyes flickering with different emotions from the many unknown thoughts in her mind as she watched Nash's figure disappearing among the walls of the palace in the distance.
* * * * *
A/N: Hope you like the story, if you do make sure to vote and leave your comments behind! <3