{[ February 22, Monday, Early Morning, The Devil's Hour ]}
{[ Harmonic Knight Camp ]}
Athelei was staring at his own sleeping body.
He studied his own fair skin, obsidian-black hair, and cheerful facial features.
"Is this what it means to be a Nightwalker?" murmured Athelei, which promptly shocked himself in the process.
'I can speak?' he then thought, not wanting to be accidentally heard. 'Curious and curiouser,'
Athelei took a deep breath and closed his 'eyes.' He observed the state of his being and discovered that he was but an amalgamation of fog and smoke given human shape.
Every breath he took made the fog stir and flow.
Every word he tried to speak resounded throughout his body.
'This is my consciousness brought into the physical world and given form... Albeit lacks the raw complexity of my original soul.' Athelei drifted about his small tent as these thoughts were weighed by his consciousness.
He floated up in down as a grey and formless being. His humanoid presence could be dissolved into a fog that simply lingered in the air—suspended and motionless.
Athelei then allowed himself to flow outside his tent and around the silent camp. He spread himself thin as his body darkened under the dark veil of night. He moved as stealthily as a literal breeze, weaving between all the different tents and brushing over the heads of guards on patrol.
"What an interesting ability. It's heavily dependent on the strength of one's soul and spirit... which for me is my consciousness." Athelei's foggy body suddenly smiled as it floated in the sky.
Lips as grey as the dead's and teeth as white as moonlight... floating peacefully in the sky and curved like a crescent moon.
Creepy? Perhaps.
Though as Athelei played around with this newfound power, he espied movement from within the shadows.
'Hm?' Athelei was intrigued and he once more spread himself thin and flowed to where he spotted movement.
He then watched;
A trio clad in darkness, with footsteps that made not a single sound nor displaced a single piece of stone, crept along with the veiling darkness.
In their hands were daggers that looked akin to glass—transparent and beautiful. A subtle green glow flowed across its edge, bringing it a malevolent aura.
Athelei followed unnoticed as he continued to observe.
The trio continued on their trip and pierced through the Knights' camp until a fairly large tent came upon their path. The faint light of a torch lit up the inside.
They surrounded the tent without pause...
...And stepped straight through the cream-coloured fabric.
Athelei was surprised and attempted the same. He found himself capable of a similar ability.
'Fellow Nightwalkers?' Athelei asked himself and then noted, 'We're so different despite having similar abilities.'
Truly they were. One was an abstract presence, barely humanoid the majority of the time, and free-flowing.
The others were nearly solid. They took the form of humans and didn't seem capable of dissolving. They were rigid.
Athelei's thoughts ran these comparisons as he moved through the tent's walls. He felt the cold and moist characteristics of the fabric when he did so.
The sight occurring inside the tent was a fun development that pleasantly surprised him.
.
.
.
Captain Yan was still awake at this ungodly hour of the night. On the desk that sat unmoving before her were different items related to the latest attack on Illyas' territories.
Among those items was a green shard—a Manifestation of Spirit from what she identified—sealed inside a transparent jar. By the jar's side was a purple-light screen, displaying information on whatever that Manifestation of Spirit could be.
It was then that three armed figures walking in the midst of a faint, grey fog, suddenly surrounded her.
Yan barely blinked as her hand moved to the blade at her waist and slashed in a swift rotation.
Cling cling cling!
The three shadowy figures had raised their weapons in swift defence. Yan's sword left behind a circle of blue light around her as it shattered the green, glass-like daggers.
She then ran her Analysis Skill thrice, giving each of her attackers a chill. She then felt the same thing happen to her and six screens of light manifested out of thin air.
Yan's Interface was purple while the other three had orange ones.
=} Analysis Skill: Appraisal {=
=} Analysis Skill: Judgement {=
Athelei was watching as this occurred. After the half-second hesitation somehow caused by the casting of Analysis Skills, the small tent was swiftly turned to ruin. The three lunged towards the green shard that sat on Captain Yan's desk while the latter stood her ground with the valiance of a skilled Knight.
He then recalled the details of the Analysis Skill, Appraisal, that Yan had used.
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Analysis Skill: Appraisal
- [Active Effect] Appraisal utilizes relevant knowledge registered in the Nebula Gem when executed. Supplies information.
- [Passive Effect] Appraisal binds a User's mind to their Cosmic Interface and Nebula gem for the purpose of data storage.
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'Hm,' Athelei inwardly hummed as he took note of the different natures of the two Analysis Skills.
Judgement could be said to draw its power from a group's knowledge and common sense while Appraisal was heavily dependent on the User themselves—what they have experienced, studied, learned, or practised, truly becomes a part of them through the data storage of Appraisal.
It's similar to the difference between surfing the internet to gain answers and studying something yourself so that you could be familiar enough with something that the answers come naturally.
Ssuk! Ssuk Ssuk!
Athelei nearly missed the latest development of the fight between Captain Yan and the three Nightwalkers while he was in thought.
One had been torn to shreds by Yan's sword but at the price of her own safety. Athelei was surprised to see the daggers that had been shattered at the start of the battle were now embedded in Yan's body.
Somehow the weapons had been reformed and had no problem piercing through the layers of armour that Yan wore.
'Why won't she ask for help?' Athelei curiously drifted around the four, thinking about how the scuffle devolved into such a state.
That's when he noticed Captain Yan seemingly yelling battle cries, but no sound came out of her mouth.
From the very start, Athelei realised that the only sounds that were being produced were from those green glass daggers. The first noise he heard was when they shattered, and now it was when they were stabbed into flesh.
Captain Yan slew another shadow with great difficulty. Her sword had an artistic air as she slashed and shredded the fog that made up the Nightwalker.
Unfortunately for her, those three daggers impeded her greatly. One was in her thigh, one pierced her lung, and another tore at her shoulder.
Athelei watched Captain Yan's lips move as if she was cursing the Nightwalkers to hell when the third Nightwalker had achieved his goal. In that Nightwalker's hands was the jar that contained the Manifestation of Spirit. The last Nightwalker had already run out of the tent and into the darkness.
When he left, Athelei finally heard a sound from Captain Yan as the daggers inside her flickered and disappeared.
"Damn... Blas..phemers..."
She weakly spoke one last swear word before collapsing.
"Shit..."
Athelei tilted his non-existent fog head and used his Cosmic Interface.
He executed the Analysis Skill, Examine. Its details are as follows:
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Analysis Skill: Examine
- [Active Effect] Examine tampers with the target when executed. Supplies information.
- [Passive Effect] Examine can stack when executed on the same target. Enough stacks result in bonus effects at random. Every target has a soft cap to the number of stacks allowed, increasing depending on the complexity of the target.
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His results were as expected for a light examination, low Authority level, and low skill level:
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Thallium Yan - Knight Captain
- Unconscious
[ +0.5 Exp to Analysis Skill: Examine (Current Exp: 0.5/1000) ]
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Athelei shrugged seeing this and decided to continue to use Examine on her later. For now, what interested him was that jar. After all, the little battle had ended in a way that he found... unsatisfying.
He spread himself out and began his search for the remaining Nightwalker.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are~" Athelei whispered.
And all those inside his fog-body heard those words.
In the dead of night, where the cold wind blew, the Nightwalker who was running out with his mission target heard the voice of a young child.
Chills ran through his spine—chills that were different from being spied upon by an Analysis Skill.
He realised that the voice seemed to have spoken to him... and it sounded from all around him. Though it had been weak and was a barely discernible whisper, his heightened senses from the adrenaline made it sound crystal clear to him.
"Found you~!"
The Nightwalker heard the same voice again and a childish giggle followed after it. He looked around in fright but found nothing behind him. Nothing above him. Nothing in around him.
But then he realised that there was something... inside him.
There was a foreign fog invading his own fog-body. It was an inhuman and formless fog. It wormed its way through him and was tearing apart every particle of his being.
Bit by bit.
His consciousness waned with every particle torn out of him.
"...Night..walk...er..?" He groaned. "..Tra..it.. or..."
But there was no reply.
Save for the eerie laughter of a child.
And then the Nightwalker was gone. The jar fell onto the soil where his fog-body once stood.
Athelei chuckled as the thin fog suddenly condensed into a child about a meter in height.
"Human consciousnesses are... flimsy. Nightwalkers have it rough, don't they?"
The foggy child then picked up the jar, unscrewed the lid, and put its hand inside to grasp at the Manifestation of Spirit.
Athelei felt his fog-body shiver as the shard dissolved in his grasp and flowed into him.
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- Detecting Information body...
- Identified as a Manifestation of Spirit.
- Analysis Skill: Appraisal is requesting permission to download: Accept? (Y/N)
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Athelei's fog-body created eyebrows. And these eyebrows were raised in understanding.
'Rejection means that the Manifestation of Spirit will be expelled and reformed into a shard most likely. That Thallium Yan woman has Appraisal as well so why did she not do the same?'
Athelei gave it some thought and placed Yan's inaction as the result of caution or fear. Sometimes, knowing certain things was dangerous, after all. Athelei realised such a fact was true for humans when he saw Harley in tremendous mental pain just by listening to his native tongue.
But, Athelei did not mind such dangers. If its information, a formerly infinite consciousness such as him was in control, and thus quite powerful—that's what he believed at least.
More importantly, he could not resist. His curiosity has always gotten the better of him. His parents were usually the ones limiting such a tendency... but now they are absent from his side.
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- Download accepted...
- Download complete.
- Displaying information...
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