Phil was breathing heavily due to the small amount of energy he had left, moving inside the shadow and staying in it greatly decreased his reserves thus leading to his situation.
'Huff...Huff...En...do you have any solution...I'm really tired, I think I cannot reach Annie at this pace.'
'I advise you to use your senses but try to limit it this time to about 20 meters if possible, any more than that and you might alert the nightmare origin.'
'Huff...Okay...'
Leaning against a wall Phil tried to release his senses and tried to limit it this time. At first, his senses were limited to 10 meters and nothing was picked up, Phil then deepened his concentration and accidentally spread his senses by 50 meters. His heart started to palpitate as he stood ready for the situation that Vicky might suddenly attack him.
Thankfully Vicky was not within the 50 meters he had sensed, calming himself down he noticed some stragglers that were present near him.
'En, I have sensed some spiders near me, it seems there are two of them and some weaker ones.'
'Perfect, head towards the stragglers and kill them, then proceed to devour them.'
'Do I have to really eat them?'
'For now yes, you need to directly consume them since you have undergone an incomplete awakening.'
'Fine.'
Giving up in trying arguing with En, Phil proceeded to slowly head towards where he sensed the stragglers.
He hid himself in a dark corner as he saw a passage heading towards his left, inside he saw two big spiders arranging what seems to be eggs glowing green and sometimes pulsating.
'Ugh, do I really need to eat them.'
Phil thought to himself as he noticed that these spiders were different from the ones chasing him.
The spiders that Phil thought were stragglers had multiple holes on their back like a lotus pod, in which pulsating eggs green in color were glowing in the darkness of the cave. The spiders were systematically plucking the eggs on each other's backs and arranging them on the floor of the cave.
Phil grimaced and felt shivers on his back when he saw the holes on the spider's back. He proceeded to ask En how to eliminate the spiders without alerting those that were looking for him.
'There are two ways you can eliminate them, either by physical or using your powers.'
'How do I do it using my powers?'
'For now, since you only know how to dive inside a shadow, you can easily pull them inside and they will be crushed by the pressure once you release them. Though I suggest you sneak and take a few eggs first to replenish your energy before trying this strategy out since bringing something inside the shadow will cost more energy.'
Breathing out and slowly calming himself down, Phil hugged the wall and slowly went inside the shadow. He then moved slowly towards the innermost room where the eggs laid earlier were stored. His energy count was at 1 when he arrived at the innermost room; Phil felt his palm sweating as well as physical and mental exhaustion due to the low energy count.
'What do I do next?'
'Just reach out and you can directly take the eggs, but take it one at a time and eat it at soon as you get it.'
Phil agreed with En's plan since taking multiple eggs will just alert the spiders that were arranging them.
Phil reached out his hand and carefully took one of the eggs. The egg was as large as an emu egg, he felt it was squishy and warm and would sometimes pulsate on his hand.
His face distorted utterly disgusted at the sensation he was feeling.
'Eat it quickly or your energy will turn to 0.'
Quickly jamming the egg in his mouth, Phil decided to minimally chew it and chose to swallow it directly. His face turned green as he wanted to puke but he successfully held it in not wanting to waste the egg. Moments after ingesting the egg, Phil felt a warm feeling inside his stomach and he felt as if he had drunk an energy drink, his fatigue was slowly diminishing. He exhaled and looked at his energy bar, he watched as the energy bar turned to 6 and not a second later back to 5. Phil was thankful that he didn't puke because if he did, the recovery of his energy will be late and he will be kicked out of the shadow.
Deciding to fill his energy to the limit, Phil decided to eat 3 more eggs; he only stopped when his energy was full.
'Now just do what you did with the eggs towards the spiders, but this time after you pull them inside the shadow, release them, this will cause the spiders to appear inside a filled space thus crushing every part of their body that is overlapping a filled space.'
'So what you are saying is that I am swimming inside the ground and if I pull the spiders in and release them they will just splat.'
'Pretty much yeah.'
'So if my energy went 0 and I'm inside the shadow, won't the same thing happen to me as well?'
'Well the short answer is no since your power can go to the negatives, but the shadow will reject you at that time making it impossible to enter or stay inside the shadow when your energy is below 0.'
Phil sighed since he won't go splat if he accidentally stayed inside the shadow for too long.
Deciding to make it quick, Phil dove down under the floor and stopped when he saw the spiders were now above him, he waited until the two were close together since he wanted to pull both of them at the same time since he did not want to risk alerting the other if he took only one.
Phil waited for the right time and when the two spiders were near each other, like a masked murderer wearing a hockey mask when he dragged his victims under a lake, he suddenly resurfaced leaving half of his body inside the shadow and proceeded to yank the two spiders with all his might, one of the spiders was stunned and was easily dragged down while the other was fortunate enough that it screamed and struggled a little but ultimately it was dragged inside the shadow as well.
'Go deeper and release them there, they might be able to endure the pressure and displace the soil if you release them near the surface.'
Phil heard En's advice as he forced himself to go deeper with difficulty, having two passengers with him made the trip even harder.
Having reached 10 meters deep, Phil released the two spiders and saw them get crushed almost instantly. Phil stared at the crushed spider as their body fluid soaked the underground.
'You can still eat them if you want to.'
Phil's face scrunched in disgust, he chose to ignore En's comment and proceeded to resurface back at the egg room. His energy reserve was back at an all-time low, he chose to eat more eggs even though he hated it just to fill his energy.
After he refilled his energy, Phil having a bright idea chose to store eggs in his pockets as much as he can, but he could only fit four before his pockets were crammed with eggs.
'Hey En, do I not have a storage space like those you can find on eastern wuxia novels?'
'Sadly no, but later on once you can master your power to a high degree, you yourself, can tear space apart and call upon a space you own.'
'So you cannot help me in my current situation right now, even though I have such low energy reserves.'
'Well there is a solution, but I do not recommend it. You can try and eat 2 more eggs and overfill your energy to up to 30 any more than that and you might directly explode.'
Deciding to stock up for a fight soon, Phil ate 1 egg making his energy reach 25/20, he felt his stomach bloating like he ate 4 set meals in one sitting. Thinking that he can still endure Phil then broke another egg in half and ate half of it, his energy reached 27/20 and he felt dizzy because of overfilling his energy, he decided to stop after that since he might pass out or worse he might explode.
Resisting the urge to puke, Phil started running towards the location he had sensed where Annie is held. Since almost all the spiders were tasked to head towards his previous location, Phil's action was unimpeded; he would only dive inside the shadow if he crosses paths with multiple spiders.
After almost an hour of running, Phil arrived at a large cavern inside the cave. He carefully observed the inside of the cave and looked for any clues to where Annie was hidden, at first he dove inside the shadow not risking being seen by Vicky if she is near him, but realizing that it might quickly empty his energy reserves Phil did not proceed to do so.
Hiding in every cover he could find Phil carefully looked for Annie, minutes later when he was approaching the interior of the large cavern he noticed a cocoon-like object laying on a web-like structure suspended 5 meters up in the air.
Phil had a strong hunch that Annie might be inside the cocoon, even though Phil wanted to run and quickly save Annie, he chose to be careful he did not want to compromise his progress and screw up near the end. He slowly crawled towards the cocoon and when he was sure that he was close enough, he tried sensing if Annie was really inside the cocoon and to his glee, she was really inside of it.
He then slowly and carefully climbed the web and approach the cocoon. Phil wanted to break the web that supports the cocoon but found it hard to do so, he then tried prying the cocoon open and easily ripped it apart. Phil smiled as he saw Annie inside the cocoon unconscious and still breathing. He carefully took Annie out of the cocoon and put her on his back.
Meanwhile, at the time Phil decided to start climbing the web, He did not notice the slight vibrations he had caused when he tried to climb the web have alerted Vicky. Vicky who was hanging upside down at the almost 50 meters high ceiling slowly woke up and creepily smiled as she saw Phil slowly climbing the web. She decided to let Phil save Annie first then when Phil thought that he had succeeded, she will then attack, she was confident that Phil will not escape her grasp anymore since she was the real master of this dream now.
Quietly she crawled down the ceiling, Phil not knowing that Vicky was already posed to attack him. Silently she wove her web intending to block the only exit, after she was done doing so she hid on a dark corner of the large cavern.
Phil was overjoyed being reunited with Annie, he slowly climbed back down from the web and tried waking her up, and after a minute of whispering Annie's name, she slowly regained her consciousness.
"Big Brother?"
"Yes Annie, it's me."
Phil caressed Annie's hair.
"Sorry for leaving you behind."
Tears streamed down Annie's face, she thought that she was dead after Vicky captured her. Annie then hugged Phil and cried softly.
"I thought you won't ever come back."
"Shhh...Don't cry Annie, I'm here now. Just follow big brother, big brother will help you escape this nightmare."
"But how? Annie can't go out of her nightmare."
"I want you to believe Annie. I know you can defeat the nightmare."
Phil had a plan; he wanted to make Annie into a dreamer so that she will gain stronger control of her dreams thus granting her the power to destroy the nightmare origin.
"But first we need to find a place to hide."
After saying that, Phil quickly hugged Annie and hastily rolled to his right, his danger sense suddenly blared, sensing impending danger. Moments after he dodged a thick web struck the location where he and Annie were standing just before.
Failing her ambush, Vicky came out of the dark and clapped her hands, she smiled at the sweet bond Phil and Annie had, and she then looked towards Phil and smiled sweetly, her face full of innocence like she had done nothing wrong.
"Big brother Phil, You came back."