After I was taught by En how to store my energy into the marbles, I proceeded to fill every marble with my energy, and every time my energy got low, I would eat something in the pantry. Of the 25 marbles that I had successfully brought inside my domain, 5 of them disintegrated due to various imperfections. Thankfully En had already warned me that not all marbles would survive and turn into a battery, he also told me that more than 60 percent of the marbles would disintegrate after being used once, while the remaining 40 percent would be able to handle multiple times of storage. Furthermore, En said that if I'm lucky enough, one of the marbles would develop a soul and be considered as an artifact that has a high affinity with me since it was used to store my energy, I wanted him to elaborate further but was unable to gather more explanation since he said that it was a rather rare occurrence, like winning a lottery or something.
It almost took me 2 hours to finish preparing everything, Eclaireuse, who was resting and replenishing her soul force had already fully rested by the time I was attempting to store my energy inside the 15th marble.
"Eclaireuse, are you ready? We will proceed with the proper expedition and scout the abyss to see if we could find Eric's mother."
" I'm always ready, kid."
"En, do you have anything to suggest or advise to give to me?"
"Yes, prioritize your safety. Cruel it may be, the life of your mother's friend is lesser than yours. And one more thing, the batteries that are filled with your energy can be used as a disposable grenade, you just need to overload it with your energy and throw it at your target, but I need to remind you that it may blow in your hand if you are not careful, and the marble itself will disintegrate after using them like so."
I glanced at the marble inside the pouch as I strapped it to my waist
"Will it not blow up inside the bag if ever it cracks?"
"It can but the probability of that happening is very small unless you are very unlucky. But that's too unlikely since we will have Eclaireuse's barrier protecting you first if ever there are unexpected circumstances and there will be since it is the abyss, not a place that we can casually stroll into."
I decided to proceed with the proper expedition inside the abyss since I knew it was still 2 AM in the real world, I think to myself that I should bring a timepiece next time I come to reality since imagining and creating a clock inside my domain would render a clock useless since it will be under the rule of the plains of sleep and would project the time I would consider right.
I took a deep breath as I arrive in front of the miasma once again, I could not help but worry ever since seeing the maelstrom and having a glimpse of what lies inside the abyss.
"Don't worry kid, I will protect you with my best abilities. Don't want you dying on me inside this nasty thing and me being trapped and possibly destroyed inside."
"Don't worry Phil, Eclaireuse will protect you physically while I'll protect your mind. The deeper we are inside the abyss the more insistent the whispers will be, without me protecting your mind, you would be easily confused and be prone to large errors in your judgment."
I exhaled once more and closed my eyes, after a moment I opened them, I filled myself with determination and strong will as I hope that I would find Eric's mother inside this massive abyss.
"Eclaireuse, please."
"Understood."
The sextant floated in front of me and after a moment, a golden bubble slowly appeared with me inside, the constellations doted on the bubble had become even more pronounced, showing Eclaireuse's determination in protecting me this time.
"Okay, let's go."
I held the floating sextant on my chest as I started to dive inside the miasma.
After a few minutes closing in an hour, I finally arrived at the middle point of the abyss. The walls of the trenches are now visible from where I was floating.
The journey from the beginning until here was uneventful, the only thing worth remembering is that I saw another stranded that was not fully corrupted by the abyss, I wanted to save the figure but was stopped by En, telling me to save my energy and wait until I find Eric's mother since I would need everything I got if I wanted to save her.
Just like En had told me, he could stop the voices from running inside my mind and clouding my judgment, and I was thankful for that. But now the howling of the abyss was much more irritating than the voices that encourage you to go deeper.
"En, what is this howling that I am hearing? Do you know how to stop it?"
"I could not stop it, since this is a physical phenomenon and not a mental one and I don't have any clue on what is producing this howling."
I sighed and bear with the howling that was constantly sending shivers in my spine, the howling was from the deepest part of the abyss and whatever it is that's producing it, I hope not to encounter such being.
The barrier shrunk to the previous 10 meters to 5 meters now and that's with Eclaireuse in full throttle, thankfully I haven't used any marbles just yet. We had just arrived inside the lower level of the middle level of the abyss. I had finally seen the body of the tentacle that once grabbed at me trying to pull me down when I tried exploring the miasma without any artifacts. It was an octopus-like creature with a single large eye close to that of a frog where a normal octopus's mouth should be, multiple mouths can be seen on its head as human-like arms could be seen dotted near it, it would try to grab any unsuspecting nightmare origins that it could grab with its human arms and proceed to eat the nightmare origin including the arm that had caught it, the stump of the severed arm would then grow in mere seconds after being devoured by the mouth part and proceed to wait for unsuspecting prey once more.
I was lucky or rather unlucky to see such activity. One of these octopus-like nightmare origins even used its tentacle to grab at the bubble and try to attack me, but thankfully like a slice of meat on a hot grill the tentacle was singe by the golden bubble and a part of it disintegrated after a few seconds of contact.
Arriving at the lower level of the abyss, the trench that could be seen on my opposite sides are now nowhere to be found, instead, it opened up into a large cavern, the golden bubble has further shrunk from 5 meters to 2 meters.
I watched at the ceiling as I passed it and saw multiple holes in it, the ceiling which was the bottom walls of the trench I had just passed, was home to countless nightmare origins. I expected this phenomenon ever since I saw the nightmare origins in the middle level of the abyss live inside the holes they dug in the walls of the trench, but what I did not expect was seeing the nightmare origins living on the ceiling throwing there stranded and letting them sink into the deep dark void heading towards the abyss floor.
"En, why are they doing that?"
"Simple, they don't need a host anymore or that their host is now useless, devoid of any remaining nutrients. From here on out, if a nightmare origin wanted to get stronger they would seek weaker nightmare origins present inside the lower abyss and prey on them, eating them and consuming their nutrients."
"Why stay and hunt inside the lower abyss? Why don't they just go up and hunt in the upper part of the abyss instead?"
"They have grown dependent on the miasma inside here, if they decide to hunt in the upper abyss they would suffocate since their body needed a large amount of concentrated miasma just to function. While some hunt in the upper abyss and successfully bring a stranded to devour here, they would just be hunted by the other nightmare origins and be ganged up since a fresh stranded is very nutritious to them."
I nodded, I always wondered what those large serpent-like nightmare origins that sometimes pop out of the miasma, it seems that that nightmare origin was from the deep abyss and was trying its luck to hunt down a fresh stranded.
"What about those stranded that they are discarding?"
"Those are husks. They are what remains on a stranded with all its being, its existence, devoured by a nightmare origin. After arriving on the abyss floor, most of them would disintegrate, while a few would be imbued by the corrupting miasma, like an artifact that was given a soul resulting in a naturally occurring nightmare origin. They are the most troublesome to encounter in the abyss since they are near indestructible, they have developed some cognitive thinking through the influence from the miasma and would always try to eliminate those that stray near the abyss floor, their amoeba-like body made them fast swimmers and able to chase their prey, they are formless and had no known weakness and with the multiple eyes floating on their surface, they could easily spot trespassers. I suggest you do not proceed any deeper and try searching for your friend's mother on the ceiling of the lower abyss or the lower trenches of the middle abyss. Since you know she is still alive, she should not be a husk, because stranded that had turned into husk would be forgotten in the real world."