Year 142 of the new calendar
Dark, everything was dark, incredible considering that it should noon but the moment a step was made into this place, no light was to be seen inside of it, the whole place was just like from the outside, encased in dark cloud which seemed liquid at touch.
The young boy that had just stepped inside shoved some of it into a vial before bringing it under his cloak, lingering for a few moments before bringing it out and continuing on his path, not stepping out but going further.
This wasn't something anyone would do and even less those with some familiarity with this place, The Dark Cloud was an enormous no man's land that split various countries, it was said to be impossible to traverse, only those who hadn't stayed long inside and not wandered off far had managed to come out and none of those people had ever seen any danger.
This could only suggest a single thing, when danger appeared, it had always killed its prey.
It seemed like everything inside was covered in this dark substance, it wasn't saying much though as there wasn't many things, the soil seemed as dead as it could be, no grass was sprewing out of it, no dark plant life was to be seen as of yet, a bummer for the young boy for sure but this still told a few things about the substance.
The boy fit in quite a bit with the enviromment has he was garbed in nothing but dark, his long hair were dark too, only his dark purple eyes and his white skin made him stand out a bit.
Even after a few hours of walking, no plants were to be seen, however there was some movement in the distance, the young boy didn't seem worried at all as he casually walked forward to check what it was.
As expected, the creature was covered in the dark substance and was dark in great majority, it was incredibly think, it had oversized claws that were as thin as the rest of its body, it had no legs whatsoever and moved by thrusting its chest forward, pushing the sludge that was its lower half across the ground, despite that it still moved slightly faster than the average man and it wasn't after anything as of now, simply moving around.
The one thing that stood out the most however was the beautiful golden mask that served as its head, the gold was immaculate but not shiny, two holes were carved out to represent the eyes but no ocular globes were to be seen from within, the top of the mask ended with three spikes that poiunt in slightly different directions but they all ultimately pointed at the dark sky.
This creature made no sound whatsoever, none when dragging itself around and none when it suddenly stopped to rush toward the young boy, it indeed was much faster when attacking, it was slightly humorous seeing it thrust its chest forward at such pace, one could be thinking that it was doing something other than moving.
It extended its claws as it loomed closer but hit its face right into a barrier, which immediately broke but as it tried to move again it struck its face against another barrier that was in the exact same position again, it tried a few more times as every time it hit it, the barrier would clearly break, it could see it as it appeared before its eyes when hit.
It could see it falling apart, it tried to attack from another angle but the same result happened every time, the creature didn't seem confused as it tried and tried over and over again to no avail.
The trick was fairly simple but it wasn't something it could figure out apparently, all it needed to do to stop the barriers from reforming was to realise that it reformed everytime it thought there was no more barrier or just have enough magical knowledge to break the spell or even just hit it hard enough but it didn't seem to consider any of those, it simply couldn't understand why the broken barrier was still blocking its path.
The young boy used the ample time given to him to cast an elaborate spell, the kind no one should be able to use without getting hacked to bits in the process but his enemy simply couldn't get to him.
It once again raised one of its clawed hands, ready to repeat the same action as before but this time, before it reached the barrier it was aiming for, it struck against another one that was much closer, suddenly, it felt itself being risen from the ground, it tried to back off only to hit its back against another one.
It was encased in a cube, the cube floated up, shrunk a bit, just enough to not allow it to move around before shaking brutally, turning the creature into a blur as its body was battered against the sides of the barrier cube.
After a while, the cube disappeared, letting the creature broken body fall down, it wasn't dead yet but it wouldn't be moving in its state.
The young boy kneeled in front of it and grabbed its mask, holding it before his face before putting one of his fingers on the forehead of it, a dark cross appeared where he had touched the creature, he then spent some time healing the creature back up and once it was back to health, it no longer showed any hostility.
The young boy noted whatever it was that he was thinking about as he continued to walk, the creature following closely behind him.
"Tenues Umbra Larva Aurea, yeah, that's a simple name, easy to remember, parfaitement" he muttered to himself.
He saw a lot more shadowy creature after that and he made sure to ensalve one of each kind he saw, he usually would have taken two but this monsters didn't appear to have any type of sexual organs, he hadn't been able to witness what was birthing or spawning them but it was something he would have to investigate, he had been able to ridicule those monsters but it was only because their intellect was subpar and they couldn't get past his tricky spells, if one used the typical barriers, they would shatter rather easily, not to mention there were no source of sustenance anywhere here, if you weren't packed for the trip you would die of thirst or hunger.
The monsters themselves weren't a source of food, while the shadowy substance seemed safe to consume in low amounts at least, the rest of the monsters were either inedible or was just dark sticks that served as bones, like the first one he had ran into, this one litteraly had nothing but sticks and a golden mask.
After a few days of travel cut in between with some rest, the young boy finally arrived before something of interest, standing in the center of a dark flatland filled with monsters, a lighthouse stood, brilliantly illuminated its own surroundings, the monsters didn't seem to want to get close to the light, the ones he had enslaved didn't seem to care but it was very likely that it could hurt them, so he shoved each and every one of them into his own shadow, a difficult task but one achieved by kicking down.
The young boy then stepped into the light.