Zayn felt like he was suffocating. His throat was tightening and his legs buckled under his weight as he collapsed on the ground.
He was sitting on the ground, surrounded by the bones of the large Skeleton that had collapsed next to him. His breathing was ragged and his entire being begged to him for rest, telling Zayn to close his eyes and sleep.
However, he couldn't do that!
'...commotion…no time…'
Zayn knew that he could not afford to rest. More Undeads would reach him soon, however, his legs didn't have the strength to carry him any longer.
It was hardly possible for him to concentrate hard enough to see anything either, but he kept them open. They darted toward the blurry purple marble unfocused and he crawled over while breaking through his physical limits. Zayn didn't have any energy left but he continued to crawl, no matter how slow he was.
The last burst of soul particles that he absorbed gave him the necessary energy boost to clear his befuddled mind, which was the sole reason for him to keep trying.
Unfortunately, he knew that it wouldn't remove his exhaustion in its entirety even if he were to absorb the Soul Wisp of the larger Skeleton.
But he had to do everything possible to attain his future goals!
Lifting his trembling arm from the ground, he tried to reach out to the Soul Wisp that hovered a little above the pile of bones that had once belonged to the larger Skeletons.
The pointed ends of the larger Skeleton's bones sliced into his ribs and abdomen as he crawled over the ground but the pain was welcomed. Feeling the pain allowed him to stay awake!
It was the necessary evil.
After what seemed like an eternity, Zayn's trembling fingers closed around the Soul Wisp. He was just about to devour the soul particles when his entire body froze.
'Wait…'
Even he himself was surprised at his tenacity and grit followed by the fact that his mind was still working to a certain extent. It was enough for him to question himself.
'Will I be able to get out of here if I devour the soul particles? No… I will probably still collapse…'
If he was bound to collapse, he might as well do something suicidal. It was not as if his current situation was not already screaming 'dangerous' and 'suicidal', to begin with…
Grasping the Soul Wisp tightly while trembling from exhaustion, Zayn made use of the memories that had entered his mind after the Grimoire of the Ancient's first page had been manifested. The memories he recalled were extremely detailed and they mentioned two interesting techniques.
Zayn could see Soul Wisps and his old self was knowledgeable enough to use the two techniques at any given point, even when he was sleeping!
Being dead-tired and injured from head to toe was not much different from sleeping…just more painful and tiresome. However, that was still fine… probably. It had to be fine!
Using every single working brain cell and the soul particles in his body, he exerted the first of the two techniques, called Soul Extraction.
The Soul Essence was extracted from the Soul Wisp and the second technique, called Spirit Manifestation, was exerted with the use of the ownerless soul particles of the Soul Wisp.
Zayn exerted the Spirit Manifestation technique on the Soul Essence whose shape began to change drastically.
A semi-translucent figure was forming in front of Zayn, but he had overclocked his body's capacity to take note of the things that happened after that.
He was not able to keep his eyes open to see anymore as the second wave of exhaustion overcame him.
Zayn was dead-tired and he was forced into a deep slumber.
He was still in one of the three cavern tunnels of the Goblin cave where everything but living Goblins had been found until now.
However, Zayn's tension was fully dispelled as if he was at the safest location in the vast expanse of the fused realms.
Meanwhile, a two-meter tall figure had formed in front of him.
It looked down at Zayn and kept observing him for a long time without moving an inch. And, only when the first Skeletons came looking for the origin of the loud commotion did it start moving once again.
***
'...What the hell…'
A cold breeze brushed through Zayn's hair when he woke up. He began to shiver almost immediately but the cold surroundings and the soreness of his body made it hard for him to open his eyelids.
Zayn was not sure where he was but his back pressed against something hard while his palms touched the wet soil below him.
'So…tired…'
Zayn tried to move his eyelids which felt heavier than the world itself but he could barely lift them a few millimeters before they drooped and covered his eyes completely once again.
What he saw in the short moment where his eyes had barely opened to a slit was enough to disperse his worries and fall asleep again.
The outlines of a white semi-translucent figure were imprinted in his memories. A large figure holding the silver iron Warhammer stood guard next to him, vigilant of every movement in the surroundings.
'White outlines…that's not too bad…'
When Zayn woke up the next time, he felt much more refreshed than before. The soul particles he had used up to practice Soul Extraction had also been replenished.
He was fortunate that his soul particles weren't devoured when exerting the techniques, but there was a big difference between using soul particles for something and soul particles being devoured.
Used soul particles were naturally replenished by absorbing the soul particles of the surrounding area. This process required some time based on the density of soul particles in the surrounding, but it was a big difference to soul particles that were devoured as they were lost forever.
One would have to actively absorb and annex more soul particles to make up for the soul particles that had been devoured.
Soul Extraction required a certain amount of soul particles to be used to extract the soul from the body immediately after the target died. If one was able to see Soul Wisps, one could grasp them and extract the soul of the being from the Soul Wisp, as well. The Soul Essence that would be extracted from the Soul Wisp could then be further processed or stored away.
As for the Spirit Manifestation technique, Zayn had used it to manifest the Spirit of the Soul he had extracted from the Soul Wisp.
To manifest a Spirit, the Soul had to be nourished by soul particles until it was satiated. The soul particles used couldn't belong to another being because they would be devoured by the Spirit.
And that was where Zayn used the ownerless soul particles of the Soul Wisp to manifest his first Spirit…
…A human Spirit arose from a human Skeleton.