Zenon looked at Aurea, who had her hands on the back of her head as she watched his movements with amusement.
Zenon however, just looked at her with confusion before saying, "First time using a dagger."
"I realized that." Aurea got up and stretched her arm and said, "May I try it?"
He eyed her open hand, sighed, and gave the dagger.
Aurea nodded and grabbed the dagger with a comfortable grip. Then, she corrected her stance and began to wildly slash.
Zenon looked at her move the dagger with such precision that he thought for a second she wanted to cut the air in half. Every time the dagger reached the end of the curve, she swiftly turned the angle and slashed backward.
Not only that, but the movement of her fingers, changing the grip every time she ended a slash was so impressive that Zenon slowly got charmed by her movements. Since the cave was small, she had to remain in place but it didn't influence the movements.
After some more testing, Aurea stopped and said, "This is a really nice dagger. Perfectly balanced. With some practice, you may be able to cause serious damage."
"Ho-How did you...?"
Aurea tilted her head as she listened to Zenon's mumbling. After a while, he coughed, and while battling against his Attribute desires, he said,
"This... uhm... could you teach me?"
Aurea widened her eyes when she heard Zenon's request. They stared at each other for a while before Aurea chuckled and said, "Sorry, sorry... The idea of you asking for help never crossed my mind even once."
She looked at the dagger and handled it back while saying, "I can teach you, but my knowledge about daggers is very limited. After all, I always opted for swords."
Zenon quickly replied, "Just the basics, I can work by myself in the other areas."
Aurea nodded while saying, "Yeah, yeah, whatever." She then took the meat out of the campfire, careful not to extinguish the fire, and let it cool for a moment.
After some minutes, both of them began to eat the cooked meat as their familiars dived into that sweet and juicy food. They even started a small rambling over the last few pieces of meat, bringing some laughs to the ambiance.
When they finished, Aurea lay down somewhat away from the campfire and said, "The canyon may change again tomorrow, so let's wake up early to not get crushed in this cave."
Memories of the last day crossed Zenon's mind and made him subconsciously shiver as he did the same. Both Familiars also got comfortable inside their respective owner's souls and let the night go by...
---
"Where?!" Zenon shouted as he evaded falling rocks.
"Keep on running and follow my steps!"
After waking up, both Aurea and Zenon left the cave and continued their journey to wherever the void guided him. They got up early in the morning as the sun was still rising from the North.
They walked for an hour or so before the canyon started changing once again. Luckily, as they were headed deeper and deeper inside the canyon the edges became more and more wide, giving them space to run.
This didn't mean they wouldn't encounter an edgeless ravine and had to climb their way to safety.
Anyhow, they were currently running as fast as they could while their Familiars scouted the surface for any close openings. And since the canyon completely shifted every time this event occurred it wasn't hard to find one.
Taking a sharp turn right, Aurea and Zenon escaped the closing ravine and after some seconds the "earthquake" stopped.
Just as it did, Aurea summoned her notebook and continued writing something. Obviously, being a curious person by nature, Zenon didn't waste time asking,
"What are you writing?"
Aurea however paid no attention to his words and was focused on writing so much that she had to even turn a page. After one minute of continuous writing, she stored her notebook and said still panting,
"Hah… Said something?"
Zenon sighed and said, "I said, what were you writing?"
"Just writing some curious things about this event. And to say the least, I found a really interesting one."
They began walking once again while Aurea started explaining some things to Zenon, who carefully listened.
"First of all, I named the event Shifting. I don't want to continue beating around the bush to explain whatever is going on so we'll call it this way from now on.
Now, the Shifting seems to start at the edge of the canyon and go all the way until the middle of it. There's a really small - almost undetectable - delay between the distances that my Familiar managed to catch.
The next thing it saw was that every new opening is perpendicular to the ravine that closed. This means that this canyon consists of weirdly formed rectangles and squares that always end at ninety degrees.
The only exception is those intersections that have a Y form. Maybe they mean something but every time one of those happens the entire layout of the canyon changes to match said intersection. That's all I managed to conclude from three of these events."
Zenon listened to her explanations somewhat shocked. He also managed to catch a glimpse of these properties but had nowhere to store them, making most of these hypotheses disappear rather quickly.
But since Aurea had a notebook that can contain infinite knowledge, these hypotheses could finally be written down and proved later on.
They continued walking for some minutes and just as they crossed a newly formed intersection, Zenon stopped in his tracks when he noticed something weird.
He closed his right eye and that's when he saw not one but two Tarantulas climbing the ravine they were currently in.
'Fuck!' He snapped his head toward the opening of the ravine and saw how those two gigantic arthropods appeared. Aurea quickly looked there as well and instantly summoned her sword.
Knowing that a confrontation was inevitable. She quickly said, "Take care of the right, I'll kill the other." And jumped to the other side of the ravine.
Zenon summoned his Sharp Fang, which swiftly materialized on his hand, and gripped it just as Aurea told him.
Between that hour of waking up and the Shifting, Aurea told him some tips to use a dagger efficiently. Most of these were based on proper footwork, grip, and quick slashes.
Since daggers were very short in size, Zenon had to go for quick trades of damage while avoiding any potentially deadly attack that may pierce his skull.
The moment both Venomous Tarantulas set foot on the edges, they began running toward the living meal in front of them.
Not waiting for them to come closer, Zenon augmented his legs with Void and began running toward them just as Aurea did. The Tarantula lifted both of his front legs and struck the ground before jumping toward the boy.
Instead, Zenon rolled forward, making the Tarantula miss him. Using this opportunity, Zenon augmented his dagger with Void and slashed at his back legs, each strike fracturing both legs more and more.
This time he properly managed the strength behind the attacks to not make him subconsciously drop the dagger.
By the third strike, the Tarantula's back legs lifted and dropped again, trying to pierce Zenon's body to impale him. Zenon leaped backward to dodge the attack, then ran again and slashed the legs once again, breaking them off.
'Yes!'
The Tarantula gave a big painful screech which made Zenon's entire body shiver. Just as he corrected his stance to a counter-attack by it,
"Zenon, to your right!"
Briefly stunned by the sudden shout, Zenon looked right and found the other wounded Tarantula jumping toward him. He subconsciously crouched, making a similar situation happen again.
The only difference was that this time there were two Tarantulas.
The spider that jumped at him got both of his legs stuck in the wall while getting its fangs closer to Zenon's face. Not having enough space to attack, Zenon rolled under the spider's left leg, thinking of jumping toward the other edge.
Sadly, he forgot about an important fact. Tarantulas have eight legs.
*Whoosh!*
"Gaaaghhhhh!" Gritting his teeth, Zenon looked in horror at his pierced left shoulder as he subconsciously dropped the dagger. The Solis Vines were strong, but not enough to stop a direct powerful hit by a sharp weapon.
Controlled by instincts, Zenon augmented his hand with Void and punched the leg, breaking it off completely along with his wrist, fingers, and knuckles.
Enduring the pain, Zenon jumped toward the other edge, where Aurea received him by forcefully ripping the leg off his shoulder, making his mind clouded by the pain.
Zenon gritted his teeth while putting pressure on his wound, trying to minimize blood loss. Aurea on the other hand looked at the two Tarantulas that were ready to jump again and lowered her neck warmer.
Just as they jumped, she shouted,
"BLAST AWAY!"
*BANG!*
And the Tarantulas were sent flying toward the wall.