A fresh wave of anxiety compounded the mountain of fear that had been building inside me. My legs suddenly felt too weak to support my body's weight.
As we walked in between the creatures a loud cry pierced the air in the distance. However, it didn't originate from the direction we were moving; instead, it came from the left side of our path.
"Did you guys hear that?" Sky asked, her face looking pale as she looked over in the direction that the horrifying sound came from.
Hassan and I both turned our attention in the direction of the cry. His face remained focused, likely contemplating whether we should divert from the path filled with carcasses and follow the sound of the creature instead.
The cry we heard had an eerie, almost pitiful quality to it as if the creature making the sound was in desperate need of help. It was both terrifying and haunting.
Shortly after the first cry, another one followed. At that moment, Hassan turned toward Sky and me, making brief eye contact. It was clear that the creature making the second cry was none other than the mad King. This time, the cry sounded menacing and filled with hunger, in stark contrast to the pitiful tone of the earlier cry.
"Let's go!" Hassan exclaimed, not waiting for our response as he sprinted off in the direction of the cries.
I knew Hassan was intentionally slowing down for our sake, considering his speed in battle. However, I wanted us to approach the area more cautiously.
I couldn't understand why we were eagerly moving toward danger. It didn't seem like a situation to be exhilarated about.
We could have taken our time to plan an ambush strategy, but in that situation, it felt like there wasn't much to plan for.
Was it not to attempt the mind transfer and then make it easy for the creature to be killed by Hassan?
With the mad king several meters away from us, I hated myself for the idea I brought up earlier.
'Lure the creature? As if? '
I thought as we hurried up after Hassan, trying to keep up with his pace.
After several moments of running towards the source of sound that was made earlier by two creatures, we finally arrived at the scene, hidden from sight by a tree.
The two creatures were battling in a clearing in between the trees. The clearing was brightly illuminated by the moon as if the moon was eager to witness the fight or rather slaughter.
These creatures towered a few meters above us but still were dwarfed by the massive trees that were surrounding us.
Hassan abruptly halted, creating an unexpected pause. I had anticipated him charging into the battle to take on the creatures and attempt to defeat them before I attempted and possibly failed the mind transfer.
It seemed as if we had to strategize for our battle against the mad king...
The mad king wasn't just any regular ice bear. It towered over regular ice bears, much taller and bulkier, with its muscles well-defined and honed.
All the other ice Bears had fluffy bodies that seemed as if they were soft to touch but this creature had lost all its fluffiness and had muscles replacing it.
It had only short white hairs covering its body, which made me wonder how it stayed protected from the cold. If I thought the regular ice bears weren't cute, their king was utterly repulsive.
The horrendous creature was like a mutated Ice bear. Its eyes shone with blue pupils, unlike the black pupils of the regular Ice bear. The fangs were larger and pointer than the regular ones especially the two middle ones that protruded outside its mouth unable to be enclosed within the creature's mouth whenever it closed its mouth.
Its muscles rippled beneath its skin as it swung its clawed limbs through the air, aiming to tear into the other ice bear.
The way it gazed at the smaller animal revealed a ravenous hunger, a desire to devour, even though it didn't consume them afterward.
Back home, regular ice bears sometimes killed their kind, but this felt even more unsettling (more so than what I saw on TV back home). Well, the geo-wild folks never mentioned anything about Ice Bear Kings.
From the eyes of the mad king, you could catch a glimpse of sadness like it didn't want to be killing its kind.
"You can start the mind transfer," Hassan said.
I pondered why he had a sudden change of heart about charging forward. Was this his original plan all along? Or maybe he was being fast so he could catch on to the creature before it went on to terrorize other Ice Bears. It could also be that he hesitated after laying eyes on the terrifying creature.
SKY was staring at me with anticipation, perhaps wishing for things to go as smoothly as they did with the King of Blizzardkin.
I exhaled deeply, my cheeks puffing out and my lips forming a slight pout. It was a small gesture to muster some extra confidence.
I gazed at the monstrosity and concentrated, attempting to transfer my mind into its brain, but nothing occurred.
But this time it didn't fail because of my wavering mind transfer ability. It failed because I couldn't match against the creature.
A notification hovered before me. This was the first I had ever seen a notification written in red.
A mental barrier is up.
Unable to break through.
Every attempt left me with nothing but a throbbing headache and the same frustrating notification.
"Is it working?" Sky asked.
They had been staring at me as I squinted my eyes severally trying to get through this barrier.
Based on what had happened so far, whenever my consciousness left my body they could tell because I always lost all the control I had over my body and collapsed each time.
However, this time I didn't collapse. My facial expression was evidence enough that I was completely within my mind and fully conscious.
"I can't get through to it," I said after several tries.
It wasn't working at all.
"It must be the virus resisting," Hassan said.
He was so good at spelling out the obvious.
There was nothing else in the ice bear controlling its erratic behavior but the Loucura virus.
"Wait. Let me try something" I said to them.
We didn't have enough but thanks to the regular ice bear's determination and combat abilities, we gained a bit more time to strategize before launching into battle against the monstrosity.
The regular ice bear was holding its own in the battle, skillfully avoiding the king's attacks and managing to escape being impaled.
I made the Eye Of Psion materialize around my neck and looked straight into the eyes of the king of the Ice Bear. But then it wasn't the Ice bear I was looking at. I was looking at the current occupant of the huge monstrosity. The huge monstrosity was like a vessel to this crazy microorganism.
I just wanted to check if this creature was sentient. If it was I would be able to pick up one or two things about its demise.
What I already knew about viruses was that they are infectious agents of small size and simple composition that can multiply only in living cells of animals, plants, or bacteria. Outside the host they are left lifeless and unable to reproduce.
But once they get into another host by whatever means peculiar to them they become living again and begin to reproduce.
But in the Cold Lands, a realm of the extraordinary where the concept of "impossible" is a mere jest, I had a suspicion that this creature might possess sentience and a form of mindfulness, rather than simply existing and reproducing based on some predefined RNA/DNA rules (who knows what kind of virus they are?).
When the creature looked toward where we were I looked into its eyes and then the whole thing happened within the fraction of a second that it took for our gazes to meet coincidentally.
"Arrrrrrgh!!!"
I screamed as I covered my eyes with my hands and fell to the floor because of the loss of balance.
The experience with Hassan when I tried to peer into his past was nothing compared to this one. It felt as if my mind and eyes were about to burst open.
This creature was more than just sentient; it possessed a higher level of existence and could exist between dimensions.
The vision I witnessed was a gathering of other higher beings, each with their true forms appearing blurry. Among them, I could discern the Loucura virus, even though its form was similarly indistinct.
In that scene, the creature was being banished and stripped of all the authority it once held by a higher being even more powerful than itself.
This higher being wasn't physically present among them, but its immense aura was palpable. So, it was there in a subtle, physically indiscernible manner by the other higher beings.
What I witnessed in its past was inexplicable, but my brain managed to simplify it into a form that I could comprehend and process.
But still, I felt like there was more to be known.
I was concerned that if I were to once again peer into its eyes with the Eye of Psion, my head might indeed explode. Consequently, I swiftly returned the Eye of Psion to my inventory.