'What is this?' His casual voice spread throughout nothingness.
'Ecstasy. Our bodies were so excited, they shattered.' She replied, her calm, mature voice echoing.
'Wait... Is this a sex thing?'
'No. This will be happening when you summon your Totem. We will get used to it.'
'Damn. Not even a reaction, you crappy geezer?' Ikky kept that thought to himself.
By the time his eyes opened up, a new form was revealed.
His amber irises had now turned pitch black with glowing amber limbal rings around them. And his tiny black pupils were white instead.
His flesh had become like Yaga's from what Ikky could see— fair as snow. It felt like he had been broken down and then reformed into perfection, by a perfectionist.
There was no added strength with the transformation, but Ikky still felt more capable, more flexible and even lighter than ever. It felt like he could do a back flip twice in the air before landing, and his properly structured dentures made him believe he could now crunch through a skull.
Ikky took a deep breath, feeling that he even performed that simple action better now, before finally noticing his clothes. His winter outfit was still on, however it was now in deep black colour, rather than white and grey.
The contrast of the snow colour of his body and void black clothes were more breathtaking than they should have been for just a combination of black and white. Perhaps this could be attributed to Ikky's new otherworldly mein, gotten from the pure, unstained colours. But he had bigger worries.
Those pretty boys in Svarga must have been exactly what Ikky had saw them as— useless. What was the point of all of the blinding stuff? He'd rather be breathing out fire instead.
"I uh, see you did something to my clothes..." Ikky started, gradually trying to work up a conversation about what the heck this totem did anyway.
"The clothes are bonded with your essence. It is a convenient trait of Living Totems, I suppose." Yaga informed.
"Why? Wait whatever. I came here to figure this out anyway.
Fixing his silky white hair properly in his hoodie, Ikky turned around and caught sight of the remaining spirits slowly galloping back from wherever they had come from.
"Hm?"
His eyes seemed to have picked up a flash of light over the herd spirits, but he wasn't really sure.
He was still getting used to this new vision of his. The world around him was almost entirely covered in a dark layer, making it harder to see clearly, but then better to see farther as moving objects showed as pitch black silhouettes regardless of how thick the fog they were hidden in.
"They think I'm dead don't they?" Ikky asked rhetorically.
Figuring this was a good chance at taking them out, he picked up his sword and followed behind the spirits, hoping to scatter their formation by drawing out a sudden cry from one of the spirits.
Defeating all eight monolithic spirits while they all struck him at once from all directions was as impossible as it sounded. He had finished only four, and ended up with a broken arm. So getting as close as possible to the spirits within the fog, Ikky charged at one of them and shot his sword right into the spirit's anus.
"..."
With a brief moment of silence, the wildebeest turned to look at the human behind it, and then back to the other spirits. With one gathered breath, it shot it's head to the sky and roared with all its might.
AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
"What the hell?!" Shocked by the hoarse cry of the wildebeest, Ikky let go of his sword and leapt back. The other spirits weren't exactly calm about the situation either. Ikky's plan worked too well, and the spirits all dispersed into the thick fog.
The wildebeest Ikky had stabbed ran for only a few meters before eventually falling on the snow and splurting out blood from its butt.
"Damn!" Ikky reacted at the repulsive sight and the fact that he had lost the entire herd of spirits. He could still catch glimpses of some of them deep into fog, but had no way of catching up to them now.
Figuring he'd just make do with the five crystals he had obtained, he walked on over to the writhing spirit and pulled his blade out.
Rubbing his eyes again, the disturbing image his eyes had been picking up before, finally showed clearly. Right on the back of the wreathing spirit, there was a long white pole lodged into it, letting out smoke that resembled the starry night, as it poured out of the spirit and into the atmosphere.
And unlike the sword wound Ikky had made, this one seemed very natural— like it had been created right along with the spirit; a body part even. This seemed all the more so when Ikky noticed the pole's light fading along with the spirit's life, and the night mist leaving the spirit's body.
Dazedly, he reached out for the bright white pole. But as his hand neared the night mist, he froze.
"It's... what is this?"
Ikky hadn't thought about whether or not spirits were capable of fear or relief. He quite frankly, didn't care.
But through his skin, the shivering cold mist communicated that which he had neglected to understand; that there were even final moments for savage spirits like these. It had become sober from its primary goal of hunting and succumbed simply to fear and restlessness. And the closer it got to its gradual death, the more it despaired and the more the mist was dispersed.
Ikky's hand continued till it touched the pole nonetheless, then he ripped it out of the spirit's back. And maybe as a result of the growing remorse in his dry stony heart, he sliced cleanly through the wildebeest's neck, letting it finally rest in the cold but relieving embrace of death—
"Speaking of cold, what the heck is this?" Ikky, awed as he lifted the long pole in the air, watching the rest of the starry mist flow into it before filling it halfway.
With a curious thought, he made the pole vanish into the white Virtue-mark drawn clearly on the back of his shirt, then summoned it again. He focused harder, pulling out some of the night mist from within it and spreading the starry dark clouds around.
"It's cold." The night mist was cold like nothing he'd ever felt. Touching it created a small layer of frost on his skin, but even worse was how it seemed to somehow affect deep into his very soul.
It was peculiar, but that was it. So the entire kit of his Living Totem was just for him to manipulate these night secretion? And all the secretion was even capable of was being less cold than the Kailash.
"At least the stars look promising." He sighed, fiddling with the starry dark clouds of mist and waiting for something to come to mind on what to do with it.
———
Was it because of the method the former group of prophets had used that Ikky had encountered no spirit for hours at the Kailash?
Had the previous herd turned around to leave because they thought Ikky was really dead?
Well no, not really. Ikky hadn't seen any spirits come to him simply because he wasn't a conventional human. He was a being made from curses, while the prophets that the Kailash could read were made of soil.
But as soon as Ikky poured out spiritual essence himself to activate his totem, the mountains became more aware of his existence.
The former spirits had left because something else had come to take over. Something else that even the mountains barely had control over.
———
"This blows." Ikky cursed before he left the night mist behind. Bending down to the wildebeest's carcass, he carved it open, before pulling out it's essence crystal.
"At least my Virtues promise good results." Wiping the crystal on his black clothes, he threw it into his mouth. Even as he crunched the small crystal in his mouth, he could feel his organs, muscles down to his cells get stronger. Even if just a by a tiny bit.
But maybe [Farthest Night] was also like that— something that would require constant development to show usefulness in the future.
Oh well...
Ikky planned on harvesting the rest of the crystals from the spirits before heading back to Arley's place.
"Who knows, maybe I'll find more spirits to hunt." They seemed pretty easy to kill on their own.
However it didn't even take him getting to the dead bodies for him to find one spirit. But something was wrong.
*Clack! *Clack! *Clack!
It was the sound of bones striking each other, accompanied by tearing flesh.
Peering through the thick snow with his new eyes, Ikky found a person hunching their wide back as they crudely ripped out the bones of the dead spirits before slowly attaching them right onto their melting disfigured body.
He gulped with a nervous sweat sliding down his face.
'Shoot!'
Although he hadn't gotten clear looks at the other spirits with his new eyes, Ikky could tell there was something especially wrong with how this one looked.
Unlike the wildebeest, this creature didn't have any pole lodged in its back to let the night mist pour out— but its entire body was shrouded by it instead.
Like it was the origin of even the mist of fear Ikky thought he wielded, everything within the white pole in his hands flew into the rotting flesh hole mouth of the human-like creature.
The unsettling feeling grew as he witnessed his power being taken so easily.
'Crap! Crap! Crap! I don't want to...'
A sharp sting of melting carcass suddenly assaulted Ikky's nose, soon followed by a bony fist to his face.
Ikky had no time to despair, he had to move out of the way, quickly!
'... I can't fight this thing.'