[... And so it is believed, that to conquer fear, is to look it in the eyes, contest it and then purge it from their minds.
But fear is to man, as breathing is his nature.
In truth, man does not overcome fear, but overwhelms it with tools,
Like the light of prayer to call protective entities to stand with them,
Like the light of comprehension of what that darkness contains, knowing that it can do them no harm.
Alas, foolishness is to man as fear is his nature. So he will try that fear over and over, until the harm it may cause becomes a certainty.
— Night Chant.]
The prophecy of the virtue claims that fear does not simply disappear from within people's souls, but that they themselves get braver and gain more resources to combat that fear each time they are faced with it again and again.
A person does not simply stop being afraid of the dark, but can overwhelm that fear with relief of knowing what lies in that darkness, and what does not. Or resting assure that they are being protected by others.
Deciphering the prophecy...
Night Chant allows Ikky to summon an entity who would come to take those fears he had away, gradually, and fight by his side. But Ikky would have to chant a new prayer to it every time he wanted to call this entity.
This condition was part of the Cost, however the major downside is that the entity would continue to remove his fears without restraint, eventually leaving him a person without proper reasoning, without a sense of danger, and therefore, suicidal.
Every Virtue was a double edged blade, however, for this one, Ikky's side of the blade was more sharper. Why? Well, the so called, 'entity of protection' was too pathetic to be worth him losing his sanity. He could literally kill it in one straight blow if they fought. So who really needed protecting?
But after that ability, the Night Chant apparently allows Ikky more psychological clarity and comprehension. Meaning his brain was enhanced to be able to process situations a lot faster. This was ironic, considering the Cost of manually trying to increase the rate of his thinking with the virtue, was to regress his reasoning.
If there was any reason why Ikky had gotten a True name from this virtue, it was most likely because his Virtue allowed control over another sentient being, albeit at a terrible Cost, and an annoying prerequisite in the form of constant chanting. The entity, or rather, 'wraith' as Ikky called it, was weak, luckily it could also grow into something of actual worth, just like living creatures adapted.
———
"The field is set, and the posts marked... Do as you wish if it is to my benefit."
'Ah, the Omen is turning me into a preaching monk.' Ikky thought.
Crafting chants and poems were easier than reading into their meanings. Ikky had the uncanny skill of deciphering the Omen's riddles, so he could chant quite well himself.
A two meter tall troll-like spirit patrolled a wide open space in the middle of the forest, a heavy brown bag being held by one hand above its shoulder, resting on the troll's hunched back.
The troll somehow noticed a disturbance in the cold air, and turned to it. There, a strange person was staring at it with a long black scythe held up by both their hands as black smoke spread out of their small body. The person was more like a black see through mannequin with no face and distinctive body parts. They just looked like a solid shadow.
His wraith clearly was not properly formed. But that was just like everything else in Ikky's disposal. So right now, Ikky thought he'd let it feed on its own while he supervises, so it could grow strong enough to actually be able to do its job.
The troll rushed towards the small, quiet wraith with its three free limbs clawing on the ground, causing the forest to rumble.
As soon as the sprite got close enough, it swiped down its palm at the wraith, threatening to disperse its form. However shifting calmly to the right, the wraith avoided the swipe, letting the sprite's hand brush through its cold foggy residue it dispersed, before stabbing the tip of its scythe on the troll's arm.
The scythe's blade was curved, but not so much that it couldn't be used like a hammer.
Both its edges, top and under were sharp, further aiding this unimaginative application of the weapon, as that design lets it slide through its target with relative ease.
Around the troll's open wound, white frost formed and slowly spread over the sprite's arm.
The troll shivered, but quickly regained its senses and threw his arm aside, causing the wraith to shoot into a tree and burst.
From atop a nearby tree, Ikky grimaced, feeling a sharp sting in his brain. Although the wraith reduces Ikky's level of reason with each second it was active, that depletion is quickened whenever the wraith takes damage. This made it all the more disadvantageous to use the wraith while in battle, since the brain pangs were a lethal distraction.
Soon, the wraith reformed itself without Ikky's command before floating over to pick up the scythe it had dropped.
Seeing it come back to life, the troll rushed towards the black phantom again, this time leaping into the sky before shooting down like a meteor. But once again, the wraith had managed to sidestep the ground-shaking attack, and then swing its scythe into the troll's back. The spirit shivered again as another ice wound formed then spread over its body.
This time, the wraith quickly pulled out its scythe. And with the rope attached to the pole end of the weapon and the nape of its own neck, the wraith wrapped that thick string around the sprite's neck and tried to strangle it.
The troll roared into the sky, using anger to subside the fear literally choking into its neck. In a mad outrage, it bashed the ground heavily with both hands— the bag still in its grip— as it ran around to shake the wraith off. It eventually succeeded in its attempt, smashing the wraith into a tree with its back.
Ikky clenched his teeth again, feeling the pain get worse as he quickly began to lose reason.
Astrid looked up at his face then down at the troll, her head being held under Ikky's arm. She could sense his pain as his pupils turned dilated because of the creepy excitement he was trying to control.
"Attach my body. Don't I look repulsive to you? I can make things easier." She whispered.
Ikky grinned through the pain as he looked down at her. "Nice try, shorty."
Although he had been letting his wraith fight in his place for too long, Ikky could still handle this one more battle on top of the seven the wraith had already won, before his sense of fear and reasoning completely shatters. So Astrid could keep her crafty fingers to herself.
Astrid stared him in the eyes for a while before turning back to the ongoing fight.
By now, the troll had already run mad, its original purpose becoming more unclear by the minute. It had suffered three wounds in total: one on its arm, the other one its back, and then, around its neck.
However, the real wounds were much more critical. Only Ikky, perhaps the wraith, and then the troll knew about this wound, and that was the troll's freezing soul.
The more the wraith's black scythe pierced into the creature, the more tired it got, the more heavier its organs became and the more it wanted to just fall to rest under the wraith's chilling blade of death.
The most horrible part about having its soul slowly being frozen was that the more it tried to move its heavy limbs, the more its frosted soul cracked, until it would inevitably break to pieces by the troll's own actions, surrendering the sprite to a sure cold death.
A few moments later into the fight, the wraith swung its scythe down like a hammer again and again, into the tired troll's head.
The troll swiped its arms, barely hitting the wraith before its arm dropped to its side and making its soul sustain even more crevices.
With a few more hammers, the wraith finally shattered the sprite's soul, making sure to absorb the dust of the spiritual essence into its entire body.
———
The wraith of the Night Chant had fed on a total of eight souls from sprites who were all as strong as Sullen spirits of the seventh grade.
Although the sprites were kind of weak compared to him, Ikky was able to see considerable changes on the wraith, enough to tell him that the black wraith had advanced to one level above its former self.
Now, the wraith's figure could be made out fairly clearly as one belonging to a humanoid being with a feminine form. It was taller and even now had bumps on its chest to show its figure. Although Ikky did not see how it was even necessary for the thing to look like a person.
Still, whatever appearance the wraith takes is irrelevant to Ikky as long as it didn't hinder its performance.
Smoke-like hair flowed out of the wraith's head like hair, while its face took shape, albeit still unclear. Then there were now two scythes attached to the creature's back, rather than one.
It now had a solid scythe with good sharpness, and another that was made out of pure black night mist to instill fear.
"Nice. The regular scythe will be better for fighting creatures we don't want to go berserk."
Indiscriminate stabbing of fear into creatures would only make the tougher ones go dangerously furious long before they could get a reasonable portion of their soul frozen, making them more unpredictable and agitated. It was due to this fault that Ikky's wraith was constantly getting bashed during the mad rushes of the sprites.
'Why are these weapons even scythes in the first place? Some protection entity you are.' Dismissing the wraith, Ikky gathered the bags of food and water the previous sprites had dropped and pulled them along with one hand, while holding onto Astrid's head in the other.
"I'm going to have to find something to do with this thing." The bag was getting too heavy to carry comfortably.
Ikky could have chosen to throw out some of the food he had away to reduce the weight. But there were principles even someone as untrustworthy and cunning as he was, would never cease to follow. Ikky was lucky enough to find food, and so he would finish it down to the last grain and drop.
Fortunately, after walking a few kilometers through the forest, Ikky found his solution to the weight problem— a group of happy, hungry prophets.
Wait, happy?