"Don't worry, I am okay, this is not my blood." Hira immediately understood what his wives were thinking and reassured them.
"…?" both his wives looked at him curiously, worry still filled their faces.
"It's those guys blood." Hira said as he pointed towards a man lying on the ground all wounded.
Looking at his wives who were looking at the injured man on the ground with curiosity, Hira decided to tell them what happened.
A few hours earlier…
Hira woke up from his sleep. His eyes fell on his beautiful wives still sleeping soundly. He smiled and gave a peck on their foreheads, before deciding he should make something healthy for his wives. Although there were people who would do it for him, it was different when he cooked himself.
With that thought, he stood up and left the tent.
But as soon as he came out of the tent, he stopped. A vision flashed across his eyes, he saw a man in black chopping at him, then he felt a little pain in his head, after that it disappeared completely.
'System, tell me what did I feel just now?' Hira asked.
He has started depending more on the system now, especially since he realized that the system answers questions instead of telling things to him directly.
[Replying to Host, what the host just felt is consciousness of one of his followers. It is similar to spiritual consciousness.]
'What is that?' Hira asked again.
[Spiritual consciousness allows users to sense everything that is happening around them within a distance from the user]
'Woah, that's cool, wait… then why can't I feel it anymore?'
[Replying to host, the host can't feel the consciousness anymore since the follower is not conscious anymore.]
'…' Hira did not say anything for a second, as he realized what that could mean.
'System, show status'
[
Name: Hira
Age: 18
Species: Human
Level: Mortal (496)
]
The number of his followers has decreased by one.
'System can you tell me…' Hira stopped in his tracks as another vision appeared in front of his eyes.
In this vision, he saw a figure running away with all his might, then felt a little pain at the back of his head.
Again the vision disappeared.
[
Name: Hira
Age: 18
Species: Human
Level: Mortal (495)
]
Someone is killing the towns people. But who? And what is the reason?
'System, tell me what I should do.' Unable to decide his next actions, Hira asked for system's help.
[Replying to host, please mention your intention]
'I… is there a way to save those people?'
[Understood, there are various methods, which can allow host to safeguard his followers' lives. The only method that user can currently use is to save the follower himself.]
'Isn't that what I was asking…, anyway how do I find where these killings are happening?' Hira continued without wasting time.
[Host can create a mental connection with the follower, allowing him to find their location]
'Mental connection, how do I do that?' Hira asked.
[Host should focus on the various links within him and his followers, there are chances of the victim follower to be in high alert, making their consciousness brighter than others, host can utilize this to connect to the follower]
'Okay, I have to meditate then, right?'
[…]
'Meditate it is'
Hira immediately sat down and closed his eyes, he did not know what he was doing, but judging by the stuff that the system told him, he kind of imagined how it should go, he will close his eyes and think of a lot of threads spreading out of him, then those threads will be connecting him to many people, those being the people who have consumed his blood or … cough. Then he just has to find the thread that shines the brightest and he will be able to connect to that person, easy.
And that did happen, he sat down and tried to imagine the threads coming out of his head, and he was able to see a transparent consciousness in his head that had many threads coming out of it, but instead of head they were coming out of his chest region.
'Oh, so we are all connected by our hearts, how emotional' Hira suddenly had this thought.
'No no, that's not the point right now.' Hira refocused.
Now he just had to find the brightest consciousness thread.
But…
'You didn't tell me it will be so dense, and why can't I look where the threads are going after some distance?'
[That's your actual spiritual consciousness host, you can only look to the point of your actual spiritual consciousness, if you want to look through the consciousness of your follower, then you will have to formally connect to that consciousness.]
With almost 500 threads coming out of his heart, it was densely packed and not easy for him to find one that was different from others, The density of threads reduced as the distance from Hira increased, so he willed his consciousness to keep looking as far as it could.
Once his consciousness reached its limit, he had no choice but to look through various threads one by one which he thought was a little brighter than other, it was also difficult because some threads were moving in same direction with almost no distance between them making them look like one larger thread. What's more is that there were also many threads that were brighter than other, the brightness of threads varying.
Having no time to think about why that was happening, Hira decided to focus on the job first.
'That one…' finally Hira found a thread that was significantly brighter than other threads. He immediately though of connecting to that thread.
…
About 2 kilometers away from where Hira's tent was located, a 15–16-year-old kid was running on the muddy forest path as fast as he could. His eyes were filled with tears as the vision of his father and uncle getting killed in front of him kept appearing in his head.
Behind him, he could hear voices filled with malice and amusement.
"Hehe… run kid you are not trying your best." A voice filled with laughter shouted.
"Haha… at this rate you won't be fun anymore, we will have to kill you faster you know." Another voice laughed.
"Ahaha…" The boy's cries increased but he still did not stop running.
They were playing with him, he knew it. But he still did not stop running. He wanted to avenge his family, but he did not have any strength to do so, he wanted so save his life, but he did not have strength to do so either, he thought to himself, why is he even running? Can he save his life by running? The killers could easily catch him anytime they wanted, they were allowing him to run because it was fun for them. But why was he running? Did he wanted to let the killers have some fun before taking his leave from this world?
'NO' the boy shouted in his head.
Then did he want to run and somehow shake the killers, but could he shake the killers with so much blood flowing out of his body after every time they slit him a little to keep the 'fun' going?
'NO' he thought full of grief.
Then why was he running? Did he even know that?
'NO' the boy continuously cried but still did not stop running.
He just knew that he might just end up running until he died, but he won't stop running… maybe he will find his answer before he died, or maybe he will find the answer after he died, but he just kept running.
Soon he came across a similar crossway.
The path he was running on was the one that connected Enthrall town to the Crest town, if he took left, he will be able to find someone who was also travelling to the Crest territory, maybe that way he could save his life.
He made up his mind and continued running. He wanted to increase his speed, but it was difficult itself to not just slow down and fall.
As soon as he was about to head towards left, a voice appeared in his head
'Go right…'
"…"
"Step… step… step…"
The boy continued running.
"Haha… boss I think this kid is done for, he did not even run towards the Crest town, I think we should just kill him now."
"Haha… what's the hurry boss, let's see what he will do when he is at a dead end" The killers continued their amused talks.
Yes, as soon as the boy heard the voice in his head, he took the right turn. He did not know why, his chances were clearly more had he ran towards the Crest town, but he still ran towards the road that rarely anyone goes to.
He did not know why he took this turn, but he got the answer to why he was running.
He was running because he still had something he did not want to give up. And the voice in his head was exactly that thing.
Hope