"You have absorbed the essence of a level 1 Umbral-[Common]. +0.1 Perception"
"You have absorbed the essence of a level 1 Umbral-[Common]. +0.1 Agility"
The essence permeated his being—a gift of life, a gift of death, a gift of fear. Once, he had been a prisoner of that fear, letting it control him instead of using it as a tool. By nature, he was a fearful person. In his youth, he would succumb to its touch, freeze in its grip, and run away at the slightest hint of its presence. One too many mistakes had made him realize he needed to change who he was. So he reforged himself. It wasn't a fast or easy process; it took years of deliberate, incremental adjustments. Yet, as embers blanketed the forge, he had molded his fear into an instrument of growth. Now, when confronted by it, he faced it head-on. Right away, though. There was no hesitation, no waiting—he could not delay. He wasn't brave nor resilient; he had to be decisive.
'Mana : 0.6/5.1'
Soren settled into a sitting position against the wall, pulled out two more sandwiches and turned them over in his hands, scrutinizing them. Was any of this real? Things had changed so abruptly. It all felt surreal.
Flames flickered around the sandwiches, toasting them. Soren glanced out the window at the midday sun. It was still noon. His eyes itched as they adjusted to the brightness.
Tasty, he mumbled, enjoying the crunch of the toasted bread.
A pebble clanked onto the ground. Soren snapped to the shadows. He scanned the area for a while, but nothing emerged. He took another bite.
Not a good sign when random sounds start scaring you, he thought to himself with a self-deprecating chuckle.
A few more sandwiches later, Soren checked his reserves.
'Mana : 1/5.1'
'Health : 25.4/92'
One point of Mana was insufficient to fight these things. Obviously, waiting wasn't an option. He would have to replenish the rest on the go.
…
The amount of corpses littering the hallways had increased, each one missing part of its head. Soren hastened his Mana refill.
Before long, he reached the main prison area. Two levels of open prison cells greeted him, their occupants missing. Three umbrals roamed the ground floor, four haunted the upper. In the center hovered a black portal surrounded by a small mound of headless guards and prisoners.
"Help!" a female guard cried out from above, cornered by two umbrals. Their leisurely motions contrasted with her frantic efforts. They seemed to be enjoying this.
"Help me, someone. Please," she pleaded, her back pressed against the wall. Snot and tears streamed down her face, dripping onto her drenched uniform, Shaking hands sought something to grab on, anything to use as a weapon or a foothold to escape, but found nothing. Bereft of options, she jumped over the railing, her ankle snapping with a sickening pop upon impact. She crawled with all her strength, wishing for a path to survival. Her eyes brightened as she caught sight of a fellow guard.
"Please, save me. Please, I beg you. I will do anything. Anything," she cried with raw desperation. The two umbrals landed next to her. The ground quaked.
"I don't want to die," she whispered.
Their jaws sank into her flesh.
"I'll be your slave, your whore, anything plea- Ah, Ahhh, AHHHH." Her words distorted to anguished squeals, reverberating through the spacious quarters.
Soren's gaze fixated on the three hungry umbrals surrounding him. If he could prolong the standoff he might have restored more Mana, but {Belligerent} forced him to act first.
"Come, little lambs. Let me hear your screams," he taunted, shooting forward with a burst of white light to meet the umbrals head-on.
He grabbed the first umbral by its head, its form dissipating as he captured its essence.
"You have absorbed the essence of a level 1 Umbral-[Common]. +0.1 Agility"
Essence and adrenaline blended into an explosive cocktail that catapulted his senses into overdrive. Down, left, back. He contorted his body, eluding their wide, sweeping strikes and sudden bites. He dodged the majority of attacks, resorting to parries only when he had no chance of evasion. Instead of blocking, he sidestepped direct strikes, mitigating damage as his flames slowly engulfed the shadows.
The Mana behind him wobbled. With a knifehand thrust, he dispatched the umbral in front of him, carving out an escape route. As another shadow darted to his position, he rolled into the newly vacated space.
The two feasting umbrals shifted their focus to him, their meal forgotten. From above, the final pair of monsters descended.
Two at his back, three in the front. He had to stay in motion.
'Rush' forward, evade the lunging strike. Faint, duck the counter, rise with an uppercut. The shadows recede. New ones replace them. Pivot to the side, punch to the chest, push it back. Roll left, stand, grab the neck, block the bite. Aim, fireball. Both vanish. Turn around.'
Mana: 0.2/5.1
'Umbrals on both sides. Run to the left, block the strike, sever its arm. Throw it into the other one, it phases through. Lean to the right, dodge the thrust. Punch, another one—its ally flies through its body. Can't dodge. Block. Fall, grab its head. Do. Not. Let. Go! Mana. Need more heat. Ignore the screeches, melt through. It fades.'
'Mana : 0/5.1'
No Mana left.
The last umbral, torso ablaze, pounced at Soren's neck, sinking its teeth into his flesh. An irresistible coldness enveloped him, submerging him in frost. His sea of consciousness quaked. From its depths arose darkness in umbral form, a common creature reborn as a god. Thousands of tendrils plunged into the sea, tainting it an inky black. An crushing sense of futility washed over him, his thoughts, his being, his very soul screaming for surrender.
In the real world, darkness covered his physical form up to the neck, sinuous tendrils squirming, worming their way up, and trying to claim his head. They climbed slowly, consuming his lips, and nose, and invading his body, encroaching on his lungs and organs. Until a string of Mana thrummed. White flames ignited, disintegrating the encroaching shadows.
Inside the mindscape, an avatar of the sun coalesced in the sky to confront the umbral devil. A breathtaking firestorm heralded the dawn, a corrupted tsunami ushered the night, and the world burst into a contrasting canvas. Cracks spread over the fabric of reality. With every clash, the cracks lengthened, swallowing colour and sound inside them.
Soren experienced nothingness. He saw nothing, smelled nothing, tasted nothing, and heard nothing but the faint hum of a string, and the drums of war setting the rhythm of battle. Soren's head throbbed with song. His mind was incapable of comprehending the mechanisms of a battle of this magnitude but trained in the beat of the drums—a song he needed no senses to comprehend, for it was part of who he was. In the emptiness, it was easier to allow the soothing hymn to employ him as a vessel.
He hummed with the melody of conflict— the cadence of slaughter. It was a beautiful melody, but it sang hollow. Soren hurt with need to add to the symphony, but he hesitated. He had nothing to offer. He didn't know of music, only of destruction, trickery, and betrayal. His notes would taint the pure melody with a horrible verse. Please, not a bad song; anything but that. He was afraid– afraid?
He snatched the string, its texture familiar and obedient in his palm, compliant to his will. He dared not dwell on it. Thoughts contained fear; the more he thought, the further they would tangle him. To prevent his mind from unraveling, he plucked the string. His caress was rough, efficient, and direct—slithery, shrewd, and treacherous—hesitant, doubtful, and distant.
A discordant song resonated through the void; an affront to harmony, the antithesis of music, reminiscent of the sound of nails scratching against a chalkboard. Soren cared not. The quality was irrelevant. What mattered was movement.
He continued to tug on the string, mind pinpointed on the task, hands increasingly dexterous as the song crescendoed.
Then, silence. The last vestiges of existence faded, and shadows slithered to fill in the gaps.
Somewhere in the void, a bundle of thoughts floated, waning with each passing moment. Threads zoomed to these last remnants of consciousness, puncturing the all-encompassing veil to protect them, weaving a protective sun.
Two fingers snapped. A supernova. The darkness burned.
"You are the first being to emerge victorious in a clash of Souls on this planet. Title gained: {Unyielding}-[Rare]: Your Mindscape is significantly strengthened"