"What!"
The creatures wound healed at a remarkable speed, stitching back together with a speed visible to the naked eye.
It halted it's approach halfway, its body convulsing and shivering. Standing stationary, Cypher instinctively knew it was preparing something.
The air vibrated with whispers that crawled directly into Cyphers mind. He didn't wait for for whatever it was doing to finish and rotated his knife in reverse grip. His legs gathered energy before bolting straight for the creatures head,gaining to sever it completely this time.
As he drew closer, the things convulsions stopped, it's head lifting straight up. Then, like a siren, it let out a screech that immediate halted Cyphers approach.
"Argh!"
His eardrums bled, the whispering no longer just faint voices but full blown screams. Kneeling down, he clutched his head in an effort to stop the pain. It was excruciating, so painful infact that it would most likely kill a regular human.
He didn't even notice the creature approaching him with even faster speed than before, unable to focus.
"No! I...have to... fight it," Pushing through he managed to look up just in time to see a red hand barreling towards him.
"Shit!"
In an effort to defend himself, his arms raised up Infront of his body.
BOOM!
Cypher was hit so hard he flew to the opposite end of the arena, crashing into the wall below the two seated above him. The entire wall was left with a massive crack that spread in a spiders web.
Dust and debris covered Cypher from view.
"Cough!" His blurry vision quickly focused, finding himself laying against a shattered wall, but more importantly, his arm was left in excruciating pain.
"Not good...Its broken." Looking at his left arm, bone jutting out from the skin, he didn't panic and assessed the situation. Adrenaline keeping him from passing out.
"It's strong, fast, and unpredictable. The only choice is to use it's intelligence against it."
A plan formulated in his head as he stood up, his left arm hanging limply.
In his mind, the projection of his soul core shone dimmer, having used half of his strength to cast the quicksand earlier. Caliber 1 had a massive impact on physical ability, however it didn't have the stamina to use reality altering abilities continuously.
Using his teeth, Cypher put the blade in his mouth and held up his remaining hand towards the creature who had once again begun moving towards him.
Sand grains materialised around the creature until eventually it completely surrounded it, blocking it's sight from all sorroundings.
Grrr!
A growl escaped its mouth as it looked around frantically, looking for it's pray but only finding a cloud of white sand that blocked it's sight in all directions.
It started slashing at the sand aggressively, enraged.
Step!
The things head snapped back, hearing a sound behind it. There, in the sand, a silhouette slowly approached it's direction.
It was faint but it resembled the constitution of the boy it was hunting.
An distorted laughter echoed through the room. The creatures excitement grew as it sprinted towards the figure in the mist.
SLASH!
What seemed to be a victory soon turned out to be a trick! The silhouette was just a collection of sand that clumped together to look like a human.
Watching it's target fading, the creature begun convulsing again, it's anger about to erupt into another scream.
"Not this time!"
From behind it, Cypher ran out from the mist, his knife aimed directly for it's spine!
SHINK!
The sound of the knife entering flesh could be heard.
The creatures limbs went flacid, it's legs unable to move. It fell to the floor paralysed.
In a last attempt to defend itself and heal its wound as it lay on the ground, it screamed again, however Cypher ignored the gut wrenching pain and held held the blade above its neck!
SHINK!
It's head rolled to the ground, it's eyes still rolling around until eventually it stopped.
Its body hardened into stone until crumbling into fine dust.
"Huff..huff...Done!"
Cypher sat on the floor and tried to recuperate from the drain on his soul core, almost passing out from the toll. He had about 1% left in his reserves, Not to mention his arm still lay painfully limp, but slowly healing.
Above him, Vanderwald nodded, "Good. Not many can face a caliber 1 husk and survive after awakening."
"I told you father, we must nurture this talent."
Listening to Clementine beside him, Vanderwald considered the proposal seriously this time," Very well, he can enter the library. But...he must be ready for the Empires next campaign, I want him on the battlefield in the next 3 months."
Their was no leeway in his tone, it was an order.
"Sigh...fine, I'll do what I can."
"Very well, when he's ready, bring the boy to the upper levels of Thorn. I will arrange everything when the time comes."
With his last words, he was encases in a shadowy cocoon that let no light break past it. It receded a moment later, the cardinal gone with no trace of him ever being their.
With her father's absence, Clemantine jumped down from the stands and walked towards Cypher, his exhaustion clear.
"Well done Cypher, you passed your test and are now a true member of the church."
Seeing the boy look up and smile, she continued," You've earned a rest, you can sleep in your room."
"I will Clementine. By the way, What was that thing?" The question had been laying in his head.
"A Caliber 1 husk. They're created by the cult by removing the soul core from a Dreamweaver. They constantly hunt for other soul cores to devour, having lost their own."
She was solemn as she spoke, anger at the deaths of some of her friends being at the hands of these creatures.
'Removing the soul core can do such a thing? I'll have to learn this technique in the future!'
Cypher's internal monologue didn't change his outward behaviour,
"That's terrible...maybe one day I can put an end to them for good."
The saint smiled and ruffled his hair, "Ofcourse Cypher, I'm sure you can. Let's be on our way now, I'll meet you here in the morning for teaching."
They soon departed from the arena and ascended the levels of the church, separating from eachother when Cypher reached his designated room.
'Lets see,' opening the door, the first thing he noticed was that his living area was nothing like Clementines, being extremely simple with not much wasted. It had a single bed in the corner, an extra room for the toilet, and a small arched window that overlooked one side of the underhive, which was still as drab and grim as before.
"I never did care about luxery anyways." Lying down on his bed, Cypher recounted all the events that seemed to pass by like a dream.
First he had died as a soldier. Then woken up in an entirely new world. This alone was overwhelming to most.
He got his own abilities and joined a church that had him tested through a fighting a vicious creature.
"Haha, this is all so absurd, but I've never had so much fun." Thinking back, his previous life seemed like a colourless video, a place where dreams didn't come true.
Not long later he noticed his eyes tiring and turned his body sideways, laying his head on a pillow while avoiding contact with his left arm, which was still healing.
His dreams followed soon later...