Safwane was confused.
'What is this?' he thought as he cut the constant butterflies that approached him.
The young man tried to figure out if these were simple insects or nightmares, but that doubt was resolved after seeing the small face of one of the butterflies.
'That... isn't an enlightened one?'
It was the face of a low-ranking enlightened one, which Safwane saw crying when the crack appeared.
Now it was clear, they were nightmares. The young man assumed that the insects killed people by approaching them docilely.
The butterflies, the crickets, the fireflies... They all had human faces and were attacking Safwane.
'But how many have died here?' the young man wondered, surprised by the large number of insects there were.
Safwane cut a large number of insects and took a great leap backwards to get away and put the blindfold on.
After putting it on he could feel the energy of the insects, but there was something else. A thread of energy hanging from the insects that directed upwards.
Without the blindfold he could never have noticed how a huge creature was above him controlling the insects.
The nightmare had long tentacles and a huge eye in the center of its body. The young man threw the katana towards the strange creature, hoping that the poison would kill it.
But the nightmare defended itself, forming a wall with the insects thick enough so that the weapon could not pass through and fall back to the ground.
'Damn it...'
The insects were dead even before the fight began, they were practically dead people that were being controlled by the nightmare.
The creature directed one of its tentacles at the young man, who easily dodged it, the nightmare was strangely slow, Safwane took advantage of that and tried to pierce the tentacle but the insects worked as a shield again, blocking his attack.
"You're so annoying," Safwane muttered angrily.
For the first time in his life, Safwane didn't know how to attack, hundreds of practically immortal insects that constantly protected the nightmare.
"I'm sorry, Ilkay..." Safwane muttered followed by a sigh.
The young man began to relax his muscles, forgetting about the battle; he was going to use the second technique that Ilkay had taught him: Immersion.
"Safwane, you can't use immersion unless you're in a dangerous situation..." Ilkay said.
"Why?"
"Each person has an immersion capacity, some more powerful and others weaker, depending on how deep the concentration goes..." Ilkay explained, turning his back on the young man.
"...Your immersion capacity is enormous, that makes the consequences worse" he added as the memory slowly faded away.
Darkness, that was what Safwane saw, and the only thing in front of him was the creature, full of openings and weak points. From now on Safwane was going to do everything automatically and without thinking.
The countdown has begun.
The nightmare seemed to have noticed that the young man had relaxed so it attacked again, this time with several tentacles.
Safwane lightly dodged the tentacles and launched a cut, again the creature successfully blocked.
But this time the insects fell to the ground dead, Safwane had cut the threads that connected to the nightmare. The creature seemed surprised and directed a large number of insects towards the young man.
They took the form of an arrow and headed quickly towards the young man.
For Safwane time seemed to be stopped in this state, with quick movements he passed through the interior of the arrow cutting the threads.
What had been several seconds for him, was almost instantaneous for the nightmare and after realizing it, the young man was in front of its enormous eye.
Safwane was expressionless before the nightmare, for the creature the young man was nothing more than another nightmare.
With a horizontal cut he cut off the eye of the enormous creature, in response it attacked uncontrollably with its tentacles. The young man grabbed one of its tentacles and used it to make an acrobatic movement and avoid the other tentacles.
After dodging the attacks, he stuck his katana into the tentacle and tore it apart. The nightmare screamed in pain, while its movements became slower due to the poison.
Between the movements of the young man, the blindfold slipped down and the nightmare before losing vision could observe its red eyes, they were dead and with them it seemed to bring death to others.
After that last sight of the creature, it fell defeated to the ground.
The young man stood over the body of the nightmare, watching the moons.
After a few seconds of calm observation, the consequences finally came. The pain came all at once throughout his body, Safwane felt like hundreds of sharp, burning swords were piercing his body.
Safwane screamed in pain.
The young man had used superhuman physical abilities, and because of that his body generated the pain corresponding to such abilities.
Safwane was suffering in agony for minutes, the pain of the torture and everything he had been through was not even close to what he was going through now.
When the pain began to slowly leave his body, the young man, covered in sweat, vomited and breathed rapidly.
He tried to stand up, leaning on his katana, but it seemed impossible, his body did not react.
'Damn it... If there is another nightmare I'm dead' he thought as he fell to the ground exhausted.
Safwane lying on the ground watched the two moons, the young man knew that the crack was just beginning, he was still near the swamp so the nightmares were still weak, even so several enlightened ones lost their lives.
Now that there were fewer enlightened ones there will be many more nightmares, the balance had become much more unbalanced.
And even if they can defeat all the nightmares that are in their path, they will be able to defeat the divine beast which had enough power to create this domain.
Negative thoughts filled the young man's mind, his body could not recover properly since he had not fed, the only meat he had had had been poisoned.
Safwane sighed.
Suddenly, in the dark sky a flame illuminated him slightly.
'A nightmare?' Safwane thought as he watched the flame fade away.
The flame was relatively close, about a kilometer away. The young man didn't know what to do, but he decided to use his last strength to go to the place.
'It's strange that a nightmare tries to get attention...' he thought as he walked, leaning on his katana in pain.
His steps were slow but he wanted to get to the place. Whatever it was, he had to get food as quickly as possible.
The walk through the meadow was pleasant. The light had diminished since the fireflies had died, but the breeze was still fresh and pure.
After walking for about an hour, Safwane arrived at the place of the flame.
After seeing what was there, the young man put on the blindfold. He was an enlightened one.
The enlightened one had made a bonfire and was eating a nightmare that he had killed. The flame was probably due to the fight.
Safwane had to endure The pain and began to walk normally towards the enlightened one, he should not show weakness.
When he got close enough the enlightened one took a look at him.
"The bandaged one..." he said while eating with a calm and serious voice.
He was a young man with long white hair which was tied up, his skin was brown and his eyes were an intense yellow. He also wore dark armor with golden details and a broadsword on his back.
"Do you know me?" Safwane asked surprised.
"Of course, you are the only one who has entered the rift before me." he said while still concentrating on the meat.
"I see... The battle with the nightmare must have been complicated."
"Not really, it just blew fire like crazy"
"Do you want to eat or what?" the enlightened one asked while looking at Safwane.
"Yes"
The enlightened one smiled.
"Come sit down" he said while patting the ground.
Safwane sat down and the enlightened one offered him some meat.
"My name is Blake, nice to meet you."
"Likewise, my name is Safwane," he replied as he shook Blake's hand.
"I'm actually surprised you haven't hunted anything," Blake said as he looked at him curiously.
"I have hunted but they're all poisoned so I can't eat them." Safwane replied, accompanying him with a sigh.
"I see, it must be strange that your singularity is poison and you're not vulnerable, that must be your weakness..."
Safwane didn't want to refute the enlightened one's words, if Blake knew that he didn't actually have a singularity, who knows what could happen.
"Yes... And what is your singularity?" Safwane asked trying to avoid more questions from the enlightened one.
"Adaptation... Basically I adapt to anything and any ability." Blake replied.
Safwane was surprised, that was an incredibly powerful singularity, and he could also see how Blake had an immense internal energy allowing him to recover quickly.
'I keep meeting beasts...' Safwane thought as he remembered the two enlightened ones he knew.
"I'd like to see your hunt... I'm interested in knowing the nightmares that have made you be in this condition" Blake said as he stood up.
"So you knew..."
Blake affirmed.
The two young men walked towards the place where Safwane had been fighting, the journey was silent, as if Blake was trying to evaluate him.
But after arriving Blake couldn't help but let out a nervous smile, the three enormous worms, the hundreds of insects and the enormous nightmare with tentacles were something he didn't expect to see.
"You're a fucking monster..." he muttered as he observed the scene.
Safwane didn't react.
"Hey, let's travel together..."