His terrifying gaze made a chill run down Safwane's spine. His body took the form of a dark shadow and the only thing that differentiated that complete darkness were his red eyes.
"Be careful... This time we can really die." Blake said as he gulped.
The nightmare attacked again quickly, this time its claws were directed towards Blake. Its sharp claws were directed towards his head, the young enlightened man was going to block it, but something prevented him from moving.
The blood under his feet rose to hold his arms and prevent him from defending himself, the nightmares' claws were going to kill him, however Blake lowered his head in time avoiding death.
After failing the attack, the creature did not stop and with its other arm it tried to hit Blake this time.
Luckily, Safwane arrived in time hitting the nightmare's arm, but the creature was too powerful.
The Nightmare expanded its sharp wings and rose, then the blood began to attack the young people, they had taken pointed shapes and were practically endless.
The more the young people cut it, the harder they became, and the nightmare also attacked in the process.
Finally the blood managed to make a cut on Blake's cheek, it was not deep, but suddenly his blood began to come out in jets.
'How can so much blood come out of that slight cut?' thought Safwane while trying to block the attacks.
But its immense quantity made it impossible to always defend themselves, the blood began to cut various parts of Safwane and Blake's body.
Although they were not so deep cuts, something seemed to make large amounts of blood come out of those cuts.
The nightmare, taking advantage of the weakness of the young people, attacked the one who was the weakest, Safwane.
In a swift attack he tore Safwane's back and then gave a powerful kick that made him fall exhausted on the altar.
Due to the great loss of blood that Safwane was having, he slowly began to lose consciousness.
Finally Safwane ended up unconscious.
Darkness surrounded him, the young man began to feel scratches on his body causing him to slowly wake up.
When he opened his eyes he saw him again, the infinite amount of nightmares that rose to his body.
'Am I going to die like this?' he thought as the nightmares grabbed his chest.
The claws entered deep into his body and he could not help but feel that little by little he was lost in the darkness.
The disgusting noises that the nightmares made and the smell of death made this place an abyss from which Safwane could not escape.
"Finally we can make you suffer!" a voice shouted between laughs.
They were the villagers, who looked at the young man with cruelty and malice.
"Why do you hate me so much?" Safwane asked as nightmares tore at his face.
"Why? There is no reason, we just needed someone to vent our anger on without feeling guilty." answered one of the villagers with a wide smile.
"And why did you kill my grandmother?" Safwane asked with a choked voice because the nightmares covered his mouth.
"We wanted to make you suffer, the beatings were no longer enough" he answered as he slowly stopped smiling.
"...But who would have thought that a dirty orphan would attack us." he added with a voice that became dark.
The nightmares began to tear beneath Safwane's eyes, which seemed indifferent.
'Kill...Kill...Kill...Survive' those words began to repeat constantly in the young man's mind.
Safwane had lost against his instincts.
On the other hand, Blake had lost against the nightmare and was sitting against the wall bleeding. The nightmare was approaching him while on his dark body a twisted smile appeared.
"You're disgusting, you know that?" Blake stammered, looking at the creature with hatred.
And as the nightmare approached, a dense murderous feeling flooded the place.
Blake looked towards the altar.
"Sa...fwane"
The nightmare also looked towards the young man, who had stood up.
Safwane took off his blindfold.
Blake was surprised to see the young man's eyes, they were similar to those of the nightmare they were facing. The creature smiled again, this time more widely.
'Kill...Kill...Kill them all'
Safwane's mind only thought about finishing off the enemy, in this state of madness he didn't care about the wounds, the loss of blood or even his death... The only thing that mattered was that the nightmare in front of him ended up dying.
The nightmare turned its attention to Safwane, but before it could turn around, the young man had grabbed its head.
With superhuman strength he slammed it against the ground, the sanctuary rumbled at the blow.
Safwane tried to cut it with the katana, however the nightmare launched the attacks with the blood on the ground.
This time they seemed useless, the young man cut them at an impressive speed. After that he attacked the nightmare again, which tried to counterattack with both claws.
But the young man hit them hard with the sheath. Making the creature defenseless and Safwane was able to cut its stomach.
A heart-rending scream of pain echoed in the sanctuary.
The nightmare attacked the young man with one of its claws, but Safwane was going to do everything to kill him.
With the palm of his hand he held the creature's claws, causing his hand to be perforated.
Safwane continued despite the serious wound, he made a deep cut again and left the katana stuck in his body, followed by a strong punch to the handle of the katana, this made it go in even deeper.
Even so, Safwane began to lose consciousness again which made the nightmare attack again.
The young man as a last effort hit the creature's paw, unbalancing it.
Both began to fall to the ground, and the nightmare caused the blood to attack Safwane.
The blood took a pointed shape, however before Safwane hit the strange blood, it fell to the ground again.
Blake, with a powerful cut, ended the nightmare's life.
'Thank goodness...' thought Safwane as he fell exhausted.
"Safwane!"
Safwane moved uncomfortably, after a few seconds he began to open his eyes slowly.
"Where am I?" he asked as he partially stood up leaning on his elbows.
"How could you not remember the place where we almost died?" a voice answered.
It was Blake who was sitting at the doors of the sanctuary observing the frozen exterior.
Safwane began to remember the hard battle they had gone through and also... that his red eyes had been shown.
"How long has it been?" asked Safwane with his head down.
"Two weeks... You don't know how much it has cost me to protect this place" Blake answered accompanied by a tired sigh.
"Protect this place? For what?"
"What do you mean, for what? You're unconscious here." Blake replied.
Safwane didn't seem to understand the enlightened man's words.
"You're incredible... We've been able to survive thanks to you, I should return the favor." added the enlightened man.
"...You don't care about my eyes?" Safwane asked as he placed his fingers on top of the katana, which lay beside him.
"Why should I care about your eyes? I have yellow ones..." he replied with irony.
"Safwane, we're partners, I don't care what you've been in the past, I'm going to judge you by what I see and in my opinion you're a great person."
Those words surprised the young man, he had never received good words, he thought he would never receive them, that he was destined to be away from society.
"...I see, thank you," he said with a broken voice as he looked away.
After that conversation, Safwane prepared himself and Blake to leave the place. The battle they had been through had only been a slight demonstration of what they were going to go through.
"By the way, why did it take you so long to recover? It should have taken you a few hours at most," Blake asked curiously.
"Well... The truth is that I'm not an enlightened one, so I have no internal energy."
Blake stopped in his tracks and opened his eyes in surprise.
"You're not an enlightened one?" he repeated the words in disbelief.
"And how is it possible that you did all that!" Blake shouted perplexed.
Safwane explained everything to Blake, from how he was very good at martial arts to his training with Ilkay. He also told him that he couldn't be an enlightened one because he had a curse that prevented him from reaching enlightenment.
"...That's why I'm here, I'm trying to find a solution to the curse." Safwane finished explaining.
"To think you've done all that without a singularity..." Blake muttered.
They were both descending the mountainside.
As they descended they found no interference from the nightmares, one of the reasons being that Blake had been finishing them off as he had to go down soon.
"Have you reached the end of the slope?" Safwane asked.
"I didn't want to get too far away." Blake replied.
"But it's going to be complicated, this place is full of high-ranking nightmares" added the enlightened one.
The two young men continued talking and after an hour of descending, they finally reached the end of the slope.
A huge frozen city became visible before their eyes, but unlike the other cities, this one was in perfect condition, as if there was life inside it.
"Let's go..."