I think I have an idea…
Kieron paced summoned the amulet out, which was about 5/8th filled.
Instead of using the amulet to get more time, I'll try to spread that time into this world itself. It's supposed to be nearly a month worth of time. If… if I succeed, I might be able to disorient this space, no? Hah… here goes nothing.
Kieron activated the amulet, this time focusing on the world instead of him. The amulet rapidly lost its lustre as it released the time stored inside it. Rapidly sparks took over the amulet and it started. The space around him distorted slightly.
It worked! It's at least a start.
A fissure started to appear around the amulet. More Sparks flew around, causing Kieron to start getting his hands burnt. Unfortunately, he needed to keep it in his hands to release the time. The fissure kept enlarging itself and soon enough it had reached a decent point.
Kieron tensed up as he took his stance, ready to jump into the fissure at any moment that seemed fit. Eventually it was time, Kieron was hesitant, but he went through it.
The feeling of going through it was, simultaneously painful and euphoric. The sensation left Kieron bewildered.
Walking out of it, Kieron's vision was coming back. He looked around and noticed a half dead black knight sitting, in the middle of a ruined white and dusty castle, on a throne, massive throne made of… books? The sight was very eye catching.
Interesting look.
The knight looked like it couldn't live with himself. The fissure had luckily opened far enough from the knight, only giving Kieron a slight idea of the knight's surroundings.
I'll be back to kill you, it's good that I no longer have the risk of becoming a puppet. That world was scary to remain in for even a second more.
Kieron felt as if he wasn't enough to kill the knight at all, it wasn't anything profound. Just intuition. He felt as if he had to trust it. But he also didn't know what else to do.
He decided that it's best to look around the place he was at, a mountain. Perhaps he can find something.
The mountain was filled to the brim with beasts; he could hear them loud and clear. It was not a good sign, as there were definitely predators among them too.
But what other choice do I have?
He decided to go into the forest. Perhaps there was a method for killing the half dead terror knight, like how sunny had one for killing the awakened tyrant he had fought.
Kieron walked into the forest calmly. Leaving behind a trail of some kind to follow back to.
Getting lost would be a nightmare. Kieron laughed at his own terrible joke. The situation wasn't anything to be fond of, so at least he wanted to keep the mood light.
But the world went at its own pace unfortunately. Because suddenly, the mountain shook, encompassing the entirety of the mountain into a mind shattering shriek. Kieron let out a loud, guttural scream, full of pain, covering his ears tightly with his arms. The pain barely endurable due to his aspect. It felt as if he had no leverage over the sound despite his aspect.
The shriek didn't seem to stop, or decreasing its amplitude. It was as if it simply existed, as if it was the rule of the world.
Through the pain and the scream, Kieron looked up over the cliff, smiling as his face seemed to melt into a distorted mess.
In a distorted tone he spoke out loud, "The terror has awoken."
After getting control over his body back, he clutched his leg in pain and tried to escape it. His thought process was a mess, the attack over the mind was too strong. Any other person would have fallen prey to that shriek.
Huff… huff… it seems my aspect… has saved me some pain. It didn't decrease the pain but raised my tolerance to it. It also seems to provide me some extent of mental attack tolerance. Ooof, I don't want to experience this. It hurts so much…
Kieron kept thinking to distract him from the immense pain he was going through.
Wait, is my aspect a counter to the terror's ability? I mean its strength is much higher so it can get pass my counter with no problems… still, this has given me a sort of hope.
Now that the shriek's intensity decreased, Kieron, without looking back, ran with all his might. He needed to get away. Running inside the forest, without too much recovery of the mind he couldn't seem to scout properly, causing him to run into a couple beasts, or perhaps monsters. Unfortunately, he didn't have the mental strength to fight properly. Even more unfortunate was the fact that he wasn't strong enough to outrun them.
This is insane, not even Sunny or Nephis had to fight these many awakened brings in their first nightmare! Oh my god... You better give me a divine aspect, spell! You hear me?!
Still, as tired as he was, he was not tired out of his wits, yet.
Summoning his sword, Kieron jumped onto a tree, climbing it with relative ease and jumping from its branch onto one of the beasts, a massive bear like beast, generating a lot of momentum and piercing its skull, instantly killing it.
[You have slain a…]
Without having the time to listen in on the spell's feminine and calming voice, Kieron turned around and swung his sword towards the other beast. It had…
Eight arms? That looks disgusting!
The swing ended up severing 2 of its arms causing it to groan in pain, clutching his hands with his other hands.
In some sort of rage, it blindly charged and Kieron who in turn calmly sidestepped, causing the beast to run into a tree causing the tree to break and fall on him. Kieron doesn't let the chance go to waste as he swung his sword towards its neck, severing it from the monster's torso. Giving him another kill.
[You have slain a…]
The fight sobered him up; his agitated mental state had calmed down due to the threat. Calming down soon, he went up to the corpses and took out the soul shards.
In the end he ended up with 3 awakened soul shards.
Not bad.
Absorbing them didn't really work unfortunately.
Well, that sucks.
No, it's just that he didn't know how to absorb them. A scene of Nephis crushing the soul fragments near her chest before absorbing them flashed through his mind.
He followed the same procedure. This time it worked. Kieron felt the soul essence flow into him; the feeling was rather great. He already felt stronger than before, but that might just be placebo effect, after all he only got around six more fragments.
That is great! I have such a head start in this compared to others. Hehe.
Soon after he was done with it, he focused on his surroundings again, feeling stupid for neglecting something that important.
I need to be more alert. I can't keep going like this.
Not knowing when something might attack him, he decided to make a camp for now, as he was really hungry. He set up a fire and cooked the monster meat.
Kieron was really hungry, too hungry perhaps. For the first time in a while.