Knock. Knock.
Again.
Sunny walked away from Caster's dorm. It seems Caster had locked himself up in his room due to… well he didn't know the reason. But it had happened.
He's not responding to anyone. I wonder what happened. I don't really care but Professor Julius asked me to check up on him. Sigh…
Caster at this point had been locked in his room for 2 days. The instructors were rather worried, as explaining the disappearance of a legacy would be troublesome. Especially someone like Han Li, Caster. They'll probably break open his room in a day or two.
Should I send my shadow inside the room to check? No, i probably shouldn't. Sunny thought inwardly, with both his hands on the back of the head as he leisurely walked to his class.
I'll have to reveal my cards if I do that.
***
You've gotta be shitting me
Kieron look around the place the cave led to. It was the broken palace where the knight of terror, the nickname Kieron gave him, resided.
He was unfortunately not very far from the odd-looking throne of books. The injured knight sat in it, with hundreds, if not thousands, of strings coming out from it. All of them seemed to be moving with their own… life? Kieron didn't know how to describe it. It was creepy. The throne was also about seven meters tall, the Knight nearly half as tall as it, while sitting.
He noticed that the knight didn't seem to notice Kieron, likely meaning that it was blind, which was very possible as the knight had a very deep injury in the form of a gnash from its shoulders to the top of its leg. Who knows if it has an eye injury as well.
The silhouette of the injured noble knight was all black, even from this distance. Likely implying that it was black.
Duh! What am I even thinking. Focus, your life is on the line.
The knight seemed to be holding a book in its hand, the book was very blurry, as if it wasn't supposed to exist with the knight. It seemed to be both stuck to the knight and trying to repel away from it.
No weapon huh? Well, I guess he doesn't need it if he has a shriek like that, kek.
Kieron, unable to get fully serious as usual, finally tried his best to focus.
How am I possibly supposed to kill that? Sunny had a dead god's blessing, Nephis had her terror sleeping, but mine is alive and kicking, despite injured. This is arguably the hardest 1st nightmare, no? I just can't see any way to victory…
Kieron noticed the knight glance into the book and then instantly turned to Kieron's direction. Running towards him at full speed. Just the tremors from its running were breaking the ground apart.
What? Is that a tracking relic…? A terror is after me... Shit, I need to leave.
Immediately Kieron turned around and ran at full speeds from the terror. The knight swiftly caught up, then using the book somehow, a bolt of electricity hurled towards Kieron, getting hit by it, a violent marriage of awe and agony followed. The moment felt as if the time fractured and the soul was ripped out from him.
A spear of white fire drives through the body, a god's finger pressing down without mercy. The muscles seize into pulsating statues, lungs forget their rhythm, and the heart falters in its sacred duty. Pain becomes its own language bright and eternal. Every nerve screams a hymn of fire; every thought is shattered glass.
For an instant, he was not human. He was current. He was the storm. Suspended between life and legend, his body glowed with the wrath of the sky.
The agony was blinding and thought shattering. Kieron fell on his knees, still sitting, forcing himself to look up, at the terror, refusing to give up, but his body already did.
His skin felt wrong, like it belonged to someone else a stranger whose nerves are frayed wires, twitching with the memory of flame. His bones, those loyal pillars, vibrate with a secret rhythm, like they remember being part of the lightning's spine.
Inside, something had changed. He was not sure if it's his soul or shadow, but it's darker now, and heavier. The world around you seem dimmer, like it's recoiling from what you've touched, or what has touched you.
Kieron smiled, smiled through the pain, the agony… and the fear of death, pulling himself up from the ground, summoning his sword, taking his stance and facing the terror.
His smile was too still, his gaze… too exact, as if he was dissecting the terror with invisible tools. It's the quiet horror of standing before a person who wears sanity like a borrowed coat, ill-fitting and easily discarded.
The terror itself stopped, seemingly feeling fear.
How ironic.
The lightning bolt should have killed the puny human, yet he stood. The lightning bolt was strong enough to kill the terror itself, and it knew that. Yet somehow the human didn't.
The book in the terror's hands seemed to detach itself from the terror and it flew towards the young warrior opposite to it. As if it was acknowledging him.
[You have received a memory: Book of Books]
Kieron still hadn't recovered enough to think, he was running off pure adrenaline and instinct. He took the book in his hands flipping the pages as the terror soundlessly waited. The terror was terrified.
He moved towards the terror. His eyes burned, not with warmth, but with a savage hunger, like embers that longed to consume. Bloodthirsty and unblinking, gleamed with a kind of joy that had nothing to do with kindness. The smile was the most unsettling part, not forced or false, but genuine, wide, and disturbingly calm. It was the smile of someone who didn't just survive the storm he was the storm.
The terror seemed to be terrified of the book now that it was in Kieron's hands. It took a step back before unleashing his dream-like-space onto Kieron again, to puppet him. But it didn't work. There was a wall of something between them. But what was it?
Unsettled, the terror took off running, away from him. It felt thoroughly unmatched. In both powers and mentality.
Instead of running after the terror, Kieron backed away as well, barely being able to walk due to the agonizing pain of the lightning strike.
He had lost track of the cave opening he came from so he blindly walked through the ruins of the castle, finding another opening in the ground, which he entered to rest.
Hours passed, and now he had finally recovered enough to form coherent thoughts.
Is this where the other split-up would lead to? I guess it didn't matter which one I chose...This… this is all insane. Why did the terror even run away? I was at my most vulnerable. Is it the book? Is it that special? Well, I suppose it is. It seems the various powers the terror used were due to this book. Except the puppetry and the dream-like-space I suppose.
Calming down from the near-death experience from earlier, Kieron focused on the words "Book of Books"
[Book of Books: Knowledge is divine.]
It seems I have a way to kill the terror.