"Ahh!!!!" Enzo's scream, alerting everyone in the cave, caused them to enter high alert as they looked over to see what was wrong.
"Enzo, you're awake…" Victoria's voice resounded next to him awkwardly as she smiled.
He probably had a nightmare. Those were very embarrassing, especially for someone so young. She was trying to remove the focus from that.
"I…" Enzo frowned deeply and reached for his head, noticing there was no knife in it.
"Pheww!!" He sighed, then smiled bitterly at Victoria. "I'll be with you in a few minutes."
He stood up and walked outside, passing by the three of them.
Meanwhile, they could only shrug their shoulders. They had no idea what was going on there.
...….
"Fucker!!" Enzo cursed as soon as he got far away from them, he began to sweat profusely again. In a matter of seconds, his body was drenched in sweat.
He had seen a lot of things and had nearly died several times in the past few weeks, but this was the first time he had ever felt like he had actually died.
The feeling of that knife in his head still persisted even now.
That was a messed-up dream.
[Night vision has ended]
The HUD in his head sounded, forcing him to think.
He had heard it before the dream commenced. It was the same tone he felt when he first entered Galafray but a bit different.
"Void coffin, any updates on my skills?" Enzo asked.
A while ago, the coffin had explained to him that his innate skills would only be unlocked in specific circumstances. He didn't think that the night vision skill, which he thought originally was a passive skill, was actually something else.
[Yes, the night vision skill has been activated in the last hour… running checks….]
The coffin resounded in Enzo's head.
[Night vision: in the right conditions and spaces, whoever holds this skill will be flashed with images of the past, present, or future. Be warned, not everything seen is concrete. The past is distorted, the present is static, and the future is not written.]
"Night vision," Enzo muttered. He understood now.
This wasn't a skill that allowed him to see in the dark. No, it was a seer skill that allowed him to peer into hidden secrets and events.
"That's… I don't know what to say." Enzo smiled bitterly.
On one hand, this skill of his was very overpowered—to a large extent even. But then again, what he had just seen was horrifying. He didn't want to have such dreams whenever he slept.
He would rather not know the future at all than see such a horrid dream.
"Sigh, what about shadow manipulation?" Enzo asked.
[No information yet.]
The void coffin responded without emotion.
Meanwhile, Enzo sat there in his thoughts, thinking about what to do next… and how to prepare for whatever was coming.
As he did so, Victoria approached him from behind and sat next to him.
"Are you okay?" she asked awkwardly.
She was very experienced, having lived for thousands upon thousands of years. However, in all that time she struggled with one issue repeatedly—how to coordinate with emotions.
Be it distress, pain, anxiety, or even love… she knew nothing of it or how to navigate it.
"I am." Enzo nodded calmly, feeling a bit out of place.
But nothing could prepare him for what would happen next.
All of a sudden, Victoria leaned into him and wrapped her hand around his shoulders as if hugging him. He felt her breast press against him and her warmth spread across his body.
She was surprisingly warm for a vampire.
Wait a minute, what am I thinking?? This is so awkward!!
Enzo thought in his mind.
Victoria was clearly trying to comfort him, and here he was having dirty thoughts. It was beyond strange.
"Would you like to hear a story?" Letting go of him, Victoria asked with a smile.
They were all but done with what they wanted to talk about inside the cave. Their plan of attack and movement was already finalized, so she had time.
"Uhhh, sure." Enzo nodded without thinking.
"Good, let me continue with the girl in the castle." Victoria smiled.
.
.
.
.
.
They waited for the sun to come up and go right back down before moving out, this time with Victoria in tow.
The Grand Canyon contained their only way out of here. It had even been corroborated by Thane too, who seemed to have garnered this information while being tortured.
He also corroborated the danger of that place. If the great desert was made to make sure Victoria didn't leave Galafray, the Grand Canyon was made to kill her if she tried.
It had a myriad of creatures so powerful that the red sun region could only drop them in the canyon and never interfere with them ever again.
According to Thane, some of the scientists from his own prison had tried to escape Galafray in his lifetime and were killed before reaching the teleportation circle.
It was then they realized they had created something that was out of their control.
"There's one over there. Remember what I taught you." Behind a giant rock, Thane's voice resounded as he looked over at Enzo.
Crossing the Grand Canyon would only get harder the deeper they went into the canyon. Monsters beyond even Thane's power would appear. If even he needed to be careful, what is there to say about Enzo?
So to increase the chances of his survival, Thane had volunteered to teach him a few fighting techniques meant for just that.
He called it 'The Codex of the Dead Man.'
These sets of fighting skills had to do with the fighter's ability to keep on going, wearing down the enemy while receiving minimal damage to oneself.
It allowed weak fighters to have a chance at killing things much stronger than them.