Atsumi POV

Before me, the two creatures looked up at me while wagging their tails. I could feel their anticipation, their eagerness to become whole. I knelt down and looked at the black wolf. As if to introduce itself through intent alone, its name appeared in my thoughts.

“Tenebrion?”

I then looked at the other, and the same happened.

“Lux?”

Their forms changed, and the two became orbs of pure energy. Lux became a bright wisp of white and blue, while Tenerbrion transformed into a smoky ball of red and black. They floated there for a moment and invited me to reach out and touch them.

I did so with little thought, still somewhat enamored by the things. The moment my skin touched the boundaries of their forms, both entities entered my body. This sent a sudden burst of energy through me, which nearly caused me to fall over. The sensation was similar to when the cryptid hit me with that bone spike, just twice as powerful.

I clenched my teeth and steeled myself. The first time this alone made me go unconscious, but I could not allow it to happen again, not in that place, not with that cryptid there. Once the sensation passed, a sense of clarity washed over me. The voices no longer assaulted my mind, and I could experience things that, to me, weren’t there before.

Light and dark particles floated about, unhurried.

I smelled the rust in the air, tasted the dread that lingered.

No elemental attunements were present in that place. Even the water below my feet didn’t feel like water. It felt almost incorporeal, almost as if it wasn’t really there, yet I could see it, sense it, feel it as if it were a part of me.

The cryptid before me looked as if it had several mirror images squished into one. They didn’t all look like wolves, but they were there creating eye-straining amalgamations of humanoid, beast folk and animals.

Tethers of pure mana connected me to the two wolves inside my body and to the several entities that lingered in the forest.

The wolves had no malevolent intent and seemed quite fond of me, but the other entities held could sense hatred, fear, annoyance.

I was more concerned with why they held such opinions of me more than the fact that I could even sense their emotions to begin with.

With the direness of the events to come, I could not dwell on these matters. I needed to get myself out of that place first.

I looked at the cryptid before me and I felt the emotion of the black wolf inside me. When it sensed me, it split a part of its mind and soul and forced itself inside my body through the bone spike.

What I saw before me was its body, its spiritual form, taken over by the hundreds killed that night. Their resentment caused them to live on even after death, and they sought to wreak havoc wherever they went. Those spirits held a particular resentment to humans of any kind, including me.

The two beasts alerted me to the cryptid’s approach, pulling me from my thoughts. The countless malformed faces squirmed like maggots under its skin. Its footsteps barely sent ripples through the water as it dashed towards me.

I got out of range of its claws just in time, but right after, the faces all opened their mouths and red energy gathered to it. Beams of red light shot out in every direction, ripping through the air and displacing it passed through.

Mana Left my core and rushed towards my exterior and a barrier of pale light formed around me, protecting me from the beams of red light. I focused inside again and realized that the two had nearly full access to my mana.

This irked me for a moment, but then I realized that they truly had no bad intentions. They Barely had any mana for themselves and resorted to using mine to help protect me from the cryptid. Not only that, but their thoughts flooded mine with information, intent and images, as if they were guiding me through the fight.

The cryptid spread its claws again and swiped at me. A flash of silver arced near my face as I dodged to the right.

Snap

Its jaws closed shut as it tried to grab me by the neck. I pulled my entire body back and swung my blade and it. It clashed with its claws and a load ring permeated the forest. The force pushed me back, and I stumbled, but even then I didn’t take my eyes off the cryptid.

A flurry of sharp, swiping claws, then followed, but the wolves had taken over my body, infusing me with mana. My eyes followed each strike, and I avoided them with the same precision.

I kept my distance, avoiding its jaws when it tried to get a bite in.

It then spun around and swung its spiked tail at me. I pulled out my katana and slashed the tail at the base. It flew off from its body, but then transformed into a head. Just like the heads attached to its body, it gathered that corrupted mana and shot a beam of red light at me.

Neither I nor the wolves could react in time, and the attack pierced right through my left arm. Like a stone hitting a metal structure, pain reverberated throughout my body. The attack was so simple, yet I felt it everywhere.

I looked down at my arm, but saw no blood. Instead, tiny motes of light floated out from the injury. Though this perplexed me, I had little time to investigate this strange occurrence and turned my attention back to the cryptid.

It pounced on me once again, slamming into the barrier of light that surrounded me. Its weight pressed down on it and squished the barrier ever so slightly.

The barrier collapsed and space warped, the force of its attack inverted and the thing got thrown into the air.

The intent of the two beasts filtered into my mind, and I slashed upwards. The intended ability transferred into my head and the two creatures manipulated my mana in a way I’ve never felt before.

Even though it had been thrown several feet into the air, I cut it with my slash, as if the attack itself extended. This was no simple slash either, its body split in half as whatever magic I had just produced cut through it with ease.

Its two halves then formed and transformed into wolves and they gathered that stomach churning energy near between their razor-sharp teeth.

I threw myself to the ground as two beams of red light hit the water behind me. I rolled and then got to my feet as they both came crashing down from above.

One gave chase, and the other continued to launch those orbs of red energy at me. One after another, my attention switched as the attacks came in. An orb of red, a clawed strike, a beam, a closing jaw lunging for my throat. It all came to me in a fluid sequence, my senses filtering out everything else and allowed me to focus on my two enemies. My perception read their attacks like an adult would a child’s book.

The wild strikes it threw at me had little thought behind it. It was simple, telegraphed moments before it committed to the action, all while everything moved in slow motion.

My body, unlike last time, had no trouble keeping up. Strangely enough, I didn’t even feel like my normal self. The two small wolves gobbled up my mana like a ravenous beast but also released their own. They changed it and enhanced it, filling every part of me with this strange energy. I felt unfettered, unchained, and deep down, I enjoyed this rare sense of utter freedom.

As more energy continued to build, as the two wolves continued to sift through the barriers of my seal, I felt as if I could do anything.

More information flowed into my head, and my body reacted accordingly. Hand outstretched, I moved my blade at blistering speeds, so much so that its edge vanished in the dim light. In its place, space warped and twisted, light burst forth and erupted into spiraling sickles that shot out in a straight line.

The beasts could not react and found themselves overwhelmed by a storm of sickles, their flesh torn. The force of the attack nearly split the lake in two and water rushed back to fill the space it had once occupied.

The two cryptids looked from afar. I could not tell their expression but I could feel a sense of disbelief. This didn’t stop them, however, and the faces on their body became more agitated. They curled and twisted under the skin and pressed against the body of the cryptid. The two curled into a ball as the figures tried to force their way out.

With a chorus of blood-curdling screams and shouts, they tore through the flesh of the two cryptids.

Several dark shadows crawled out from the beast and they rushed towards me, all sporting a unique weapon.

They swirled around me like a tornado and lashed out with their weapons. With formless beings like that, I would expect my sword to go through them. But the moment they touched it, the figures burst into a cold white flame.

With sword, lance, hammer, they all threw their attacks at me and I slashed them one after another.

I then noticed that both wolf cryptids had vanished. Knowing they could be somewhere I could not see, I prepared to retreat and find my bearings, but just as I did, all the shadow entities exploded, forming several blankets of black smoke. My head swiveled from left to right, my eyes darted all around, grasping at every speck of light I could pick out, but, even with my enhanced vision, nothing.

My other senses had been affected, and I had no idea where anything went.

Then a sharp pain ran along my arm. I looked at it with a grimace, only to see three large claw marks. No blood came out, and the injury glowed with a white light. The same white particles also floated out from it.

I looked around again, panic building in my chest, then another burning pain erupted from my right leg.

Information flowed into my head once again, and another barrier formed around me. This one didn’t just form, however, mana continued to pour into it. It glowed in the endless darkness, becoming brighter by the second.

Like a fuse, I snapped my finger, and the orb burst, sending a shockwave through the entire forest and parted the smoke screen with ease.

I looked around once again to find the cryptid, but it was nowhere to be found.

I then felt the wolves inside of my dig deeper into my core. I could feel them peeling the way at my seal as if searching for something.

It was then the cryptid appeared above me. Shadows spiraled around it, empowering its cursed body. Another barrier formed around me, but that was all I could do before it came crashing down on me. The barrier shattered, and the attack pushed me underwater.

Disoriented, I sank like a stone, flailing my arms around as I tried to take control of myself. Hands that felt like searing hot metal gripped my arms and legs and pulled me deeper into the crimson lake.

I struggled to break free, but more and more of them piled onto me. Their deranged thoughts re-entered my mind, but this time, a different note played. Though some continued to berate and insult me, some begged to be freed.

Tired of their vengeful thoughts, they just wanted rest.

The corrupted mana in the lake seeped into me. It burrowed through my skin like maggots through discarded carrion.

At first I felt disgusted, but then the energy seemed to fit perfectly with mine.

This hastened the buildup and resulted in a magical tempest that raged inside of me. Everything in that moment reached a tipping point, so much so that the two wolves could not maintain it. I turned my thoughts inward, focusing on the sea of agitated mana, and sent everything through my channels to help lessen the burden on my core. I gritted my teeth as pain overtook every one of my senses, as if my entire existence would crack open.

I could not control it. I could literally explode in a matter of seconds.

I reached through my memories for a way to help me solve this. How to control mana, how to calm my thoughts when it got out of control, but none of it worked. My body could not contain this much mana. I needed to let it out somehow, but sending this much out through my mana channels could risk damaging my body.

I then thought of the blessing I had acquired. It had a direct connection to my core, meaning it had its own channels. With the rune present, new ones will always form, meaning damaging it won’t cause any issues.

I pooled all the turbulent mana near my core and forced it out of the rune. It felt like someone ripped my skin from the fibers of my muscles, and the pain almost caused me to pass out. As intense as the pain was, it lasted for only a few seconds.

Once relief returned to me, I opened my eyes only to see a landscape completely different from earlier. 

The crimson mist had been completely eradicated, leaving a clear sky. A full moon overlooked everything and stars twinkled in the background.

The pond water, now free of its crimson curse, lifted from the pond, beautiful and pure. It swirled around me like a raging vortex, inside of it tiny motes of black and white star-like objects.

I rested at its center, where the calm resided, like in the eye of a storm. The light breeze against my feet caused me to look down, and I realized that I was floating far above the ground.

The cryptid also floated next to me, but it was in a terrible state. The two copies had rejoined, but the merger was incomplete, leaving to distinct heads. Folds of dead skin sagged from the holes the shadows crawled out from and it looked much smaller. Light flowed around it and it slowly stripped away the dark shadows from its body.

But even then, they clung to the cryptid as if their existence depended on it.  

It looked at me, and I could feel a sense of fear emanating from the spirits inside. Still empowered by the torrent of mana, I could get rid of it at that moment, but I could not. These people had suffered enough. They needed peace; they needed rest.

The souls of all who pass would take refuge in the spirit world and clean themselves of all impurities, memories and sins of their previous life, before being returned to the wheel of reincarnation.

The filth cleared from their bodies would be collected and weighed against them, deciding their next life. At least that’s how my mother explained it to me. Not all believe this, but if that is to be the case, a terrible fate awaited these souls.

These people had been trapped in a cycle of pain and anger for an uncountable amount of years, and if I were to kill the cryptid, what would happen to these souls? Would they forever be trapped in that state, left to lament their fate forever? Or would they pass on only to enter a life worthy of their karma?

Either way, I would not be able to forgive myself if I simply let this be.

“How can I help them?” I asked, not knowing who would answer.

For a moment silence followed, but as I waited, just like the moment in that room, knowledge flowed into my head and a chant appeared in my thoughts.

It was a strange chant, and I didn’t even know what it did, but if this could help, I had no other option. So I closed my eyes and imbued my words with mana.

My past, my legacy, those who have come before, memories passed down in spirit. Paragons of ancient wills, grant me the boon of thy wisdom, grant me that which is forgotten.

Images I’ve never seen, sensations I’ve never experienced, faces I’ve never known, knowledge I’ve never sought. All of it rushed into my thoughts. It all mixed into a soup of nonsense before the image settled. There, a woman with striking red hair and purple eyes stood inside an enormous cathedral. She had similarities to my mother, but I knew at first glance that it wasn’t her. She conjured a strange magic one that allowed her to commune with the dead, to hear their wishes and regrets and absolve them of their sins. Like a seamstress, she manipulated the threads of corruption that bound their souls and sent them off with a smile.

I could not explain it, but the intricacies of her magic implanted itself into my psyche, allowing me to use it without as much as a word.

I approached the cryptid, and the souls became agitated once more. I held out my hand and made myself look as unthreatening as possible. The cryptid lashed out , digging its sharp teeth into my shoulder while clawing away at my abdomen, but I didn’t retaliate. 

I held it in my arms and embraced it.

“I cannot relate to your pain. You have been wronged in many ways, deceived, punished for something you didn’t do. I cannot bring justice to those who have wronged you. After all, it’s the past. What is done cannot be undone.”

The agitated souls calmed down, and its jaws loosened on my shoulder.

“But I can help you rest. I can soothe the pain, take on some of your burden. If you let me.”

The beast released me and then looked at me. I could see the eyes of the many souls that inhabited its body.

I returned a reassuring smile and gently brushed its blood stained fur.

I didn’t know how long this calm would last, so I closed my eyes and released my mana. I forced it into the beast and touched the many souls inside. One by one, the memories of their lives and subsequent deaths played out in my head, and I replaced it with visions of a happy future.

I pushed out the corrupted mana with my own, and it oozed out from the seams of their existence. The corrupted mana drifted into the sky before dissolving into the air.

Once I was done, I opened my eyes to see several points of light, all of differing colors, floating into the moonlight. What was left behind was the husk of a wolf, battered and bruised, but even that faded into nothingness.

I thought for a moment I had lost the body, but the wolf seemed to be happy. I guess its body returned to it in a way I could not yet understand.

I sighed and floated downwards. The sky cleared, and the water returned to the lake. The forest entities had disappeared, leaving nothing but a tranquil forest.

As I approached the ground, the scenery changed. The moon set, and several mana crystals appeared. Before long, I was standing in the middle of a crystal mine and under a late afternoon sky.

There I saw Lyria running towards me while everyone else looked on with strange expressions.