Luke hunted for a few hours, but now night was approaching.

He went back to the house, had dinner, grabbed his lantern, and just continued with the hunt.

‘I’m closing in on 40 elementals gathered now…’

He ran into several smaller groups of Gleems, which sped up the process of gathering the tiny wind elementals.

As he was thinking about that, a Gleem was cut vertically into two identical halves.

Luke’s control over the wind has massively improved.

He could now make longer and faster wind blades.

Luke was now also skilled enough to be able to shoot out wind blades without throwing them, simply by willing them to move forward. This had a lot to do with his wind elemental strengthening many times over as well.

His speed increased only by a little, and his field of view also kept increasing, but almost unnoticeably at this point.

Luke kneeled down and absorbed the tiny wind elemental from the corpse.

He could now easily gather materials from the Gleem’s corpses, but he didn’t need to, as he had a suitable weapon in the form of a wind blade already.

“Phew…”

Luke stood back up, and continued running. It was currently night-time.

‘I can sense something over there…’

As Luke hunted, he started to notice that he could “sense” things.

He couldn’t quite explain it, but he could sense other beings’ presence, although only roughly.

It started after he met the pair of silver robed people for the first time.

He could also see his wind blade with his bare eyes, along with any other wind he conjured more clearly than ever before.

Luke thought that it was due to his wind getting stronger and more condensed, enabling him to see it.

Luke couldn’t know this, but he didn’t get so much better at all of these things only because of strengthening his wind elemental.

He slowed down a bit, approaching the place where he sensed the presence of multiple beings.

Luke only had a rough estimate on the number of beings that were present where he was heading, but that wasn't important, because he still had a functioning pair of eyes.

He could see six Gleems just trotting around.

Luke gathered a wind blade in each of his hands and stretched his arms out, shooting them out simultaneously.

*Swoosh!*

As the Gleems were standing relatively close to each other, Luke decided to use longer wind blades.

The two wind blades sliced through the Gleems as if they were butter, and cut them apart violently, spilling their scarlet red blood and strewing their guts across nearby trees.

Luke approached the mutilated corpses, and six tiny wind elementals were floating silently, as if waiting for him.

Just before the tiny elementals dispersed, Luke stretched both of his arms out, and the tiny wind elementals started flowing along his arms, and entered his chest, as if they belonged there in the first place.

‘That should be 43 all in all.’

Luke’s eyes widened suddenly.

He could feel a powerful presence approaching him.

Luke’s eyes returned back to normal and he smiled.

'Of course. I had a feeling that it was going too smoothly.’

Luke stared at the being in front of him.

Two blazing red eyes stared right back at him.

Luke could now completely envelop both his legs and arms in wind, so he did just that, and started rushing towards the monster.

A gust of wind tried approaching Luke, but it just scattered as it approached him.

“No talking.”

Luke formed a wind blade in one hand, and formed a wind spike in the other.

The wind spike was basically just a big, sharp rod made out of wind.

“Look here N'Gool, I found a perfect stick for you.”

The huge creature started cackling.

A gust of wind was approaching Luke, this time, passing next to him, thus not scattering.

“I. Don’t. Dare. Call. Myself. By. That. Sacred. One’s. Name.”

‘Huh?’

Luke was visibly confused. He was under the impression that the giant bird-like creature was N'Gool ever since it led him to his first death.

‘Is this bastard saying that he’s not N’Gool?’

Coming to a realization, Luke slowed down just a little bit, before accelerating again.

‘Well, N’Gool or not, this bastard has to pay.’

Luke started shooting out the prepared wind blades and wind spikes.

The wind blades were aimed at the monster’s huge but short legs, while the wind spikes were aimed directly at it’s head.

Luke was having a hard time aiming due to it being night-time, but the target being massive, along with his experience with fighting in the dark helped him maintain a good level of accuracy.

He kept rapidly launching wind spikes and wind blades at the monster.

The giant monster enveloped its legs, along with its head, in wind, and although not managing to scatter the projectiles completely, it lessened their impact.

‘This monster is actually weaker than that damned woman. And much weaker at that.’

Scratches started appearing on the monster’s legs, as well as tiny holes on its face.

‘These attacks are not enough to do any significant damage…’

Luke smiled bitterly.

‘I couldn’t even fight back in the past. So managing to even scratch this bastard is also good progress.’

The monster gathered up a huge ball of wind in its beak and then shot it straight at Luke.

Luke quickly dashed to his left, avoiding the ball of wind.

*Swoosh, boom!*

‘So much raw power…’

Luke’s eyes lit up.

‘I must kill this bastard and obtain its wind elemental!’

Just as Luke was approaching the giant monster at his current maximum speed, he sensed something zoom by him.

Luke’s eyes opened wide in disbelief.

The giant monster was still standing tall in front of him, but there was just one issue now.

Its head was missing.

The giant monster’s body swayed, and then started falling towards Luke.

Luke started running away, managing to avoid the limp giant corpse by a hair’s breadth.

‘What the hell just happened?!’

*Tap!*

Two people appeared next to Luke.

Luke was now filled with dread.

‘Of course it’s them…’

“Hey there! Have you seen an old man around here?”

Mark’s deep blue eyes made eye contact with Luke.

Luke could see a wind elemental the size of a child’s fist floating out of the giant corpse.

Mark followed Luke’s gaze, and regretfully commented.

“Ah… It’s a shame we don’t have a Capturing artifact.”

Luke then had an idea, and opened his mouth.

“Actually, I happen to have one. That’s why I was fighting this monster in the first place. Thanks for your assistance.”

As much as it pained him to do this, Luke slightly bowed towards the two people.

“Hey, it’s not that big of a deal! It’s just a mother Gleem!”

‘A mother Gleem… So that’s what it was.’

Luke smiled bitterly.

“May I go capture the elemental now? I would like to avoid its dispersion…”

Mark and Alissia looked at each other.

Alissia nodded.

“I’ll come with you.”

Luke was nervous. There was a good chance that he could die here, but if he could absorb even a part of this wind elemental that was almost as big as fifty tiny wind elementals combined, it would be worth it.

Luke and Alissia quickly arrived on top of the giant Gleem.

They stood in front of the wind elemental and Luke couldn’t help but gulp.

He reached his hands out and the wind elemental quickly arrived in front of his chest.

Luke started absorbing the elemental, and just as half of it entered his chest, something weird happened.

Luke’s world started spinning around repeatedly.

The world soon stopped spinning and Luke noticed that he was lying on the ground.

No, it was only his head that was on the ground.

His headless body was still standing still as if frozen in time.

Luke died, his headless limp corpse squirting blood.

His body fell over, and rolled down the giant Gleem’s corpse, smashing into the dry ground below.

The silver hourglass tattoo then started shining in its bright blue light, and the hourglass flipped upside down, causing the sand to flow in reverse once again.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Luke opened his eyes.

He was immediately confused.

‘Where am I?’

He examined his surroundings.

He was floating in a seemingly infinite blue space.

Just as he was about to try moving, he heard a voice.

“Hey, kid. Fancy seeing you here of all places.”

Luke turned his head around.

The old man was floating while sitting in a lotus meditation pose.

It was the very same old man that had saved Luke’s life when he first appeared in this world.

Luke widened his eyes in surprise.

“Old man, where is this place?”

The old man retorted.

“Who are you calling an old man?!”

The old man sighed and continued talking:

“This place would best be described as the place where your elementals reside. Some people consider this space to be the human soul.”

“Wait a second… You’re saying that I’m inside my own soul right now?!”

Luke was very confused.

‘How could such a thing happen in the first place…’

“Well, kid, I’ll make it simple for you. You have gathered the required amount of mana you needed to be able to access this space. Only a few people are capable of achieving this, even after acquiring the required amount of mana, so you should be proud of yourself.”

Luke was in a daze.

“Why are you in my soul then?”

The old man stroked his chin.

“I don’t know for sure, but there’s a few possible things that could’ve happened. The most likely of them being that a part of my ego remained with the time elemental as I died, and got transferred into your soul along with it…”

“Wait, wait, wait! Hold on a second! Is the time elemental the same elemental that I'm thinking of?”

The old man smiled.

“It’s the unique elemental that chose you as its true host. I was just a temporary host that forcefully incorporated it into my soul.”

Luke was amazed.

‘This is all new information. Who knows how much I will be able to learn from this old man?’

But at that moment, Luke’s body started scattering.

“Huh? What’s going on?!”

The old man closed his eyes.

“I guess time’s up. I’m sure we’ll see each other again in the future. Try not to die too many times.”

As he said that, Luke’s body completely disappeared from the imaginary space.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Luke examined his surroundings yet again, before narrowing his eyes.

It was late afternoon.

There was a stick planted vertically in front of him, along with a freshly filled up hole in the ground.

‘Is returning to this exact moment just a coincidence?’

A pulsating pain started emanating from his chest.

Luke started unbuttoning his shirt, wondering what it could be…