CHAPTER 38: GAINS

As Noctis landed once again he focused on his senses.

By senses he didn’t mean the five normal senses that everyone had, they were rather useless in this void, rather he focused on manipulating the force inside him to pick up on the out of ordinary movement in energy present in the space.

As the energy flowing around the space coalesced in various places, it took a humanoid form and matter; occupying space.

Soon dozens of such bodies surrounded Noctis.

These were precisely the haunted things that the void wretched out of its abyssal pit to haunt him day after day.

In the beginning being unable to even perceive them left him so utterly helpless, he could only bear the relentless assault on his body as he was left black and blue; before the tide of void covered him, putting him under another subsequent spell of suffocation, a form of torture the fate seemed to have favoured the most when taking care of him.

A soundless sightless fist flew towards Noctis’ right rib, which he dodged, just as another kick approached his left leg.

Blocking the kick with his elbow he extended his legs in a back kick, forcing the creature back as another two approached his position.

Parrying one and dodging another, Noctis focused his attention looking for the tides rolling about in the void here and there.

As one such tide approached his position, Noctis maneuvered through the creatures, ducking a kick, catching an elbow in his hands as his other hands blocked the overhead kick.

Just as he jumped to another position, without a break another creature jumped towards him with some weapon in his hand, it too made of void, given uncanny form indistinguishable form from matter how was made of but with such properties, every strand of hair on his body tingled the moment it approached him.

Noctis dashed towards the creature before it could land as he held the swinging hands before it could make a swing at his head with a firm grip, but before he could neutralize it, another creature lunged at him from his sides, forcing him to block it with his forearm.

Twisting his ankles a little, Noctis kicked the assailant from the sides, unfortunately having to let go of the creature with the axe in the process.

Without missing a beat the creature swung his axe from the kneeling position causing Noctis to step back as another two of the void beings waiting there attacked simultaneously.

Noctis used one hand to block the elbow of one and another hand to the low kick of the other at his shins.

The two dark creations fought him simultaneously, Noctis barely keeping up.

The void creature had the same strength and speed as him but had much higher advantage as Noctis had to keep focusing his energy on his senses just to keep track of them.

Not to mention the number of these things and the fact that unlike him, they barely got tired or hurt.

Soon Noctis was fighting a third such being as an elbow slammed his shoulders as he just barely managed to kick away one of the creatures.

Without a moment to rest another creature joined from the back as Noctis was punched hard at his back throwing him several meters away as he felt his bones racking in his shoulders and backbone.

’These fucking shitheads. Jumping a defenseless child. Where’s fairness in this world?’

As Noctis took deep breaths through gritted teeth, feeling the familiar pain that kept him company throughout this solitary time, he felt himself surrounded on all sides with the creatures.

Even while trying to gather his bearings his senses were flared in full focus looking through as far as his energy would let him.

Soon he felt the tide rolling about in the distance.

Since the creature kept tumbling him from here to there he had no choice but to go towards it himself.

Firming up his will, as he noticed the creatures slowly closing on him, Noctis sprinted towards the direction of the tide.

In his vision he saw nothing but darkness, but as soon as he moved just a few meters he felt danger from a multitude of angles as he ducked and jumped, parrying and tanking many hits straight on his body.

With calculated movement and spars he used all his energy to focus all his energy in this sprint, even as small trails of blood kept flowing from his nose, kept moving in the direction of the tide.

After taking a hit on just about every major part of his body he finally made it to the rolling tides.

Without missing a beat he jumped up, intending to land right on the high tide.

As the creatures closed in on him from his back and sides he focused all his energy employed in sensing and running on the toe of the feet that was to land upon the tide.

From the corner of his eyes, due to proximity to himself, he noticed a creature materializing from the liquidy void approaching him as he approached the tide.

Noctis, however, was entirely unfazed as he approached the tide without flinching.

Just as the weapon in the half-materialized creature reached his body his toe touched the liquid and all the energy concentrated in his toe flooded towards the void.

The moment the energy touched the void, the liquid took on an enchanting blue colour along with its consistently reduced from extremely dense sludgy texture to something actually resembling water.

’Gotcha.’

In the fraction of the second remaining for the weapon to almost touch Noctis’ face, a thick large root reached out from the water and struck the creature squarely, sending it flying with such sound and force Noctis’ felt somewhat pitiful.

Just like Noctis the water also emitted its own light, as well as covering a circle around Noctis with radius of a few meters, finally allowing him stop straining his energy to sense and focus on fighting the creatures head on.

’This time for sure.’

The numerous void creatures stood upon the glassy surface of the water as Noctis swiped his hands in the air, calling upon various vines and roots and even a tree from the middle of the lake.

As the creatures attacked him, he skillfully used the vines and roots to control the numbers of the assailants while neutralising every creature one by one and binding them with the tree in the middle.

Losing the numbers as well as the ability to remain hidden, Noctis slowly but surely dwindled the creatures, reducing them to bodies hanging upon the tree like corpses in haunted woods.

***

Having been through this ordeal numerous times in the past, Noctis more or less could handle a few creatures at a time.

Before he discovered this ability to change the void he had to fight these things for hours upon hours, long after his body was exhausted and broken from repeated hits.

But he was still fairly satisfied with the results of this extensive, sometimes dastardly ordeal.

Apart from this strange ability, of which nature he wasn’t too sure about as of yet, the biggest gain was that he was finally properly tuned with his body.

All these years he had no way to hone his combat in the forest just hunting; which showed up in the challenges as his body failed him and defied his standards again and again.

Now after hours of practice and pain, he felt confident in taking on even the best combatants in the facility in his previous life.

Noctis closed his eyes as his heart drummed against his chest, his body trying to gather itself after all the creatures were sealed with the tree in the middle.

Right now he was kneeling on his left knee, extending his wrist into the water trying to manipulate his energy in a peculiar order.

’Come on... come on.. why so slow.’

Another thing that he had noticed about himself after the... ’strange’ incident during the end of the challenges, with the strange shadow in the curtains and the beasts on the clouds, was that his energy had changed in a fundamental way.

He understood his ability to control multiple vines and roots as well as these water abilities with this change.

Along with this was another power; the water that his wrist was touching slowly started freezing little by little, extending towards the whole lake like spiderwebs.

Although it was still very slow as it required immense control on his part, it gladdened him no less than the time he had awakened his energy the first time.

In part because it felt like a power up, but more than that he felt happy that he wouldn’t have to go through the whole freezing to death thing like that accursed sea in the plain inside the forest, ever again.

He felt an innate closeness with cold just like he felt it with forests when he first entered it after awakening his energy.

Rather than just frost, it was the very essence of cold. The absolute stillness that seals any motion, any change indicating chaos or disorder.

Even life.