Shock expressions were clearly apparent on all parties’ faces. Cora looked immediately and saw that Merik was holding his head in a strained manner, clearly fighting back against something.

  Is it the headache? Wha… what is that black thing on his neck?

  Immediately, Merik shook his head and pulled the trigger again.

  But this time, the creature suddenly dodged and sprayed the blood from its severed hand towards Merik’s eyes. Blinded by the thick red blood, Merik had to jump several steps backwards in case.

  The azure lantern was dropped onto the ground, right in front of the creature.

  Merik wiped the blood off his face and immediately followed up with two shots of his bullets. There weren’t any blackish flames. One of them hit the creature and the other missed by a wide margin.

  Suppressed feelings, emotions and all that he was, suddenly rose from the deepest parts of Merik, stopping at nothing to devour him whole. Being exposed to these mind-numbing fogs for an extensive period of time did take a huge toll on Merik, after all. Merik fell onto his knees and had to hold his head in terror.

  Despite the heartrending pain, he endured and pointed the gun at the creature once again and shot.

  The gun was already out of bullet and with that, Merik fell onto the ground, clearly suffering from indescribable pain.

  Meanwhile Cora acted in a panic, throwing the fireball in her hand towards the creature.

  The woman she desperately wanted to save with all her might. The children whom she wanted mercy for. Because in the face of survival or demise, she still gave in to her basic human instincts. She was still a human, after all.

  Such inhumane yet terrifyingly humane reflex and sudden realization towards her own self made uncontrollable tears to form in her weary eyes.

  It went straight towards the creature which was still on the ground, out of balance.

  Shockingly, the creature faced the flames head on, letting it catch to its body.

  A suppressed scream erupted out from its body, followed by a creepy and horrifying mocking laughter. It was different from the very first one Cora heard of.

  It was full of hatred, fear, worry and desperation.

  Cora felt immense fear from the laughter. Every stand of hair on her body stood up relentlessly with every muscle in her body started to shake uncontrollably.

  The creature slowly got up and before they realized it, it took the azure lantern into its hand. It was hurting severely, and the gushing of blood didn’t show any signs of stopping. It was already on the verge of collapsing but it didn’t seem to care.

  With its intact left hand, it crushed the lantern with all of its might.

  Ominous feelings completely drowned both Merik and Cora uncontrollably.

  The lantern was destroyed and the blueish crystal inside was shattered beyond recognition before it was completely dispersed with the quietly blowing wind.

  Merik and Cora could only stare at it with wide eyes before their visions were dreadfully filled with these lethal fogs yet again. They were a lot denser than ever before with these intense mind-numbing mental attacks started to assault them again.

  Cora fell onto her knees while holding her head and screaming to her lungs. Unbelievably, she was getting attacked by ceaseless waves of memories; painful or wonderful, longing or forgetting.

  Strangely, it was the creature itself causing the final attack like this and yet it to their surprise it was struggling against it as well.

  Struggling to move. Struggling to move away from them. And shrilling to its lungs.

  Moving away meant exposing its back towards them. Wasn’t an ideal action for a presumably intelligent life form to do. Still, it was a chance she shouldn't miss.

  Cora tried to form a fireball to at least to slow her but it failed right away and furthermore, it gave a terrible pain for her already injured hand.

  Merik was still struggling with his own internal troubles so he’s currently out of the question.

  Her gaze was full of despair seeing the monster escaped to its freedom.

  But then.

  It wasn’t escaping. It was just standing there, blood slowly dripping all over its body.

  Furthermore, it was making noises completely different from the ones before.

  Its low and wavy mumblings resembled a prayer of an extreme devotee.

  As soon as the prayer ended, from the back of her head, the hairs started to part unexplainably just as if it was parted by the wind.

  In the center of the hairs, a pupil-less eye slowly emerged and started to function just like an ordinary eye. It was the size of the creature’s face - filling her whole back side of the head and weirdly, it was overflowing with all kinds of white and blueish fluids which were silently moving across the eye.

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  Then, a dark grey pupil appeared right in the middle of the eye.

  “Cora, close your eyes!”

  Merik shouted before kneeling in intense pain again.

  A dying animal is the most dangerous when cornered and granted, it was a dying monster right in front of them.

  A desperate final attack of a dying monster.

  However, it was too late.

  With the menacing eye getting momentum over its functions, the fogs started to move in a whirlwind, then turned into a whirlpool, seemingly trying to trap them in the center. The eye doesn’t just open and close: it seemed to be making a noise as well. This cold noise resembled a vibration but at the same time, resembled to a wailing of a woman.

  Both Cora and Merik’s felt that their whole consciousness was getting sucked into the whirlpool and with every moment, it was becoming harder and harder to get away from it.

  Cora felt nothing but just numbness all over her body and mind. The wailing kept sounding in her mind and it felt like everything that belonged to her was no longer hers.

  In her slowly blurring vision, she saw that the creature was unmoving in the exact same way she was.

  And with that, everything went black. Completely silent.

  ________________________________________________________________________

  Merik felt like it wasn’t “him” anymore. The feeling of losing control, it truly was a terrifying experience.

  He believed that he could handle at least handle four of those blackish bullets. No, he knew that he could handle them before the side effects kicked in.

  He had always used them for four times, hadn’t he?

  Nonetheless, whether he could or not, he still lost control. His very power demanded much more from him than he could offer and in turn, collected some of his parts as a price.

  A heavy price, one might say.

  Granted, it was far from being a pleasant feeling. He felt like he as an existence was disappearing as whole.

  It was like eating your own self. Merik couldn’t quite explain the feeling but he’s grateful that it all stopped albeit abruptly.

  What happened though?

  Now, he was silently floating across this unending black void that seemed to expand even beyond eternity.

  Furthermore, he was all alone.

  The last thing he remembered was him and Cora getting sucked into the whirlpool and everything went black.

  Surprisingly, he was suffering terribly from the torments of his own undoings and these constant mental assaults but right now, it didn’t seem to be the case. In fact, he was more relaxed and comfortable than ever before!

  Strangely, all these years, this is the first time he had felt truly happy and unburdened.

  He was free; unchained like a floating white cloud in the sky.

  Controlling his own action is kind of funny here, too. If he wanted to walk, before he realized it, he was already walking on a surface, heading towards somewhere. Or nowhere in his case.

  If he wanted to fly, he was flying moments later.

  He could remember his own thoughts but he couldn’t make sense of his own actions. Every action of he did was the same.

  Furthermore, he could manifest doubles of himself even! Triples. No, quadrupoles. No, wait. They’re too many. Or was he too many?

  Is this the monster’s last attack?

  But it seemed unlikely. From Merik’s experience, he could say that the attack was the final, desperate attack of the monster so it was meant to fatally injure both Merik and Cora or at least, ensnare them beyond saving.

  Also, no attack should be this fun.

  “Cora...”

  He realized he had to get away from this unexplainable place and get back to her.

  Or have they already lost and already turned into a Souless? This was what it was like to be a Souless?

  He thought that he was alone again and the contemplating doubles with his uncanny appearance all disappeared.

  A Souless, huh? If being a Souless was like this, he didn’t mind, to be honest.

  But still, he didn’t believe it.

  Using the eye must have huge drawbacks to the creature itself since the creature shouldn’t be this powerful, from the start. In fact, it was just an unfortunate human that came into contact with which they weren’t supposed to.

  The eyes.

  He saw that the abomination eyes were getting closed one by one so he deduced that the mind attacks definitely had to do something with those eyes and considering the big, weird eye at the final moment, he should be correct.

  If so, he could definitely find his way out of here. A big “how” is the question.

  And “what” was this place? All he could make out were his feelings towards this place, strangely.

  The feeling of having full control over oneself at the same time losing grip on their own consciousness. The feeling of seeing everything despite losing memories of it the next moment.

  He felt this way not long before. It was an eerily familiar feeling.

  Moreover, he saw that his actions and feelings were somewhat intertwined.

  Fascinating.

  He thought that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to come here and relax occasionally.

  Then all of a sudden, he saw Cora, floating across the black void, just like himself!

  He was glad then instantly floated towards her.

  She was closing her eyes like she had deeply fallen asleep and yet Merik saw some faint emotions and feelings leaking out from her.

  The feelings came out in a form of greyish smoke strands.

  He tried to catch some of them, but they slipped away from his hand easily.

  Was she dreaming? Or am I the one who’s dreaming. Wait...

  Right then, across the ever-changing horizons, he saw a faint scenery.

  It was faint yet clear as a day to him. It was a scenery of a beach. The scenery was so bright and radiant across the blackness; therefore, it instantly attracted this confused, lonesome traveler, Merik.

  He looked back at Cora. She was still sleeping soundly, floating across the never-ending space as if the whole chaotic ordeal just now didn’t concern her.

  He then decided to fly towards the scenery because he believed that that bright place could give him the answers that he needed.

  Before he realized it, he was right next to a beautiful woman who was standing on the beach and gazing at the sun setting towards the endless horizon of the beautiful sea. She seemed to be taking in this stunning view, embracing them deeply into her own deepest and fondest memories. She with every fiber of her cell, was yearning to just disappear into this scenery that resembled a divine painting. Well, at least that was what Merik felt from her smile, anyway.

  Furthermore, Merik was standing next to her in the exact same way – their feet being gently swept away by these endless, mischievous waves, with a feeling of rough sands beneath but in fact they were all her feelings.

  “Mama. Marr.”

  The woman’s smile brightened at the voices of her young children. There were two of them, the girl being an older one with the boy younger. She welcomed them with her hands wide open and they started hugging her thighs tightly.

  Deep into his heart and across his whole body, Merik was invaded by the feeling of warmth and another weird, unfamiliar feeling that he hadn’t felt in forever.

  It was pure love.