Lassim nodded, his brows furrowed in concern. "I understand, Elder. I’ll handle it. But before I go, I’m going to send a direct request to the sect. We need an array master here to restore the village’s formations as soon as possible."
Daxian let out a relieved breath, his posture slumping slightly. "Thank you. Once those formations are back up, I can finally drop this damned [Thunderveil Curtain] and get some proper rest."
Lassim reached into his magic pouch and pulled out his communication disc.
Activating the rune for direct contact with the sect’s Mission Hall, he sent a detailed message about the situation: the compromised state of Blazewind with an underreported situation, the closing of the small abyssal portal he found, and the urgent need for an array master to restore the village’s defenses as soon as possible.
He included a note about the exhaustion the village’s leader and citizens were suffering from due to the constant mental strain caused by the demons that still need to be cleared out.
Once the message was sent, Lassim slipped the disc back into his pouch and turned to face Daxian again. "The request is out. The sect should send someone as soon as they can. Now I’ll head out to deal with the demons out there."
With a final glance at the drained elder, Lassim turned and exited the building. He felt like he understood the heavy atmosphere that hung in the air like a shroud a bit better after hearing about these mysterious demons. It explained the drained, skittish and exhausted looks on everyone’s faces that he came across.
The static and booming cracks from the [Thunderveil Curtain] provided a constant, uneasy backdrop that certainly added to the village’s tension too.
The moment he neared the entrance he sued before, he sent a spark at the wall once more and it opened like a gate as the lightning and air shifted.
He stepped outside and spread his spirit sense into every nook and crevice surrounding the village to see if he could spot any traces of the demons. He hadn’t noticed any earlier but the fact that he still wasn’t noticing out of the ordinary either was concerning.
"[This is going to be a bit more challenging that expected,]" Lassim thought grimly.
Lassim took the void energy that had refilled his entire inner heart world and circulated it through his mana veins, activating his [Spatial Vision].
The progenitor marks spread and his eyes changed to the void as the spatial threads became visible in his vision, revealing subtle shifts in the fabric of space around him. The air hummed with tension, the traces of the abyssal energy clinging to the mountains like a faint fog.
"[Something’s definitely off,]" Lassim muttered to himself as he shot into the sky, flying low over the rugged mountains surrounding Blazewind. The rocky terrain below was jagged and uneven, with narrow crevices and hidden caves dotting the landscape.
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The aura of the natural rejection a native Nexarian felt when it came to feeling abyssal energy seemed to grow stronger with every passing moment, pressing down on him and compressing his chest, but he couldn’t see any changes to the actual landscape.
It didn’t make sense.
For the next several hours, Lassim scoured the mountainside, his senses heightened, scanning for any sign of movement or abyssal presence. Every now and then, a shadow flickered at the edge of his vision, but when he turned to face it, it vanished into thin air and his spirit picked up nothing. The tension was building, but nothing attacked. Not yet.
It was during one of these moments—when Lassim paused to rest briefly on the rocky outcrop of a cliff—that the first signs of the demons truly began to manifest.
The air around him grew unnaturally still. The faint sounds of wind and the distant hum of the [Thunderveil Curtain] muffled, becoming a distant murmur and almost nonexistent.
Lassim frowned, his grip tightening on the halberd as he glanced around, scanning the area.
"[Something’s really not right,]" he murmured, his eyes narrowing as his senses sharpened.
"[It’s too quiet,]" Marinelle’s voice echoed in his mind, tense and alert. "[There’s something here.]"
Lassim scanned the area again with his [Spatial Vision], his glowing eyes picking up the threads of space around him. But there was nothing—no visible disturbance, no sign of movement.
Just the oppressive silence.
Then, the shadows around him began to shift.
At first, it was subtle. The rocks and trees in his peripheral vision seemed to flicker, their edges blurring as though they were being distorted. The air thickened, growing heavy with something intangible. Lassim’s eyes darted around trying to focus on them, but felt a wave of dizziness wash over him, making his stance unsteady.
"[What the…?]" Lassim stumbled back, shaking his head as his vision wavered. The ground beneath him rippled like the surface of water, and for a brief moment, he couldn’t tell if he was standing on solid ground or sinking into the ground.
The shadows deepened, and a faint whisper began to fill his ears—low, haunting murmurs that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"Lassim…" a voice called softly, distant yet familiar.
"Lassim…"
The voice sounded like his father.
But that couldn’t be right. His father was far away, safe in their kingdom. He wasn’t here.
"[Don’t listen to it!]" Marinelle’s voice snapped sharply in his mind, breaking through the fog. "[They’re trying to lure you in. Focus, Lassim. Use your [Spatial Vision]! Look at the threads! They’re hiding right in front of you.]"
Lassim gritted his teeth, his grip on the halberd tightening as he attempted to steady himself. The ground beneath him wavered again, the hallucinations growing stronger, more vivid.
But as he focused, drawing on the power of his progenitor marks, the fog was still there, the threads didn’t lie. If he looked past the wavering hallucinations, flickering mirages appeared of the real world as the true landscape of the mountainside and nature around him revealed itself.
And there, hidden among the shadows, but whose physical weight and gravity interacted with space that affected the threads that ran through everything in existence, were the demons.
At first, his proficiency of the spatial element just wasn’t good enough to build even a silhouette of the creatures based on how they affected the space around them. They appeared as faint wisps of darkness.
But as Lassim’s [Spatial Vision] cut through the illusions and he doubled the space energy and mana circulating in the pathways that led up to his eyes to empower his [Spatial Vision], their true forms became clear.
They were gaunt, skeletal figures, their bodies draped in ragged, ethereal cloaks that blended seamlessly with the shadows around them. Their skin was pale and stretched tightly over their bones, with hollow, black voids where their eyes should have been.
Their mouths hung open, though no sound escaped. The whispers he had heard earlier emanated from within them, reverberating through the air as they drifted closer.
Lassim’s eyes narrowed. "[So that’s what you are… Wraithmire Demons.]"
He remembered one of the lessons from Elder Linara’s first lessons of the minions of the abyssal legion where she showed a projection of the beast back at the Myriad Spirit Academy.
Elder Linara had described the Wraithmire Demons as having the ability to spread a fog of confusion and lethargy. Their mist dulls the senses, causing confusion, paranoia, and sleepiness. Victims may experience auditory hallucinations—whispers and laughter that seem to come from everywhere at once. Prolonged exposure leads to mental fatigue and a weakening of willpower.
They feed off the energy of confused or sleeping victims.
As he remembered the description, the demons approached, their forms flickering and shifting as they circled around him, their whispers growing louder. They didn’t appear to be physically strong, but their mental presence was unsettling and a constant pressure on his mind with so many working together.
If he didn’t have the [Spatial Vision] he would surely be panicking and behaving like a madman with the things he was seeing right now.
"[Brother, let’s zap ’em already!]" Zaphy’s voice chirped eagerly, her boundless energy cutting through but adding to the chaos and layers of the whispers he was hearing.
"[Wait, Zaphy,]" Lassim said mentally, "[We need to be careful to not let them get away. If they get too close, they’ll start draining us just like they did the villagers, but they might flee and with how disorienting this situation is… I think I only have one shot to try and get them all at once when they get closer.]"
Lassim took a deep breath, centering himself as the demons closed in. The air around him rippled again, their illusions intensifying.
But with his [Spatial Vision], he could see through their tricks. He could see their true forms, weak and fragile, hiding behind the veil of shadows.
When the group of 8 Wraithmire Demons reached within 5 meters of the cliff he stood on, he raised his halberd, "[Let’s end this!]"
With a burst of speed, he activated [Tempest Steps], lightning crackling around his legs as he shot forward.
The demons hissed, their whispers turning into a series of wails and screeches that made his ears bleed as they pulled back, trying to run towards each other and group up.
The nearest demon barely had time to react before Lassim’s halberd sliced cleanly through its body, dispersing it into a cloud of shadowy mist.
He spun his halberd in a wide arc, releasing a wave of lightning-infused water in a follow-up [Hydroburst]. The water’s tension broke and burst outward, surging toward the remaining demons with a massive explosion that shook the side of the cliff and sent a large amount of rocks tumbling down below.
The demons screeched even louder with their death cries as the [Hydroburst] tore through their ranks, their frail forms unable to withstand the force of the attack. One by one, in a series from the front most to the ones in the back, all twisted and then shattered, before then disintegrating into dust and rags from the force of the explosion.
Their howls, ungodly whispers and disturbing hallucinations fading as the wind seemed to pick back up and return to normal.
As the final demon’s body seemed to blow away with the returned breeze, the oppressive fog lifted that made everything blurry, and the whispers ceased entirely.
Lassim stood in silence for a moment, his breathing steady as he surveyed the now-empty mountainside. The demons were gone, their presence erased from the area.
"[Well done, Lassim,]" Marinelle said softly, her voice filled with warmth. "[You’ve done it.]"
Lassim nodded, though he remained cautious. "[For now, at least. There could be more of them out there. .]"
"[You got ’em good, brother!]" Zaphy chimed in, her voice filled with excitement. "[Those shadowy creeps didn’t stand a chance!]"
Lassim smiled, though his mind was already turning to the next task. "[Let’s do another trip around the village one more time now that I know I can boost my [Spatial Vision] like that, and now that I know what we’re up against.]"
With one last glance at the now-quiet cliffside and the damage he caused to its face with several large boulders falling off it, Lassim took off, flying back toward the lightning barrier of Blazewind for a thorough scan around the village.