The wind hit his face, and he fell rapidly to the ground.

  He felt a sense of deja vu in this situation, as it reminded him of the time he was falling into the sunken City of Silver.

  All that his mind was focused on right now was the betrayal of his mentor, pushing him down to his death.

  And just as he felt himself nearing the ground, various thoughts about Father Vincent and his unfinished business in this world passed through his head.

  “Bam!” Alhen landed on a hard surface.

  Instead of his body turning into a mess and dying a miserable death, he had landed in water.

  Alhen had fallen from quite a height; if he hadn’t activated his sign in time, he would have died when his body impacted the water.

  It took a few seconds to return to his normal senses and snap back to reality, and once he did, he found himself staring right at some bulging, glowing eyes that were fixed on his face.

  He widened his eyes as he realized the situation. It was an underwater wiht, and it seemed keen on eating him alive as it opened its jaw and went for his head.

  His body tensed, and he was able to dodge in time, but he was underwater, and his movements were slowed.

  He was at a disadvantage, and he would have to make sure not to get careless.

  Alhen activated his blessing, looking five seconds into the future and dodging an attack that came from behind by pushing himself slightly forward.

  As he looked back and in all directions, he noticed that he was surrounded from all angles. He gritted his teeth from the pain and from the feeling of slight panic.

  His heart started beating faster, which was bad for the amount of time he would be able to go without breathing, but thankfully, due to the increase in rank, he was able to hold on for much longer than a normal person.

  He still didn’t know how long, but he knew it was long enough to get out of the situation.

  Before landing on the water, he felt sweaty and was suffocated; now, he was cold and calculating.

  All the exhaustion from before seemed to vanish in thin air as he rushed to the surface.

  ‘There is no point in fighting these wihts, they will kill me in seconds if I’m not careful. There are just too many of them to be able to do anything,’ Alhen thought.

  He swam for his life, pushing against the water as hard as he could. The wihts followed relentlessly behind him, and they eventually caught up with him.

  Thankfully, Alhen was close to the top, and emerged before trying to leave the hole filled with water, but a wiht had grabbed his leg and pulled him closer towards it.

  Alhen held on to firm ground with strength as he kicked at the arm holding him, but the grip was unbreakable; he felt as if he was hitting a stone wall instead of an arm.

  The wiht stuck out its head from the water, showing its green gills and disfigured face that resembled a mummy.

  Alhen, without thinking twice, kicked at the head, and after a few solid kicks, the wiht let go, and he was able to break free.

  He stood and noticed the group of wihts that had formed on the water, they were all looking at him without moving a muscle.

  ‘Why are they not coming? Even though they appear to be water type wihts, they still have legs, and I’m sure they can breathe on the surface, so what’s holding them back from getting out of the water and chasing after me?’ Alhen wondered.

  He breathed heavily, having escaped death by a hair’s breadth. It was only when he looked around him that he noticed the situation.

  He remembered that when he was observing the place with his mentor, there were other wihts outside the water, and the thing was that every single one of them had their eyes on him.

  They didn’t move just yet, but Alhen knew that they would soon, and that’s when the true test would begin.

  He looked behind him again at the wihts waiting for him at the water, and understood what they were waiting for.

  ‘They want me to return to the water by my own will after seeing the situation? Seems like they are pretty smart, but going back to the water would be suicide, I can barely move in there, and all these wihts are adapted for it.’

  He frowned at his current situation.

  On one hand, he was standing on solid ground and would have an easier time surviving, but that didn’t mean that it was going to be easy.

  Alhen looked up and found his mentor sitting on the ledge of the drop, looking at him with bored eyes. Then, he took something out of his jacket and started eating it.

  ‘He brought food with him!’ Alhen exclaimed in his mind.

  The scene of Alaran enjoying himself while treating his whole life as a form of entertainment made his breathing unstable with anger.

  ‘So this is all funny to you, huh? I swear that when I get out of here, I will do everything in my power to make your life miserable!’ Alhen promised.

  For now, he would have to worry about survival, as the wihts which showed interest in him started approaching him with slow steps.

  Alhen directed his attention to these creatures and looked at them with caution. His eyes never stopped moving, but he couldn’t look everywhere at once.

  Whenever he wasn’t looking, the wihts moved in his direction, creeping closer until the moment they would be able to lunge at him and overwhelm him with sheer numbers.

  ‘I have to think of something now! What can I do to survive two full cycles with these creatures? Think! Think! Think! They are getting closer,’ Alhen thought.

  He wanted to find a solution, but the more he thought, the more he began to realize that there was nothing he could do.

  If it were only a few wihts, he would be able to hunt them down no problem, but the problem was that the number of them was in the hundreds, and he knew for a fact that he wouldn’t be able to win that battle.

  He would run out of stamina before he managed to make a slight dent in their numbers.

  At that point, Alhen just gritted his teeth and hoped for the best, deciding to rely on his instincts for the upcoming challenge.

  It was almost time.

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  The wihts had approached and were now standing a few feet away from him. He activated his blessing before the first wiht made its move.

  It jumped at him, aiming at his neck with deadly precision. Its sharp claws passed through his side effortlessly. Alhen barely had to think to dodge that attack; his body moved on its own.

  As the first wiht had gone, all the other rushed at him with the intent to kill, but Alhen wouldn’t make it easy for them.

  He focused all of his senses on what was happening and began to dance with the wihts.

  ‘For now, I’m not in big trouble, but in a few minutes, I will not be able to keep my blessing activated for longer.'

  'I should deactivate it and only use my natural senses. I believe this is also something my mentor would want me to do, maybe it’s even the purpose of this whole training.’

  Alhen gritted his teeth and deactivated his blessing.

  Not having it on felt terrifying. He didn’t know where he would be attacked from next, and he was surrounded with nothing to do apart from running for his life.

  The first few seconds after deactivating his blessing were anything but easy, and as time went on, he found it harder and harder to dodge the wihts’ attacks.

  It reached a certain point that his face was grazed by a claw, and blood started dripping down his chin.

  Fortunately, the wound had been shallow and not really threatening, but Alhen found it terrifying that he was injured.

  That meant that in only a few moments, he would completely lose control over the situation.

  He started despairing, thinking about what to do, and that’s when he received another injury to his left arm.

  In a panic, he activated his blessing, returning to dodging the wihts with ease.

  ‘Damn it! Am I really relying this much on my blessing at all times? Without it, I feel like I can’t keep up. What do I do? If this keeps on going, I don’t know how much I will be able to hold before I eventually get overwhelmed.’

  The worry in his heart grew stronger every second, and without thinking, he took out his revolver from the holster at the side of his underwear and began shooting left and right at any wihts that got too close.

  The amount of space available was minimal, and the dropping bodies made it harder for him to move around, but he was finally getting some room to breathe.

  As soon as his revolver ran out of bullets, he took out his axe, not bothering to reload it, and activated his artifact, taking the axe with both arms.

  To the naked eye, it seemed as if he was swinging wildly around him to keep the wihts at bay, but it was actually the technique his mentor had taught him to handle the axe more efficiently when fighting a group.

  However, the lack of mastery showed when he failed to keep the wihts at bay. This wasn’t all; his eyes started to bleed, a horrible sign for him.

  ‘There’s no other way, I have to deactivate my blessing. It’s better than being blind, there’s no way that I would be able to survive after that,’ he thought in a panic.

  After taking a deep breath as best as he could, evading all the wihts, he deactivated his blessing.

  In a way, it had left him blind, just as what would happen if his blessing had reached its limit. Alhen, however, knew that this was his best chance, and he took it.

  He tried placing the axe on his back, but the wihts didn’t let him, and it was starting to weigh him down.

  Without thinking twice, he threw it at an incoming wiht, and it landed right on the wiht’s forehead, killing it instantly.

  It didn’t take long before he started getting injured from the wihts’ attacks, they were just too many of them.

  He felt like he couldn’t breathe and wished he still had his jacket, as it would be able to at least defend him a little from the shallow injuries that were slowly starting to affect him.

  His breathing quickened, and his mind turned foggy; he now dodged on instinct.

  It wasn’t until receiving a brutal slash from the back that his eyes widened, the pain anchoring him back into reality.

  He gritted his teeth with strength and breathed in the cold air.

  The pain had made him momentarily lose awareness of his surroundings, and a claw came into view, aiming straight at his face.

  Right at that moment, when in the face of death, he didn’t know what happened, but the world felt as if it was in slow motion.

  The claw was dangerously close to him, but Alhen wasn’t afraid. He had no thoughts at that moment.

  His face shifted into a serene expression, and he looked completely mesmerized by what was happening.

  Alhen calmly dodged the claw and, with a quick hand movement, decapitated its head. Everything was slow, including him; it wasn’t like he gained super speed, no, that wasn’t it.

  It was as if Alhen’s senses had broken a kind of limit, and now they operated at their full power.

  This was the world that existed in his mind, nothing else. There wasn’t room for thoughts or feelings, only what happened around him.

  His instinct told him that he had to get out of there, so he calmly walked out of the encirclement with wide eyes, not closing them for a second.

  The wihts tried to desperately reach him, but it was impossible; they wouldn’t be able to touch him in their current rank.

  Without realizing it, a radiant smile manifested on his face.

  He felt free walking through the wihts. Alhen had yet to be hurt, and he took out his revolver before reloading it and began firing at them.

  He fired calmly, all of his shots landing in fatal spots, killing the wihts instantly. This process kept on going until he exhausted all of his bullets.

  In just a few seconds, he had already left the encirclement of countless wihts, and now stood close to the wall.

  He felt something touching his shoulder and turned around instinctively. Alhen saw his mentor looking at him with a serious expression. Alhen went to decapitate his mentor, but that never happened.

  Alaran didn’t even move before Alhen dropped to the ground, his body feeling heavy and unresponsive.

  He barely had the energy to think and look around, but one thing he was certain of was that the wihts were closing in at terrifying speeds.

  Opening his mouth was impossible; he didn’t have time to think about his previous state, and he tried pleading for help from his mentor, who looked down at him without moving a muscle.

  After a few seconds, he sighed and took him in his arms.

  The wihts approached fast, but his mentor didn’t pay them any attention whatsoever. He rapidly climbed the massive wall with one hand and reached the top in a few moments.

  Just when he did that, he threw Alhen to the ground, who landed like a wet rag.

  His muscles couldn’t move, and his whole body felt sore. Every tiny sound or movement hurt his eyes; it eventually reached a point at which he had to close them.

  From the side, he heard his mentor speak, “Kid, what you did today was reckless. You have to be more cautious. The training will be cut short, as right now you are not in shape for it.”

  Alhen wanted to explain himself, but he had no idea what happened, and it was useless; he couldn’t move.

  “You will explain it all to me once you feel better. We are returning to the church to get you treated. If I am not mistaken, you should not be able to move for a few cycles,” Alaran commented.

  Without missing a beat, he picked Alhen from the ground and took his clothes. Before he left, however, he remembered something and went down to the circle where he had thrown Alhen.

  He couldn’t see what was happening down there, but his mentor returned fairly quickly with his axe in hand. It was then that he remembered that he had left it down there.

  Alhen barely had the energy to do anything, and his eyelids started to grow heavy. In just a few seconds, he had fallen asleep.

  Waking up had been anything but pleasant. He lay alone in the infirmary like always, and his senses were just fried.

  Before, he was able to pick up even the smallest sounds, feel the air brushing against the pores of his skin, smell everything even in the far distance, and his vision was better than ever, being able to see the tiniest specks of dirt from afar.

  Now, he couldn’t feel anything, not even his body or how it pressed against the bed.

  The smells were completely gone, and his hearing just recently started getting better.

  Thankfully, he could still see clearly, his eyes had returned to normal, and nothing else happened.

  He had been lying in this bed for hours, with him not being able to do anything, and having no one to keep him company.

  ‘How much longer will this torture last? If I’m not mistaken, I believe I heard my mentor mentioning that it would take a few cycles for me to completely recuperate, but that is way too long.'

  'Am I really going to stay here without doing anything? I want to leave,’ Alhen thought.

  He had to wait multiple hours for the door to open, and when he saw who had come in, he frowned.

  Father Vincent opened the door and looked at him with a bright smile, making him think that he was plotting something devious.

  “My son! You are finally awake. When I heard that you had activated the second ability of Lord Oros’ blessing, I thought I had heard wrong, but when I saw you, I realized that it was indeed the case,” he said.

  Alhen was shocked; he looked at the father for a few seconds before thinking, ‘There was a second ability?’

  Father Vincent approached him and sat beside him in a nearby chair.

  “You have heard right. Only one person in the history of this church has managed to unlock this second ability, and he died shortly after because he did not know how to control it."

  "But do not be afraid, as this means that you are indeed favored by Lord Oros and are the chosen one.”

  Alhen could barely believe it; he had activated the second ability.

  ‘Yes, it is powerful, but it is also dangerous. If it weren’t for my mentor, I would be dead right now, and it also takes a long while for someone to recover.'

  'This ability is most likely something to use as a last resort,’ Alhen thought.

  “I have prepared something fun for you, Alhen. I will personally guide you to master this ability, so you will be in my care."

  "For now, rest and get better, and rejoice that you have been chosen. I will be back,” the father said before leaving him alone.

  Alhen sighed.

  ‘So he will train me personally, huh. I don’t want that. As soon as I get better, I will meet up with Sloan and Sierra to see if something changed with the contract we took.'

  'If I am not mistaken, it should be soon.’

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