Colors of the physical realm.
Yes, this was what they appeared to be. Not idealized or even exaggerated color from illusion or delusion, not the usual kind of "projection" of physical items either. They were from tiles on the wall, but it only took a minute for him to realize that because in the physical realm they were heavily tarnished and covered in dirt and dust while here they were clean and polished. With the tiles "brightened up", he could kind of tell because he saw a natural flaw in one of the red tiles - looking like a bubble of charred or burnt paint.
He checked out his hand still with some slime remaining - his hand did not change color like the tiles.
"I can't see! My eyes! My eyes!" Two more shadows with glowing eye sockets charged at Wu Xiaoming. This time he just stepped forward and obliterated them with one single beam of golden light. He caught two more eyeballs and then backed off further away. At least five more human-shaped shadows broke from the pillar and scattered into different directions, though no more came his way.
"Oiled Eye of Illusions: he told them, if they swallowed these eyeballs treated with special oil, they would be able to see the truth of the world and the grim reality behind all the illusions. But what they did not expect, was that the visions come with the cost that was their sanity."
"He?" Wu Xiaoming frowned at the strange, unnamed pronoun. At this stage, he was pretty confident that if it was a bet he would put money in "he" being a Sproutlinger. And if he needed to pick names, he would say it would be Nicolas Sproutlinger. Norman Sproutlinger, the original hotel owner and the father, would be his next guess.
More slime oozed from the eyeballs and dripped onto the ground. And out of curiosity, he just smeared more of it on another building's window frame and walls behind him.
Under the slime, the wall turned white, and the window frame went back to its shiny black look. Out of curiosity, he dipped his left index finger and thumb in the slime and pulled a thin membrane from between these two fingers. Too bad, when he tried to look at everything from one side of the membrane, nothing would show its state in the physical realm. It seemed he actually needed to smear the slime over whatever object he wanted to see the physical appearance of.
He studied the eyeballs more closely, and was somewhat disappointed to see one thing: that the eyes were hollow, nothing but a brittle outer layer, seemingly made of thin glass or crystal, while the slime was actually the content within them. All of this was revealed as a lot of the slime was either used by Wu Xiaoming or dripped on the ground, thus revealing the empty containers the eyeballs actually were.
"Okay." Wu Xiaoming hovered his hand over a small pool of slime on the ground, but nothing came up. He then tried the first eyeball he caught - which was empty by now, and nothing came up either. It would seem that the slime and the fragile container were both crucial to the "Oiled Eye" to be effective.
After making sure no other shadows were after him, he snuck back to the outskirts of the parking lot - just in time to see a giant, eyeless humanoid creature poking its upper body out of the building, collecting something from the pillar of smoke with its two pale slender arms and hands.
Using its long, pale fingers, the creature scooped from the pillar of smoke small orbs glowing in light brown - not dissimilar to the color of the slime from the eyeballs. In the process, a few of the shadows made of black smoke struggled and tried to hold onto the creature's arms and hands, but were casually discarded and brushed off.
Wu Xiaoming focused his sight on the creature. As he pushed his ability to see energy harder, a layer of facade on the creature was finally lifted: the pale skin, the body, the eyeless face with a slit in the middle, all of them were actually hollow inside. The creature itself was not entirely solid, but not entirely an illusion either - it was a state in between, not unlike the beams of light from his Golden Light spells, and the dark red energy released by the baton, only more still and had a changing shape. A construct, or projection of the hotel's own energy, this might be a more apt description.
Wu Xiaoming only considered for a brief moment before he made the decision: probably now was the time. He pulled out the wooden plaque with fire talisman writings on it, shaped one end into a rough arrow shape with a few "Slash", then threw it at the pale slender creature with all his might.
He took off and charged into the coffeeshop without looking back, then exited the backdoor and into the narrow alleyway behind it. A slightly muffled roar of anger came from behind. And as he hid inside a two-storey building at least half a block away from the hotel, a wave of cold energy swept through the entire area.
"Oh, come on!" Wu Xiaoming cursed, as two human-shaped shadows manifested in front of him. Before these two shadows could fully take shape, he lunged at them and destroyed them using his baton and soapberry wood staff.
This kind of cold energy explosion seemed like it could be triggered by any powerful being inside the ethereal realm, and it would just "spawn" the spirits and monsters in the area. Maybe that answered the question of how some of these creatures appeared initially. Though, he still had to figure out why they would refresh everyday.
He moved towards a window facing the hotel with bated breath, and bit by bit, he moved his head to the window to take a look at the hotel.
Three creatures extended their bodies out of the main building , all of which were bigger in size than the one he threw the wooden plaque at. They were turning around, while waving their arms, seemingly looking for something - he was pretty certain that "something" was him.
There was no telling what the wooden plaque with fire talisman engravings did - but from what he was looking at right now he would err on the side of "it did something good enough".
Around the building, there were many shadows and creatures hanging around. Just from a quick peek he counted three human-shaped shadows with glowing eyes, two dog-like creatures whose bodies were covered in black tar, and one cat-like creature with two wings of different lengths, and whose body was littered with eyes of different sizes.
If he went out right now, there would be a good chance he'd been "seen" by the creature - this was not something he knew, but based on his intuition.
With a moment to rest, he decided to try something - he conjured golden light on his left hand and ran his palm through the shaft of the soapberry wood staff. And just like he expected, the weapon was coated with a layer of golden light. For his other weapons, the light would fade after a short period of time, varying from half a minute to two or three minutes. This could enhance its attacking power against the spirits and creatures of this realm. But it wouldn't work all the time - for example, the dark red energy from the baton would actually consume the golden light and actually lower its own power, which was why he had been using this trick only on the morningstars occasionally.
Right now, the shaft of the staff was bright like a glowstick.
A whiff of straight air came from the right side of Wu Xiaoming's head. He turned over, only to see the cat with its body covered in eyes standing on the window, with at least five of its eyes fixed on him. And at the same time, three mouths on different parts of its body were open, revealing sharp, crooked teeth and long, red, forked tongues.
"Clever girl - " "MEOW!"