A horrific creature appeared from the fog.
Its body was covered in short, off-white fur which was beginning to yellow at the roots.
Its body was small and twisted, standing only around three to three and a half feet tall. It looked as if a dog had tried to become human.
Its eyes were lifeless, a milky white hue, yet looking into them instilled the fear of an endless hunger.
A row of dark brown hair ran down its spine, twisting into a long tail which dragged across the ground.
Its hands and feet ended in short claws as black as the night sky, which scraped across the muddy floors of the forest as it prowled through the mist.
Its maw was elongated, with strangely human teeth, giving it the appearance of a perpetual smile on its demented face.
The creature crawled through the forest without making a single sound as it approached its unsuspecting prey.
Slowly, it raised to its hind legs as it looked down on a sickly looking young man with hair like that of liquid gold.
Grabbing Jasper's face in its hands, it opened its mouth as a long black tongue escaped, lathering its saliva over the surface of his face.
Suddenly, the creature shuddered as its teeth began to wiggle and move on their own, as if they were living creatures.
One by one, the human-like teeth were pushed out of the mouth of the creature. Connected to its gums by hideous tendrales of flesh as they began to dig into his skin.
Far away, a lone man watched the creature feed on Jasper's mind, as he had for many nights now.
Sitting on a rock with his eyes closed, Damian, the real one, couldn't help but shiver in disgust at the sight despite having seen it many times by now.
He had managed to escape the endless loop that the vile creature who lived in the fog had created with its horrible powers. Tricking it into believing that his echo was his true self for several days now.
Afterwards, he had tried to forcefully drag Jasper from the fog, yet no matter where they went, it always seemed to follow.
He continued to watch as the creature seemed to be drawing something from Jasper's body as it shivered as the tendrales pulsated with its newest meal.
Damian opened his eyes, not wanting to watch the disgusting scene any longer, and his vision broke away, returning him to his surroundings. In his hand, he held a sphere which appeared to be made of solid stone. The same colour as the brilliant stones which made up the citadel of Bastion.
This was his latest memory he had received from the spell, only a few weeks before they set off into the unknown. It allowed the user to see anything within a few dozen kilometres as if they were there in person.
As his senses came back to him, he saw that a large bear-like abomination had wandered awfully close to where he was sitting.
He had seen these creatures before in the woodland around Bastion.
It had become the goal of the Soldiers of Valour to exterminate their kind from the area.
The reason was simple, whilst the cubs were rather easy to deal with, only being Dormant Monsters, the adults were a much different story, for they were Awakened Demons.
Dreadfully cunning and deadly monsters which made even the seasoned warriors of Warden's army shiver in fear.
Yet looking at the one in front of him, Damian felt nothing but pity for the horrific abomination.
Its body was covered in dozens of open wounds, many of which seemed heavily infected as they oozed with thick green pus. One of its eyes had seemingly been torn from the socket, and its march through the woods was unusually slow.
It turned its head, facing the direction from which Damian was currently sitting, before turning away as it was slowly falling under the mystical drowsiness which permeated the air.
Damian wasn't worried about this creature, however, for he knew it could not perceive him at the moment, as his Dormant ability was active.
He had always felt like his Dormant ability had more to it, even as his time as a Sleeper, but his time in the fog had proved that theory correct.
For when he activated it for the first time since wandering into the fog, his clarity increased, and the fear and tiredness which had permeated his very core seemed to fade away into the background.
They were still there, but compared to what it was before, it was like Night and Day. It was due to this improved clarity that he had come to truly understand their current situation.
The outlook was not great.
From his newest observations, he now believed whatever creature they were facing was at least a Tyrant, if not greater.
His reasoning for this was the strange beasts which lurked in the fog, hidden until their prey fell asleep.
He called these creatures the Fog Wraiths.
The same type of creature which was currently feeding his companion as he slept.
He had attempted to cut them down before, but they always reformed just moments later. Their bodies were more like manifestations from the fog than real creatures, even to the point that the spell did not even announce their death.
If it wasn't for the injuries left behind by their feeding or the tracks left in the mud, he would have doubted if they were even real in the first place.
Based on the strength and the behaviour of the creatures themselves, Damian believed that they were no stronger than Dormant Beasts or perhaps even monsters.
This alone wasn't enough to prove that a stronger being had taken them under its command to act as its thralls, but based on the fog's unnatural movements, he felt it only made sense to assume it was controlled by a higher power.
Having finally shaken off the last of the disgust he had felt from before, he once again closed his eyes and focused on the [Fractured Sight].
Suddenly, he could see Jasper and the Other once again as several additional Fog Wraiths had joined in on the feast.
Breaking away from the horrific sight, he began to survey the area, trying to pinpoint the centre of the fog where he believed the true monster lay in wait, yet he still couldn't find it.
He had spent the last few days looking over every inch of woodland he could, and yet he was still coming up empty.
He couldn't understand how a creature like this could be avoiding his senses for so long.
Every Tyrant he had seen was massive in size, each possessing strange abilities and commanding lesser creatures who were in a way similar to itself, where possible.
He already knew of its minions and had a vague understanding of its ability to induce fear and exhaustion in its prey. Yet, despite how large a creature like this would have to be to command such a large area with its power, it still eluded him.
By now, he had realised that he was not going to get anywhere with the powers of the [Fractured Sight].
Reluctantly, he sent the memory back to the depths of his soul as he manifested his runes in front of him.
***
Name: Damian
True Name: -
Rank: Awakened
Soul Core: Awakened
Soul Saturation: 401/1000
Memories: [Broken Chain], [Ariadne's WarBow], [Coiled Nail], [Final Ambition], [Knight's Longsword], [Fractured Sight]
Echoes: [Other]
Attributes:[Deadeye] [Incessant] [Undisturbed] [Spark of Divinity]
Aspect: [Ceaseless Wanderer]
Aspect Rank: Sacred
Aspect Abilities: [Unremarcable], [Insubstantial]
Flaw: [Guardian]
***
He stared at his runes as he tried to figure out what he had in his arsenal that could help him escape this damned fog alive, along with his companion.
Usually, when he looked at his runes, he would have been proud of his progress in fully saturating his core, but now was not the time for that. He scratched at his exposed skin slightly as he continued to read.
His first thought was to find a use for his Awakened ability.
However, he quickly dismissed the idea, as far as he knew, he could only use it on himself and his memories, which means he couldn't use it to help Jasper escape, even if it could theoretically shake the presence of the creature completely from his mind.
The same idea went for his attributes as well. Well, they were useful to his own survival, but they didn't help much in ensuring that both of them survived this encounter.
This left only his memories.
He quickly dismissed the idea of trying to use the [Fractured Sight] again. As useful as it would be in the future, it wasn't the tool for right now.
His next dismissals went to the [Knight's Longsword] and the [Coiled Nail], the former due to its lack of enchantments, as it was made by Warden. The latter is due to the relative ineffectiveness of its enchantment even after Warden enhanced it to the awakened rank.
This left only the three remaining memories: the [Broken Chain], [Ariadne's WarBow], and the [Final Ambition].
On their own, each was an exceptionally powerful memory when used at the right moment.
[Ariadne's WarBow] was the most powerful weapon type memory any of the sleepers of Bastion had ever seen. It was also due to Warden's inability to improve its Tier rating, which sat at a mighty seven, that they were able to guess that there were two additional tiers above that of a Tyrant.
Its enchantments made it especially useful for Damian as they allowed him to coalesce arrows formed from his own attributes, taking on their properties and giving him an endless supply of arrows unless he ran out of essence.
Apart from that, it also immediately absorbed the essence of a creature into his soul, giving him the instant rush of absorbing the creature's shards without having to find them within the corpse.#
Its final enchantment was one that even Warden had a hard time explaining. He said that it was like the weapon possessed a second force within it, which enhanced all its other properties through what the spell had apparently called the Will of War. Whatever that meant
Meanwhile, the [Final Ambition] was rather simple. On its own, it could produce a repelling force which could be used either defensively or offensively, depending on the situation.
Finally, there was Damian's First memory, the [Broken Chain], its power to connect two objects together as one was exceedingly powerful in the right circumstances, or more accurately, it could share the attributes of two things with each other as long as they remained connected.
This, on its own, was not particularly impressive or practical, as most objects lack useful attributes, and connecting to other living creatures can have long-lasting consequences.
However, one thing it did was connect a person to the enchantments in Memories. Before Damian awakened, he would have had to connect to his memories via the [Broken Chain] to use any active enchantments on his memories.
After he awakened, however, he and all the others who had awakened could use the hidden enchantments of memories, which were activated by pouring their essence into them. Of course, not all memories had such enchantments.
One difference he had noticed, however, was that the level of control and insight into the enchantments was vastly different.
For him, if he used the [Broken Chain] instead of the regular method, he could essentially gain an additional aspect ability instead, at the cost of both a higher amount of essence being used and dealing some direct damage to his own soul.
He did not use this too often these days. The reason is that soul damage takes far longer to repair than regular damage. The second reason was that he feared that if he overused the [Broken chain], he would become reliant on its power or worse, corrupted by it.
This was the reason he had used it as a last resort against both the Undead legion and the Dragon of the keep.
But now was the time to let loose of the restraints he had put on himself. For he knew if he didn't, there was a decent chance that they would be slowly digested within the fog.
With a heavy sigh, he held out his hand as a storm of sparks wove themselves into existence as the familiar weight of the [Broken Chain] appeared in his hand.
It looked different from what it had been before.
During their time, Warden asked whether there were any final pieces of equipment they wanted enhanced before they left, and Damian felt it was time for his first memory to be improved.
Gone was the rust that once coated its surface. The cracks and dents, which had been a part of its design from the start, had been removed as if they were never there at all.
The pointed ends glistened in the light of the fog as Damian looked at the pattern which had been woven into its surface as he smiled, as if greeting an old friend you haven't seen in a long, long time.