DARK entities.
Heritage.
Heirs.
The woman with buggy eyes, whom Maze followed through the grey uniform of her station, was a Child of Yonder. The boys in red had labeled her an Heir of Time. "From which Heritage are you?" Maze recalled the query, as the word seemed a necessary distinction for Children in this downside-up world. It pulled at a thread of Vaelstrom's memory: five towers, and five harvested children from each district.
An amused gaze crept upon Maze.
As their exploration reached the heart of the forest, Maze remained silent.
He offered no words to this so-called Heir.
Not until now.
"You could have gone and walked through the door. Why bother helping me?" he probed sternly.
The woman had been as quiet as the grave since they began.
"Then, I shall ask you the same. Why bother following me?" There was a hint of roughness in her tone, though she quickly dismissed it. "You wear black, I wear grey. I suppose you heard those idiots mention that I was cleansed."
"Pray tell," Maze looked toward his feet, "what is cleansed, and what is grey?"
The woman clicked her tongue. "I am no stupid fool. Your lame tricks will not work. Try again."
"Then . . . what is an Heir?"
She was taken aback for a moment. "How about this: I will tell you why I am helping you, if you tell me why you decided to follow me."
The likes of her do not play around, do they?
Maze could only sigh heavily. "I accept the trade."
"However," the woman stopped and turned, their eyes locking, "you can only tell me if you survive."
Maze's brows furrowed. "Survive what?"
She moved to his side and tapped his back as she went past. Then, her hand did the unexpected. She pushed his back with sudden, violent force!
Maze almost lost his footing.
The ground grumbled, birthing a wide and hollow slit in the earth before him.
Balancing his frame, Maze saw a pair of white eyes peeking from within the darkness of the hollow.
That woman, she —
"If you defeat this Father Darkness, you can explain why you followed me!"
As Maze glanced behind, he saw her waving her hand, running away as fast as her legs could carry her. He was utterly stupefied.
— she set a trap!
As he peered into the slit, giant three-fingered hands of dark scales and sharp claws gnawed at the edge right before his feet. Slowly, it continued gnawing forward as if trying to escape the hollow. Clenching his jaw, Maze was reminded of the suffering he felt when he first encountered the griffin, such a misunderstanding then, but this time, there was no mistake.
Whatever this monster beneath was, it was clearly intent on killing him once it fully escaped.
Father Darkness, is it? He wondered if it was a type of Dark Entity. By the title "Father," did that mean it was a leader of some sort?
He would be damned.
Maze's heart leapt as the beast suddenly leapt into the air!
Its hand was the only thing giant, as its body was slender and formed with black scales. Even its sight was pure white scleras glinting at him, with its head deformed. It bore an uncanny expression, having stitched lips.
It truly deserved bearing the Father Darkness title.
Gnarling, its frame swirled with claws spread in separate directions. SWISH! Maze lunged on his feet and landed backward, inches away from where it pierced the ground.
Fortunately, it missed!
The Father Darkness glared at him and plunged into the air, crisscrossing its arms and directly attacking him this time. It was so fast that Maze almost got torn into pieces had he not slid his knees forward and bent his body, making the entity rip the trunk behind him, creating a 'crack!' sound.
I got to admit, but this Father Darkness is fast and purely close combat. Had Maze not known his special abilities, he would have escaped. But right now, he was missing some thing . . . a weapon. Which was more or so what stripped him of an advantage.
Maze dashed forward and jumped on the edge of the slit and landed on the other side. On his periphery, he saw how the gnarling entity galloped and was following him.
Curse the woman in grey!
Curse the Father Darkness!
Maze noticed that the ground went much darker. He need not look above, for he sensed that it was indeed up and was about to claw him. Shielding his arms and jumping sideward this time, he created a momentum where his feet kicked a trunk and lunged his body just above the entity that pierced the drought earth.
That woman solely did something worthwhile . . . having his practice be put into a real battle.
He did not waste another second as he kicked both his feet on its back and jumped forward, as he swiftly bit his knuckles. Pain seeped into him as freckles of blood seeped out. Then, he felt his soul leave the body, which in turn dissipated, as he drifted several meters from where he first was, while another body was formed.
He bolted without falter.
If there was one thing he learned, it was pain that was the necessity to activate one of his three abilities, but the term that was used for these abilities were "Attributes" enough for him to survive. Specifically, these Attributes were TraitAttributes.
He heard this term from Mistletoe once at noon break when he asked Maze how was lunch. He said it like this: "Man, having Trait Attributes akin to cooking, though I love cooking, it would be cool if I obtained skills that could be put into combat, not just healing."
He then realized more the while that it was rarely used. As he reminisced that, Maze looked back for a moment while he dashed between trees. While he did so, he was reminded of the instance he obtained the parchment from the Statue of the Divine Frog on his third day.
His first Attribute was: Ship of Two Personas.
「[Ship of Two Personas] Trait Attribute Assessment Result: A copy of the self is formed to question the original, mirroring thought and memory while differing in condition. One endures wounds and collapse while the other remains whole, and between them lies the unanswered question of which still bears the name.」
It was what was written on the parchment. Turning his head in every corner, he keenly searched for a glimpse of a chest, or even, a weapon.
Why is this land much wider than the central land? He almost cursed the land itself as he continued his search. However, all he could see was the barren land and the silhouette of the beast in between the trees now picking up his pace.
Gritting his teeth, Maze bit his knuckles for the second time, dissipated his former body, and drifted meters farther from behind the entity. Each of this drift caused him a half a leaf in his Soul Tree, as he was a Fertile Child who only learned for about a few days.
This cat-and-mouse chase must not happen for much longer!
But it is much better to cause a drift through a shallow wound. If it were to claw me, even rip me to pieces, it would cost me a leaf at that. He would not let that happen. But with his endless search, the part of the land where he drifted had nothing but withering trees.
How was he supposed to defeat this Father Darkness?
Even with his second Attribute to support his first, it was not enough to make a big difference. He could make it chase after him for a bit longer, but it was agile and had claws as its weapon. Add the fact that it could jump and create different types of claw attacks, like twirling its body and galloping, as what he observed.
What the hell was that creature?
He imagined the woman who abandoned him.
He needed to settle the score after this!