929: The Shepard

The Shepard

"Yeah, we know. The moment you start in we'll go all at once. The ones at the back will strike the legs and the ones on the front will push him down, simple and easy haha!" one of them confirmed. 1

Leona prepared herself before giving Malina the go-ahead. Malina swung her wand and the black cloud covering Hao Xuan's entire body receded from the top, just enough to reveal one side of his face, the side where Leona was.

Hao Xuan who had all his senses blocked for the last few seconds naturally looked towards the only opening that allowed him to peer outside. His gaze was attracted by an unknown force, dragged towards Leona until their eyes met.

And then he finally noticed something was wrong. Her pupils morphed into three curved lines that spun around like a fan. Leona's body suddenly went limp and she fell back, right into Malina's arms.

Hao Xuan's eyes dimmed just before the black cloud that was no longer being controlled went out of control and started spreading outwards.

"NOW!" Arthur shouted and all eight of them struck in unison.

The cloud had dissipated just enough to reveal Hao Xuan's vague silhouette. His body stood motionless in place restrained by countless curses and other forces at work.

Meanwhile, his mind was elsewhere. Leona's consciousness had shot into Hao Xuan's mind palace and straight through the half-open door. The only problem was it went into the wrong door, the leftmost one.

When her consciousness rematerialized inside that place she quickly looked around for Hao Xuan but could see nothing but a pitch-black darkness. She had done this many times before, usually on other unaware Orcs and every time it was something different.

A traumatic memory from childhood, an ordinary fear exaggerated beyond belief by the irrational mind, a bad dream or a terrible nightmare. It was different each time but one thing stayed exactly the same, the start.

Since time passes much slower inside a person's mind, a few seconds in the outside world could equate to an hour inside. And it was all visualized for Leona to see as a passive observer, disconnected from everything and everyone. She observed from the sidelines like an invisible god, taking note of everything.

She only nudged the mind in a specific direction, where it went was entirely up to them.

Sensing that something had gone wrong Leona brought both her hands in front of her chest and made a few complicated gestures by twisting her fingers but...nothing happened. She closed her eyes and mumbled a few sentences, sentences that acted as both keys and tethers that could bring her back to her body but none of them worked.

A few minutes passed she finally realized the gravity of the situation. There was no way out.

Taking in a deep breath she stepped forward into the mewling darkness and flinched. It felt cold. She could actually "feel" cold. As vigilant as ever she bent down slowly and touched the ground but her hand went through it like water, sending ripples in all directions.

Her feet could feel the coldness of the water like a solid but her hand could go through it like the liquid it should have been.

*Splash*

Already confused and more than a little fearful of what or where this was, she jumped back when a much larger ripple suddenly came towards her. Rather than a ripple it would be more of a wave at this point but regardless, it was something she couldn't do anything against.

She thought about running back but there was nowhere to go and the wave was getting bigger and bigger. So she did what she could and braced for impact.

The ice-cold water washed over her, dragging her to the depths. She held her breath for as long as she could but eventually she had to breathe. And surprisingly, the water went through her without much problem.

It was colder than anything she had ever come into contact with but she could still breathe, albeit barely. Holding onto that sliver of hope that there might be a way out she swam back up with all her might and broke through the surface a few seconds later.

The water turned solid beneath her as she climbed out on all fours gasping for air, shaking uncontrollably from the cold that had permeated every fiber of her being. At this moment she couldn't even comprehend what warmth felt like. Something like that simply did not exist.

And as if that wasn't enough, she finally noticed that something was different from before. It was still dark but there was now this odd feeling that she wasn't alone, not anymore.

Slowly, fearfully, she raised her trembling head and saw a pair of enchantingly beautiful bright purple eyes staring in her direction from somewhere way high up. She couldn't tell how far apart they were, how high or big they were, only that there were two.

And then a voice rang inside her head, calling out to her.

"Little sheep..."

pqdm.com