17 Awakened (2)

The night arrived.

Since long time ago, the night brought the feeling of desolateness and loneliness.

Lorian wrapped himself snuggly, but this brought no feeling of safety. Feeling that having a fire lit throughout the night would be too high profile, Lorian decisively extinguished it and moved further into the cave.

- I can't always keep myself awake, sigh, this is the only safety measure I can think of...

Lorian slept wearing the wolf mask. This was more of a consolation than an actual dependable measure. No matter how high one's perception is, if one's not being vigilant one can be easily caught off guard.

Constant sounds of wind howling outside were like a lullaby sang to a baby. Unknowingly, Lorian drifted to sleep.

...

- Haa, haa~

His sleep didn't last long.

He woke up in the middle of the night.

Feeling unease, Lorian could no longer sleep.

- It was just a nightmare. Maybe I'm overthinking things.

- #@$%^~~

Lorian shuddered. A distant voice of someone shrieking echoed in his ears.

- What's happening? This can't be my imagination playing tricks on me.

'Is this trip taking its toll on me? I know I was afraid of darkness in childhood, but I never hallucinated.

- !#@%$#@@$%

Lorian's gaze turned solemn. He perked up his ears to focus on the distant sound. It sounded like woman's shriek one hears in the horror movies, but it was more melodious. It sounded from time to time. Gradually, Lorian got used to it.

'As long as it doesn't harm me...'

*Swoosh!

Lorian abruptly swung his sword. It was nothing. Only a cold gust of wind blew. The distant shrieking voice was gone. This silence brought more pressure to him...

'I definitely felt something there!'

Lorian's face was pale.

- Come out!

Lorian spat in a growl.

There was no response.

...

The night passed slowly, without Lorian pooling all-nighter. The following day, he looked haggard with red eyes.

Finally, the light broke the dark of the night.

- Fuck it! I must be getting paranoid.

Lorian's mood was terrible after getting no wink of sleep.

He entered the instances realm, the first-floor, easy mode to farm some battle Exp. This time he didn't immediately kill the 2 wolves but killed one and played around with the remaining one to get more practical experience.

This way, general exp started accumulating. Though kills in the instances realm brought several times lower battle exp than in real life, the general exp accumulated all the same, which brought a sense of happiness to Lorian.

Finally, after tiring himself with the fight, Lorian planned to finish off the snow wolf.

After allocating all battle exp and general exp, his progression bar reached 316/10,000.

But as he was about to finish off the snow wolf...

- Aaaah!

Lorian's sword fell on the ground. Massive, splitting headache assaulted his senses and piercing coldness seeped into his body. His intuition screamed danger.

[ Warning! Outside interference!

Commencing withdrawal from instances... ]

Lorian's dull eyes shot open in the cave. A splitting headache was still there. Now the shriek from the last night was ringing right in his head, bringing a swirl of negative emotions, threatening his sanity.

- Aaaah, get away from me!

Lorian swung his sword around like a madman, but it was useless. The enemy was invisible.

The eerie coldness started to make Lorian feel numb and dumb. He knew that if he didn't do something, he would die here. His body felt it no longer belonged to him. His left hand started scratching his face on its own and his body flailed on the ground, like a possessed person.

Abruptly, Lorian took out a bottle from his inventory and sprayed half of its contents on himself

*Sizzle

- SSSSHHHHRRRRIIIIIEEEEKKK!!!!!!~~~

- @#$%$^$%&#@$@#$!@#$#%%^$%^%$@$$%$#

'As I thought!'

Lorian grinned as the feeling of control returned to him.

He poured the remaining contents of diluted holy water on his sword and cut through the invisible entity locating it with his perception.

Another round of screams was issued.

The sword slash proved effective as almost see through gray-blue humanoid, floating figure with a mangled abominated face appeared in and out of existence.

- Die!

Lorian slashed over and over with bloodshot eyes.

Finally, the ghost issued the last shriek and burned in the blue fire.

[ +87 Exp ]

[ The 2nd floor of the instances realm has been constructed. ]

Lorian plopped down on an icy rock, panting with exhaustion.

- Finally over...