A New Discovery

Saying that he once again reached out as he felt his hand touching something but nothing was there. "This is really weird." Whatever he was touching didn't feel like a solid object in the slightest instead it felt more like flowing water that moved along with his touch. "Am I going crazy? Did I hit my head too hard or something?" Checking his body for injuries, he still couldn't find anything out of place, Hell he didn't even feel pain from the fall. Standing up he felt the darkness move around him following whatever he did.

"What is this stuff...?"

Forgetting about everything else for now he focused on his surroundings as he tried to move some of the Astral Energy in his body. "Whoa." Panicking he felt a chill run up his arm that wasn't the same as his Ice as he stopped moving Astral Energy. "This feels slightly familiar." Thinking that he tried again as he moved his arm around but noticed something different this time. "Is the darkness moving differently now?" Watching it become easier to move whenever he used his Astral energy he slowly kept trying different things out while he came to his own conclusion.

"Is this.... my Darkness Energy?" Feeling the familiarity, that thought lingered in the back of his mind as he continued to move it all around his body. "Well only one way to find out." Done moving it he started to absorb the Darkness around him to see what would happen. Under normal circumstances if it wasn't his own it would be sluggish and difficult to do but all he felt was ease as he began to absorb some. "So it really is yet why?" He didn't remember ever using it especially to this extent so why was he now surrounded by it in the middle of nowhere. "Oh right, Where are all the Astral Beasts?" Finally remembering where he was again he still couldn't see anything nor had he been attacked, which was quite strange. Sending out some of his Astral Energy, he checked his surroundings just in case but what he found made him shudder slightly in fear. Everywhere he looked was filled with Astral Presences of all different kinds while he sat in the middle of all of them untouched.

"I'm surrounded by the damn things, but why haven't I been attacked then? They don't even seem to realize I'm here." He couldn't sense any hostility in any of the Beasts and from what he could tell they were awake so he was left a little baffled on why he hadn't been ripped to shreds yet. "Wait, could this be your doing?" Talking to his Astral Energy like it was an actual person he ignored the silliness of such a thing as he remembered what his Darkness could do when he combined it with his Ice blades.

"They became undetectable, So does that mean none of these Beasts can detect me with all this Darkness surrounding me?" That was the only conclusion he could come up with that made sense as he stood there and while he doubted his Darkness blocked sight completely, he guessed it might be able to change perceptions of the area around it, Along with the fact that none of these Beasts were probably the smartest it had kept him relatively safe this whole time. "Well this is something I didn't think possible." Feeling some excitement at the possibilities this could lead to Xilo felt a bit more confident of being able to survive down here.

"There's also that woman, I wonder where she went? Hopefully the Beasts tore her apart piece by piece." Thinking about what she did to Xelfia he felt his heart ache as anger surged in him again before it calmed down again. "Don't think about it right now...It's not going to help anyone if I do." Taking a deep breath Xilo calmed himself as he tried to not worry about Xelfia while deciding on what to do now. His main goal was escaping however a small part of him wanted to find the Astral Beast Relia was talking about earlier. "I'm already down here anyway." He didn't want this whole thing to be pointless after all but he was completely lost on how to go about such a thing.

"It could be anywhere, so for now I should start moving yet that's the problem. Where in the world do I even begin?" He may be stealthed at the moment from all the Astral Beasts currently around him however he didn't know how well it worked or how long it would last and if wasted too much time trying to overthink it he might end up doing nothing. "At the very least I should start Testing things. I need more info, Blindly walking around anywhere in this place is death." Even if the beasts weren't that strong yet they had numbers.

A terrifying amount of numbers.

"I guess the first test I should do is how much Darkness do I need and how long does it last." Finding his starting point he emptied himself of distractions while he absorbed some more Darkness Energy and moved towards the edge of his little bubble. Arriving near the edge of it, Xilo slowly stuck his hand out as he covered it completely in Astral Darkness while he waited for some kind of reaction. With a minute passing by and nothing seeming to change on the outside he lowered the amount of darkness he had while he waited again.

"Still Nothing." Like that he repeated the process a couple more times trying to figure out the limits by seeing when any of the Astral Beasts around him would react and eventually he got his answer. With only his hand barely covered in any darkness energy the size of a piece of paper one of the Astral Beasts near him finally started to react as it looked around for the foreign presence in it's territory. Once he noticed that he quickly retracted his hand satisfied with his findings.

"So it needs to at least be covering my hand completely, now for how long can I keep it going."

With his newfound information he quickly stuck his hand back out with the amount he needed while seeing how long he could make it last before it wore off or until he got tired and couldn't control it anymore. "Time to start counting....One, Two..." Like that he counted in his head as time went by until eventually he felt his Astral Darkness beginning to fade away. "Interesting." He still had plenty of energy to go but it seemed he would have to replace it every hour or so. "It doesn't seem to take a lot of energy to use either." Comparing it to even his improved ice this felt incredibly easy to use almost like it was second nature to him. "I can make this work, I think...." Solidifying a plan in his head he retracted his hand and took a breath while he regained the small amount of energy he lost.

"Every little bit counts."

Readying himself he prepared himself to start moving forward.

"I'm coming Xelfia…..I hope Relia made it out safely as well…"