That Slight Hope

Feeling a gut wrenching pain his eyes flew open in the middle of the night as the pain continued to bash his stomach at every twist and turn without stopping. "What's going on?" Not quite understanding why this was happening he was forced to endure it as what little power he had left he used to search the area for any danger however thankfully Xilo didn't sense anything close by. Knowing that worry wasn't needed he focused completely on steadying his breathing as he tried to stay as still as possible while making sure he could endure the pain and within a couple minutes his Astral Energy finally showed signs of change.

With what felt like hundreds of punches to the guts in a row Xilo finally could breath as he felt body finally begin to relax after being incredibly tense while Astral Energy travelled throughout his body wherever it could. "So, my Path finally decided to show itself." Feeling the changes in his energy he let a loose a much deserved sigh as he inspected everything that had just happened. "So attack and speed Path." Experiencing the speed it travelled along with the wildness behind it that was the only guess he could make. "I'll give it some time to settle down before trying again, It could be just because of my breakthrough after all." However he at least knew he had gotten one Path even if it was a little later than he expected.

"Just a late bloomer." Something he should have had a while ago he had just received and while that frustrated him to think about at least he had it now. "It seems my plan was a success." Feeling the strength his Astral Energy was showing he slowly sat up as his body still ached in residual pain while he stared at the giant ice pillar he made infront of him. "What exactly happened." He remembered some of it of course but he was completely out of it that entire time. It was just a fuzzy memory in his head, the only image that refused to fade from his mind was the blades that pierced through his arms at the time. "Again eh?" Thinking that he stood up and started to look around.

"Holy...."

Looking at what seemed to be a giant Astral Beasts split in half Xilo was left slightly speechless at the sight but when he looked where he was he was ever more scared. "I'm in it's mouth...well that was a close one." Staring at his arm where flesh was still healing itself he shivered at the thought of being eaten alive while he slowly stepped over the chunks of broken teeth and made his way outside. "I guess I also did this." Looking at the frozen land before him he was left surprised once more as another breeze passed by.

"What in the world did I do."

Looking at the world of ice around him he sighed as tried to think about how this happened or how even it let it get to this point yet the only thing he could blame was that form and the light in the distance he saw when first came down here. "I hate this place." Slightly snarling at the thought he tried to calm his mind as he heard a roar in the distance. "Great...." He knew he came here for one purpose though and that was to kill that Astral Beasts Relia had mentioned but whenever he looked towards the gaping mouth behind him he couldn't stop linking that to some of the images Relia had described before

"This corpse is it right, if that's the case I should probably get out of here and find Xelf...."

Trailing off there he sighed.

"Try and get out of here and return to town."

Shaking off all the depressing thoughts he had Xilo tried to stay positive as he turned towards the opposite direction from the earlier beasts roar and began walking slowly. "Maybe in town..." Making his way he walked in the direction mindlessly hoping to find an exit but even after hours of searching he only ever found rock walls that blocked the entire area locking him in. Giving up looking he approached one of the cliffs as a thought occurred to him. "Why didn't I try to climb this before?" It didn't look too hard to climb and seemed somewhat doable but when he was down here the first time he ignored such a thought process was ignored and he continued forward. "....haa....whatever." Running his hand through his hair in frustration he approached the cliff side and put his hand on a jutting out rock.

Beginning to climb he made his way upwards finding any hand holds he could get his hands on while making his way to the top. Within a few hours of slow progress and mistakes here and there Xilo eventually found his way to the top as relief filled his body. "That was a lot harder than I thought it would be...." He wasn't even sure if he could have done such a thing before hitting the Third Stage now so maybe it was lucky he didn't try to do it beforehand.

"It's also quite painful."

He had slightly underestimated how hard it would be to climb for so long and so high. "Maybe I can use this for training." He had moved muscles he hadn't and in ways he hadn't thought of so it wouldn't be the worse idea but for now he just wanted to get back to town.

For that slight hope even if it was vague and if not then he could decide what to do from there. "Whatever that may be" Feeling some pain start to fade he started to make his way down the mountain while trying to figure out where he currently was. That was the first step he had to take.

"Now where exactly do I go from here."

Looking at all the same looking trees around him he felt a headache coming on