Waking up... (2)

Just as his consciousness returned to his body, Aiden was almost forced to lose consciousness in pain. The taste of blood wasn't satisfying at all, and he couldn't hold it any longer and vomited out his intestine.

The empty stomach and piercing pain made it hard for his blood clotted nose to breathe. And the worst of all was the throbbing pain in his chest, right where his heart was.

Aiden wasn't sure whether it was blood or molten metal that was flowing through his veins. He felt his body expand like a balloon. His whole body was burning like coal, to be precise, his body was acting like anything but human.

Even if his chest moved like a bellow, he was unable to relieve his pain. It was then that voice appeared in his mind.

[The host will die in 6:27 minutes]

'Fu*k you. Isn't the joke getting old?' Aiden wasn't able to cry out loud, 'What the fuck is that?'

[The accumulated mana exceeds the limit of the host body.]

[Accumulated Mana: 247/5]

[Accumulated Mana:249/5]

…

In his mind, a string of massages continued to appear. With each new massage, the amount of mana continued to rise. And his pain increased with it.

[The host should find a way to get the excess mana out of his body to survive.]

'Release, huh? 'Aiden had been struggling to get a lung full of air. It was very painful, but he forced his body to stand still. Other than Lyla and Asher, everybody was in the room, but Aiden had no time to think about them.

Under his movement, the floor creaked, but that didn't bother the sleeping one. He somehow came out of the house with the support of the wall. As soon as he hit the road...

[Skill [Wind Gale] activated. Mana used:15. Remaining Mana: 263]

[Accumulated Mana: 264/5]

His whole body lunged forward at a frightening speed. The pain and the diluted mind made it more difficult for him to control his body. His body gave up as he rolled across the ground.

As soon as the [Wind Gale] was activated, he felt a little lighter for a moment, but soon the bloated feeling came back. Blood that had come out of his nose and the dirt of the road had made a mess of his face, and ...

[Accumulated Mana: 271/6]

'Shit, can't you just give me a moment?' Although he cursed in his heart, he forced himself to stand up again.

[Skill [Wind Gale] activated. Mana used:15. Remaining Mana: 256]

[Accumulated Mana: 258/6]

[Skill [Wind Gale] activated. Mana used:15. Remaining Mana: 243]

[Accumulated Mana: 244/6]

…

Every time he used the skill he ended up rolling across the ground. Yet again, he stood up and used the skill again.

[Skill [Wind Gale] activated. Mana used:15. Remaining Mana: 16]

[Accumulated Mana: 19/6]

[Skill [Wind Gale] activated. Mana used:15. Remaining Mana: 4]

[Accumulated Mana: 4/7]

When he ended up using all his mana, he ended up on the roof of an unknown building due to his last [Wind Gale]. But he was too weak to stand. He lay there, staring in the grey sky.

[Accumulated Mana: 8/7]

[Skill [Wind Scythe] activated. Mana used:3. Remaining Mana: 4]

[Skill [Wind Scythe] activated. Mana used:3. Remaining Mana: 1]

[Accumulated Mana: 2/7]

He continued to use mana until his mana could no longer increase. It took a long time before his breathing was normal again.

'What the fuck has happened to me? How did I start collecting mana again?' Aiden could not think of a reason why this happened. Again, the ESS provided an answer.

[The host had ingested the heart of a mana beast. The mana core inside the host body converted the essence of the beast into mana.]

'Heart of a mana beast? Why the hell did I do that? 'Aiden wasn't sure of that either. All he remembered was that he killed Elijah and others before he went to his family. After a good night's sleep, he had breakfast with everyone, when...

''Ahhoh' Aiden groaned in pain. The memory in his mind was so vivid, yet every time he tried to think about it, he felt that something was missing from his memory.

He didn't know how he captured them nor how he got back to the planet. But he remembered that he did it. 'Wait for a minute. Where am I now? It doesn't look like the sky of the planet Will. ESS, you are still here? Where am I?'

[Due to the unstable concentration of mana and Chaos ore radiation, the system is unable to function properly. Unable to locate the location.]

'The Mana concentration? Chaos ore, huh? Did I go back to Earth again? 'Why did I choose to go back to hell again?' For him nothing made sense.

Aiden wanted to stand up and look around, but his weak legs could not support his body. 'What is my last memory?'

In the view, the memory of him looking for an entrance to the city of Irupax appeared. The weaker concentration of mana, the small beast with three claw marks, Enric, and the gigantic tree in the middle of the city, he remembered everything. But, uh...

[The memories of the host are entangled. Need permission to extract it.]

'Do it' As soon as he gave the order, Aiden began to feel sick. 'It's a good thing that I'm laying on the ground.' Even if he said so, that didn't stop his stomach from twitching.

[Two sets of imperfect memory have been recovered.]

'Show me the memory of this land.' And the view before his eyes changed again. He stood up looking at the giant tree and followed Enric with the others. 'It looks like they're still alive.'

Soon enough, he reached where humans, crimson-eyed humans fought the beasts. Along with many known beasts, there was a lot he hadn't seen before. As he charged them, the view began to distort.

[Do external interference, the system is unable to extract the full memory.]

Aiden paid no attention to the words of the ESS. He saw the distorted video several times and tried to identify every beast on the battlefield. 'It doesn't look like any beasts were fighting to support us.'

'Then, then? 'Aiden wasn't sure what was going on here. But he understood something when he watched the other memory.

In his memory, a giant beast came down the tree, helped him to take revenge and met his family. But, 'What was the beast that came down from the tree?'

[Identifying…]

[Resemblance found: Three-toed sloth: 76%. Two-toed sloth: 57%. Bear: 36%. Chimpanzee: 29%...]

And the list goes on until it finds a 1.5 per cent resemblance to the human ancestor. 'The sloths? I've heard of them. Wasn't they the laziest animal, huh? Is there any other kind of information?'

Another set of information in his view. And ESS added more...

[Sloth's ancestors tended to be much larger.]

'Even if that's the case, there's no way that evolution can happen backwards. Could that be because of mana?'

[Before the 'Mana Apocalypse', the umbrella-shaped cecropia was known as the Sloth tree.]

'So they are sloth.' Aiden was still unable to confirm this. Even though he saw the claw marks on the ground, Aiden wasn't sure it was a sloth after all.

He had seen it twice, but one of those instances was his fabricated memories. 'I need to see them again to be sure of that. I need to check ...'

'No, no, no. I don't need to check anything.' Even if he was laying down, he shook his head, 'I need to get away from this place as soon as I can.'

'I don't need to know what that thing is. But if that thing could control my mind… no no, it can control the mind of so many people. It should be very dangerous. I should flee as soon as possible.'

[Special Ranked Mission completed.]

'You don't need to show it to me. I don't want to know.'

[Mission: Find the secret of the city of Irupax.

Condition: 1. Find the lost soldiers or their remnants.

2. Identify the reason for the disappearance.

Rewards: 250 credit points. +1 Authority]

He said he wasn't interested in the fear that the ESS would give him a mission to stay in the city. Even so, when the notification appeared in front of him, he became more curious.

'+1 Authority? What is that? Am I a vice-captain now?' He wanted to know but the system wasn't willing to quench his curiosity, rather…

[New Special Ranked Mission is created.]

[Mission: Find the secret of the city of Irupax (Part-2)

Condition: 1. Identify the beast.

2. Rescue the operators.

Rewards: 400 credit points. +1 Authority]

'Why don't you just ask me to die? 'Aiden frowned as he sat back down again. 'The + 1 authority? 'Aiden was no longer interested in it. Right now, he had only one thought in his mind to escape from the city.

Aiden checked that the blade was still tied to his waist as he looked around. At a distance, he could see the crown of the tree. It was calm. But looking at that, a chill ran down his spine. He had no time to waste any more.

He was looking for a way to get down, but there was something else that attacked his view. There were a lot of people walking through the road. He couldn't see it clearly from the top of the building, but he felt the people were sleep-walking.

He used the backside of the building to go down and watch a human parade from the shadows.

'Why are the eyes white? 'Aiden wasn't sure, so he took another look at them, 'could this be the effect of the hypnosis of the beast?'

Neither the system nor he had any way to confirm that. 'It's not like I've got time to think about it.' Aiden moved around to look in the direction of fleeing, 'Why are they all moving away from the city centre?'

Aiden couldn't help but curse in his heart. It wasn't just one or two, but almost thousands of people were moving out of the city, 'No, I can move with them unnoticed, then…'

Aiden moved out of the shadow and joined the White-eyed Sleepwalker legion. He squinted his eyes to hide his eyes as much as he could.