012: Haywire Perception

The next day came quickly, Divyat had spent most of the previous day moving through the Ravine, noticing it pretty much had a straight path through the mountain. When he had gotten way too tired to move, he had found himself an alcove or to be more accurate a cave within the ravine. It was dry, small, and offered nothing in the way of comfort or warmth. Divyat had cried himself to sleep once again, and then awoke to a new day, even more worse than he was yesterday. His eyes had bags and his sleep had been fitful and filled with nightmares, he was not in the mood to move, not even by a single inch, but he was still human… and by virtue of that he was hungry.

"Fuck!" Divyat cursed out loud, but it was to no one but himself, it has barely been a day but the solitude was getting to him. He looked at the area that had served as his shelter for a night and gave a derisive snort before picking up his bow. He was hungry, and the bats that had made the ravine their home had annoyed the hell out of him all night, they would make the perfect breakfast. The herbs that had been growing at the lip of the raving grew down it's sides, it was not characteristic of their species, but they grew like creeping vines, symmetrically interposed between each other like some sort of flower farm.

It gave Divyat cause to worry though, because it meant that something or someone was down here cultivating those plants, but then again it could just be another coincidence of nature, not everything had to be a conspiracy theory. He left with his belongings, only needing to walk for about ten minutes before he began hearing the flaps and screeches of bats that had become synonymous with atmosphere of the ravine ever since he stepped into it. The ravine itself was about 25 meters wide, and at least 10 kilometers long if not more. There were a couple of caves that led deeper into the mountain range, but Divyat did not have a death wish, going down those tunnels was a path of no return, but at the very least he could use some of them for cover. Having identified the bats, watching as an entire flock of them had perched underneath a rocky outcropping on the ravine wall.

Quickly identifying a cave that would keep him hidden, and afford him some protection should the bats choose to attack, because these were not ordinary bats he was attacking. They were beasts, and even the ones in front of him were just in the body Refining Realm, and an extremely low stage at that, there was still at least a hundred of them in sight. And while beast can not be approached with any modicum of intelligence, they were still a lot smarter than common animals, which meant they could be vindictive or threatened enough to come after him should he threaten their way of life. But Divyat was not worried, he only wanted to hunt for his food, it was not as if he was here to train his archery skills or something…..

"Fuck!"

Divyat just had a terrible idea, and the fact that he knew it was a terrible idea spoke volumes of the situation he was about to put himself in, because even though he knew it was a terrible idea, Divyat was still going to use the Beast Bats here to train his Archery and [Heart-Seeker] technique. But in order to do that, he would have to extensively study the technique again, luckily enough for him he still had the scrolls he took from the scripture pavilion yesterday. But looking at them now, it was possible these were all that was left of the legacy of the Divine Sky Dao Sect. Nonetheless, a full stomach was still the priority so Divyat put everything else out of his mind and focused on his breathing.

He turned and faced the flock of bats, pulling back the string on the bone bow as his eyes sharpened and his vision zoomed forwards a little bit. He paused, a little disoriented by the heightened vision. And that when he noticed it, everything was shifted off balance, all of his equilibrium affected as sight, sound and smell went up more than what was capable for a human, regardless of whatever cultivation realm they were in. So far this has how he has been perceiving things since yesterday, but the monotonous approach to everything after his brother's death and surviving the Imperial Rizal Sect had more than made him despondent to everything and his senses severely dulled. But now that he was finally in need of them, they came crashing onto him with the force of a typhoon.

He tried his best to ignore it, the sensory overload however was not slowing down as his acknowledgement of the change seemed to have let open floodgates he never knew he had. Now it wasn't just his primary senses of sight, smell and sound, his hearing became so heightened that he could hear the beating of the Beast Bats hearts. He could feel a small squall on his skin, and could smell dampness in the air and a thick scent of freshness coming from around him. He could feel his opponents or rather it would be better to address them as his prey, but truly with all of the training Divyat has gotten and his recent foray into cultivation, there was still no method available for him to be able to handle the onslaught of sensory feedback he was currently experiencing.

He tried to breath, centering himself and attempting to focus and reign in his Qi, but all that was good for was for exercise, his sensory overload he was currently going through was not a Qi based problem, but rather a biological one. He had the body and senses of a highly evolved predator, and it was taking him way too much time to get acclimated to it. He tried breathing, tried using the cold Qi in his body to get some semblance of control.

But that was not enough, he could feel his head pounding and his eyes pulsing from within, there was just so much to take in at a spot and deal with that the same time he had no idea what method to use in order to get all of his senses under control. And it was all so much to handle because he wasn't just having heightened senses, he was having heightened senses of a beast, a very powerful one. Eventually it all got too much for him to handle as blood began to pour out of his nose and his focus became completely eschewed, with no other choice, Divyat put his bow down and fell back, hyperventilating as his mind struggled to catch up with his new senses.

"Maybe I should just give it a minute….yeah…just a minute."