CHAPTER 20: [The curse land] - [Taste lost] - [Smell?]

Damian had actually been in a sort of hibernation during two and a half weeks that were for him three and a half years without returning to his body.

When he finally returned to his body he had once again changed, when he was trapped in the body of the demon for those years he had reached a new peak at swordsmanship. He had gotten much stronger and had understood better the way of the sword and had even invented new techniques.

"YES, I FINALLY RETURNED, DO YOU HEAR ME, I AM BACK. THIS TIME AROUND I WON'T HIDE MYSELF ANYMORE, I HAVE BEEN BORED WITH MY PEACEFUL LIFE!" Damian shouted as he opened up his eyes and saw the cave ceiling that he had missed so much.

Because Damian had gone into hibernation he may have stayed for a long time without eating but he was still completely healthy. His muscles were just a little bit sore and he felt like running through the whole forest as he hadn't had the opportunity to run out of the enclosed space he had been trapped in for three years.

Damian packed all his things and quickly went to the monkey temple having decided that he was going to take part in this war and wanting to see which side was going to give him the most advantages.

Arriving at the temple he discovered that the eagle had left and he could clearly see the marks of the army advancing to the Kaan temple.

'I will follow them for now, let's see how things turn out.' He fought as he disappeared back into the thick canopy.

Other to the eagle side, they had been traveling for three full weeks and had used this time to send Gu-shisan to investigate the tents of the soldiers and had found nothing out of the ordinary.

The army could now see the temple from afar, it was as small as a house from where they were but was very easily recognizable as it had a big statue of a monkey with eight arms and an eye on the forehead on top of it.

They would be arriving at the end week and had planned to have taken it two weeks later.

Today they wouldn't continue marching, they went to the ruins of their temple to set camp before leaving for war at night. The idea behind that was that the army would arrive two days later during the night and the soldiers would surround the Kaan temple before going to sleep.

Doing that the soldiers would be well rested as they would have a full night before the great war that was to come and they would have already surrounded the enemies before they could even initiate defense strategy.

The eagle army could then directly attack at sun up without suffering losses from the enemies attack when coming closer to the temple.

It was a strategy that ensured them the position of strength in the war that would follow.

——{four days later}——

Damian had followed the river and had arrived at the ruins of the eagle temple where their camp had been previously set up. They had felt it a day ago and had headed in the direction of the Kaan temple during the night.

The ruins had been taken back by nature and during the years the temple was now almost completely hidden by plants and foam.

He entered the ruins further while looking around, as he went further in the plants got denser and it became impossible to continue.

He had to use his saber to create a path to continue to venture further. After twenty minutes he encountered a stone wall that was still standing. The wall was sculpted and seems to explain the story of the creation of the curse land.

Damian used his saber to remove the sand that had infiltrated the drawings and blew off the wall so that the drawings were made clearer.

From what he could see, a powerful being representing a lion created the forest long before the eagle or any other animal came, he lived there alone and meditated and doing so he had acquired a lot of knowledge.

Damian followed the wall and after pushing away some plants he got to see what happened after.

What he supposed to be the protector of the forest had accepted to protect the fleeing animals in his forest but had given them a restriction, they had to guard pieces of his knowledge. As the two first speeches to enter the forest the monkey and eagle got the duty of protecting the five temples of senses.

The rest of the wall was missing so he could only see a part of a picture showing some kind of reptile.

Damian continued his path after taking a mental note of everything he had seen. He could see that he had entered what used to be a building as some stone floor pieces could be seen through the plants and sand that had amassed with the years.

He was advancing slowly because of all the plants so night came as he had entered the first building that hadn't collapsed. He stopped exploring as it could be dangerous to walk blindly in a thousand year old construction.

Damian sat down and was getting ready to go to sleep for the day when he discovered something interesting, the tile he had sat on emitting light, in fact all the tiles in the area were.

These tiles were actually made out of a fluorescent material, and when the night came and the sun started to fade away the tiles started emitting the light they had accumulated during the day.

Damian packed up his things and after removing a tile from the ground he progressed into the building using the light it was producing.

The interior was quite luxurious, there was marble and cherry wood and there were a lot of paintings representing eagles in armors.

These eagles seemed to be important members of the temple, some had long beards and seemed like knowledgeable elders while others looked more like experienced warriors that had seen everything a battlefield could show.

There were also pictures of nature and war scenes, they were all made in an ancient dynasty style. These paintings were really realistic and almost gave the impression of life, when looking at them Damian felt as if he was really facing these old ancestors or the onlooker of a war.

As for the senses showing nature he could feel as the waterfall drawn and the animals present were truly real and living inside the world created by the painter.

Walking ahead of him he arrived at a room and entered it, it was almost empty apart from the bead at its center and the desk near its entrance. Damian came closer to the desk and he discovered a rectangular shaped piece of paper that was covered in dust.

He removed the dust using his left hand and blew off the dust so that he hadn't removed it. It was a map of the building, the structure he discovered was similar to the Aankh temple but a lot bigger in size.

Next he went to the bed and discovered that there were characters written on its top, there was written 'smell'.

Suddenly everything became gray around him and the word smell slowly appeared in the fine air.

Looking closer to the characters he could feel that it wasn't any language he knew but strangely he could still read and understand it. As he touched the characters he felt that they were embedded.

As he read this word he felt that he had reached a new understanding of what it meant to smell. Damian walked closer to the world and he touched it, as he did the world entered his body through his fingertips.

As it did he felt as if all the smells of the world entered his nose and he was overwhelmed by the strange mix.

Even though he knew he couldn't smell anything since he had entered the forest he felt that he could now clearly imagine any odor in his mind and feel it as if he had just smelled it.

After the word had disappeared the gray landscape faded away and his vision returned to the dusty room where he was previously.

He then visited the other rooms and discovered nothing out of the ordinary in the other rooms. Looking at things the temple was most likely robbed of all its furniture. Only beds and desks were left unscattered.

After finding that there was nothing else of interest here he headed back to the exit and came out to the light of the moon that illuminated the night's sky.

He returned the tile to its location and under the moon's light he walked back on his tracks. This time it only took him around thirty minutes to exit the temple ruin as he followed the path he had created.

He slept in a nearby tree and woke the next day just in time to see the attack on the Kaan temple start. He had in fact slept for a full day in the room with the engraving of the word 'smell'.

Damian jumped down from the tree and quickly ran in the direction of the fight using his light feet footwork like a mad man.

And his crazy laughs were heard by everyone on the battlefield sending them shivers. What they didn't know was the importance of Damian in the war and the influence he was going to exert on it.