The [Broken Chain] sat idly in Damian's hands for a while.
The familiar weight of the metal made him feel something hard to describe.
Maybe it was because this was the very first memory the spell had provided to him in the depths of a desperate struggle for survival. Or perhaps it was because its power was the very reason he was alive at this very moment.
He could say.
Yet he also felt a strange sense of dread whilst looking at it.
True, it had saved his life countless times, but every time it did, it felt like a piece of him was taken away or dragged up from the depths of his soul.
He never felt the same after he used it. Each time had changed him, if only slightly.
His worry was that the more he used it, the less of himself he would become until eventually there was nothing left but a stranger wearing his skin.
At that point, he would rather be dead than replaced in that way.
For this reason, he had denied himself access to its power unless his life was in mortal danger, which, after his ascension, was a rarity in the relative safety which Bastion provided.
He was so confident before they left, thinking he was nearly untouchable and could solve any issue that came their way with sheer force and tactics, but he was wrong.
Strength, power, these things were needed to survive in the harsh reality the Nightmare Spell had thrust onto them, true, but these were qualities all those infected by the spell possessed. What you truly needed to survive, however, was something far more important.
This missing piece was simple. It was reasoning, logic, and the ability to make quick decisions under stress and make them well. It was not only the strong that survived, but also the most cunning.
With both power and cunning, there was little that couldn't be done. Of course, luck also played a factor. No matter how well prepared a person or group may be, they could never choose what they encountered in the wild expanse of either world.
Damian had gotten too comfortable, too reliant on his strength.
He had forgotten how he had made it so far. Now was the time to show this creature how he had earned his Sacred Aspect, how he had tricked one of the Gods of this dead world into slitting their own throat.
Summoning his bow, he didn't even wait for the sparks to fully weave themselves into existence before plunging one end of the [Broken Chain] into its side.
Without wasting a second, he took a deep breath in and stabbed the chain into his arm as the end passed through his armour as if it wasn't even there.
The pain of the cold steel plunging into his flesh was both unbearable and soothing at the same time.
The feeling was far more intense than before, making him feel far more connected to his weapon than he ever imagined possible.
His mind was flooded with new information as the instinctual knowledge of the enchantments flooded his mind, unlike ever before.
He sat there for a moment, his brain digesting the information as he stared absently at his hands.
He could feel a new force flowing through him. It felt like a new sense that had always been there, slumbering in the back of his mind.
It felt like he could bend the very world in half with nothing but a thought.
This was the underlying Will of War.
He understood now what Warden had meant by how difficult it was to describe the nature of this phenomenon. If a person had never felt it before, it would be impossible to understand.
He wondered why he had not felt like this when he struck down the general of the Undead legion.
Or maybe he had, and his mind simply failed to remember this sensation after the connection was broken.
As he felt this force within him push against the world, he could feel something strange.
It was as if the world itself was pushing against his very existence.
Everywhere around him, it felt like a force, similar yet distinct from the Will he now possessed, was trying to invade his body, twisting it to fulfil some sinister purpose.
His first instinct was to push against this force with his own, yet when he tried to direct it, nothing happened.
The Will was at his fingertips, yet no matter how he tried, it would not listen to his command.
Perhaps it was due to his own lack of innate Will, or perhaps it was simply impossible for him to command.
Yet he could feel its power. Jumping off the rock, he summoned his blade in one hand and performed some basic practice swings.
As he swung the blade, he could feel the Will wrapping around it like a second skin, making it deadlier, and his movements felt sharper. It was then that he understood a little more.
He could not command the Will, at least not right now, but he didn't need to.
His mind felt sharper than before. The fear and worry building in his soul were further weakened and pushed to the edges of his existence. He just needed one last push to break its control over him.
He looked around. A new sense of clarity washed over him like a tide.
He hadn't realised how bad his state was before. His awareness of how much essence remained in his core finally clicked, and his heart felt like it could stop.
He was already nearing the edge of his reserves, and now the increased burden imposed by the connection to his bow over doubled his expenditure per second. Time was running out, and he had to come up with a plan quickly.
///
He was already running by the time he had figured out his next course of action.
He knew he couldn't waste even a second of his heightened state, for if he did, he would be consumed before he ever reached this point again.
His plan was so simple that he had wondered why he had never considered it before, but he was now beginning to understand why.
'It's the fog! It has always been this damned fog!'
He had surmised the fog was the reason behind his strange state of mind, but only after the curtain was lifted over his mind that he realised the reason behind its strange ability.
He had seen all forms of creatures in his time as an Awakened, but this one was the strangest.
He had spent so long looking for the creature, the Tyrant hidden with the fog, he failed to see that it was already right in front of him, or more accurately, all around him.
The fog itself was the very creature he hoped to hunt, and after he realised that, he realised he was outmatched.
He had guessed the creature might be a Tyrant, but he had failed to consider that it could be of a higher class.
He had no reference for what creatures of the higher ranks were like apart from their speculation on the creature codenamed Tanglewood, which hunted around the forests of Bastion.
That creature was a living calamity in living form, embodying the very nature of the woods as if it were a segment of a far greater force of nature.
It was likely this fog was a creature of the same rank, whether of the sixth or the seventh, he did not know.
Running through the woodlands, he watched and listened as the sounds of a violent breeze began to circulate around him. The creature had noticed his attempts and had come to stop him, the best it could, it seemed.
The fog swirled around him, making the air dense and hard to breathe. A feeling of doubt clouded his mind as the thought of accepting his fate circled through his thoughts. He knew he couldn't defeat the creature, so what was the point of escaping? It would just capture them again anyway.
Shaking his head, Damian tried his best to chase away the unnatural thoughts as he scanned his surroundings, searching for something within the swirling mists.
Soon, he saw what he was looking for. A pair of lone figures wandering aimlessly through the misty woods, unaware they were slowly being devoured alive.