Shadow parasite

Gorn was slaughtering spiders with greater and greater efficiency. The power he had was by no means small, however, it was barely sufficient when taking into account the whole thing.

A good example was his current prey. Some of the spiders that were crawling on the ground could kill him fairly easy. The reason he was alive was the fact that those beasts could not fly, and their intelligence was lacking.

This aspect wasn’t the same on all monsters. Furthermore, some situations required a more direct approach, making him lose some of the hard advantages possessed. Taking into consideration the speed of his improvement, then it was good so far. What was worrying, though, was the uncertainty of the next day.

‘Should I go back to the city and check things up?’ thought Gorn while resting. His original plan was to stay at least a month before doing that.

‘But then again, if things are going south, do I have the necessary power to act accordingly?’

It wasn’t an easy decision. In the end, Gorn stuck to his original plan. As a quick fix, he sped things up a little. After a few days without any incidents whatsoever, he relaxed, totally falling asleep for the first time since coming into the wilds.

After an unknown amount of time, Gorn felt very odd. It was like being submerged in some kind of viscous liquid.

‘Shit! Was I attacked by some kind of monster?’ He tried to open his eyes.

It should have been very simple, but for whatever reason it was incredibly hard to do it. ‘What is happening?!’

Using a great extent of his willpower, Gorn finally managed to do it. His eyelids trembled, and his eyes opened slowly. Everything was hazy, and very unclear. He had no idea what was happening.

Gorn’s heart started to beat faster and faster. This was a serious situation, which could easily result in his death. ‘Right, I can just teleport away….’ Teleporting to an unknown place was also dangerous, but Gorn thought that it couldn’t get any worse than that. Having set his mind to resort to such an option, Gorn did it. Or at least he tried to do it.

His blink did not activate, nor could he use fire or anything else. ‘I can’t use my skills?!!’

Adrenaline started to kick in. Using every ounce of power that he could muster, Gorn tried to move his body. The results were extremely poor. No matter how hard he tried, or what modality he used, Gorn could only slightly budge his arms and legs. A feeling of panic and helplessness was drawing closer and closer.

All the effort used brought forward an unbearable headache. As the pain got more intense, he wanted to scream his lungs out, but his mouth was tightly shut. When everything seemed lost, Gorn sprung to his feet. He was still in the same place where he previously fell asleep. No traces of any monsters or something amiss could be seen.

‘Was that just a nightmare?’ His body was drenched in sweat, and part of that unbearable pain took over yet again.

This time, Gorn started to scream in pain and tremble uncontrollably for a few moments. Thankfully, the intense pain lasted only for a short time before turning bearable. Without much delay, Gorn blinked to the skies. The commotion he just caused was bound to bring trouble to that area.

‘What was that?!!’ shouted Gorn inside his mind, deeply afraid.

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Ella and Nora admired the beautiful scenery for a few moments, then decided to go back down. Worrying the others too much wasn’t their intention.

“Should I try to get down on my own?” asked Nora while gulping.

“Not yet; you will do that after some more practice, no need to rush,” said Ella while signalling for her sister to get on her back.

‘My little sister grew up so much…,’ thought Nora, feeling very proud of her sibling.

Going down was way harder than going up, but everything seemed to be under control. Nothing bad happened. While Elisa was ready to go up after them, she saw the girl coming down. Nora’s face was visibly more at ease than it was at the start of all this, a detail Elisa did not omit.

Ella landed on the solid branch everyone else was already on. Seeing her mother come towards her, she was mentally prepared for being scolded harshly. Nora got in front while saying with a resolute face: “It was me who told her to do it. I’m responsible.” She was adamant in taking all the blame to herself.

Ella wanted to say something, but Elisa raised her hand to stop her. “How confident were you in doing this without anything bad happening?” she simply asked.

“One hundred percent.” Prompt and without any hesitation.

Elisa smiled mysteriously: “I understand. Go get some rest now.”

The girls were pleasantly surprised for not being scolded. With wide smiles, they went to rest. Mara rushed towards them, asking tons of questions. The three sisters started to chat happily among themselves, a great deal of stress fading away.

A few minutes later, Rebeca came to Elisa and asked her in a quiet manner: “In case Gorn doesn’t come in one month, what will we do?”

Elisa paused for a second, then answered: “I already have a plan for that situation.”

“What plan?”

“Now it’s not the time to talk about this. I will tell you later.”

Rebeca boiled with curiosity: “I want to know now, tell me!”

“I said I will tell you later.” Elisa’s patience was growing thinner and thinner.

“Come on! Tell me! Tell me!”

Rebeca’s way of speaking was very informal and tiresome. Her voice was now loud, making the initial silent approach pointless.

Everything started to build up, and Elisa could not endure it anymore. She slapped Rebeca squarely in the face, sending her away at least ten meters.

“Will you shut the fuck up already?!”

Rebeca could not believe what was happening. With a face full of rage, she wanted to immediately get up and strike back. Right before doing that, she saw Ella appear twenty meters above her. ‘Shit!’

She quickly dodged to the side. In her previous spot was now Ella’s sword, which was deeply sunk into the sturdy tree trunk.

“Are you trying to fucking kill me?!”

If she was a tad slower, her head would now be nailed to the tree.

Ella landed.

She stared at Rebeca with the same eyes she stared at those reapers she killed. It was like Rebeca wasn’t even considered as a human in her eyes. A cold shiver went down Rebeca's spine, deleting any prior intention of attacking back. Mara and Nora quickly came to their sister’s side, Nora even giving her own sword to Ella just in case.

Elisa felt a headache coming. “Enough! Everyone go rest. We will talk about this tomorrow.”

‘Her daughter almost killed me, and everything she says is to go and rest?!’ thought Rebeca, feeling very dissatisfied.

“Whatever…,” said Rebeca while going into a more distant spot, sitting down.

The worst case scenario was avoided for the time being. With each passing hour, Rebeca started to realize what a great mistake she did, and how foolish she acted. Regret came at her in waves, especially when seeing Ella’s cold gaze that was directed towards her every time she looked in their direction.

‘What the hell did I just do?’