Chapter 363 - This Isn't Me This Isn't Me This Isn't Me.. This Is Me (Part 1 Of 2)
"What is this place?" Asked Daniel while looking around. To him, it didn't feel like they had teleported away, but more like they had suddenly woken up from a deep sleep.
Aeron was confused at first, but then he quickly remembered what he had learned back when he was still just a student in the Psionic Dimension. Specifically, the powers that a mental warrior would be able to obtain once becoming a being made out of mental power.
During the ascension to high immortality, a cultivator would gain a vast range of powers that, ultimately, would make him unique. The majority of these powers were boosts so feeble, that they would go unnoticed.. But there were always one or more that would end up being the main strength of the cultivator. The more affinity a power had with the cultivator's habits, the bigger this boost would be. An example of this, were Krit's eyesight, or a general's autoritativeness.
For mental warriors, however, things were a little different. What they would gain from their ascension was not a boost to their natural abilities, but true powers centered around the manipulation of the mind.
Ever since his ascension, Aeron had tested which power he had been in possession of, and so far, he had learned that, along with the telepathy and super empathy granted by his cultivation of mind power, he possessed the ability to teleport and move objects without the use of any form of essence, as well as the extremely rare talent of being able to communicate with the dead.
However, those weren't his only powers, but only the powers he had discovered so far.
Aeron looked at his surroundings, and immediately found out where he was. "We are in his subconscious.." he said to Daniel.
"You will be back in four days, right?" Asked Alis, who was now standing in front of the door of her house with her two kids standing in front of her, and looking at their father Heimart.
"If I am not back here in four days, may a lightning bolt strike me dead." Said Heimart with conviction and while beating his chest with his right arm. In his left hand, he was holding a large axe.
Despite the reassurance, Alis showed an unhappy expression, and responded by saying, "Don't even joke about that.." She then patted on the heads of their kids, and added, "Say goodbye to your father."
As soon as their mother gave them permission, the little girl and little body ran to their father, and hugged him by his waist. "Bye dad." they said as Heimart wrapped his arms around their heads, and smiled fondly at them.
"Come on Heimart, if we don't move now, we will never get there before sunset." Said the man that was standing in wait next to him.
What was odd about this scene, was that Alis and the two kids did not appear to acknowledge the presence of the man. Alis had never moved her eyes away from her kids and husband, and the kids had only let go of their father when Heimart said so.
The moment the kids let go of him, Heimart waves his hand in their direction, and said, "I'll be off then, see you in four days.." He then walked down the path that lead into the woods.
"Stay safe."
Soon after, Heimart and the man with him walked past Daniel and Aeron, and disappeared in the distance.
As soon as Heimart disappeared behind the trees, the scenery changed, and Daniel and Aeron found themselves in a forest filled with oddly colored trees. With Heimart and the other man, were hundreds of faceless silhouettes that did nothing but use their axe against the trees, and load the cut trunks on large wooden crates.
The sun had settled, and it was starting to get dark. Heimart and the other man were covered in sweat, and they had clearly worked for hours.
"CAREFUL!" shouted the man, stopping a clearly confused Heimart from inadvertently swinging his axe against a silhouette who was walking behind him.
Heimart was shaken awake from his confusion, and after apologizing with the walking silhouette, and turned to look at what he was doing, and said, "Thank you.. That was close."
The man let out a deep breath, and with a reassuring tone, he said, "Try to focus.. Don't worry about what &#@°$ said.. Those bandits will definitely be killed by the royal hunters before they can even get close to our village."
"Did you hear that name?" Asked Daniel to Aeron with confusion.
Before Aeron could answer, Heimart responded with a faint nod, and the scenery changed one more time.
This time, Heimart and the man were walking on a path that led into a wooded area similar to the one that surrounded Heimart's house. In their right hand was a small bag of coins, and on their faces, a big smile.
"So, I have heard your son talking about becoming a soldier.. Now you have enough money to buy him a wooden sword at least." Said the man while tying the small bag of coins to his leather waistband.
Heimart turned to look back at him with an embarrassed expression, and said, "Are you kidding me.. My wife would kill me. I can make a sword for him myself.. I'll use the money for something I can't craft myself in one or two evenings."
"Really? Like what?" Asked the man with newfound interest.
"I'll send them both to school. I want them to have a good life, and not have to worry about living one day at a time." Responded Heimart.
The man seemed to understand perfectly what Heimart was talking about, so he stopped walking, and said, "I can pitch in for that." he said while taking his bag of coins."
"No, no don't be stupid." Said Heimart, now embarrassed and agitated.
The man, however, seemed to be convinced about his actions, and while putting his free hand on his shoulder, he said, "Hey, you are my best friend.. Your family is my own. Let me help out for once! You know that I live alone, I have no need for this much money."
Heimart remained speechless as the man grabbed his bag of coins, and poured two thirds of his own into it.
"I.. I don't.." muttered Heimart.
The man interrupted him by giving his bag back to him, and walked away in an attempt to avoid any embarrassing moments between the two of them. "Don't worry about it." he said while walking ahead.
The scenery changed once again to a walk deeper down the path, where the two would soon be able to reach Heimart's house. It begun with Heimart and the man laughing for something that had happened before.. A laugh that was interrupted by the sighting of a column of smoke that came from a hundred meters in the distance.
"What.. NO!!" Shouted Heimart before starting to run down the path in the direction of his house. The man followed right after, and behind him, were Daniel and Aeron.
His panicked expression turned into one of sheer terror as his view of the house slowly became less and less encumbered by the trees in between, and he finally arrived at the beginning of the stone path that led to his house.
However, what he saw shocked him out of his mind.
Right past the gate, a scrawny and tall man was kneeling over a staff on which two small round objects had been impaled on. In his hand, was a third similar, and yet slightly bigger object, which he held as he used his knife to work on the part hidden to Heimart's sight.
The roof of the house was on fire, and the loud and deep laughs of a group of men came from inside it.
Heimart walked towards the house in a daze. He could see the pools of red liquid underneath the staff with which the scrawny man was tinkering, and something told him that he wouldn't like what he was about to discover.. Yet, he kept walking.
Contrarily to Heimart's human sense, Daniel sight was as sharp as the one he possessed in reality. He not only could smell the blood, he could also see what the scrawny man was doing. Something that made him close his fists and shut his jaw so tightly, that if he had been outside, his fingernails would have pierced through his flesh, and his teeth would have shattered.
Heimart approached the scrawny man just in time to see him raise the round object he had been working with until now, and get back up on his feet.. Leaving the headless and naked corpse of his wife Alis on the ground.
As he got up, the scrawny man noticed Heimart, but instead of stopping or calling for help, he showed him as he impaled his wife's head along with that of his children, who were already decorating the totem he had been working on so far.
In a rush of anger, Heimart dropped his bag of coins, and while holding his axe, he ran towards the scrawny man that was holding the pole. The man tried to parry the attack and scream for help, but only a few noises of cut flesh, broken bones, and blood gurgling out of his mouth could be heard.
After killing him, Heimart turned towards his house, and while still covered in blood, he entered it.
Soon after the fighting noises began. Broken vases, shattered furniture, blood that sprayed out of the window, stopping only a minute later, when he walked out of the house completely covered in fresh blood.
When he reached the bodies of his family, reality kicked in, and he fell on his knees crying.
"What is going on here? Why is he imagining this?!" Said Daniel with a fair amount of anger. He could not bear to see his friends in that state.. Even if he knew that it was all happening in Heimart's mind.
"I have never been in another person's subconscious before. I know as much as you do." Responded Aeron, clearly annoyed by not having an answer to what Daniel was asking him.
Unfortunately for them, regardless of their confusion and anger, things were far from over. The moment Heimart tried to touch the hair of his wife's detached head, the scenery changed one more time.
Daniel and Aeron found themselves back in front of the house with Heimart and his friend. The scene was identical to the one they had seen when they had first entered Heimart's mind, except for two differences. Instead of saying goodbye to Heimart, Alis and their two children were saying goodbye to the man, who instead of staying back in silence, acted as if he was their husband and father. Secondly, instead of carrying an axe, the two of them were holding two bows, and carrying two quivers filled with arrows.
When this scenery ended, Daniel and Aeron found themselves into the previous forest where they had worked as woodcutters. Instead of cutting wood, however, they were hunting for animals.
In the third scene, after a brief conversation between the two, the man offered to give Heimart a portion of his money, claiming that his wife Alis had been helping with the expenses by making baskets, and selling the vegetables she had started to grow behind their house.
After Heimart accepted, the scenery changed one more time.
The roof of the house was on fire, and while kneeling, the scrawny man was impaling the heads of Alis and the two kids on the pole that lay on the ground.
"The story is similar, and yet different.. what.." muttered Daniel as he watched the man kill the scrawny bandit, and enter the house while holding a small axe that he had found stuck in a tree stump next to the house.
Heimart followed right after, but appeared to be terrified by the scene. He grabbed a knife from the body of the scrawny man, and approached the door.. However, he didn't have the courage to enter. The fighting noises made him more and more fearful, until finally, he heard stepping noise approach the door.
He was unable to think straight, and as the steps reached him, he closed his eyes and pierced his knife into the body of the person that was about to come out of the house. When he opened his eyes, he saw his friend, and the knife he was holding pierced deeply into his heart.
As soon as the man died, the scene changed, and Daniel and Aeron found themselves back in the first scenery. However, the story had changed one more time. While the man was once again acting as Alis' husband and holding a large axe, Heimart was observing the scene from a hiding point about thirty meters away. In his hand was a bow, and next to him, stood scrawny man.