Shades of the New World

Chapter 171: The Killing

Since the eyes were extremely close to Evin's brain, the amount of pain he felt was simply unimaginable. One would think that if one was working on someone's eyes, they would be a bit careful, but not Four. She just couldn't be bothered with caution, as streaks of blue lines would be constantly burned into existence inside Evin's burning eyes. But the silver lining was that she was extremely confident in her ability, so at least Evin didn't have to go through the pain for too long.

Evin's plan to memorize every detail about this procedure, so he could do it by himself in the future was also thwarted, as he was too busy trying to not faint from the pain.

After everything was finished, Four explained how his new ability worked.

"Just will for your soul to change your eyes and you will be able to feel the changes. Remember, after you've activated your ability you won't be able to move your eyes like a normal human... you will have to move your entire body to see sideways, or whatever. Also, when you first try it out, you will feel extremely weird... you have to get used to that somehow," Four said. 

With his eyes closed, Evin warily tried out the mutation and found his whole being rejecting the state of his eyes. There was just something horribly, horribly wrong with it. Like someone just chucked an extra set of eyes on his face after removing the old ones. 

He tried opening his eyes to see its effects and a found a cacophony of new unique colors appearing in his vision. 

There was no way for him to describe these colors, as it was basically the same as trying to describe what normal color looks like to a colorblind person. He could only say that the previously bland room looked much more colorful and bright.

The other thing he noticed was his enhanced eyesight. He could clearly count the tiny cracks and indents on the floors and the walls with his almost unnerving ability to focus on details, but still have a good enough wide-angle vision. He was pretty sure he would be able to read a book from forty steps away without problems and still be able to catch the movements of an insect that happened to be walking in the corner of his vision. 

But if someone asked him if he always wanted it to be like this, the answer would be a resounding no. Evin could feel his brain trying to process the excess information that was assaulting it every second. Not to mention the nauseating discomfort that this vision of his brought him. Perhaps he would get used to it at some point, but for now, he just wanted to see normally for a second. Evin willed his soul to cancel his eagle eyes and his sight turned normal again. 

Rubbing his eyes, Evin looked towards Four.

"What about the Soul Masks?"

"Hmm, we'll tackle that when you've... obtained the souls that were born alongside the Soul Tree... But if you just want to learn how to do it... Well, we can try turning her into a small one..." Four asked, pointing at the woman.

Evin's mind blanked slightly. Something inside him was violently against it, like someone just suggested he should sell his sister for some quick cash. It was just too terribly offputting inside his head, he just couldn't help but feel repulsed by it. 

"I guess that's a no. In that case you will have to go out at nights and hunt. Since it's like this, we can only wait. If you have no more questions, then I shall be waiting here until you find the amount of souls Oh, before I forget, here's your spear Although it's quite sturdy, be careful not to hit anything with this part," Four replied and gave Evin a slim spear, pointing at the blue glowing part on it.

Evin took the spear in his hands and felt that it was almost abnormally light in his hands. Curiously, he glanced at its details and found that its sharp part was similarly long like he liked, but it also had a rather dangerous feel to it. At the area of its handle was a transparent blue glowing part, which Evin guessed was where the weapon stored its souls.

"Cut your hand with it," Four ordered. 

Evin looked at Four with some wariness before obliging. The blade dug into his hands like hot knife through butter. But instead of pain, Evin felt connection with the spear. The spear obviously didn't have any thoughts or something like that, but it did have a very clear feel to it. Evin felt like he could easily tell where it would be even if he lost contact with it that kind of connection.

"Since it's still daytime practice your magic and then go outside to hunt when the souls come out. It might take some time for your spear to fully absorb the souls so do be careful of that," Four said, casually waving her hands.

Evin thanked Four and walked outside the barrier. Sure enough, the previously impenetrable barrier let him through without issue and Evin walked outside the mansion with light steps.

This time his mood was much better since the World was not so unknown to him now. And he now had a proper way to deal with all the problems that might appear in his path. He looked to the sky and found that it seemed to be noon or so, since the sun's location was relatively high up in the air. 

At the edge of the city, the Instruments of Death were loitering around like always, diligently corroding everything they brushed against. The Giant Tree on the other hand, was as imposing as ever, making Evin doubt his resolution to burn the whole thing down to ashes. 

'How many souls would I need for that?' Evin couldn't help but think once more. With a self-depreciating smile, he walked around the ruined town, appreciating the view. He always felt that there was something grand, something holy about a place like this. This was also the reason he liked to wander around abandoned ruins and battlefields when he was a spirit. 

He soon found a suitable spot and tried to recreate the effects of his magic. He imagined illusions of himself performing the spells and willed the Soul energy around him to help him out. He could feel the Soul energy in the atmosphere trying to help him out with his spells, just like Four explained in the scroll.

When Evin tried to inspect these energies, he found that it acted very similarly to the energy from the World of Thoughts. The way it moved through his body and liked to gather around his head but there was something a bit different.

"Maybe it includes some hints of the energies from the World of Emotions?" he muttered out, while playing around with his old spells. Throwing the matter out of his head, Evin focused on his spellcasting.

Five hours later, Evin was confident that he was half as strong as usual. This was because some of the abilities that Evin tried to work out were extremely difficult to pull off. Namely his Floating spell, the Shockwave spell that Nasst taught him, and the Compressed Air attacks that he himself devised. On top of that, his Suffocation spell needed some work as well.

Basically all the spells that required him to use the World of Storms were very ineffective. Evin wasn't sure why this happened, but it wasn't that big of a problem.

He wasn't planning to use the Air attacks and the Suffocation spell, as he was fairly sure the corrupted souls didn't need to breathe... but he really wanted his ability to float in the battlefield. He tried to dumb the process down and tried recreating his old, simpler version of the spell and that seemed to work Although it was quite difficult for him to get used to the old spell again.

Thankfully, his other Worlds were relatively okay, considering that they were, after all, illusions that took on life. But somewhere in Evin's mind, an idea just took root that convinced him that these illusions would never be as good as the real one. 

Evin didn't know if it was some sort of a mental block, or something else entirely. But he didn't care too much. He was feeling much more confident than before, since his World of Fire spells were working. Although he really didn't have anything that could be called a proper World of Fire Spell. It was just the most basic imagined Flame.

'I can't believe I gave up on trying to make magic work so easily the other time,' Evin thought with some disappointment in himself. 

"Perhaps I was just too scared and stressed. And to my defense, I didn't know how this Soul energy worked, after all," he muttered. 

Looking at the sky, Evin could tell that he had about an hour to prepare for the souls. 

'I suppose I just close my eyes now and commit to the killings...' he sighed, smiling very inappropriately.