Waking up to dawn, Lumian walked past the lake area back into the denseness of the forest North to find his way back to civilisation before he turns crazy from not being able to communicate with someone and talks to himself.
While walking, he thinks back to his experience of enlightenment and the note left by Drake Albus saying that you will just supposedly know when you reach the next stage of your path. If the clear identifying factor was how the enlightenment happened to become an apprentice knife wielder, then he may have really had a point that it was simple enough to know how to check your progress.
Seeing as he hasn't had anything to eat yet, Lumian decided that foraging for food would be an ideal start to his day followed by some basic training exercises before he goes anywhere. This can also be a method to target weak spots as well using the knife to practice this.
Coming to this conclusion, Lumian continued to stealthily walk but found an absence of wildlife thus finding the situation weird and eerie. Could it be that I have stumbled upon a predator’s domain? Questioning himself, Lumian decided to be more wary to the perceived situation but make it appear that he was mere prey to be targeted by acting frail.
Not too long later, Lumian felt a sense of hostility coming from behind him carrying a trace of hunger and bloodlust in his direction. Finding this out, Lumian thought it best to act natural and pretend he didn't notice to not scare away his potential meal. Feeling the hostility quickly closing in, he jumped to his right and rolled before unsheathing his knife into a reverse grip ready to pounce while commanding Aethon to distract his opponent.
When Lumian quickly looked in the direction of the predator, he noticed that it looked like a large feline figure staring back at him. Weak points are the eyes, neck and underbelly. Coming to a swift, calculated conclusion, Aethon swooped down into the felines face and pecked at its eye.
ROOOAR
Roaring in pain from the attack, the feline creature leapt back as it swatted at Aethon, while doing so, Lumian pounced from a low angle and slashed through the felines neck causing blood to spray before stabbing the creature in the other eye ensuring the feline was blind. Leaving it to bleed out, Lumian decided to stay away and only approach by testing it through the shadows that it was indeed dead.
Once Lumian ensured it was so, he approached and skinned the animal of its fur and prepared to cook it for its meat. It seems the further in the more dangerous this forest is becoming. Thinking to himself, Lumian decides that it was best to try an approach the second stage of Necromancer to ensure his survival better.
After the meal was eaten, he packed the fur away for potential use and instead of training his knife skills, decided to focus on the necromancy aspects of giving precise orders throughout the rest of the day. Over time, he realised that he no longer felt anything giving multiple orders at a time towards his shadows without there being strain or a mix up in the command chain allowing him to participate in the fights himself alongside his shadows against the enemies.
Several days passed by in this fashion of training, eating, and sleeping becoming a new routine increasing Lumians' overall focus and perseverance. Meanwhile, the further he went in, the less small animals there were, and more dangerous wildlife was made apparent in the form of boars, large felines and some of those goblin-like monsters scurrying around which were becoming easier to deal with.
Despite this, no matter how many times he hunted, the cusp of enlightenment was not approaching leading him to feel slightly frustrated with himself. Could it be that it gets harder to receive enlightenment the further along the path stages you are? While sitting down and resting from his most recent hunt, Lumian thinks to himself.
Suddenly, a massive burst of hostility can be felt from the distance closing in with soft tremors rumbling the ground beneath his feet. As the wave of hostility was getter closer, the tremors were getting stronger causing Lumian to remember a similar feeling from the Minotaur from the trial.
Deciding it was best to prepare, Lumian summoned all of his shadows while removing both knives from their sheaths to take on the oncoming foe. Focusing his senses, he noticed that the creature seems to have a bit of a limp to its trembling steps meaning a weakness he can exploit.
SNAP
The snapping of trees sounded closer, meaning the target should be relatively strong for its size. Once the enemy was in sight, Lumian saw that it was a towering single eyed cyclops wearing a large goatskin rag torn at the shoulder and leg where the left one seems to be bleeding profusely, large tusks pointed out the mouth along with heavy panting. It was holding onto a large jagged makeshift sword using a tree trunk and broken rock pieces.
As the cyclops ran towards Lumian, preparing the club like sword for a swing, Lumian jumped between his legs gaps as Aethon swooped into its eye with its beak, stabbing it causing extreme pain as it cries out an ugly roar. The cyclops tripped over its own feet as this happened causing a loud THUD onto the ground. Lumian spun around and slashed repeated at the cyclops wounded leg, inflicting greater pain yet not piercing deep enough, only causing shallow cuts agitating the cyclops. Meanwhile, the two bats were screeching noisily by the cyclops ears as the rats and spiders’ bit at the exposed flesh.
"GGGRRAAAGGHH." Angered the cyclops used its open hand to crush Aethon, putting it out of commission temporarily before swatting the bats out of the way before slowly getting up. The bats evaded the hand while the spiders climbed on the cyclops back continuing to bite it, but it’s not making the cyclops paralyzed or even slow down as it swung its club like weapon at Lumian.
Lumian just barely reacted in time, bending backwards flexibly, narrowly avoiding the weapon before leaning forward into a sprint as Aethon re-emerged from his shadow flying back towards the cyclops. With the swing missed, the cyclops trod on the annoying rats biting its feet before grabbing Aethon out of the air again and crushing it. Lumian, slashed at the back of the knee of the cyclops causing it to fall down on its knee yet it swung its weapon in a wide arc grazing his arm cutting it making it bleed profusely making Lumian jump back away from the cyclops.
The cyclops with its teary eye tried getting back up but suddenly felt dizzy and had trouble moving the muscles. It seems the spider’s venomous bites started to take effect. Lumian acknowledging this, ran back in lunging the knife into the cyclops eye permanently blinding the big creature.
ROOOAAAR
In a rage, the cyclops backhanded Lumian into a tree winding him temporarily as the spiders got crushed under the weight of the cyclops as it fell on its back in pain. Getting back up, Lumian spat out a small mouthful of blood before slashing at the cyclops throat repeatedly avoiding the movement of the cyclops as it tried to hit him, meanwhile Aethon was re-summoned along with the rats and spiders again, going to town on it before it finally drew its last breath.
Panting, Lumian finally entered a moment of enlightenment at the death of the cyclops ‘even the mightiest of foes shall fall to the numbers of mere ants.’ Suddenly his mark on his hand burned in pain as the angelic wings went from being closed to opened and fully spread. Gaining clarity, Lumian felt a limit inside of him was released allowing him to contract larger shadows and more of them.
Taking note of this, he went into his bag and grabbed some bandages and some water to clean out his wound before bandaging it up to stop it from making him bleed out. Taking a moment to himself, he decides to just sit down to rest temporarily before moving on.