Ḥamād began to swing his modified spear. One head was cut off, one neck was pierced, two hands fell to the ground. Suddenly, one of those anubises jumped high, with Ḥamād as a trajectory target.
He clenched his grip, greeted the anubis who fell towards him with the blade part of the tip of his modified spear, making the monster writhe with blood soaking Ḥamād's body.
He threw it away.
Then Ḥamād heard the groans of anubis behind him. As he turned around, he found that one of them had climbed the other side of the wall, preparing to attack from behind.
Without any hesitation, he picked up a khopesh lying nearby, and threw it precisely to its chest. But it still moved even faster, charged towards Ḥamād with its own khopesh.
Ḥamād brandished his spear to meet the attack. This anubis, who couldn't stop mid run, was stabbed in the neck.
But behind him, now standing three other anubises.
TING!
A blade deflected.
TANG!
A spear met bones.
STAB!
A khopesh buried itself in flesh.
SLASH!
He could smell the metallic tang of blood everywhere, the guttural snarls echoed piercing his ears, and a fatigue burning his muscles.
He didn't know how long he fought those anubises. But finally, he could take a breath. Those anubises were dead, left the "battlefield" with corpses and black blood splattered everywhere.
Ḥamād sat with his legs stretched out, his back that covered in sweat and black blood leaning against the wall, as he took a deep breath.
"Surely, this fight is very tiring. Even though i used to military training, this body wasn't. As Gāber said, I need to adapt."
He sighted deeply.
Gāber.
Ḥuwayda.
Shadia.
It was true that they were just strangers to Ḥamād. But, they're the first to interact with him in this world. It saddened him a little imagining that he couldn't talk to them again.
But, it is what it is.
Maybe, sometimes in the future, he could made up with them. No, it wasn't solely because of Ḥuwayda. They knew something he wasn't. In this kind of situation, information is more valuable than gold coins.
Ḥamād looked at the black blood pooling around him with disgust. In his mind, a terrifying premise emerged.
Perhaps, this black blood is a manifestation of the astral energies circulated in the bodies of those anubises. Just like what came out of his palms.
"I wouldn't know the truth if I didn't try."
He sat there, closed his eyes, getting ready to did sukūn properly.
After he was sure that the astral energy within him was circulating well, he cut his palms with imaginary knife. Of course it happened in his mind.
He didn't know why, but for him, it felt like there was two type of astral energies floating around him. But he couldn't differentiate between them.
Should i absorb both of them, or choose one? Shit! I wish Mrs. shadia was here to give me some advice.
Suddenly, a silly yet logical idea came to his mind.
What if I made a wound in my eyes, so my eyes could analyzed this two kind of astral energies?
Well, it' wasn't like I wounded my real "eyes". Nothing to lose.
In his mind, he used the imaginary knife to wound his own eyes. As the tip of the blade peirced his imaginary eyes, a very painful sensation flowing through his entire body, enough to made him groan and rolled over the floor.
Those painful sensation lasted for five solid minutes. The imaginary black blood oozed everywhere. But it was worth it.
After blinking his imaginary eyes several times, Ḥamād was able to see the two types of astral energy with his own eyes.
First type had a blue sky color. When Ḥamād's imaginary hand touched it, it felt like a sensation of autumn. Very calm, gentle, and cozy. Like a gentle breeze on such a hot day.
And the other type, it had black color. It felt like a very cold ice. It was absolutely frigid. So cold that it's starting to feel like a really bad burn.
Of course, as a sane normal being, Ḥamād's choice was the blue one.
But wait. If the imaginary blood circulated in my body equal to astral energy, then the astral energies inside my body was black. If i absorbed the blue one, would there be any side effects from this dissimilarity?
Well, nothing to lose. Let's absorb both of them and see what would happen.
He then stretched both of his palms, and began to absorb the two types of astral energy into his body, using the same exact method he did this afternoon.
With his imaginary eyes, he could see that this two types of energies contradict each other. When the bule one being absorbed by his right palm, the black one couldn't, and vice versa.
To increase the efficiency of his absorbing, he made another wound all over his imaginary body. Throughout every wound in his body (including the two in his eyes), he absorbed any kind of astral energies around him.
The one that floating around, the one that lying on the floor, the one that hovering around the corpses of anubises, all of them.
Don't ask about the sensation. It felt like Ḥamād's body got shredded into pieces, got stitched and healed, to just being shredded again and again. It was very painful, to the point that he couldn't stand the pain and almost faint.
But, he tought that he couldn't stop there.
He absorbed all of that, circulated it in his imaginary body, and suddenly felt something cracking inside.
Ḥamād him self, doesn't sure what it was. But after that, he spat a red-hot blood from his mouth. Physical one. He didn't know that the physical reaction could be appeared while he used his imaginary body.
This was terrifying for sure!
He couldn't took it anymore.
He stopped the sukūn ritual right there, and opened his physical eyes as his body sprawled on the floor. His breath was gasping, the sensation of pain still hugged him so tightly.
Again, he doesn't know what just happened. But one thing for sure, he smiled widely. Besides the painful process, he felt an improvement in his body.
Not physically to be precise.
One example for that was this one; he could see the astral energies floating around, without even using his imaginary eyes! Well, his physical eyes still hurts, but it was worth it.
Wow, that was incredible.
And now what?
After all those pain, what can I do with this energies inside my body? Of course, got the abilities to observe astral energies without closing the actual eyes was great.
But, would it be greater if i could use this for something else? Like for battle, maybe? But how?
Suddenly, he heard Gāber's insult inside his head. He turned around, made sure that those old fart didn't appeared around here. And yes, it was just his illusion.
"Really, old gramp? Scolding me before even we met? That was insane." He chuckled. "Ah, let's met any other time, shall we?"
And right after that, the last moment of his previous life appeared in his mind. When Gāber used his astral energies to made a great phyton, and strangled Ḥamād's body.
Here's the thing. I didn't know how exactly this astral-energy situation's works. All I had was assumptions and imaginations. I never found something like this in those novels I red back in my OG world.
Well, I wasn't cultured enough I guess.
But, if my assumption was true, then the limits of this power is only my imagination. No no! Somehow, it doesn't make any sense. That would be insane if the limits was just imagination.
Shit! Better tried something instead of mumbling theories.
Wait...
Why suddenly everything became blurry? And also, why the heck my head felt so heavy?
And,
Total blackout.
***
As soon as he opened his eyes and recognize the scenery around, he cursed instantly. "Shit shit shit! Did I die again? Fuck! Did I do something wrong?"
He sat that instant and did sukūn to checked the truth. And the answer is yes. He died again. The evidence was his energies in his spines.
After spending some time venting his anger -kicking walls, smashing things around him- he felt a little better. At least, there was another fact he had discovered.
He would be resurrected at the same exact spawn spot, at the exact time (probably), everytime he died. With every progress gone.
"Okay. Let's figured out things. This time, what was the cause of my death?"
He remembering all happened to him in his previous life. After the resurrection, he did sukūn by him self, collected some stuff, made a weapon, killed a bunch of anubises, then did sukūn again beneath the lights of wehlāl.
Where things got wrong?
For now, he got three main theories.
One; it was due to exhaustion. But, this one was very likely doesn't true. After those battle, The fatigue in his body slowly recovered.
Two; it was because of different type of astral energies he absorbed. Think about it. If the manifestation of this energies was a blood, then two types of bloods couldn't coexist in one body.
I heard that there was a case, when someone got wrong blood transfusion and got died. It wasn't immediate tho, but his one certain cause of death was difference blood that circulated inside his body.
Three; it was due to his carelessness. While he had his second sukūn, there was a crack he felt inside his imaginary body.
If he used the analogies from the novels he had read in his original world, then this might be equivalent to the limitations every MC would have.
To absorb some amount of power, the MC could have be exceed any certain of level. For example, in level one, he could only absorb the equivalent amount of 100 energies, in level two was 200, so on and so on.
The most made-sense theories was number two and three. But he doesn't really know which one is correct.
So, to discovered the truth, he did everything all over again.
But this time, when he did sukūn under the light of wehlāl, he made sure that he just took a small amount of astral energies. Just enough to made it circulated freely in his imaginary body, before he could felt the crack.
"Fuck! It wasn't the second theory. It was the third!"
Yup.
He died.
Again.
***