Master Of None

"It's entirely dark inside there. No light beyond the entrance. Even that should not be possible." for Mordant to say this, it meant a lot. He should be able to see through the darkness and sense most things using it if need be. But he was saying he couldn't see a thing?

"I may have seen movement at the mouth of the cave. I am not sure yet, but I can't see it changing now so I don't want to say much. We should be prepared though." Walker felt that this was all he could do right this second.

Giving a warning was never a bad thing. However, he felt that this was a worse thing to say now since he was admitting that he also did not know anything. That he was not prepared to fight whatever was inside or whatever might appear before them as an opponent.

"You can see something moving in there?" Mordant was more surprised that he could not see something rather than the fact that Walker could.

"Yes, I think it's using the dark mana to hide, or it might have some unique form of body that allows it to mess with dark mana and also hide in it too. Basically, since it messes with the dark mana, then it is able to also mess with your ability to sense and see through it."

This theory seemed very good, but that did not fix the issue that Walker and Mordant had. They were facing a cave that had the potential to have a dangerous monster or enemy within it. They also could not easily use dark mana which was readily available. And due to the dark mana and the earth mana in nature being close, earth mana was also slightly unsettled.

Meaning, that they had to walk in using their physical strength. Walker would need more time and effort to gather any other mana while in the cave. And that is if that other mana could influence or affect whatever they may end up fighting in the first place.

Things just seemed to keep getting more complicated as the world adjusted back to the natural flow.

In some ways, it was like the world had become an entirely different one. As if time had stopped for its growth and now the world was making up for all that missed time by expanding so much at once. Not that this was actually the truth.

The lack of mana after ancient times had caused the world to degrade. Mana was everything's foundation, Walker and many others believed this. It made a lot of sense as well. In times like this, it was easier to feel how that happened and why it was such an important fact.

Yet, having these ancient places appearing again caused a lot more issues which everyone needed to adapt to.

As the pair moved toward the cave, another small shift in the dark mana occurred, this time though, Walker just noticed the shadows shift slightly. There was nothing else that he had felt moved. But he still swore that there was more to it.

Otherwise, he could feel some more odd mana flow ahead. He couldn't put his thumb on it though. It was unsettled and he had no idea how to get a better grip on it. Not just the dark mana but he could feel that others manas were slightly unsettled too, even the light mana he had just condensed in to his hand as an orb so that he would be able to try to see a little better.

"This cave is not that hard to move through. The opening is large and it looks to have been carved out by an earth monster long ago." Mordant ran a hand over the walls and made a point at showing off the small cuts which had clearly been degraded as time went on.

"That means we don't have to worry about whatever that was. Especially since whatever has done it was old even in ancient times. So we just have to handle-"

Walker leaped back away from the wall as he noticed a shadow shift. Mordant also prepared himself before they both realized nothing happened. "What was that?" Mordant was asking himself more so than asking Walker. He didn't feel the dark mana move at all, but the shadows did, it was incredibly odd.

"That should have been something behind the light, but it wasn't us..." Walker's voice trailed off in quietness as he realized the cave just ahead of them extended in to a massive room with stone outcroppings. It was like a massive dark underground rock field.

Gathering light mana was more difficult, but since Walker was already on high alert, he didn't worry about the fact that he had to spend more of his stored up mana. He just pulled on the light mana and sent out a myriad of light orbs to brighten the area.

"What in all that is dark and calm is that?"

Walker wanted to ask the very same thing. Right now, he could see many tendrils of shadow. All wrapped around rocks and even just slowly trailing on the floors. But how could they move like that? They were just shadows. None of them gave the same feeling as what he had when Onyx hid away in the shadows or when he noticed Mordant moving within the shadows. It wasn't even similar to have the assassins or hidden body guards use dark mana to hide themselves with stealth and darkness. Now was it at all like Midnight's shadow wrapping skill.

'Shadow eating octopus

This monster normally lives within the dark elemental planes. However, they often accidentally move through chaotic mana as infants the size of a pea. This causes them to somehow survive the travel and get trapped in places they should not be or struggle to survive in.

They are known as shadow eating since they will use their tentacles to grab the dark mana within a shadow and consume it to survive. They often prefer to hide within their own shadow and stretch out their tentacles to extremely long lengths. As such, they naturally shrink or shift the shadows nearby them in their actions of eating.

Nothing is known about their natural actions due to the few who have taken the time to understand them. This is due to the fact that once they are large and if they are bothered by a potential predator, they release condensed dark mana to decay their enemy at a massive rate.

If one is able to befriend them, they may find that they can easily walk through the darkness with the octopus as a guide. However, doing so is often challenging since finding one is extremely risky..."

There was a lot more to the all around appraisal, but Walker had just noticed a larger mass that the many tentacles were moving toward. He also had just read a slightly more important fact about the shadow eating octopus.

'This thing has more than just eight tentacles. They are born with eight and can grow up to fifty. This one has thirteen that I can see. But they are very thin and slow moving. I think it's struggling to get enough dark mana."

As Walker explained the all around appraisal to Mordant, Mordant understood right away.

"You're telling me that the little one managed to survive the chaotic mana between the world and chaotic mana, only to be trapped here as the world's mana was too little and the cave was basically brought to non existence."

"Then, when mana returned, it could finally start eating properly and started to pull at the mana even more. Causing a lack of darr mana and a change in the flow of dark mana as a

whole."

"I am also saying that because it managed to get here, that I think this will be the next location where we see a bridge to the elemental planes." Walker's whispered theory made Mordant widen his eyes. "Think about it, this little one managed to get through chaotic mana as an infant accidentally. And landed here. So, there could have once been a bridge to the elemental planes there and linked to here. Hence why this ancient cave is so large and

developed this way."

Mordant held a hand up and nodded. "I understand. Worry about that later. Right now, I am choosing to take control of this little one who has lived through things we can not understand." Before Walker could say another word, Mordant had released a dense ball of dark mana from his body and in to his shadow.

Every single tentacle of darkness moved towards it as if this monster was seeing water for the first time in a desert. It wasn't the dark mana around it that could sustain it. It was dense and

pure dark mana like this.

"So you're making friends then." Walker understood it.

....Nôv(el)B\\jnn

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