Chapter III
Rushing into the next room, he noticed that Sanvala was patiently waiting for him, almost expecting him to make it here. The room was a lot larger than the previous one. The ceiling was like looking at a skyscraper from the ground level. Lethean glanced around to familiarize himself with the environment. Sanvala looked at Lethean with a relieved expression as he spoke. “You passed the first trial. Well done. You have also learned a new ability am I right?” Lethean was proud to say that he did. He gripped the lantern as if it were a part of his being. He quickly became attached to it. Sanvala smiled due to Lethean’s childish actions. Looking to him, he straightened his face quickly. “You have a little ways to go. Hopefully, you will master the abilities that you will learn from here on at a fast pace. Your very being will depend on it, young one.” Lethean didn’t mind the fact that he was being called young again because he was in a good mood from obtaining a new element to control. He had so many things he wanted to experiment on. So many things to burn.
Sanvala rose and pointed at Lethean, automatically letting him know the next trial was ready and waiting for him. “Be careful. That‘s all I can say to you. After this trial, if you even survive or exist for that matter, you will be faced with the last and final trial to gain your destined abilities.” Lethean looked at the man with no regrets, lowering his head, eagerly waiting for his opponent to jump from the ceiling or break a new hole in from a nearby wall. Nothing of the sort happened. Sanvala began to sink into the ground literally. He slowly melted into the very ground he stood, leaving the vampire alone in the room. When he turned around to see if his exit was available if he should need one, he saw the door he entered wasn’t there anymore. He scorned at the spot where it once was. When he turned back around though, a well developed young woman stood before him.
She didn’t move nor blink. Her face was soft and full of youth. Her skin was pale and her lips were so red. She wasn’t trying to but for some reason he felt attracted to her. He began to feel her body with his eyes, moving down her beautiful neck to her seductive round chest. He began to move to her waist. But just then, his mind was shot. He was being attacked with psychic power much higher than his own. Lethean staggered back a few steps then released himself of her grasp on his mind. Within the darkness of his hood, that sinister red eye of his once again glowed. He rose from his crouched position, standing upright. He crossed his arms and let the evil side of him reveal itself. He did not care for this woman’s life before him. All he thought was that he was to claim it as his own. Slowly, as the woman observed him, the darkness crept from the gloominess of his dark hood. Shadows swirled from the bottom of his robe, twisting up the sides of his pitch black robe and entangling themselves leisurely. Lethean was growing drastically in strength. The female was not bothered by this. She knew that he would draw out his inner strength in this manner.
“Come.” she ordered him, holding out one hand in front of her. Lethean suddenly raised his left arm to the side holding his palm out. A long slender object phased into being, slowly becoming recognized as a sword. The shadow engulfed vampire quickly grasped the sword he phased into existence and abruptly became a blur as he swiftly attacked the woman with the shadow blade- slashing violently at her neck and waist. She effectively dodged every move he made and then some. After every strike he made, she would jab his body in that corresponding area. Lethean would horizontally slash at her, she would skillfully dodge and jab within the blink of an eye, his left shoulder. Lethean did not take notice to this until he felt a dangerously limp feeling in various areas in his body. He immediately back flipped away out of her reach landing firmly on the ground. The shadow blade that he wielded faded into thin air. Suddenly he limped back and kneeled to the floor in fatigue. He lost all feeling in his left arm and right leg! The vampire’s energy was being drained from him. He failed to notice that the girl wasn’t simply jabbing at him through his cloak and hitting his body. She was sending psi-waves thoroughly into his muscles, rendering them useless to a certain extent. Lethean became worried about himself. This situation was definitely not in his favor. Not only was his opponent a skilled defensive warrior, but she was a psychic vampire who knew how to use her skill. Lethean saw no options for his victory.
The female made her way over to him walking at an alarming pace. The weakened vampire rose from his grounded state and made the most to stand erect. He readied himself for another encounter with the psychic vampire. Just before the female stepped before him, he used his power over the shadows to whirl around he body, ending up behind her. He quickly moved his hands around her neck but she was no longer there. A sharp pain went up his spine. The woman had used her psychic powers to phase her hands through his robe and take a firm grip on his spinal cord. “No mercy.” she whispered as she tore his spine from his back. The vampire wailed in excruciating pain. His eye stopped its glow instantly as his motionless body fell forward to the ground- landing with a hard thud. He lie paralyzed on the ground face first. His conscious was rampaging.
(“Get up! Is this how you will leave this realm?!”
“There is no way to defeat her…”
“Then what? You will succumb to her will?”
“Why not…?”
“!”)
The ominous woman walked slowly to his body that was covered in a clump of black clothing, making him appear as if he had no body. Lethean used all the will and might he had left in his body to make an effort to raise himself from the floor. He failed miserably. Although he had no strength, the body of his still manifested its dark shadows. Somehow, they mysteriously began to fade violet. The swirls and strips of darkness that secreted from his being developed a new threatening sense of life. The purple aura around the threads of shadow signified psychic power was afoot. The woman stopped in her tracks which was only a foot away. She paid close attention to what was occurring before her. The strands darkness were eerily coming to life as it grew from Lethean’s grounded body, towering abnormally high into the air above at a frightening rate. The woman used her psychic power to read the motionless vampire’s mind but was astonished to find that he was completely unconscious. At that very moment, a mass of shadow needles raced at her from above. She quickly leaped off to her left, instantaneously being greeted by another assault from the floor. She rapidly created a psychic barrier around herself that reflected the sharp shadow needles in random directions. As soon as that shield diminished, two long curls of darkness pierced through her delicate body and raised her into the air slowly as she resisted ferociously. In an effort to free herself, she exerted a lot of psychic energy. This drew a lot of attention from the shadows overwhelmed with psychic energy. Little did she know that the darkness was tracking her every movement using her telepathic power as a locating device. The more energy she dispersed, the more power the shadows absorbed and struck with. Suspended in air, struggling to free herself, more and more threads pierced through her vessel. Suddenly, the entire floor was eclipsed. The woman looked down in horror to the spectacle. As her body was faced up toward the ceiling, an innumerable amount of shards raged into her back, instantly shattering her spine into dust. The entire room was engulfed in darkness as the room before was. Amidst the black nothingness, a small red dot floated clearly.
The darkness steadily retracted off the walls and floors of the room back into the hood of the disturbing vampire. His eye still glowing, he glanced at the exhibition before him curious to what the hell it was.
(“…Did I… do that…?“) He stood in awe as he gazed upon the impaled victim suspended in midair. As he did, a long glowing slender strand of purplish life force came swerving out of her lifeless corpse descending toward Lethean. It closed in on him and phased past his robe into his very soul. He crouched down onto the floor and was forced into a fetal position- lowering himself in reaction to the pain it caused. His spine was regenerating and simultaneously, so were his powers. He had gained the spiritual skills of the woman before him. The skill of psychic paralysis and psychic healing.
Just as he left, he returned. Sanvala rose from beneath the floor. He immediately took notice to the impaled woman. He was in awe. “….”
Lethean interrupted his silence and spoke with a cocky tone. “…what’s next…?”
