However, though he searched and kept a keen eye out and despite sensing a dark aura watching him, there was still no sign of the crawler anywhere. And also no sign of life, no voices, no sounds of battle – which was impossible.

 'Something is strange. I should be able to hear Zera's fight with the goblin lord from miles away…' He stopped in the 7th house, standing still and extending his soul-sense to scan further and further, only to find that he could sense no living things at all in the entire homestead – again, impossible.

Wary of the still unfamiliar enemy, Lars maintained a constant output of Earth Pulse at the Hill/ World-cla.s.s level as a protective and detection layer around him.

Looking around, he surmised that he could have stepped into a pocket realm – but what realm or creature could elude his Mythical soul sense?

'Hmm… This is getting more and more interesting…' Lars maintained a carefree smile on his lips as his eyes sparkled – he was keen to add the power of darkness to his collection.

'This ability to mislead a Myth's senses will be very useful…' Lars considered the various uses such as disguise, stealth, eating for free, a.s.sa.s.sination, shoplifting…

It was then that his senses flared up and a clawed palm scored the back of his left shoulder. Lars spun around – only to see that there was nothing there.

"..." Lars looked around and even observed the ceiling but could not catch a trace of the crawler.

*Plip… Plip… Piip…*

It was quiet for a while as Lars stopped, craning his senses once more. The only sound was the sound of his blood slowly dripping to the ground.

"Hssss!" Suddenly hearing a hissing sound from behind, Lars threw himself forward and pivoted, turning to face the source of the sound and crossing his arms in front of him. But to his shock, a claw suddenly appeared struck him from behind – the opposite direction of where the sound had come from!

But before he knew it, the crawler was gone again – vanished as if it had never been there.

'…This time I sensed it – but only for a moment when it was just about to land the strike. Is it staying in an ethereal state and materialising just before the attack? Or is it phasing out to another dimension, another plane?' He moved as he a.n.a.lysed the situation, quickly running from the living room to the windowless kitchen, retreating to a place his back against the corner of a room.

Facing the empty, dark kitchen before him, he increased his Earth Pulse defence output to the Mountain/ Legendary level.

It was quiet for a long while as his blood continued to drip. His mind wandered back to the small girl who had hugged him and her worried mother and hoped that they had managed to meet up safely with Saint Ren. As he thought about the adorable girl, realisation suddenly struck him.

'At that time…?' He recalled what had happened since he encountered the crawler until this current moment, then smiled. He waited for the next attack to confirm his theory.

He didn't have to wait long – before he could take in his next breath, the eyeless visage of the crawler appeared by his right shoulder, aiming a bite at his shoulder with it's teeth.

This time, Lars didn't pull back, but even shoved his shoulder forward to let the crawler chomp down hard. He winced in pain as the rotting, septic teeth sunk into his flesh with a sickening sound as his hands shot out lightning quick, catching hold of the crawler's arms.

Shocked by his audacious move, the crawler flailed around, kicking and clawing him with it's feet as it tried to loose itself, leaving long scratch marks all over his torso. But when it realised it couldn't shake itself free from his grasp, Lars felt a chill run up his spine as he felt it's eyeless gaze land on his neck, it's gaping empty eye sockets still managing to tell him where it was looking.

Lars just smiled – and let the creature bite him on the neck. Only this time, the teeth could not pierce his skin, instead, the highly reinforced teeth that could cleave through an adult dragon's scales ended up shattering into tiny fragments, giving one the impression that these powerful teeth were instead the dentures of an octogenarian.

At this sight, Lars' smile turned into a grin and he let go of the crawler's wrists, letting it leap away into the distance – or at least, it tried to, but only ended up crumpling to the ground like a bag of bones.

"KREEEAAAA!!!!" The creature shrieked in resentment, letting loose a bone-chilling scream. It struggled on the floor, writhing about, it's movements slowing down.

Gradually, the crawler started to wither, it's hair turning to dust and dissipating while it's flesh seemed to liquefy and evaporate at a rapid pace. The shrieks turned to mewls, the struggles to stillness, before slowly fading away.

Very quickly, the only signs of the crawler remaining were the rags it was wearing, it's long-rotten flesh finally decomposing, the product of time and nature finally being able to lay their hands on the abomination.

"So that's what the darkness is… Still formations, only these are meant to distort and twist the laws of nature…" Lars "wounds" quickly sealed up, vanis.h.i.+ng as if someone had hit the rewind b.u.t.ton. Even his torn clothing pieced itself back together, looking clean and as new as when he had put them on.

From the beginning, he had knowingly walked into whatever traps might be set for him. Then, when he could no longer hear or sense the battle outside the city walls, he had first thought it to be a pocket realm. However, his thoughts changed when he let the creature strike him – an attack he could have still dodged even at this close range but which he allowed to strike him in order to understand the powers of Darkness.

He had also a.s.sumed Hill/ World-cla.s.s level Earth Pulse to be sufficient to protect himself; he was greatly surprised when the crawler's claws sliced right through his defences! And the next time as well, he found that he couldn't detect the creature at all until it was right upon him – and that even Mountain-level Earth Pulse couldn't hinder it's attack.

However, that was when his suspicions had been solidified with only the final confirmation required: by allowing the creature to bite him, he had caught it long enough to a.n.a.lyse the flows of power, identified them to be applying a distortion field, then tested dozens of counter-runes to break the formations.

"The power of distortion… Able to nullify other powers, pervert them or twist them… Turning a t.i.tanium defence into paper instantly…"

"Distortion of light, sound, smell, touch… The formations also distort light, affecting vision – perhaps that is why these creatures are a.s.sociated with the concept of darkness. And at distances large enough, it seems even my soul-sense is suppressed… Why…? Is it because this law exceeds my current level of enlightenment…? Or is it because soul-sense also perceives the natural, the things of the corporeal world…?"

He recalled the sensation of the crawler's claws sliding right through his defences. Then he held up his hand and waved it, applying distortion force to his surroundings as a gentle gust of air brushed into the solid wooden walls.

The gentle breeze faded out to almost nothing by the time it reached the wall, however, with just that light touch of wind, the entire wall collapsed, causing rafters above to sink slight.

With another wave of his hand, he twisted the light in the room, causing the windows to disappear and be replaced with perfect lines of the wooden wall – an undetectable deception that, unlike illusion magic, could not be seen through or dispelled, unless one knew the laws of distortion that were at play.

For who would suspect that the natural light beams reaching one's eyes were already twisted and distorted before they even arrived? And there were no more distortion effects on the light beams apart from at the point of deviation…

With just that one encounter, he could now not only reverse the distortion effects, but utilise it and integrate the power of distortion with his own abilities.

"The Darkness should be the wrong name for these creatures. Instead, they should be… Products of someone's schemes… Someone who exceeds my level, who exceeds a Myth…All these creatures obviously don't have much control over the distortion formations, but they do still retain some level of thought. They don't seem like mindless puppets, but at the same time they behave like ravenous beasts. Are they capable of higher thought? Planning…? Who laid these formations…? It must be a part of some grand plan…" Lars mused as he noticed his surroundings s.h.i.+ft. He could now see clearly – he realised that he was still in the same house as before with the rune-covered box beside him.

Only, to his dismay, he saw something that made him feel like he were dunked in frigid, sub-zero water.

Trembling, Lars' light-speed thought stopped working as he walked over to the open box. A box where the sanguine smell of blood was thick. A box where two pairs of arms, two pairs of legs, two twisted torsos lay.

His shaking hand reached out, then stopped.

He released a tremendous pulse of energy, cancelling and crus.h.i.+ng any remaining distortion effects – but nothing changed.

This was the truth.

Two bodies, of a mother and daughter, crushed at their sternums. A footprint could be seen on the mother's dress while the girl's body was untouched – a mark of both their lives being reaped by one kick.

Lars heard the sound of something breaking inside him.

"....!!!!!!!!!!!! WRETCHED CREATURES!!!! I'LL DESTROY ALL OF YOU!!!!" Lars raised his head and roared in anguish.

The boy who had never known his mother wailed out his heart, swearing to wipe out the mastermind of these atrocities, never to forgive the perpetrators.