Chapter 154: Ashen Giants

But it wasn't a good idea to completely give up on stamina and energy. Currently, he was recharging himself near the tree. As he waited, Evin thought about how everyone else might react to him disappearing suddenly. Or was he just standing in spot, drooling like an idiot?

Perhaps Twelve did something to the flow of time in this Pale World, like she did in the World of Time? 

"That would be great if it was so, since I'm pretty sure I'm going to spend a lot of time inside this place…" Evin muttered. 

Since the World didn't really have that big of an effect on Evin's mind, there was no worry to his mind becoming dumb due to prolonged time spent inside a World, but obviously, that didn't mean Evin wanted to spend a lot of time in here.

Sighing, he got up and headed towards Nasst's mansion. 

Inside, he searched for a spot where there was a spore spewing human-faced flower. Thankfully, he found one with the face of a middle-aged female in his original room, so he could survive the night with some relative comfort. He began to fortify the room with the best of his abilities, using some wood and furniture he brought in from a different room. Evin also brought a spear similar to his own from inside the mansion, hoping he wouldn't need to use it.

Night came closer and closer, with Evin patiently waiting for any sign, his heart thumping in the background. It was a thrilling experience and Evin really wished for Twelve to say something to keep him calm, but unfortunately, the girl didn't seem all that interested.

Finally, it turned completely dark. Evin didn't have any problems seeing, thanks to his affinity with darkness… but he could feel that there was something slightly different about everything. 

Glancing through a small space he had left on the window, Evin could see that there really wasn't any movement around. Only the giant tree seemed to glow a bit brighter in the dark, its haunting flowers constantly emitting particles of blue… just like fireflies in the midnight plains.

"Oh, how beautiful it is," he whispered

Evin gazed at the beautiful sight for a while, before he felt like he was getting hypnotized. He then realized that there was something wrong in the room. Panicking, he turned around to see something pale blue flash in the corner of his eyes for a second to then disappear.

The only notable thing in the room was the human-faced flower which was spewing out the dark blue stuff incessantly.

"Fuck…" Evin muttered and then looked around and held the spear tighter in his hands. It was a bit unwieldy, since usually Evin relied on the Heavy World to reduce its weight, but it did give him some courage and a feeling of safety. 

Evin then turned and glanced outside again. The beautiful scenery created by the giant tree was still going on without much issue, but it didn't dazzle Evin like before. Then, some slight movement at the edge of the town grabbed Evin's attention.

The white landscape seemed to take on life, clumsily fluttering in the air, before the collection of dust and ashes turned into a number of colossal humanoid beings. The scene reminded Evin of the time he asked Karan to try and take on a human form, and the skinshifter struggling to keep a humanoid form, with bits and pieces of his body floating around, making a shimmering sound.

The newly created creatures seemed confused for a second, their supposed heads looking around the surrounding landscape in a slow, unhurried manner. When their gaze fell on one of their kin, they would look at them with some surprise, before turning away with disinterest. 

But when its head faced the Giant tree, an weirdly hateful expression would become apparent in its 'face', after which it would just begin to loiter around the edge of the city alongside the other Dust creatures. Never moving too far away from the town, but never approaching the center as well. 

When the creature moved, some of its ash-like particles would brush by the barely standing buildings at the edge of the town, whittling it down even further. This fact was enough for Evin to decide to never get close to these dusty giants. It also gave him a sense of urgency, as he could guess that these creatures would eventually reach the center of the town after whittling down the surrounding buildings.

Though Evin would have to observe these creatures a few more times to make his final conclusion.

"Those things are quite scary, but not really dangerous if they don't come close enough. There should be something else going on around here…" Evin murmured and thought of the strange presence he felt inside the room a minute ago. As for worrying about whether the giants would come and fuck him up, Evin refused to think about it, considering the state of his mind. 

Evin threw the matter of the dust giants to the back of his mind, closed the gap in the window and silently sat onto the bed, which he had moved to the corner of the room opposite from the door and a few dozen steps away from the window. If anything wanted to come inside, they wouldn't be able to pass by Evin's eyes.

Since he didn't feel neither sleepy, nor tired, Evin was confident he could keep this up for the whole night. The only thing Evin was worried about was the toll on his mind. Thinking of random ways to burn the tree, Evin passed the time in silence. 

…

Half the night passed like without much incident. Evin would occasionally glance at the Ashen Giants on the horizon and the rest of the town, trying to spot something different. He had stopped worrying about the brief presence in the room for the time being, since there really wasn't much point to it.

The rest of the time, he would sit on his bed, silently trying his hand at bending mana to his will. A despairingly fruitless task, he might add.

Evin was reminded of the time he was trying to first work the magic out when he was a child, when he didn't know anything about the Worlds and the Authorities. Constantly imagining some kind of miracle happening in the background, it could almost be said that those days were filled with his delusions. 

This time wasn't much different. Evin would try his best to make the mana inside his body work like the World Energies. The only thing he learned was that the mana and World energies worked very differently. If the latter could be compared to drinking bottled water, then the former was like a trying to drink rock like it was water. No matter how much Evin tried to bend mana to his will, it would just flow randomly through his body and the air. He could gather it and move it about, but never change it.

Giving up on the mana thing for the time being, Evin walked up to take a peek through the windows. 

This time, he noticed something different.