Chương 82: Practice For The Imperfect

June strode down a hill with Martin in tow while Silvester gracefully moved alongside him. The trio had been traveling for the last two days. They could have made it to the new Brighthaven camp if not for a warning the spirits gave June once he awoke from his visit to the void. He had learned an important proviso when it came to dealing with spirits, and that was the mental state; if the world around the spirits was an ocean, a Dreamer's aura was either a tide or a torrent.

A Dreamer's Will was also directly tied to mental state; it acted as a reflection of oneself and was a method to impose oneself onto the world. June's underslept condition and deteriorating mental state prevented him from viewing spirits, and after further testing, he was only able to see or borrow a spirit's power effectively while maintaining a stable or pure mentality. Pure anger or pure happiness would allow clear communications, but mixed emotions or hesitation would cause knots in communication with spirits.

So, upon formulating his theory, he confirmed it by practicing mindfulness, something he hadn't done since coming to terms with the prison he was kept in, and as a twist of irony, the moment he had accepted his fate to be trapped until the games were over was the moment he was able to escape from his prison.

The Voice bestowed a foundational understanding of spirits to June during their conversation; the entity's words awoke memories and imprinted sensations of remembrance, almost as if June himself had played with spirits since the dawn of time.

'It's a bit jarring, isn't it?'

'That's how it feels to remember something you never knew you forgot.' It had taken a day to re-learn how to manifest bones and muscle, but in the end, he succeeded. It was easier than he assumed it would be; he had come to terms with the fact that he no longer had bones or muscle months ago, and so the thought never crossed his mind to try regenerating them.

June lifted a hand up to tap his bone gauntlets' fingers together, making a flat clack with each tap, for now this was the only bone he had; his body had no requirements for bones or muscle. He was more a slurry taking shape controlled by Will than a regular human, but even then, having even a single bone was oddly comforting to him. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

June stepped up to a trampled path created by the fleeing Brighthaven survivors and yanked Martin's limp body with his flesh leash to it before June nodded to Silvester. His elven companion lifted the nude round prince and disappeared into the bush as June turned to the shrubbery behind him and pointed his palm at it. VACUUM The air around the shrubbery suddenly rushed away as the cohort of Aspirants quickly stood up only to have the air sucked from their lungs.

The weaker ones fell to the ground, while the ones still standing had their eyes and tongues begin to boil from the sudden vacuum. June's gauntleted fingers cracked through bone as they snapped backward and pierced into the metacarpal portion of his gauntlet, making his hand look like a twisted inversion of a fist.

"It's good to have bones again, specifically so I could do this." June aimed his backward fist at the Aspirant, who seemed to have been dealing with the sudden trauma the best as he shouted a single word. PIERCE His backward fist lunged forward, and his fingers embedded into his metacarpal tore out bone and flesh alike, flinging chunks of bone like a grisly wrist-mounted shotgun and riddling the unfortunate Aspirant.

In a single bound, June moved to the writhing Aspirants, systematically and ruthlessly killing them despite their incapacitated forms. June whistled a rhythmic tune to his spirit companions.

"22 more Aspirants, and… 2 Dreamers." June deeply inhaled, and he reminded himself that his fighting this time was with purpose, and his detour that led his group and his pursuing group on a false trail was simply to buy more time for Silvester to deliver Martin over to Brighthaven. He had regained his key traits of flesh-shaping.

June had slowly dispatched 13 of the 22 Aspirants over the past hour. Now the remaining survivors and the 2 Dreamers had banded together to constantly watch each other's backs. Despite regaining bone and muscle and the capability to shape it, he still remembered his defeat against the Dreamer that had comatose him in disgustingly vivid detail and couldn't help but feel a little fear.

He was tempted to simply surrender his body for the Voice to take care of the Dreamers for him, but simultaneously, he felt that he should be the one to confront his own feelings, so June did his best to ground himself and watched the surviving party of scouts from a distance, waiting for an opening. He inhaled silently and shut his eyes. If he were too late, enemy reinforcements might arrive. And if he didn't act soon, his faction would be in danger sooner than later.

He exhaled silently and opened his eyes with a new resolve. This was a moment to rule with fear.