Nox woke up completely unaware of how many days had passed with the barrier still covering them.
Though, the first thing he opened his eyes to was a bunch of Eclipsed..
Turns out, Lorenne was the only reason other Eclipsed weren’t approaching this place, since they sensed bigger threats.
The Nightlings were exceptions, since they were like rats who had no sense of fear, only guided by their hunger for SE.
But now that Lorenne was dead and with the amount of SE and Umbra energy hanging in the air, Eclipsed were bound to be attracted to this part of the forest.
Nox didn’t really recall what happened after he ’died’, except the fact that he felt himself burning, for hours unending...or maybe it was even days.
The burning originated from his chest and it got worse as the seconds passed.
The next time he reopened his eyes, he was laying face first in the forest floor, Levi and Elias’s corpse were by his side and he was surrounded by a golden barrier.
At first, he was tempted to believe that someone from outside the barrier had made it in, just in time to save him, but that didn’t explain why he was alone, laying between two bodies.
He sat up slowly, looked around and at the Eclipsed around. They ranged from tier 1 to 4 and yet, they couldn’t get through this barrier.
Speaking of which, he soon realized that this barrier was being powered by his SE but he couldn’t ’feel’ the solar tech that was creating it.
Nox stood up and without saying a single word, walked towards Morphos, which was still within the barrier.
He picked it up, supplied it with a whole lot of SE and the weapon quickly took the shape of a shovel.
Ignoring the growling and screeching outside the barrier, he started digging.
He dug for hours until he completely disappeared into the hole, fortunately, the moment his arms started getting heavier, his SE worked to heal them.
Teleporting out the hole he had created, he started digging another by its side and just like another, another three hours went by.
While digging, he didn’t feel sad or even angry, he just felt.... nothing.
Slowly, he walked to the bodies took off their academy watches and carefully he knelt and, with a gentleness that felt almost mechanical, lifted Levi first.
Despite the missing head, blood and the weight of death, his hands did not shake. He lowered Levi into the first grave he had dug, adjusting his position so he lay flat, arms crossed over his chest.
Then Elias.
Lowering him into the second grave took a little longer. His shoulder was still ruined, bone visible beneath torn flesh and there was a massive hole in his torso, but Nox did not flinch.
He simply arranged him the same way, straightened his jacket, and stepped back.
He stood between the two graves for several seconds.
Then he raised Morphos in its shovel form. Nox plunged it into the earth and pushed the soil back in, first Levi’s grave, then Elias’s.
He did it slowly and without realizing, droplets of water started falling on the soil, he raised his head to the sky and realized it wasn’t raining.
And that’s when he felt a hot liquid stream down his cheeks, he was crying.
He didn’t know why, after all, he didn’t know them that well, but the two had died trying to save him, and that fact alone made his heart tighten.
By the time he finished, the forest floor looked almost untouched, save for two slightly raised mounds of earth.
The whites of his eyes were now red, but it hadn’t let out a single audible sound of grief, instead, he just sat on the forest floor and watched the two graves in complete silence.
He walked towards where a small pile of ash was, picked up Lorenne’s book, placed it in her inventory before walking to the watches and sending them all to Elias’s inventory.
Nox finally turned to the the impatiently waiting Eclipsed.
They had given up to trying to breach the barrier, so they just surrounded it and waited, no matter how long the prey took, it would eventually exit its hiding.
Though, there was still the problem of which would get this SE filled prey, still that would be figured out in a bout of the strongest, they just had to make sure the prey doesn’t escape just yet.
Nox let out a sigh before muttering, "I don’t really feel like fighting you all.... I’m not even in the mood to do anything."
With that, he took out a couple of orbs from Elias’s inventory before tossing it at the Eclipsed outside the barrier.
They cautiously jumped back, but it was a bit too late as the orbs immediately went off, letting a flash of light wash over them.
Eclipsed that were at tier 2 or below immediately disintegrated to ash but those above let out a screech as they were momentarily blinded.
When the flash of light cleared up, their prey was gone and so was the barrier.
The remaining Eclipsed screeched in rage, claws tearing into scorched earth as they searched for traces of SE, for anything that could tell them where he had gone, but there was nothing.
So they decided to settle for the head of the dead prey that Nox had missed and was laying outside the barrier.
***
Nox appeared a few kilometers away, with no thoughts in his head, not even realizing the fact that he had teleported so far.
He soon reached the cave they previously stayed at and immediately proceeded to teleport inside, sit by the wall and let his head hang down, look at the rocky floor.
Yes he had cried, but he still didn’t know what he was feeling, the only thing that was clear was the fact that this was his fault.
He had seen it all, he could’ve tried preventing it if he convinced them hard enough, but he hadn’t.
And now, he was completely alone in this hell hole.