Their heads were some distance away from their bodies, n.o.body knew what it felt to die by a book, now, they experienced it; nevertheless, they won't be able to tell the tale as their skulls were bashed away like bouncing pebbles getting thrown towards bodies of water.

Edwin pulled out a jar full of pills, after swallowing one pill, he placed it back in the satchel.

A refres.h.i.+ng feeling swept his body, it was cold, yet warm at the same time, like it was the perfect mixture of hotness and coldness.

Meanwhile, the Mortal Plane's Codex on his hand was still devoid of any stains of blood, even after one-shot slapping all of those humanoids to death.

Edwin placed the book back in his robes and checked the corpses of the monsters to see if there were anything valuable on them until he got a tiny orb from the pockets of the pants of the orc.

The orb was half as big as a circle that one could make by pus.h.i.+ng the ends of the index finger and thumb to each other. He could feel some sort of energy flowing inside the orb, however, he felt that it was dangerous, but in the end, he still kept it inside his satchel.

"I really need a new weapon, or else if I meet another group of these monsters and probably much more powerful, I won't survive.", after which, Edwin left the area, fearing that other lifeforms had sensed the battle earlier.

...

A few days later...

After accidentally encountering another group of goblins, Edwin was forced to fight again, but just like what happened to the first group, it was a one-sided fight.

After raiding their bodies, the boy got a dagger in a good condition, "A good quality dagger, but it's not even enchanted, hais."

Normal weapons, such as what Edwin got, wasn't graded and was of worse quality than a Minor Inferior weapon.

Nevertheless, he still equipped it because he had no choice, or else once he encounter a much more powerful enemy, the book won't probably even get to protect him. Actually, he felt if the consciousness codex reached its limit, it won't let the book be used as a weapon for who knew how long.

Because Edwin always see groups of goblin on the way for these past days, he concluded that he was nearing to their lair. The boy frowned as he thought, 'Should I continue this way or take an another path?'

The route that Edwin planned was the fastest way to enter the inner region of the forest, but if he suddenly detoured, it might take more days to enter the said region. After considering the pros and the cons, he still took a detour, because there might be a powerful ent.i.ty residing at the goblin lair which could9 sense him from afar.

Another few days had pa.s.sed and Edwin has arrived beside a river. He took out a map and muttered, "There's no river going out of the forest. There's also nothing recorded in the outer region, that means I'm already in the inner region."

Edwin looked at the position of the sun on the horizon, the sun can't really be seen, but its s.h.i.+ning figure could be behind the clouds, "I need to find an another shelter."

Based from the position of the sun, only a few hours were left until it would set.

He kept the map and was about to continue travelling the when the sky instanly darkened and everything else was blanketed by the darkness.

"Huh?!" He hastily looked upwards and around him, now, it was already nighttime, there were stars s.h.i.+ning brightly on the sky with the moon, there was no sign of the sun.

The boy widened his eyes and backed off one step, "What happened? Wasn't it still daytime a few seconds ago?!"

He thought of the possibilities of what could have happened, 'Is this an illusion? Did I get hypnotized? Did I touch something?' He scratched his eyes, looked around his body, but saw that there was nothing wrong.

"Why's the river's color black?", Edwin approached and took a closer peek on the river.

As he got closer, he knew his eyes weren't being deceived from afar, because the river was now pure black in color!

He sniffed the air near the river to see if the smell changed, but there was no difference in its smell.

His back started sweating all of a sudden, "Who?" Turning around, he spotted a black silhouette far away from him.

The silhouette seemed like a shadow of a human, but Edwin felt that it was much different than it seemed!

He blinked one time, and the distance between him and the silhouette shortened, he blinked an another time and the distance shortened yet again!

The boy was alarmed and threatened at the same time!

As the shadow slowly came upon him, he backed off, but it was as if the distance didn't even change! He looked behind him at the river while still walking back, but he wasn't even approaching river even if his legs were moving! The river was so near, yet so far!

He looked at the ground below him and saw that he was indeed changing his position, but still, he couldn't move towards the river. He looked towards the black silhouette, which was even nearer this time! It was as if that the whole world was coming towards the silhouette.

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In an instant, without Edwin blinking, the silhouette appeared right in front of him. At the same time, he stopped moving, or rather, he couldn't move anymore!

He was horrified down to his bones. He still bravely looked towards the silhouette. Even though the silhouette was all black, it's eyes were even darker and blacker than the whole body, like the darkest of the darkness.

When their eyes met, Edwin felt like he has been seen through by the silhouette, which added to his fear.

The silhouette stretched out its hand and touched Edwin's glabella, and it pierced its finger through it, then everything changed. The silhouette suddenly disappeared and the scenery before him changed into a bedroom.

There was a little boy and a man sitting on top of a bed beside each other. When Edwin saw the man, he was surprised and blurted out, "Father?!"

However, his father, and the little boy, which was his past self didn't hear him. He approached the both of them and tried touching them, but his hands only went through them. In the end, he gave up trying to get their attention and just looked at the both of them.

"Happy birthday father, here, I made note for you. I hope you'll like it!", Little Edwin eagerly gave a letter to his father, even getting a little itchy; the latter examined it and coughed a few times before smiling, "Thanks, it made me feel much better."

"Really?" The little kid's eyes shone, "Then I'll make more of them so you won't get sick anymore!" Little Edwin excitedly looked to his father.

"No, no, this is enough, it's enough.", Edwin's father said.

"Oh? If you say so father!" Although his notion was rejected, Little Edwin wasn't discouraged one bit.

Edwin smiled at the sight, it felt good to see his father again, even though he can't be seen. But under his smile was the bitter taste of reluctance as a child and longing as a young man, because, this was the last time he saw him alive.

Suddenly, everything fast forwarded in a flash, and it was already nighttime.

"No... no... I don't want to see this, get me out of here!", Edwin's countenance changed for the opposite and he shouted, he knew what's the next thing that would happen with his intuition.

He tried to exit the room, but couldn't do so; he tried to turn the doork.n.o.b, but his hands just went through; he tried to phase through the wall and door or anything, but couldn't; he tried to jump out of the window, but was suddenly pulled back by a force; he tried to close his eyes and cover them with his hands, but he still could see through them!

The boy tried everything, until another kid wearing a black mask quietly entered the room through the door. Edwin tried to turn around, but he couldn't move again and was fixed in his position.

He struggled and tried to move, but it was all for a naught, by the time he stopped struggling, his father's neck was already slashed opened and everything that happened has followed.

However, Edwin didn't pay attention to what happened afterwards, he suddenly felt that he could move again, but his knees only collapsed to the ground as he cried out, "I'll kill you!!!"

Adding another frantic shout, he declared, "I will kill whoever your family is! I'll kill them all!"

The masked kid exited the room, while Edwin immediately behind him, until the former entered an alleyway, as the latter was about to follow, he sensed somebody gazing from behind him.

Edwin turned around and saw a man looking at him.

"You are not from this time." Without any emotions, Mr. Sanchez looked at Edwin and muttered to himself, "Good thing I lend the kid a mask."

Edwin was surprised that somebody could see him and asked to him, "Who are you?"

However, Mr. Sanchez coldly replied, "Return." A simple word, yet, Edwin felt that it filled with a lot of power.

The boy felt that his existence fluctuated and he immediately run inside the alley.

"Return!", Mr. Sanchez said again.

This time, Edwin couldn't feel his legs and anymore and he was slowly fading away.

"NO! I need to see who killed my father!", Edwin desperately crawled towards the corner of the alleyway.

"Return!"

This time, Edwin felt that he became much more weaker, and couldn't even lift up his hands anymore.

"No! Please no!"

This time, Mr. Sanchez's eyes changed color as he said, "There are only two kinds of beings who know how to check back in time, and I am not going to let you last longer here even if you are the good one!"

The tavern owner clapped once with his hands and the boy heard a m.u.f.fled explosion.

Everything went dark for Edwin, but not for long, because he returned to the scene where the silhouette was piercing his forehead.

The silhouette pulled back it's hand in a flash, and its figure slightly became faded and smoke arose from its body. It was obvious that he was injured somehow!

Then the silhouette's arm turned into the figure of a sword and stabbed it towards the boy's heart.

Edwin wasn't able to move when the sword already pierced his heart. With wide horrified eyes, he looked one more time towards the black figure until he felt his consciousness fading at a fast speed.

***

Meanwhile at Eastern Horizon City...

James was sleeping soundly while his hand was over the counter. However, his eyes opened wide from his sleep and he fell from his chair while coughing violently many times.

"James!", Anna noticed what happened and ran over to the kid.

Then suddenly, James started to cough out blood and his face turned pale.

"Alchemist Morgan!", when Anna saw what was happening, she called out for Allen, but the latter was already one step ahead and examined James.

Allen carried the kid and sat him on the chair. James already stopped coughing, but his face was still pale.

Allen took out a pill from his pockets and let James eat it, easing the kid's pale face back to normal.

"Kid, go home and rest.", Allen said. "Anna, can you escort him back to his house?"

"Okay." Anna agreed.

James didn't reply and just immediately left the shop along with Anna and went back home without saying anything.

...

As it was still early, his mother and father was nowhere to be seen inside the house, because they were working. James left Anna outside and rushed to his bedroom then locked its door.

He thoroughly pulled out the large drawer from the shelf and placed it on the ground.

Meanwhile, there was an another drawer on the wall!

He pulled out the drawer too, and there was a corpse of a baby inside it.

The kid slowly became calm as he saw the corpse, however, he began crying afterwards, "W-what am I?" The tone of his voice was the combination of fear and regret.