The creature flailed its arms as it screamed and cried. Its dark skin was on fire, its face of old wood and bark was cracking and crumbling into ashes as the fire gradually ate away at it.
"Poof" the creature squeezed its lower body out through the small rag doll - same black treebark-like skin, crooked like two misshapen tree branches, and its nails were sharp enough to dig into the wooden floor.
Wu Xiaoming took a very quick look around as he conjured his morningstar. The stairs, the wallpaper were all burning, even the roof was on fire. The initial explosion from below and the fireball bursting through the floor surely did not seem like it could ignite the entire place in this short amount of time. Was it some other flammable substances?
The creature's lower body also caught on fire in barely half a second, making its pain worsen, as it screamed louder and charged at Wu Xiaoming with its arms and claws swinging about. Its pain and fear was palpable, and it needed an outlet.
Wu Xiaoming lowered his body just at the right moment to evade the creature's left claw. His morningstar swung in an arc and landed on the creature's wooden stomach. The creature's body was big, yet surprisingly light. The blow threw it into the home office. The table collapsed, the bookshelf fell right on top of it, making its scream more desperate and its struggle almost pitiful.
But it was no reason to stall or stop. He charged into the home office and shot a beam of golden light right at the creature's stomach, while barking "attack" focusing on the same area.
"Boom!" Two energy attacks exploded at almost the same time, ripping the creature into two pieces while tearing a hole on the floor. Both himself and the upper body of the creature fell through and down below.
The fire on the ground floor was much fiercer than it was on the second floor, just a brief moment Wu Xiaoming could sense his clothes getting brittle and charred. The creature pushed the burning bookshelf away, but before it could even sit up, an energy slash severed its left arm from its body. The severed arm curled up and turned into charcoal. The creature enjoyed a kiss from the morningstar on its face the very next moment. Then another, then another. It tried to attack Wu Xiaoming with its right arm, but it was severed as well. Eventually, this creature's head was bashed deep into the wooden floor, completely shattered and burned to a crisp. Its wooden trunk of a body twitched for a few more seconds before finally stopping and being ignited.
As the creature was swallowed by flames in its entirety, the walls of fire around Wu Xiaoming disappeared. He was still in the house, but all traces of his battle disappeared. The wall in front of him was blackened, as was the wall on his side. Relatively speaking, this wall would be almost right next to the center of explosion - or at least, the origin of the fireball.
He walked over to the charred wall and scratched its surface. The wallpaper and paint fell off without him even trying. He pushed his fingers a little, and the wall gave in without almost any resistance - the entire wall was made of brittle, charred paper and ashes that were barely maintaining their original shape.
Behind it was a small enclosed space adjacent to the main living room. He walked around the wall to find its entrance. Two thin wooden doors, behind which seemed like a small, narrow room. He opened the doors. All of its interior surfaces blackened, as if a huge fire just exploded from here. High above was a small hole leading straight to the roof.
Wu Xiaoming searched in his mind for a bit for any relevant information regarding this room. With some effort a piece of very distant memory from the previous Wu Xiaoming turned up - it was a furnace/water heater room, for regular houses, this would be where the hot air and hot water came from.
He checked around this room - all the walls closed to it were way more charred and brittle than those that were further. Apparently, something caused the gas burners inside to explode, lighting the whole house on fire.
He walked up to the second floor and entered the child's room. The walls were cracked, a strange round burn mark was on the floor, with a hole at the center - right where the fireball broke through in the illusion.
Ashes poured out when he opened the closet. He spread it out using his feet, and unburied pieces of a child's bicycle helmet, polyester rags, burned misshapen plastic and - half a rag doll head, almost completely black from the smoke and fire.
He hesitated for a brief moment, before kneeling down and blasting it with golden light shot from both palms. Not much changed, aside from the doll head withering slightly. He took a deep breath before putting his finger on it.
Pieces of memory flashed before his eyes, one of the things he was expecting might happen.
This time, he was viewing it from the point of view of an ancient creature. Ancient, grim, cold and ruthless. It was spawned out of utter disregard for anything holy, dear and cherished. It fed off despair, fear, insanity and all other kinds of negative emotions that came along. Its primary target? Children. Its hunting method? Inhabiting household objects, especially toys, dolls and other worn, moldy old objects. Nightmares were its weapons, and shadows were its hunting ground.
With its long, woody fingers, by their heads, the fears of the children were harvested, concentrated, brewed and mutated then fed back into their minds in their sleep. Screams and cries excited it. Nowhere to be found under the bed or in the closet when the parents came, but always watching, always terrifying for the children who were alone. Even when the prey were grown, it would still come back to haunt them when it was hungry. Though only very few of its long-time prey would live to grow old.
It had no name for itself. It did not even care what others named it. It was only interested in staying in the shadows, ready for the next target.
"Oh man, you deserve the burn and more." Wu Xiaoming took out his morningstar. He then hesitated - a rag doll wouldn't really be easily destroyed by smashes from a spiked hammer. So right now, his only option would be - "Attack! Attack! Burn!"
The last word did seem to work - but only by a little. The two previous energy blasts basically exploded the doll head into smithereens, and the "burn" just turned them into flying cinders.
He checked his character panel just to be double sure that the creature was dead. It indeed was. He was now finally level 9, with a very small sliver of experience in the now empty bar.
Current currencies: 17802 Spirit Fragments, 120 Vision Slivers - a total of 800 Spirit Fragments and 6 Vision Slivers gained. Pretty high number for a rather weak foe - perhaps thanks to its ability to create illusions.
Just as he refocused on the hole on the floor the half a rag doll head once was, a glistening object down on the floor below caught his attention.
He rushed downstairs to pick it up - it was an amber-colored coin, with a small hole at the center.
"Amber Conduit: a normal quality conduit. 3/3 uses. Use it to connect objects between worlds."