Kael took a step back and looked at the sky. The sun was about to set so he immediately tied five stalks of flaming grass to his torch and broke one of the grass which gradually began burning. Now he had to just add the other five later.
These grass were found in the forest so if he wanted to find any for the village then he would have to enter the forest.
That was something he wasn't willing to do right now. He wanted to see how this monster ate humans. If possible he really wanted to kill this monster and complete this trial rather than finding grass.
This was an Extreme trial and he had a feeling there definitely wasn't any grass near here which he could find to pass the trial easily by just surviving some months.
Just as he was thinking this the sun disappeared completely and pure darkness engulfed everywhere.
'Dammit...'
No matter how much he was prepared to face it, the intense silence in pure darkness and the fact he was standing beside the cave of a man-eating monster made him tremble inwardly.
He took some deep breaths. 'You are already dead, no need to be afraid of dying again big guy... cool down, cool down. Fuck it isn't working.'
He just coped with the fear and waited to hear some footsteps. No matter how cruel it was he really wanted to see someone succumb to the darkness today. He didn't want to waste one night for nothing.
The chances of that happening were definitely high as there were multiple villages nearby.
He stood in the exact path leading to the cave so he hoped to hear some footsteps once someone approached.
He waited for almost an hour before he heard faint sounds.
"Don't take my child please... stop..."
The sounds were faint but he was still surprised as it wasn't the sound of footsteps but someone crying.
When he looked towards his back from where the sound was coming, he didn't perceive anything. He wasn't disappointed as given how silent everything was the sounds were definitely coming from very far to reach him in a faint state.
Gradually the sound of a woman crying and begging became louder and he finally saw a very faint torch in the darkness before he was able to see a boy naked walking towards the cave. His eyes were exactly like those who had fallen into the darkness.
The other person was a woman who seemed to be in her thirties. She was walking behind him while trying to hold his hand but her strength wasn't able to stop the child from moving.
In the end she just followed while crying. Suddenly she looked at him. "Please help him, please..."
Kael sighed inwardly,"I won't be able to, please don't burden me with guilt" He didn't want to be heartless but he really didn't know a way to save someone who had succumbed to the darkness.
In fact he had heard that the more you tried to stop someone, the more changes their body showed and they became stronger to some extent that humans couldn't hold them without getting injured and right now he was seeing one of those changes in the kid.
His skin was filled with strange streaks of blood red veins which definitely weren't his own.
The woman broke into tears hearing Kael but it seemed that even though she was completely broken emotionally she didn't take extreme steps which might have put her into a perilous situation too.
She stopped and just looked at her son who walked through the thorn-filled vines without feeling any pain.
Kael saw firsthand how the vines parted a little so that the boy could pass through and once he did it immediately closed. What happened inside was still a mystery as the darkness covered everything but sounds were something which escaped.
Kael heard faint gulping sounds as if something huge had just taken a mouthful of food and gulped it down.
After that he looked at the woman who looked a little absent-minded.
"Your torch is about to go out." Kael reminded her kindly before going to replenish his own.
The woman nodded with still vacant eyes before looking towards her torch. Her eyes were filled with immense sadness. She was thinking of letting herself join her son too but in the end she took out grass and replenished her torch. She had another small life to take care of. There was no one in this world for her daughter other than her.
After replenishing she turned back and began walking without saying anything to Kael.
Kael didn't know what the pain of losing a son was but he knew what the pain of losing someone as family meant, so he could totally sympathize with her.
Just as he was thinking that he heard her faint voice filled with sadness again.
"My child, who once walked beside my shadow, your footsteps have vanished from the dusty road.
The morning will still come, yet you would not return.
Go on beyond this grieving land—your mother's gaze follows where her feet cannot."
Kael listened to her helpless rhyme before looking towards the cave once more and then following her. They walked for a while when she turned right going into the forest on a slim pathway.
So this was the pathway for her village. He didn't continue following her and went inside the forest to just walk and see if by any chance he found even a few stalks.
He couldn't go back to the village just now anyway.
They might even dislike him for wasting two stalks of flaming grass pointlessly but it was also true that nothing was more pointless than finding that grass in the forest right now.
Sooner or later the beast might become strong enough to affect people from even more distance so escaping it would become impossible. So killing it was the only option.
If what he had seen and what he had known till now was true then the beast wasn't using mind control or illusion to affect its prey.
The fact that vines were able to move at night and the fact that it affected people at night meant that the night was the main culprit or maybe the absence of light was.