Satya fell to the ground.
He himself had not escaped the flames unscathed.
Burn marks covered his body.
The fire had been like an explosion of flames.
Although Satya's mind was broken, his will remained sharp.
In fact, it had grown even sharper through the repeated refinement and rest within the Revolving Forest.
Satya had used all of his will to burn that tree.
And so the flames erupted violently, consuming the entire tree within mere moments.
In those brief moments, it had seemed as if reality itself had burned.
The world around the tree had become unstable.
And that instability seemed to have affected the thing as well.
That was why it had become motionless.
Utterly motionless.
Like no living thing was ever meant to be.
It had become no different from an object.
A statue.
A statue of a half-burnt human standing upon a pedestal of ash.
Satya no longer trusted what he saw, so he moved away.
He limped as he walked, his burns and injuries slowing him down.
Yet even after creating a great distance between himself and the burning tree, he could still feel the thing's presence.
As the sun disappeared halfway beyond the horizon, Satya looked around him.
Yet he saw nothing.
Still, he could feel that presence.
From the distance, something dark and formless seemed to move toward him.
Suddenly, Satya felt another presence nearby.
He turned and saw the Shadow approaching him.
"You survived, Traveller."
The Shadow spoke as if it had expected Satya to die.
"Yeah, and I survived by drowning it in an ocean of flames."
Satya replied bitterly, pointing toward the half-burnt figure standing amidst the ash.
What Satya had accomplished was something no ordinary human could achieve.
Neither knights nor ordinary magic users could have done such a thing.
Only offensive magic users who specialized in reality and illusion magic could affect beings like that.
Yet despite everything, Satya still hadn't killed it.
He had only made it motionless.
Or at least—
that was what he thought.
Because in the very next instant, Satya noticed the thing again in his peripheral vision.
It was there.
Following him.
And whenever he tried to focus directly on it, it moved away.
As if it did not wish to be fully seen.
Yet it still lingered at the edge of his sight.
"Shadow… do you see that thing?"
"No."
A shiver suddenly ran down Satya's spine.
Maybe it had never truly left.
Maybe it had merely been playing a game with him this entire time.
Terror rooted Satya in place.
He remained standing there until the final rays of sunlight disappeared beyond the horizon and the world drowned in shadows.
Then the figure shifted within his peripheral vision.
As if it feared the darkness.
Or perhaps—
the Shadow of the night itself.
Only after Satya no longer felt its presence did he finally release a sigh of relief.
Next, he gathered sticks and lit them on fire.
Soon, a campfire flickered before him.
The flames became a symbol of peace for his shattered mind.
Afterward, Satya ate a few berries and began meditating in hopes of calming his mind and restoring enough will to use water magic.
After nearly an hour, he finally succeeded.
So he summoned water and washed himself to ease the pain of his burns.
As Satya examined the damage done to his body, he realized how fortunate he truly was.
His pouch of berries and water had somehow survived the flames.
Most of his shirt, however, had burned away.
So he tore away the remaining cloth and used it as a makeshift bag.
If another person saw his body, they would likely recoil in horror at the countless burn marks covering him.
There were simply too many.
His hair had also been mostly burned away, so Satya cut the rest short.
A scar stretched from his ear down to his neck.
After cleaning himself, Satya made a crude bed and sat beside the fire.
He stared into the flames while thinking about the thing.
[It was something both real and illusory at the same time.
It also seemed capable of affecting my senses.
And somehow… it followed my thoughts.]
After calming himself through meditation, Satya's mind had recovered enough for clearer thinking.
[Seeing how it always lurks unseen… perhaps it is hiding within the shadows near the trees.]
The moment that thought crossed his mind—
something shifted.
From the darkness beyond the trees, Satya suddenly felt two presences.
Then he heard the unnatural breathing of something human.
The night itself seemed to come alive.
Something began to emerge from the shadows.
"Do not give shape to your fears, Traveller."
The Shadow's voice cut through Satya's thoughts and cleared his mind.
Immediately, Satya stopped thinking about the thing.
And then everything became silent again.
As if only Satya and the Shadow had ever existed within that endless night.
Finally sensing safety once more, Satya slowly drifted into sleep.
---
{Even after being destroyed,
my imagination lingers.
Growing alongside my thoughts
into an infinite shape.
But in the end,
my Shadow's voice clears my mind.}