It was barely past noon but the atmosphere over the Whispering Woodlands had turned stagnant and oppressive. For Kota and Leiya the morning had been a grueling march through thick underbrush and jagged terrain. Every mile was a struggle against the rising pressure in Kotas chest. The humid heat of the afternoon only made the scent of the suppressing brew more bitter as Leiya forced him to take another swallow during their brief stride through a clearing.
The very ground seemed to groan and buckle beneath Kotas feet as his internal power began to boil over into the physical world. In the bright light of the high sun his hair whitened in visible streaks that shimmered with an unnatural and sickly light. The Yen was leaking out of him like a ruptured vein. As he leaned against a massive oak for support the bark beneath his hand began to crack and blackened sap oozed from the wood like blood. A nearby puddle began to boil with dark bubbles that popped with the smell of liquid tar.
This violent destabilization was the result of a presence that felt increasingly crowded within his own skin. The sickness near his heart was no longer just a fever. It felt like a cold and ancient eye opening beneath his ribs. As his physical strength waned from the trek the thing inside him seemed to grow more restless and demanding as if it were trying to stretch a pair of invisible limbs within the narrow confines of his bones. It was a hunger that Kota could not name. The sickness was not just a failing of his body but a direct challenge from a shadow that wanted to be revived.
Leiya dropped to her knees beside him and caught him before he hit the mud. Her hands glowed with a shimmering dome of water and earth Yan to muffle the leak. Sweat beaded on her forehead from the sheer effort of the task. Holding back uncontrolled Yen was like trying to dam a crashing river with bare hands. She could feel the vibration of his power pressing against her palms like a living thing that was clawing at the fabric of reality from the inside out.
"Fight it Kota" she whispered urgently as she looked into his clouded eyes. "We cannot stop here. The air is turning sour and the scent of the Yen will carry for miles if you do not push it back down. Remember the teachings. Your heart must be the cage. Do not let the pressure take the lead."
Inside his mind Kota was drowning in a sea of shadow. He was not just fighting the power but he was fighting the slow erasure of his own thoughts. It was a rhythmic and cold pulse that felt like a heartbeat that was not his own. The very existence of the sickness was poking at his consciousness and drowning out the sound of his own breathing until the world felt like it was folding inward. He could feel a distant and judgmental gaze watching him through the dark as if he were nothing more than a broken tool that had outlived its usefulness.
An uncontrolled surge of Yen lashed outward just as the first grey clouds began to block out the sun. The energy caught a deer that had been grazing in a nearby thicket. The animal froze mid step as the purple haze touched its fur. Its body withered instantly as skin blackened until it collapsed with a final and choking gasp. The grass around the carcass turned to brittle ash in a heartbeat leaving a circle of death in the vibrant green woods. The smell was horrific as it carried the scent of life being erased.
Kota stared in horror with his hands shaking so violently he had to tuck them away into his cloak. "Something is trying to get out Leiya. It is not just the power. It is like something is waking up inside me and it is hungry. I am poisoning the earth because my own soul is being pushed aside. I am a curse on this land and I cannot stop it."
Leiya knelt closer with her barrier holding even as it made her own hands tremble from the exposure. "This is not your fault" she said fiercely as she forced him to stand. "We will find a way to quiet it. We move step by step. We have to reach the cave past the next ridge before the storm breaks or the trail of rot will be too easy for people to follow."
As the afternoon shadows began to darken prematurely Kaola stopped dead in her tracks miles away. She felt the sudden and violent ripple of dark energy through the wind currents. It was a beacon of pure and concentrated rot that cut through the humid air. She pointed her void bow toward the southern woods with a clinical and cold precision.
"There" Kaola said to the twins as the first rumble of thunder echoed over the ridge. "i've caught a scent i don't know how far but there's a town nearby we might have a lead on him."