The situation had escalated so quickly that Ronan barely had time to react. One moment he was explaining the details of his stories to the children and the young woman. The next, it had all turned into rampant paranoia.

The man watched the faces of both children; each looked alarmed and anxious about something around them.

"Hey, what's wrong?" the marked man asked. He first saw Fynn, whose look was directed at the bushes and trees around the place. Then, he saw Yue, whose stare was set straight ahead. She wasn't using her eyes but her hearing to know what was happening around her.

"Kids, are you all right?" asked Idda, worried.

Quickly, the marked children reacted, but not as they expected.

Yue sat up with a cry of fear, leaping over the log where she was sitting and readied her bow.

"Watch out!" cried Ronan, alarmed.

Ronan rose abruptly from his place, then Yue shot an arrow without a word but with a scream escaping her mouth and a gasp. Her pulse was terrible, her concentration was nil, and she almost hit her arrow on the trickster.

"Yue!" shouted Ronan, who had backed up a few steps in fear of that arrow shot.

"Fynn! Yue! What's wrong?" shouted Idda in terror. She had fallen to the ground in shock and soon crawled over to where the cart was.

"K-Kids, calm down..." said the man in an attempt to serenade them. First, he lowered his hands and always kept them in sight. Then, carefully, he tried to take a few steps toward them. "Calm down, kids, it's all right."

"Stay away!" shouted Fynn with his sword in hand. His pulse was horrible too, but that wasn't what Ronan was worried about.

The man of Vilna saw how the gleam in Fynn's eyes was intense; the fury of his mark was breaking out. Ronan got his first peek of Yue's unleashed fury; in contrast to the gleam in Fynn's, her eyes were growing darker, as if only empty sockets remained.

"Move away!" shouted Yue, firing another arrow, this time, into nowhere. After doing so, and with impressive agility, she fled into the forest, full of fear and fury.

"Yue!" shouted Ronan, calling out to the girl more and more desperately. Soon his attention returned to the boy. "Shit, what's wrong with you!"

Fynn was frozen in place, his grip was shaky, and he looked like he would drop his weapon at any moment. He was looking down, and the flash in his eyes was only increasing.

Ronan had no time to hesitate; he had to stop him somehow, take him down and knock him unconscious.

With light feet, the marked man lunged at Fynn. The boy swung his sword and seemed to make a slash with the edge of his blade towards the ground as if he had attacked something.

Fynn's neck was exposed, and Ronan caught him with his great arms. Quickly, the blond man tried to choke him while making him fall to the ground. However, he didn't count on the boy's incredible strength again.

Boy’s desperation was tangible, and at that moment, it wasn't only fear that made him act but also adrenaline. It was enough for him to regain control of the situation in one adrenaline rush.

In Fynn's eyes, the situation was disastrous, for one of the Black Rats' bandits had him by the throat. A virulent corpse, stained by blood and mud, the thief was clinging to his neck while screaming in his face. The teen screamed and violently began to twist, holding Ronan with his hands. The first time he had done that, he had thrown him to the ground. This time his grip was firmer, but the boy's one was even stronger. It didn't take much for him to throw Ronan violently into the air.

Ronan couldn’t continue his hold and soon flew through the air, slamming his back resoundingly against one of the conifers in that forest. The tree shook at his impact, and then Ronan fell a couple of feet.

"Mister Ronan!" shouted Idda deadpan in terror.

Ronan had fallen a short distance from the wagon. The girl turned to where Fynn was; he was now pointing his sword at unseen enemies. Then, in the act of bravery that could only be achieved by the moment's pressure, Idda stepped out of her shelter to aid Ronan.

Ronan rolled over trying to get up, that blow had been brutal, but he had no time to lick his wounds. The man saw the red-haired girl come to his aid and extended his hand to help him. In that way, Idda helped Ronan, who crawled almost crawling to behind the cart.

"By Lithal, are you all right?" asked the girl.

The man gritted his teeth and tried to lean against the wheel. "It's not the first time he attacked me like that."

"B-But, what happened to them?"

"I don't know," Ronan said with a gasp of pain, trying to kneel on the ground.

A silence swirled around Ronan, Idda had stopped talking, and now only Fynn's desperate cries could be heard. Then Idda spoke again.

Idda's voice trailed off into a whisper of dread as her eyes locked on something. "In the name of Lithal, w-what is that?"

Ronan turned and his eyes widened as he saw a creature hanging from one of the trees.

The creature was vaguely humanoid, legless, and wrapped around the thin trunk of one of the trees. It was huge, with two long arms, and was covered in rags that looked like a shroud. The creature's face was cadaverous and jagged tufts of hair adorned its head; a vast, misshapen jaw was visible too and looked more like an animal than a person.

"That's a dream wraith," Ronan alerted with a whisper; quickly, he grabbed Idda and made her lower her gaze. "Don't look at it!"

They both remained behind the wagon, out of sight of the aberrant abomination.

"Is that the thing you mentioned a few moments ago?" asked Idda, "Is it a ghost?"

"Yes. Well, no," the man corrected himself quickly, still in pain. "It's an abomination; it's both alive and dead. But it doesn't make sense for it to be here."

Indeed, Ronan was right. The man knew that such creatures, abominations of evil and spectral sorcery, only inhabited eastern lands like Baeria or Buzenia.

"What is it doing to Fynn?" asked Idda as she watched the boy throwing swipes and slashes with his sword into the air.

Reacting, Ronan hurried and tried to reach out to the cart to grab his bag. But then, he realized he had left it by the campfire.

"Oh, come on..." he cursed to his insides before answering the girl. "It's playing with him. Like a ghoulish puppeteer, it's handling him by confronting his fears and nightmares, thus preparing him to eat."

"But why do they...?"

"Children's minds are more easy to fall into its hands," interrupted the man with a pained sigh. "To add, those who bear the warrior's marks are susceptible to those kinds of illusions..."

Ronan had a point; the trickster's mark, the symbol of the masters of illusion, made him a much harder target to fool. However, Ronan soon had a doubt.

"You, don't you feel anything strange?" the man asked quizzically.

Idda watched him in confusion and fear. "What do you mean?"

"You didn't feel or hear the sound they mentioned?"

She watched him, intrigued, and soon shook her head.

"I didn't feel anything like that."

Ronan soon hesitated, for what she said made no sense; that abomination attacked all the reasons you could see, smell, and feel something different from reality.

So, he watched her and soon realized what had happened.

"Your balm," Ronan exclaimed.

Idda didn’t understand. Then, Ronan pounced on her and pressed his nose against the girl's round face.

"Mr. Ronan, what the hell do you think you're doing!" shouted Idda, concerned, causing her to want to slap him.

"Stop it!" shouted Ronan, stopping her from slapping him to get him to concentrate. "The balm they gave you at the cathedral, do you still have it?"

Idda had it tucked away in one of the pockets of the skirt of her dress, a tiny vial that fit in the palm of her small hands. Ronan snatched it from her and uncorked it.

The smell of the home remedy was strong. Idda had had to keep applying it to herself for several days. At that moment, she had totally forgotten its smell. The strong scent of that remedy never left; her mind just ignored it.

"This is a strange smell, something that a creature like this has no reason to know exists." explained Ronan, "If it doesn't have control of all your senses, then it can't affect."

"What do you plan to do with that?" asked Idda.

Ronan then saw Fynn, and out of the corner of his eye, the creature feasting on the boy.

Ronan unsheathed his daggers and handed them to Idda.

"Put the blade on the fire, now." the marked man commanded, calculating his movements.

Then, Ronan took a breath, the aches in his body were minuscule with what he had to do, and he had to prepare for it.

Fynn was battling a losing war against the wraiths of those he had killed; from the White Flame member to the Black Rats were there. There was even Idda's husband, who, with his friends, was constantly throwing hits at him that he had to dodge. His anguish and fear seemed eternal, and to the abomination that was harassing him, that was what he wished for. He just had to keep it up until he was exhausted, then, he would die, and the specter could devour him.

Quickly, Ronan's corpse-like figure reappeared and once again charged at him. Stubborn with his intention, Ronan repeated the same action that caused Fynn to throw him against the tree, with one subtle difference.

Instead of choking him with a grip, the man brought his hand to the boy's face and pressed his palm smeared with wound ointment.

Naturally, Fynn screamed and struggled with him, flailing in the air as that medicine's strong smell and taste entered his nose and mouth. The boy watched as the creatures he had been fighting rushed at him at once. However, that didn't last much longer.

Despite his height and bulk, Fynn was shaken like a rag doll. Then the marked man raised his determined gaze against the creature, making the aberration know he can see it.

The abomination watched Ronan through a spectral glow emanating from the monster's sockets. A shriek from the screams the victim gave as he died in his sleep was heard throughout the forest. The beast lost its control of Fynn and was now lunging at Ronan.

"Now!" shouted Ronan.

As requested, Idda took Ronan's weapons and buried the blade in the fire of the bonfire. Then, with trembling hands, she watched as the polished metal of the daggers grew hotter. Still, she complied with the trickster's expectation, and when he gave the signal, she threw the weapons at him.

Ronan spun on the ground as the creature lunged at him and grabbed his daggers from the ground.

As the monster touched the ground, Ronan lunged at it and buried it in the shroud covering the abomination's body with one of his knives. Thus, the monster's shrieks were even worse.

The monster wanted to rise once more into the air and try to climb a tree, but now it had the man branded on its back, and in turn, the monster had its chest exposed.

Ronan latched onto the abomination's neck and, with a dagger, stabbed it countless times before using his other knife on the spot where he was clinging.

The monster shrieked and writhed but soon stopped as the red-hot edge of Ronan's weapon buried itself in its neck. Then, he slowly proceeded to decapitate it.

Fynn fell to the ground, and Idda went to the boy's aid.

The kid was startled and looked around. There were no more corpses. There was no darkness; he was back in that forest at noon.

Idda hugged the boy, and he, trembling, still looked around paranoid.

"What happened?" the boy asked in terror. "Where are the dead?"

Fynn turned his gaze to where Ronan had fallen with the creature.

"What is that!" cried Fynn in fear.

Ronan was breathing shakily, and in a lot of pain, and without much explanation, he knew that he wasn't finished.

"We have to look for Yue. These things never roam alone."

Just like that, it was now their turn to look for the girl.

Yue ran a great distance through the forest, her fears only growing with every noise and scream she heard around her. The girl looked around every corner and saw only enemies.

The woodcutters, the White Flame, the screams and accusing fingers of Sunhold's inhabitants, the puppets who bludgeoned the one who was supposed to be of a marked one.

Yue spent much of her quiver against each White Flame corpses and the bandits she killed in prison. She was utterly terrified, and the Dreamwraith that followed her loved it.

The trail of arrows stuck in the trees would soon become a good signpost for others to use.

Soon, she came to a small watercourse and kneeling in front of it, she saw Fynn again.

She froze, and next to the marked boy, she saw herself, holding her bow and aiming at Fynn from behind.

She was reenacting that scene again, but with a grim outcome; she had fired her arrow. Her shadowy figure fired her bow at that moment, and the arrow pierced Fynn's neck, who began to gush blood.

"Fynn!" cried out her friend's name, the grief-stricken girl.

Yue ran towards him, but when she reached him, the boy was nothing but another monstrous, cadaverous piece. He looked at her with an accusatory gaze.

"Monster!" shouted Fynn as his neck exposed to the brutal wound.

"I'm not a monster! I swear!" cried Yue, just as she had done the first day she had arrived in that world.

"There's the pointy-eared whore!" was heard from a distance.

She tried to get up but soon found herself surrounded by the woodcutters who had tried to kill her.

Yue tried to run but was soon seized by two arms that didn't seem to let go of her. Still, she struggled to get free, and between kicks and blows, she dragged the one who held her to the ground.

The Akajsi girl looked at him. So it was the woodcutter who had imprisoned her again. She remembered the blows; she remembered everything that person had done and said to her. The unhinged smile and the horrible, intense smell of his breath were all there.

And history would repeat itself again. Yue drew his knife from its sheath and buried its edge against the woodcutter's abdomen multiple times.

Then, the illusion faded.

Ronan had reached the creature and had given it the same inevitable end he had brought upon the previous one.

Fynn's task on this occasion had been to stop her friend and apply the same method to break the illusion. The pungent stench was the medicine that her friend had pressed against her nose.

Idda then screamed, for as a witness, she was shocked to see Yue stab Fynn in her stomach.

"No!" shouted Ronan and ran to where Fynn and Yue were.

Fynn broke away from her friend, and with a scream of pain, she writhed on the ground.

"What did you do!" cried Ronan in desperation as he lunged at Fynn.

Yue didn't react to what had happened; the moment's disbelief made her see her friend on the ground, holding the knife's handle stuck in his abdomen.

Then, she reacted.

"Fynn!" she despaired. "I didn't mean to do it! I swear I didn't mean to do it!"

She tried to approach her friend to come to his aid, but Ronan pushed her back.

"Get back!" Ronan shouted loudly.

"I didn't mean to do it! I swear! I didn't mean to do it!" she repeated repeatedly.

"Get her out of here!" ordered Ronan to Idda, who, still shocked, managed to comply with that order.

"I didn't want to do it!"

Idda hugged Yue, trying to restrain her as she dragged her away from the scene.