407 Inside the mind's seclusion

Not literally obviously, but more in a human sense of sight. Instead of the information that eyes would normally provide like shapes, colours and the like, everything around me turned to just clogs of mana, with different properties, nature and characteristic.

The old man that attacked me and was supposed to be buried in the ground from the force of his attack now looked like a shiny blob of energy, surrounded by a dim yet endless pool of energy. My body itself thought, looked like a black hole as if no energy was present there in the first place.

Thump.

No longer able to control my movements, everything happened right at the border of what my mind could rationally process.

With my fist flying at a strange and inhuman angle, it suddenly appeared in the middle of the bright blob, with most of its energy instantly changing from organised one into a state of decay, before being violently absorbed through what was supposed to be my skin and bones, to the shining core of this singularity that I became, not even managing to make any real difference to it, just like a real black hole wouldn't be affected by swallowing a small space-rock.

Wait, fighting without a weapon is stupid!

Even if I can kill them all without batting an eye both in a moral and practical sense, there is no need for me to waste neither my stamina or energy on spells, if I can decrease all the expenditure from my side just by wielding the weapon I made especially for the sake of this fight!

As this realisation struck my now powerless consciousness, I could see the dark tentacle that was most likely my hand, retracting from now dim blob of energy that still retained just a minimal amount of cohesiveness to not merge with the endless pool below my feet.

Bang.

Despite my vision turning strange, I still retained the rest of my senses, just that I was unable to make any use of them outside of trying to understand what was going on outside of the secluded place my mind was right now trying to turn the bunch of pieces of information I was getting into a proper sense of what was really going on.

One of the other senses that I somehow retained, even if only partially, was the ability to touch. As soon as this sudden sound reached my brain, I could feel a familiar texture on the palm of my hand, with my fingers instantly tightening around the shaft.

I have no idea how, but somehow under the influence of the predator's sense, I was capable of summoning my Snakesbite. While it's not something to be worried about, I couldn't help but be curious how the heck did I manage it!

Was it because I thought that fighting without a weapon is inefficient? Was I still capable of directing my own body in a general direction?

"Eh… You are really as dumb as it gets…"

Suddenly, the familiar voice, the voice I missed so much in the recent days, reappeared in my mind again.

*BONGER! Are you okay?*

"How could I not be? Look at yourself for now, do you think you are capable of entering a profound conversation with other right now?"

Well, point for him. If he was feeling through this entire time just like I am right now, then its no wonder he didn't reply to all my attempts at contacting him. But that's also a nice point to ponder about if his psyche or whatever is making his speak with me was blocked, then how come the system was working as before it awoke?

*Mind explaining that?*

"Well, beats me."

Just as expected, Bonger himself was just as curious about this as I was. Deriving my guess from what the Golem told me, it would most likely mean that while Bonger's personality was indeed in the other part of my brain, the system itself was extending even deeper than that!

*Speaking of which, since you are now free from the influence of the predator's, can you observe the world like you normally do? Trying to make sense of this mash of information that I can get is kinda taxing for me.*

"Well, I can, but I'm not really sure you want to see what's going on in the real world right now…"

*What are you saying? I already resolved myself to killing everyone so that I could upgrade you, or rather, the entire system. How could anything be happening to shake me with that kind of resolve?*

"Well… I think it will be better if you see it for yourself. Just mind that the situation is… a bit peculiar."

With yet another flash, my vision came back.

And right away, I understood what Bonger meant.

To my side, the old man that dared to attack me was still trying to get through my barrier with his barrage of hits, but even without my energy vision to gauge the strength of his attacks, I could tell that they were way below the bare minimum one had to reach to even grab my attention in the fight!

And speaking about it, there was no fight, to begin with!

Yes, not only the old man but also quite a lot of what looked like his disciples, were showering me with all sorts of skills, techniques and slaps, but not only not even a single one of them could get past a strange, single barrier formed around me and my immediate surrounding, my body wasn't even reacting to the attacks at all!

Instead, as if watching the situation from a third-person view, I could see how my hands were pushed forward, with the snakesbite held vertically by them, as the small bruise on my cheek expanded under the influence of my own energy, pumping more and more blood outside. 

But rather than clogging and closing the wound, it joined the stream that continued down my neck, to my shoulder and then onto my arm, all the way to the shaft of my staff, only to reach for its upper part, where it was slowly gathering into an orb, just where I initially wanted to put some catalyst in the first place!

Was this the result of my wish to properly finish my weapon?

With my perspective suddenly changing, I could now see the details of this ball of blood, that instead of just gathering up in one place, was reaching for the deepest, liquid part, forming into a complicated set of arrays, before solidifying and being covered with yet another layer of blood crests that continued to add the volume and expand this strange ball!

Only when the blood orb finally reached the size that the head of the staff was designed to hold, did my vision returned to a proper third-person one, but instead of showing the world from behind my own shoulder, I still could see myself from the front.