The Earth Online

70 The Woes and Whispers of the Wisps

There in the walls were the remnants of the wisp mother. She basically looked like a fresh corpse trapped within the cave interior. The creature looked enthralling as its smooth blue skin and long eyelashes entail a hidden beauty.

She had her hands placed on her chest, and Thaleos didn’t even attempt to get nearer as he knew that his movements could trigger the mid-tier enchanting creature to wake up. The wisp mother was surrounded by light blue and purple wisps floating around her.

It seems like they were extremely protective of their wisp mother as they cautiously determined whether the beast tamer was an enemy or not. The bearded man raised his hands and carefully backed away from the ethereal creature.

Spotting the player backing away, the wisps calmed and proceeded to go back into their routine movement. They moved around in circles while covering all the vulnerable points of their mother.

After observing them for another second or two, Thaleos went straight into the cave and noticed how the pitch-black enclosure had scattered light due to the illumination of the flying wisps.

It was an amazing sight as it looked similar to a meteor shower on earth. The beast tamer remembered the first time he saw the sight. He was on top of an abandoned building shivering from the winter cold.

He was twelve years old at that time, but he was all ready to give up. This was the fifteenth day he was sleeping in the bone-chilling winter breeze. He felt like the snow, and his thoughts were fighting over who wins over his body.

It was a literal competition to the death, and Thaleos just found himself marveling up the sky. He was sick and tired of living in this world, and he just wanted a soft blanket and some hot chocolate.

Every day was a struggle to survive. The beast tamer remembered the never-ending anxiety and fear of being on the street as he could only sleep three hours a night. It felt like he was constantly tiptoeing on a thin line stretching over the deep blue sea.

There were so many times that he fell over the edge but held tight on the white line. Right at this moment, while lying on the debris-filled floor and looking up at the night sky, he questioned himself why he was fighting so hard to survive.

Just as he was about to close his eyes, he saw what he presumed to be a shooting star at first. After a split second, another one appeared, and another, and another. Thaleos was so mesmerized by the sight that he tightly clutched unto his tattered oversized coat.

Soon enough, there were hundreds of meteors appearing and disappearing in the night sky. It was moments like this that Thaleos hated and loved the most.

He fell in love with living all over again. It was the little things that brought him back on the ground and pushed him to fight every single day in his life.

He was so, so, so tired, but he wanted to survive. He doesn’t know what’s for, he already threw away the future idea, but maybe he wanted to enjoy nights like this again in the future.

Thaleos was brought out of his reverie when he noticed that the wisps were doing a formation of sorts in the middle of the inner cave. The beast tamer crouched a little bit and slowly walked a couple of feet from the formation.

It seemed like they were forming a large circle in the middle, almost attempting to merge their light and conjuration powers into one area. Thaleos hypothesized that they were trying to revive the-wisp mother. 

The beast tamer was proven correct as he saw the wisps group bringing the ball of energy to where the wisp mother was placed. The bearded man had to block his eyes due to how bright the ball was.

After a second or two, he felt a fissure in the air, and when he opened with his eyes, the ethereal wisp mother was still sleeping. The wisps looked disappointed as they went back into the inner cave and started circling the whole interior.

They seemed to be collecting some mana and miasma from the air until they could form a ball of shining light and then brought it to their mother. Thaleos thought that they’ve probably done this multiple times but failed every single time.

The beast tamer planned to just casually catch the strongest wisp in the cave as a Summoner’s pet and leave all the other ones untouched. He realized that if he somehow killed all of them, then there would be a large chance that the wisp mother would wake up.

And as of now, he wasn’t strong enough to fight the creature that was at mid to high-tier level. Maybe someday he’ll come back and try his hand against the wisp mother.

To test the strongest wisp, he brought out the monarch butterfly from his duel space and ordered it to cause a commotion in the middle of the wisps’ ritual.

As soon as the butterfly flapping its wings in the middle of its formation, the wisps started going berserk at the pattern's disruption.

As they started attacking the monarch butterfly, Thaleos’ pet flew around the location to avoid their attacks. The beast tamer was having a hard time spotting the strongest wisp out of the group as their current attacks were at the same level.

While watching the group fly around the area, almost looking like a strong blizzard, the bearded man snapped his fingers in thought and ordered his monarch butterfly to go to where the wisp mother was.

This alarmed almost the whole flock as they quickly followed where the butterfly was going. Thaleos figured that this was the best way to trigger the leader of the wisps to appear.

True to his theory, the wisp did appear but not how he expected it to be. He saw the smallest wisp of the group grow larger and larger and change to a darker blue. It took up the shape of a wyvern and was ready to kill his monarch butterfly.

The bearded man quickly ran to where the enthralling creature was and quickly stabbed where its mana center was. Thaleos made sure that he wasn’t carving out the whole mana center as he just needed to weaken out the wyvern wisp.

As soon as he hit the leg of the-wisp, it shouted in silence, causing the whispering to go louder and louder. Thaleos felt a splitting headache conquering his mind as he was doing his best to attack the wyvern wisp.

The surrounding wisp was attempting to attack him, so he took out two of his beasts, the wolf-eagle and Attila the Hen, and ordered them to distract the wisps surrounding them. The beast tamer could feel the cave shaking, and he had a bad feeling in his gut.

He had this inkling feeling that the wisp mother would wake up any minute now from the disruption in her cave. Thaleos could see the blue-skinned beauty’s eyelids shaking—a telling sign that she’d be waking up soon.

The beast tamer quickly took out his sword and stabbed the wyvern wisp straight through the stomach. As soon as his sword was lodged unto the wisp’s innards, he quickly brought the creature into his duel space.

Thaleos immediately wrestled with the wyvern wisp upon arriving in the familiar black space to restrain it from thrashing around. He did his best not to harm the creature as it still needed to be trained.

After a couple of minutes of being restrained, the soul-like creature finally calmed down. When it noticed that Thaleos didn’t have a threatening or killing aura, it gradually paused its wild movements.

The bearded man could finally breathe a sigh of relief at seeing the creature just lying down on the black space’s floor with no fear or anger. Its aura shifted from a deep blue back to its light white self.

The creature also turned back into its original smaller firm, almost as big as a garter snake. It started wrapping itself around Thaleos’ hand, almost as if cuddling with him. The bearded man was a bit shocked at how quickly the beast adjusted to his presence.

He wasn’t quite sure why it was easier to tame wisps than the previous beasts he had, but he will find out one way or another. After making sure that the wyvern wisp was alright, Thaleos went back into the real world.

Upon zooming back into the second alien world, he was caught back into the scene of his beasts fighting against the wisp and the wisp's mother almost waking up from the commotion.

Thaleos quickly took back Attila the Hen into his duel space and rode at the back of his wolf-eagle to escape the cave. The wisps were already attempting to form a barricade in front of the cave opening, and the beast tamer quickly zoomed past them.

Upon passing the-wisp mother, he saw the blue-skinned enchanting creature open its black eyes and float off the wall.