The Earth Online

15 The Beast Tamer's Duel Space

Thaleos could hear his own heartbeat. He broke out in a cold sweat when he felt the stabbing pain of his bleeding gash. He saw his life flash before his eyes just as the wolf-eagle was about to bite his neck off. A few inches away from being bitten, he suddenly remembered what Ur said about the Duel Space for beast tamers.

He forced his mind to remember James’ description of how to activate the Duel Space dimension.

He quickly closed his eyes and tapped into his core skills. As soon as he felt a scorching sphere of energy inside his body, he immediately rechanneled it outside of his body.

Everything slowed down, then suddenly, everything paused. He could see how he was just one bite away from the wolf-eagle’s mouth. In a split second, they were transported into a void-like space filled with floating specks of mana.

The two remaining wolf-eagles suddenly quieted down. They were no longer aggressive nor hostile as they spotted Thaleos. They were basically whining, waiting for Thaleos to approach them. After a few seconds, they got tired of waiting for him and decided to submissively sit on their hind legs.

Hesitant at first, Thaleos decided that it was fine to trust James’ word about the duel space. Once he walked a couple of steps towards their direction, they suddenly pinned their ears down and wagged their tails.

It reminded Thaleos of Luna when he finally tamed the border collie. Finally, he was in front of the wolf-eagles and one of them was braved enough to lick his hand.

A small smile emerged from the bearded man’s face. Granted, they almost killed him, his affinity for animals just pushed him to forgive them.

After petting their heads for a couple of seconds, he decided to look if he could control the two wolf-eagles.

He tried in his memory what James said about taming hybrid beasts.

Nightmare # 97

September 6

2:13 AM

After falling asleep, the next thing I knew, I was panicking and running away from something.

I heard hostile growls and heavy hissing following after me. I was sweating profusely as I felt like my legs burning up from all the running. Gradually, I felt like the ground that I was running on was getting steeper and steeper.

Just when I felt like my body was ready to give up, the terrifying sounds abruptly stopped. Feeling a deep sense of relief, I felt my body collapsing on the ground as I gulped deep breaths of air.

When I looked around, I saw that I was on a mountain and there was a red tower a couple of meters away from me. I slowly stood up and scouted the area. It seemed like the red tower was coated in the blue mist.

As I was observing the territory, I unexpectedly heard the same growling from earlier. My body immediately broke in a cold sweat as I couldn’t move a single muscle, but when the grunting turned into a gentle whining, I felt myself calming down.

After a few moments of silence, I decided to slowly turn my head around to check where the noise was coming from. Menacingly staring at me was a giant crocodile-looking beast, but instead of having a typical crocodile body, it had hundreds of wriggly legs, similar to that of a centipede.

It had its mouth open and it was showing hundreds of its sharp teeth. I felt my breaths quicken up as I felt the dread digging in my gut, but when it was just staring at me and gently bellowing, I felt myself relaxing.

I slowly stride towards its direction, and it nodded its head in submission as he saw my hand approaching its head.

Once I patted its head, it immediately whined in compliance. Regardless of its weird-looking body, it looked kind of adorable as it bared its long torso like a golden retriever.

After petting it for a couple of seconds more, I heard a loud roar bellowing from the red tower. The crocodile-centipede immediately stood up in its original fighting stance, wary of all the threats surrounding us.

As a floating whale-like creature peaked from behind the red tower, the crocodile-centipede speeded its way toward its direction, then started shooting poison from its mouth.

In my mind, I was subconsciously thinking how the attack was ineffective and hypothesized how it was better to sleuth towards the floating whale’s back and bite it.

Shortly after he thought of that, the crocodile-centipede quickly looked in his direction and proceeded to do the exact same defense attack.

It seemed like it was following the strategy he was thinking of, even modifying to an extent, to increase the damage points.

He decided to test this theory out by imagining the crocodile-centipede biting the dead floating whale once more. As soon as he finished thinking of the action, the beast swiftly got to work and brutally bit the whale.

That’s where my dream ended, I think that as long as you think of the action, the beast would immediately follow it.

~ ~ ~

After remembering some parts of James’ journal, he decided to try out the theory.

But before doing that, he wanted to check whether or not his gash was still bleeding. Thankfully, the laceration seemed to momentarily stop bleeding. It seems like the duel space is a unique space that is neither controlled by time or weather or otherworldly aspects.

Once he was sure that he wasn’t bleeding anymore, he started observing the submissive wolf-eagles waiting to be petted.

They had their tongues out as they were enthusiastically wagging their tails. Thaleos decided to play with them for a little bit and started gently patting their tummies.

He found them to be adorable as they begged him to play with them some more. It made him slightly chuckle, as the current sight was such a stark contrast to how they almost killed him earlier.

After dallying around, Thaleos started thinking up of an action move for them to follow. He closed his eyes and started imagining them flying from above and swooping down to pick him up.

Not even finishing his thoughts yet, he heard the wolf-eagles’ large wings flapping upwards. When he looked up, they were a couple of feet away, before they could swoop down, he envisioned them to go higher, and so they did.

After flying up a couple of meters higher, they swiftly flew down towards his directions and picked him up with their large talons. He imaged that they would place him on their back. Saving him from just dangling on their talons, the other wolf-eagle flew under him and urged the other beast to let go of him.

Thaleos almost fell, but somehow managed to climb on its back. Seems like the coherency of thoughts wasn’t fully there yet, but they were smart enough to understand the bigger goal.

After trying out a couple of tricks more, like directing certain bites from different angles, Thaleos finally felt comfortable in the duel space.

Since he felt like it has already been a couple of hours, the bewhiskered man decided to finally go back to the human realm. He wasn’t quite sure as to how to do that, but he just trusted his gut instinct that says it's similar to entering the void.

He tightly shut his eyes and imagined going back to where they were before. After a few moments, he could hear Haya and Kedrick shouting out his name.

When he opened his eyes, he was back to his original position, and the other men were running after him.

But the main difference was that the two wolf-eagles vanished.

This made the Haya and Kedrick abruptly stop in stunned silence. Thaleos understood the shocked expression on their faces since it seemed like time stop while he was in the duel space.

He gave them a sheepish smile, which immediately turned into a grimace as he started feeling the excruciating pain from the deep wound on his shoulder.

Before the bearded man collapsed, his two friends were already there and Kedrick promptly placed Thaleos’ good arm on his shoulder. Haya proceeded to carry his weapons for him just so they can quicken their journey down to the Melam Base.

The last thing Thaleos saw before blacking out was the dark sky filled with millions of stars.

~ ~ ~

Thaleos groaned out in pain as he slowly woke up from his slumber. Upon hearing the painful grunts, Haya and Kedrick immediately attended to their friend.

When Thaleos accidentally stretched out his bandaged shoulder, he almost keeled in from the excruciating sensation. “Dude, you gotta be careful. You need to take care of your shoulder, especially considering that you’re an archer.” Kedrick lightheartedly scolded him.

Haya then gave him two painkillers and one unknown pill. Thaleos responded by tilting his head to the side in confusion.

“Seemed like their talons were poisoned,” Haya interjected in to answer his questioning looks. Kedrick then scholarly piped in,

“Yeah, it also seems like the talons weren’t drenched in poison or anything, it’s just that they naturally exuded poison from their bodies.” Usually, Kedrick could care less about such facts, but the gentle giant’s habit of making sure that his close friends are alright won over such indifference.

After taking in the medicine, Thaleos finished drinking the glass of water in one gulp and eagerly spoke,

“Let’s use more of the Blood-Fighting Potion.”