The Exalt [Cultivation Fantasy]

Oscar drew in a deep breath and exhaled, letting himself calm down. "Even though I'm breathing to calm myself down, it's not like it's real. This body isn't real. None of this is."

His words echoed through the spacious hallway.

The Keeper flailed around, trying to harm Oscar but had to pause. Abe looked at this scene in shock, not knowing what had happened. Why was the Keeper not doing anything? How was mister standing alright?

"Abe." Oscar turned to him with a smile. "This is an illusion. We're all dreaming right now."

"An illusion?" Abe stammered in disbelief. How can this be an illusion?

"Think about it. How many times have you escaped from the Keeper? You saw how powerful it can be, but somehow it's unable to catch you?" Oscar came closer to the Keeper, that slowly backed away in response.

"That's…." Abe thought about it, but countless he was able to escape. If mister was hurt badly by it, then how did he get away?

"The pain we feel from it is what we believe will happen if we get hit," Oscar stated. "Likewise, its role isn't to kill us but rather keep us here forever. It hunts us into doors to lock us in until we come back out. Besides, it can't kill us in here anyway."

The Keeper struggled but receded from Oscar's fearless eyes.

"It's nothing but a bluff. Everything about it was convincing, the gruesome appearance, the entrails spilling out, and its shriek that sounds like a woman in pain."

Oscar continued to explain to Abe. "That made us believe it to be a monster, so it was. The more we try to resist it, the stronger it will push back in response to our thoughts."

"But look now! I am openly giving myself to it, but it quivers because it can't do anything. Come here, Abe."

Oscar gestured for the boy to come forth. "Don't be scared; don't you see how it's afraid now?"

Abe came forward with a nervous look. But Oscar patted his shoulders reassuringly. "Look at it and say you are not scary."

"You are not scary!"

"Again!"

"You are not scary!"

"Again!"

"You are not scary!" Abe shouted at the top of his lungs.

The Keeper seemed to melt a little from the imposing presence of the two.

"Mister, how did you figure it out?" Abe asked.

"First clue was my bucker." Oscar held the buckler to Abe, showing the crack. "This crack came from a monster weaker than the Keeper. But when the Keeper hit it, there was no damage."

"Second clue was when you talked about what your grandfather said. How you and your brother should stop playing games and fooling yourselves with these delusions."

"De-de-delusions." Abe stammered.

"Yes. You and I. We were playing the game, and the Keeper was trying to stop us. I don't believe you remembered that without reason. You gave me a hint. The entire point was for us to stop playing the game and end this delusion we were stuck in."

Oscar patted Abe on the head, who chuckled.

"Third clue, the creature had no motion in the Prinstyct. The Prinstyct should work unless it were vastly stronger than me, but illusions are the same. I cannot foresee if I'm in an illusion that messes with me."

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"Finally, Frederick. I saw my friend here." Oscar pointed to the empty wall. "You said you saw nothing, but I did. An illusion made from my memories. That gave me the conclusion that everything around me was an illusion."

"Then, we can't get out?" Abe realized that if everything was fake, then the back entrance being an exit should be fake. "Are we stuck here?"

"No….There is one other person here." Oscar pointed to the Keeper. "Isn't that right, Abe's grandfather?"

"Grandpa?!" Abe staggered. His tiny hands flailed around.

"Look at him, Abe. Try to remember your grandfather. I know it's hard to remember the face but do it. Put it on the Keeper." Oscar nudged Abe forward. "Remember, he is not a monster."

"You're n-not a monster." Abe spoke to the Keeper. "Grandpa."

Abe tried hard to remember his grandpa, the old man with grey robes and a long beard that tickled his cheeks. He fought the urgings in his mind to picture more, seeing the old man with droopy eyes and long shaggy white hair.

"Grandpa…." Abe placed his hand on the Keeper, who calmed down. The flesh around it pulsed and grew, expelling all the rot and pus. More clean flesh formed around it with clean skin.

A set of grey robes clothed the old man. Many strands of white hair flowed down his chin and scalp. The elderly man struggled for a moment before his droopy kind eyes opened, looking at Abe with tender love.

"Foolish boy. I told you to stop your delusions."

"Grandpa!" Abe ran and hugged his grandfather. The two embraced each other as tears flowed down their cheeks. Abe cried and wailed like a child while the grandfather's beard became stained with it.

"Thank you, young Exalt. You have saved my grandchild and me from an eternity of suffering. I am Albert Elire." Albert held Abe in his arms and bowed to Oscar.

"I am Oscar Terr. Can you tell me what happened here? Why were you and Abe in this state." Oscar asked.

Albert sighed in shame and anger. "Abe, you have forgotten for so long. It is time for you to remember."

He placed his finger, glowing with warm light, on Abe's forehead. The boy began to shudder and shake as he leaped off Albert's arms. He shouted and pounded on the walls in great pain.

Oscar tried to help, but Albert put his hand up with a shake of his head.

Oscar was worried but soon changed to disbelief. Abe started to glow and grow taller, with a blue robe draped around him. His sickly figure became healthier, and his hair flowed down his hair.

"Abe?" Oscar asked.

The figure that was once the child looked at Oscar through a pair of glasses. He stood up and cracked his back. "Hey, Mister."

It was Abe, but he was fully grown up and a handsome man.

"Abe."

"Grandfather."

"Hmmm. I prefer if you called me grandpa."

"I'm too old for that."

"If it weren't for the pressing matters, I would have let you stay in your child form for a little while longer. You were just a cute, kind boy."

"Excuse me!" Oscar interjected this family talk. "What is going on?"

Albert and Abe stared at each other and then at Oscar. "The Elire Clan was once a prosperous clan a little over a thousand years ago."

"A thousand years ago? That's before the Blue Ocean Pavilion and the Brilliant Drake Empire." Oscar exclaimed.

"Brilliant Drake Empire, what is that? Hmmm, that much time had passed…." Albert felt a tinge of sadness in the years gone by. How many of the people he knew were now gone?

Abe stepped in for his absentminded grandfather. "My older brother Kan was one of the best at illusion spells, the specialty of our clan, with his Grade Seven Exolisa Core. I remember he was always out and about with his friends while I was a sickly child. But we had fond memories of playing together in the house."

"However, Abe awakened to his talents. A Grade Eight Exolsia Core and a genius at illusions." Albert added on. "Soon, Kan grew jealous of his brother's gifts and more unruly. I thought it was nothing to worry about. But then that incident happened."

"When I became a Marshal Exalt, I was appointed as the next clan head. My brother's jealousy grew so much that he decided to retaliate. He started by putting the rest of the clan members into deep illusions, siphoning out all of their Ein and taking it for himself."

"I remember when I saw those shriveled husks that were still in a deep sleep. There was no helping them, so I let them pass on without pain." Albert gripped his hands, trembling from anger.

"Then he came for us. We were poisoned badly, but we managed to strike back, killing him before we were sunk into his illusions. Grandfather managed to put in a failsafe, but I was too broken to realize anything. So I regressed into a child in the illusion while my grandfather was corrupted to become the Keeper." Abe smiled at Oscar and said, "Thankfully, you came."

"It's been a thousand years or more. How did you survive for so long?" Oscar was still confused.

"Upon his dying breath, Kan invoked a final spell to seal the manor, burying it underground and preventing any souls from escaping. Our bodies may have rotted away, but our souls suffered here for so long as more of our Ein was slowly taken." Albert grunted.

"Taken? How is your Ein still being taken? Isn't Kan dead? What can he do?"

"Kan is not dead yet. He is now a remnant shade, a Wraith." Abe answered. "It has taken him a thousand years, but he has finally recovered from his incapacitated state, and his broken soul remains to haunt this manor."

"A Wraith? The vengeful shade of the accursed?"

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