After locking eyes with the rat, a heavy pressure weighed down on Aries's mind. He felt the sensation of slick hands pushing down on his mind while trying to find weaknesses in his defenses as well.
With a mind more expansive and fortified than any mortal's, Aries had no problem dealing with this. However, there was the physical threat posed by the rat. If nothing was done, the rat would definitely bite and tear into him. For this, Aries had a solution.
Although his mobility had been dealt with by the girl using her electricity, his healing as a mythical creature was already working its magic, allowing him to move, albeit limitedly.
Gathering chi into his arms, Aries pushed himself off the fleshy wood of the crimson tree and away from his adversaries. At the same time, a sensation of heat coursed through his body. His body grew light, and his chi began flowing as it was supposed to. In such a situation, he had no reason to keep limiting himself, so he tore away the disguise that was hiding his true nature and suppressing his power.
His two sets of wings unfurled as the rest of Aries's body began to change. A gust of wind blew out as Aries flapped his wings and took to the sky.
Moments after his body rose off the ground, however, he was slammed back to the ground as sharp claws dug into his arms.
Just as Aries had reacted quickly and distanced himself, the rat reacted as well, lunging after him and taking him down before he could take flight. The other two—the girl and the mosquito—reacted later. They both dashed after the two, who had landed further away.
With one opponent on him and two more rushing towards him, Aries knew he would be overwhelmed in a regular battle. This was especially so, as unlike all his opponents so far, these three were on his level, if not a little stronger.
Instead of panicking, Aries calmly analyzed the situation and looked over his options. With the abilities he currently had, he knew he would stand no chance against the three adversaries against him in direct combat; his abilities just weren't suited for that. What his abilities were suited for, however, was messing with his opponent's mind and creating vulnerabilities.
Keeping this in mind, he prepared to launch his counterattack. Small wisps of golden haze leaked from Aries's body, on the verge of turning into an explosion of golden smoke.
Before this could happen, however, a long black proboscis pierced him, interrupting his focus and stalling the activation of his ability. After this interruption, Aries didn't get the chance to regain his focus as he felt his body become weightless as he floated in a vast void speckled with many stars.
Behind him was a massive mass of blue, green, and white. Before him, A mass of gray rock loomed over his feeble being.
Aries felt something he had never felt before as something emerged from within the gray rock. A sharp sensation dug into his chest as a mighty terror pressed down on him with the weight of the earth. His body shivered, his heart raged, his chest heaved, and his very soul quaked, but even under all of this, his eyes stayed locked onto a single location. A single strand of long silk which had wormed out from the surface of the gray rock.
The strand of silk flowed in the windless void, moving eerily like an earthworm crawling from the ground.
After a few moments, the strand of silk stopped, then turned its tip, pointing at Aries. This action made him freeze; his body didn't move— It couldn't move, not his body, not his mind, nor his soul. Then, the stone around the silk cracked and broke, revealing a large silver heart that looked like the masterpiece of a grand artisan.
The heart stood still; Aries stood still, but the world didn't. As Aries laid eyes upon the heart, the world around him shattered.
Aries took this first breath he had taken in what felt like an eternity. He collapsed to his knees and coughed violently. Whatever that mosquito had done to him, it messed with his emotions and made him feel fear with such intensity that it threatened to break him. Such horror was alien to him and made him shiver uncontrollably.
Whatever that mosquito's abilities were, they were dangerous— likely the most dangerous of the three. He needed to deal with the mosquito quickly if he wanted to make it out alive, but…
'Why can't I stop smiling?'
Although he tended to think of himself as unable to understand emotion, thus being unable to feel emotion, this was untrue. It was a fact that he could feel emotion; it was just normally so faint that he didn't realize. It didn't help that, due to his inability to understand emotion, he didn't really know what he was feeling. This was something that he came to understand in recent times.
Ever since realizing this, he had tried studying his own feelings to better understand them, failing in the process due to how faint his emotions were.
But this… This was such an intense feeling. The emotion—the fear he felt—was so overwhelmingly vivid that it saturated his very core with its colour.
However…
'This is not enough; I need more!'
While the emotion was intense, it was also sudden. Due to the unexpected nature of what had transpired, he was unable to truly carve the feeling into his being; unable to truly merge with the emotion.
Two different emotions surfaced in him, leaving their hues within him. These hues paled in comparison to the fear he had felt but were still more intense than usual. His attention, however, was elsewhere.
His fist crashed into the white space around him with his eyes tinted a pale red.
"WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY!"
His fist slammed down again.
"WHY DIDN'T IT LAST LONGER! WHY DIDN'T I REALIZE SOONER!"
After slamming his fist down once more, a twisted smile appeared on Aries's face as a pale yellow tinted his eyes. He spoke with a soft voice that carried a fanatical weight to it.
"Just wait a second longer, little creature… I'm coming back for you."
As he spoke, the white space cracked. Through the force of his will alone, he broke from the illusion of the mosquito.
As soon as he broke free, he locked eyes with the mosquito, which was just pulling its proboscis out from him. Disregarding his body and the other two assailants, Aries lunged at the creature and forced its proboscis to pierce him once more.
A smile full of glee crept onto Aries's face as he felt the pain, as well as his grip on the world fade.