FADED

The moment little ice flame was bit, instead of trying to retract its consciousness to become incorporeal, it instinctively released all its consciousness into the lifeform that bit into it, to protect itself.

It all happened in a moment's worth of time, The lifeform had suddenly moved and bit into the little ice flame and in the next instant there was a great amount of soul pressure unleashed in that region. The seemingly dormant consciousness, which at times mostly helped the little ice flame to sense its surroundings had suddenly become a very sharp destructive force, The water around was pushed thousands of feet away, leaving behind nothing but vacuum and the lifeform which was the target of the huge bombardment of consciousness had turned into nothingness.

But little ice flame didn't walk away scot-free either, in that moment when it was bit into, the little ice flame felt a huge strain on it and was injured.

After which about 20 percent of its consciousness suddenly dispersed and the little ice flame felt severe weakness all of a sudden.

After the near-death experience, little ice flame had matured a bit and decided not to stay in the sea any longer. Also through that experience, little ice flame felt that it had a much better control than before over its consciousness.

perhaps in the near-future, it would probably be able to release a small strand of its consciousness, which it had earlier deemed as impossible.

Currently, little ice flame's priority was to recover from its injury, for that it needed to search for a quiet and isolated place first. So the next few days were spent flying around in the air over the blue seas to look for a secure place to rest and recover.

After that terrifying experience, The little ice flame decided to lay-off going inside the sea for good.

as little ice flame proceeded towards a particular direction, its consciousness detected a huge chunk of ice drifting near the horizon.

This ice was in fact an iceberg which had drifted all the way from the artic region, little ice flame immediately proceeded towards it as being out at the seas for months together, it had somehow felt relieved seeing something that was as if it had come from that land of white and felt a bit of nostalgia.

Soon the little ice flame reached the iceberg and laid inside the iceberg to recover.

after it was attacked previously, it was injured and although about 20 percent of its consciousness had dispersed, if it was a more fatal attack then perhaps all of its consciousness would have dispersed and the little ice flame would had disappeared from existence.

plus the little ice flame which was originally born from ice, had affinity with the iceberg. This slightly boosted the little ice flame's recovery rate as it took in "energy" from its surroundings to heal its injuries and slowly recover back that 20 percent of its lost consciousness. it estimated that it would take about ten years worth of time to make a true complete recovery. This was already an amazing recovery rate provided how bleak the "energy" was in the world.

It had already been a few days since the little ice flame had started residing within the iceberg, due to its injuries, it had decided to retract back all its consciousness and focus only on healing. But today was different that the other days, that was because little ice flame saw a huge black creature on the water, in the horizon, this creature had four huge long-pillar like structures on top of it, which continuously blew black smoke into the air.

Seeing such a creature for the first time, little ice flame's previously cooled down curiosity boosted up once again.

Since little ice flame was injured, it decided to save as much "energy" as possible, since this energy was useful in healing its injuries.

If it was on any other day when the little ice flame was not injured, perhaps it would have excitedly flown over without any care for the energy lost as that energy was replenished soon after. But now that it was injured, it realised that it required much of this energy to heal so it didn't dare to waste it.

little ice flame brought out its consciousness and slowly urged the iceberg towards that black creature after reaching somewhat near that creature, The little ice flame used its consciousness to sense the creature carefully and what it sensed surprised the little ice flame to the core.

That was because that huge moving creature did not possess a soul and on that creature were many other lifeforms and their intelligence was very close to little ice flame's.

The little ice flame was truly shocked now. it urged with all of its consciousness the iceberg towards that black creature.

little ice flame was right on the tip of the iceberg as it ensured with its consciousness, that the iceberg drifted towards the black creature's direction. And soon enough when it reached very close to that creature, little ice flame stopped and looked at the black creature with great interest.

This was the first creature it had met that didnt have a soul !

how is this possible?

As little ice flame had glimpsed at the laws of heaven and earth upon reaching a transition from a spirit into a soul, it knew that every living entity must possess a soul.

and here it was, there was black creature which was moving but didnt possess a soul.

feeling bewildered, the little ice flame used its consciousness to penetrate into the black creature, this was yet another of its abilities and another way of how consciousness could be used.

as it scanned inside, the little ice flame became even more confused as this creature didn't possess any vitality or blood or the things which it had sensed inside other living entities.

hence, using its intelligence to think deeply, it concluded that this creature was not a creature at all but a huge chunk of some sort of hard substance which was crafted to look like a bizzare creature which moved on external means and it thus concluded that all of this was possible due to those highly intelligent-level lifeforms that it had detected on that black creature.

And this further ignited its curiosity as it turned towards the black thing, as it wanted to jump over and observe these highly-intelligent lifeforms.

But unbeknownst to it, as it was contemplating about the bizzare existence of an entity without a soul and coming towards a conclusion, the iceberg had already drifted towards the starboard of the ship or the "black thing/creature" and when the little ice flame finally had reached a conclusion and was in atmost joy and wanted to go over and observe those highly intelligent lifeforms, It realised that it was somehow already dangerously close to the black creature thing and was about to crash onto it.

As it tried to retract back all its consciousness in a hurry into itself, it only further injured itself and its consciousness went a bit awry and as little ice flame stabilized itself and was once again going to slowly call back its consciousness in to avoid being injured yet again.

But it realised it was already too late.

The iceberg crashed onto the ship, and little ice flame who was at the tip, was plunged into the ship along with the tip.

Since it still hadn't retracted its consciousness, the little ice flame suffered the full brunt of the impact. Immediately all of its consciousness was dispersed and all that remained was a small strand of its consciousness, which was also slowly fading away.

As the little ice flame felt itself fading away into nothingness, it didn't show any fear, In fact it felt it had somehow matured when facing the imminent and it knew that nothing could be done now.

It truly didnt know whether to laugh or cry, it had made the same mistake twice.

The first time was due to negligence and the second time was due to its curiosity. sadly, there won't be a third time.

Soon that last strand of consciouness also faded away into nothingness.

All it left behind was a plunging ship and cries of death which loomed over on the ship.