Getting Accustomed.

'ARGH!'

The influx of thoughts started once again even though they had just stopped, causing Erik to become mentally disoriented. Erik sat on the ground covering his ears as the thoughts of anyone in at least 10 miles of him assailed his mind. He knew that physically covering his ears wouldn't decrease the pain but he couldn't help it, it was a natural reflex.

As time went on, the pain from all the thoughts entering his mind gradually subsided. They still came at an astonishing rate but they no longer pained him. Unfortunately, that didn't mean that he could distinguish his thoughts from the others, that would take a bit more... 'getting used to'. Luckily, eternal evolution already started taking care of that problem.

A few minutes went by before Erik finally managed to calm down. His thoughts were his own once again, which he had to admit, felt great. Having the errant thoughts of everyone in an entire city going off constantly in your mind is an indescribably confusing feeling.

'Finally. I can hear myself think again. What just happened...could it have been some form of minor telepathy? But judging from the distance I am from the city, 'minor' probably isn't the right word to describe it...'

Now that he could inspect the changes that happened throughout his body, he realized that he had become something completely different than before. His mind/consciousness felt like it wasn't as...tethered to his body anymore. He felt like he could project outward into the atmosphere without worry, maybe he would be able to even fuse it with other objects in the future.

Suddenly, it felt like the world had opened up itself even more to him.

Erik slowly got up and moved his limbs around carefully as he felt the massive amounts of shinsu flowing in his body. He wasn't sure if this had happened to anyone before him in the tower, but having such a massive amount of internal shinsu definitely wasn't normal.

'My fighting capabilities must've skyrocketed! I wonder how many Baangs I can make now?'

Without even moving his body, Erik mentally summoned as many Baangs as he could in an effort to gauge his current limit. But, contrary to his expectations, for some odd reason, he couldn't go past 10 baangs. No matter how much he tried to gather the Shinsu, it just didn't work. At first, he was about to get upset but another analysis quickly proved him wrong.

These baangs weren't normal.

'What density and power! Before this evolution, I doubt that even if I used all 75 of my baangs to defend myself one of these would blast through it like paper. This is incredible...and all of this just from my first evolution? Who knows what else I've yet to discover about this body?'

Erik moved the baangs around him with incredible speed, precision, and control, which at least made him happy. Even though he didn't have an overwhelming amount of them, his usual control was still there.

'Now that this situation is over, for now, I need to locate Muzan and his maid. Judging from how thin the Shinsu is around me, they must be unconscious by now.'

Erik extinguished the baangs around him and with one step...

WHOOSH!

The sand flared up wildly as Erik moved towards the direction he left Muzan with astonishing speed. 10 seconds hadn't even passed before Erik arrived at the hole he made for the duo. He saw an incredibly exhausted Muzan holding an unconscious Yanra in his arms, shielding her from the brutal sand. Erik was about to ask why they didn't take shelter in the hole until he realized how dumb making that hole was in the first place.

'They would've gotten buried immediately if they followed my instructions. I wasn't thinking straight and they could've died if my evolution took longer. Sigh, how unfortunate that would've been.'

Erik picked up the duo in each arm and disappeared from the area, heading back towards the FUG base. He didn't have the necessary skill nor equipment to heal them nor did he want to go back towards the city. That would've been a waste of time and he didn't want to massacre the entire family when they decided to attack him. So heading back to FUG was the best option.

'Unfortunately, I can't go full speed while I have these two with me...tch. Whatever I can make it to the base by tonight. I hope they don't attack when they see me in this form...'

[A few hours later]

Iniesta stood in front of the entrance to the FUG base waiting for Erik's return. He had sent a message to her earlier saying he found someone who can join their team but whether or not he could be a light-bearer was yet to be seen. Iniesta felt something was off as she tapped her foot slowly on the ground, thinking about the way Erik delivered the message white clothing flowed elegantly in the wind.

'He usually calls...I've never seen him send written messages. Could someone have stolen his pocket to set a trap for me here? No that doesn't make any sense...they would've set the trap away from the base, not right in front of it. Besides, is there anyone who can actually defeat Erik on this floor? Hm...'

As Iniesta continued to be deep in thought, someone suddenly arrived in front of her with incredible force. The ground fissured as the figure stepped on it, causing Iniesta to lose a bit of her footing. When she caught sight of the person in front of her, she immediately summoned a long white spear in her hands, sounded the alarm from her pocket, regained her footing, and rushed towards him intending to destroy him immediately.

Since she was already a bit on edge from Erik's unusual communication method, seeing this strange masked man in front of her with what looked like two bodies in his hands, her theory was starting to make more sense in her head with each passing second.

Something must have happened to Erik.

'Obliterating Phantom Shot!'

A massive amount of white Shinsu with what looked like to be the faces of tormented souls flowing within it surrounded her spear as she stomped on the ground, causing it to fissure. A ghastly white aura appeared around her body as she was about to hurl the spear at the strange man when all of a sudden...

'INIESTA!'

The sound of a deep voice calling her name reverberated in her mind, causing all the shinsu around her to dissipate from the loss of focus. She staggered back and coughed out a large amount of blood which caused her spear to finally dissipate. Her mind was in shock, disarray, and complete befuddlement.

But, even with her mind in such a state, she managed to pick up who the voice belonged to immediately. How could she forget the voice of the man she claimed she wanted to marry?

"Erik?"

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[A/N: The reason all of that happened to Iniesta is because Erik doesn't know how to control his telepathy yet.]