Strands of white mist came off the body of a rat-like creature and were absorbed into Ishar's body.
After sensing the total amount of white mist around his soul, Ishar briefly calculated how long they would last before setting off once more.
On the way here, Ishar had discovered several new things.
The most important of which was related to the 7 crows.
Unsurprisingly to Ishar, these 7 crows still carried the mutation inside their bodies, they were essentially 7 members of a new species, so if any wounded animals came into contact with the crows' bodily fluids, they would be infected.
While wandering, he had commanded the crows to capture other animals in order to conduct infection experiments, repeating for over a hundred times at this point.
Unlike the crows, every animal that was infected died within half an hour to one day, of course, it could also be because of the lack of specimens.
Ishar wasn't naive enough to think that he was the only 'special' person in your world. Clearly, this world was like the fantasy worlds in the books he used to read.
And in order to understand his current state as well as the affairs of this world he needed to find natives.
For the last few days, Ishar had also discovered quite a few lifeforms that were very different from the animals on Earth.
But none of them could resist being killed by the 7 mutated crows.
As soon as they were pecked by the crows' beak, they would surely die. It was like the crows 'cursed' them.
But these animals displayed very varied reactions after being cursed.
Among them, the time of death for most mammals was about the same as Ishar.
The specimens experimented on included rat-like herbivores, fang-like carnivorous beasts, as well as a few monkey-like omnivore primates.
The symptoms were fatigue, followed by bleeding from all orfices, vomiting or uncontrollable excretion, before laying limp and dying.
The entire process took about half an hour to one hour, and omnivores were generally able to hold out longer.
Insects were a lot worse, as soon as they touched the crows' excretions, they would writhe in pain for seconds before dying.
The amount of white mist they supplied was also pathetically little, the law of equivalent exchange was prevalent in this world.
Ishar had completely ignored any further experimentations on insects.
Birds had the greatest immunity to this type of 'curse', after infecting over 5 different species, he found that the average period of survival for them was 12 hours.
The species that survived for the longest had even begun to mutate like his crows, shedding their feathers and growing new ones, but unfortunately, they also died after 24 hours without successfully mutating.
The main reason why Ishar died mere minutes after he arrived in this world was because of multiple 'curses' acting on him at once.
Combined with the sudden change in the environment of another world. By this point, the curse that lived on the crows had already mutated several dozen more times, and were no longer the same kind that killed Ishar from before.
In fact, the curse was still mutating without stopping, and Ishar wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, or fear but he could now faintly sense the presence of the curse intertwined with his souls essence.
As for if that was a good or bad thing he had no idea. But the connection was growing steadily.
"The white mist is being consumed too rapidly."
Ishar was currently hiding inside a mountain cave. It was currently the middle of autumn outside, so the sunlight in the middle of the day wasn't too intense.
But if Ishar stayed under sunlight, the white mist protecting him would disappear at a faster rate.
Now that he didn't have much white mist to spare, Ishar wasn't planning on wasting them.
What was said about there being no ghosts in the presence of sunlight in his past life most likely had its reasons.
According to Ishar's deductions, the white mist had the same effect as a body, which was why it could protect his soul.
He suspected that if he could find a human body to 'possess' like the ghosts in the stories he might be able to protect his soul better.
The 7 crows were out hunting and taking their prey back into the mountain cave.
The prey that were brought back were alive but infected with the bacteria, so they writhed and squirmed until they died as strands of white mist escaped from their body and replenished what Ishar had used up.
Thanks to the crows constantly supplying him with the cool aura, Isha finally felt his soul become complete again, he felt like he was currently a pierced bucket constantly patching up the holes with everything he could in order for the water inside to not escape.
Using that as a comparison, his body was the bucket and his soul was the water inside, now that the bucket was pierced, half of the water had already spilled out, so he had to constantly use other things to keep the remaining water inside before it all escaped.
From all points of view, he was no longer the same person as when he was still human, even part of his current soul was being supplied by the crows.
He's nothing but an incomplete remnant soul, even if he had inherited the majority of Ishar's memories and soul.
"I will need a stable supply of white mist. If possible, I will need even more crows to give me even more aura to replenish my soul."
Ishar murmered, even though the 7 crows were constantly supplying him with the cool aura, it was nowhere near enough.
"Perhaps if I fully replenish my soul, I will no longer need to worry about the white mist running out and exposing my soul."
"It will be winter soon as well, I do not need to worry about temperature, but the crows will."
"And the curse is still constantly mutating, it's possible for these 7 crows to die from the mutation at any moment."
"Once the crows die, without them hunting for more creatures to replenish the white mist, the only thing waiting for me is death"
"I need to quickly find intelligent lifeforms, only then can I develop my forces in an organized manner" stuck inside the cave without being able to leave, Ishar had nothing to do but plan his path from now on.
He was feeling an extreme sense of urgency as he was constantly treading on the border of death, one wrong step and he would be eliminated, this time without anything to remain of him.
Once the sky darkened, Ishar set out once more, the 7 crows flying ahead as his scouts, looking for signs of human life.
While slowly moving forward, Ishar had a certain feeling, that once he found humans, a lot of the problems that he was facing would be easily resolved.
...
"Strigoi, be careful" a bearded man carefully flicked a poisonous spider off the shoulder of a youth in front of him with a dagger and squashed it with his foot.
"Thank you, uncle Garn." the youth called Strigoi appeared to only be around 15 years old.
His young face still had a bit of fear as he hurriedly thanked the bearded man.
"Save your thanks for Avala. I don't know if it's because she is watching over us, but we've only gotten this many prey after three days of hunting"
The bearded man, Garn, put the dagger away, while stroking his, Avala was the Goddess of Fortune that the Weyian tribe believed in.
There wasn't enough food in the village, yet they still had to deal with the damned Kent tribe as well.
Their hunting party was formed this time around in hope of being able to bring back a bit more food and help the village survive through this winter.
But they hadn't had any luck.
Caw caw caw...
With a strange cry, a black crow that was a bit bigger than normal landed on the branch of a tree near them, tilting its head to look at the group of people below.
"Damn it, a follower of Pilgrim, so it was you who brought us misfortune"
One member of the hunting party saw the crow on the branch and scowled.
In the Weyian language, Pilgrim carried the meaning of dirty, disease, gloomy, but the most correct interpretation was curse.
At the same time, it was the name of a god.
Because of the crow's jet black feathers, their strange cry and their carnivorous tendencies, crows were believed to be the "Heralds of Pilgrim".
In their folklore, every crow in the world was a herald of the God called Pilgrim, announcing his presence and helping him spread curses.
When the bearded man, Gran, nocked an arrow on his bow and was about to shoot it down, he found that the Herald of Pilgrim had already flown away.