Just then, a lone thought whizzed through Duncan's mind causing his stagnant mind to become active for a second.
In that second, Duncan grasped the thought. The moment his mind processed the thought and its implications, his heart started to beat as well. Duncan's closed eyes shot open in panic.
The thought that whizzed through Duncan's mind was simple. That pile of bones belonged to a beast that tried to rest just like himself. Just like it, he would never get up.
And the implications it brought forth caused panic to emerge in Duncan's mind.
Dire emotions cause excess activity in a person's body. Cultivators were not an exception to this phenomenon. This startled Duncan so much that his body automatically started functioning in a bid to escape this situation.
His eyes shot open in panic. His heart started pumping more blood into his body. His brain tried to remain active. His mind became chaotic in his fear of death. When Duncan realized that he had almost entered a state of death due to the lethargy he was feeling, his fear of death overcame the despondency that was invading his body and his body began to fight it instinctively.
Duncan's body started twitching uncontrollably.
Even though he had regained consciousness a little, the effort he needed to overcome the lethargy that had invaded his mind and soul was enormous. Duncan wasn't in a state to quickly make that effort and take control of his body.
However, the primal instincts in his body were now working overtime to combat the lethargy even with Duncan's conscious input. They were fighting back against the lethargy causing the nerves in his body to spasm uncontrollably.
Duncan slowly regained control of his body and it stopped twitching. He wriggled his toes, moved his fingers, blinked his eyes, and tried to make a sound. He concentrated on performing the most basic actions as of now.
Even though he understood the state of rest he was in currently could lead to his death, Duncan wasn't immediately able to jump up and start moving out of this region. So, he concentrated on keeping his body and mind active in order to fight the lethargy in his body slowly.
Once he felt comfortable, he began to move his arms, then legs and finally tried to sit up. Even that felt like a huge task to him. His mind didn't have any aim. Whenever he tried to form an aim in his mind, the lethargy crept in and made him feel like that it was too much effort.
But, Duncan wasn't deterred easily.
He slowly tried to form coherent thoughts first. Then he concentrated on keeping his body active by only thinking about what to do next. Like this, Duncan slowly fought back against the lethargy that had invaded his body.
Feeling Duncan's distress, both his mind and body started producing the signals and components that were required for a body to function in excess. His heart started pumping more blood. His mind secreted the hormones and other components that kept the body functioning in excess as well.
At last, Duncan with a flushed face sat up and looked around.
Earlier, he hadn't paid much attention to the surroundings due to the lethargy that invaded his body. His mind and soul were despondent. Nothing really mattered at that time. Duncan could only focus on keeping his body moving.
But now, as he looked around at the surrounding region, Duncan was able to see the various piles of bones that were buried beneath the gravel. Some were jutting out and some were partially hidden in the gravel. But, more often than not, everything was mostly covered by the gravel.
Looking at the piles of bones that were littered in the surroundings, Duncan felt a chill envelop his heart. He never imagined that his first life-and-death fight would occur in such a bizarre manner after stepping foot into the Ancient Battlefield. Moreover, he hadn't even traversed the Ancient Battlefield for that long.
While the time felt far longer than it actually was, Duncan was able to have a vague sense of it by gauging the distance he had traveled. Even though he had been constantly moving, it didn't mean that he had covered a large area.
What made Duncan feel fear was that this kind of thing was entirely new to him. He didn't have any chance to fight before almost tasting death inside this region. This made him realize that the dangers inside the Ancient Battlefield wouldn't alone be from other people or beasts roaming inside. There were esoteric powers he couldn't fathom here at work as well.
One small slip-up might cause his death.
Duncan's face became dignified as he came to this realization. He slowly climbed to his feet. The jolt of near death he had experienced had jarred his soul awake as well. Right now, he only wanted to get out of this region alive first. He didn't even care about whether the Golden Hall experts came into the Ancient Battlefield to search after him.
Making a decision, Duncan began to slowly once again move. This time, he was very careful not to make his earlier mistakes. He took care where he stepped and he kept thinking about a lot of things that he usually avoided thinking about to keep his mind active.
He also kept constantly mumbling under his breath to make sure that his mind stayed active. He waved his hands and performed some martial arts haphazardly in a bid to keep his body active as well. Even though there were no forms in those martial arts, just punching and waving his arms in the empty air made the blood flow through his body more actively.
Now that his body had gotten accustomed to the lethargy that had invaded him and his soul was actively fighting against the despondency that was creeping in, Duncan felt a little more confident in making his way across this cursed region.
As time passed, Duncan began to think of the times when he was working monotonously in the spirit mines. That experience aided him a lot in combating the despondency that invaded his soul.
He had experienced such emotions in his earlier days. While it wasn't to this degree, he had experienced being dejected and losing the will to live earlier. Drawing from that experience, Duncan began to think of a way to beat this invasion of his soul.
The lethargy in his body was not a big issue. While the despondency in his soul might have lasting effects if he didn't take care of it now. Duncan realized this and began to search for ways to combat it.
He knew that this was the atmosphere of the Ancient Battlefield that was causing this. He didn't know why or how it was being perpetrated. But, he knew that this kind of feeling was very invasive as time passed. He had almost lost the will to live earlier. So, Duncan was very afraid of such a thing repeating again.
His bid to get rid of the despondency led him back to think about the times he had felt this emotion and how he had come out of this. Duncan realized the despondency that the atmosphere induced in his heart and soul also magnified the amount of such feelings in his heart.
He could vividly remember that he wasn't so despondent when he went through these experiences. What he had felt at that time was now being magnified severalfold. These magnified feelings were bombarding his heart and soul constantly making it hard for him to put in the effort to combat these feelings.
Thinking back on the time when he suffered from these things, Duncan realized that his go-to option while experiencing such things was to drink to his heart's content and forget about the entire thing. However, Duncan realized that it might not be an option right now.
After all, if he got drunk and forgot his purpose, then he would end up dead in this region. Only the purpose of wanting to get out of here was keeping him moving at this moment. Furthermore, Duncan realized that he hadn't dealt with his emotions properly in the first place.
By getting drunk and forgetting about these things, he had merely numbed himself to these feelings. Now that they were being magnified by this environment, Duncan was feeling the magnified effects of them as well. The best way to deal with it was to deal with his own original memories that evoked despondency in his heart.
However, saying it was easy, but doing it wasn't.
Emotions are complicated things. They are interlinked with his memories and experiences in this world. Each event that happened in his life had a corresponding emotion attached to it. The first step was to identify it and then he had to resolve it.
Duncan didn't think the task would be an easy one.
After thinking long and hard, Duncan decided on a stop-gap approach. Instead of trying to resolve these emotions, Duncan figured that he could try to shift the emotions of these events to a new emotion.
For example, he could try to change the despondency in his heart when he had learned of Bessa's true intentions towards something angry or relief. In that way, the despondency he had experienced in his heart can be resolved without trying to combat the underlying reasons behind it.
Decision made, Duncan began to act on it while traversing the region.
