'Another day another ache'
Kaelen woke up slowly picking his body up from the ground. Needless to say he was thankful he moved the only water source he had a bit further from him since when he reached for it they hadn't been smashed.
He took one of them and bit into it and it did not taste any better
The foul, alkaline aftertaste of the filtration gland was still thick on his tongue, but the dizzying weakness of dehydration had passed at least.
His gaze fell on the corpses thinking whether he should try and explore for a bit more and fine a food source of if he should just take the risk now but chomping down on whatever could be considered meat on that thing.
'Especially since its been 2 days now... it will start to spoil soon'
The moment the thought of stripping the dead nightmare creature to find a source of meat Kaelen paused as a memory surfaced in his mind.
'Soul Shards'
The fragments of the Soul Cores that were destroyed, physical remains that kept some of the essence of the dead and would raise the counter in his runes
'Does absorbing soul shards in the nightmare even count?' - He did not know but had an inkling that it might carry over to his eventual appraisal and it was not based on nothing.
'When Sunny killed the Mountain king, Auro and that one Larvae the spell didn't give him a message about how his shadow grows stronger or whatever but the fragments did show after appraisal'
He still didn't know if this would work or not but he had no way to take the shards out of this nightmare so absorbing the essence within was the only viable option at the current moment.
Kaelen walked to the corpses in the corner and picked up one of the halves. Yesterday when he was looking at the organs that were at the part of the body that would have crawled on the floor. He did not look towards the 'back' of the mud crawler and there it was.
It was small in size that had an almost translucent shell that still shone with a white light. Either unfortunate or fortunately he had only killed dormant creatures with the weakest type of soul cores.
He placed it on the ground and then was looking through the rest of the bodies.
one, two, three and eventually it reached seven.
Eventually he picked up the first one and crushed it. For a second it cracked like glass but instead of falling to the ground it seemed to seem ethereal and was absorbed into him. He did not hear the spell but he definitely felt something.
Now he didn't know what but he had definitely absorbed a soul shard and that was not enough. So he cracked another and another and eventually the 7 were gone
He sat and started to think '7 dormant soul shards would put my shard count at 7/1000'
There was a long while to go to reach saturation and the closer he got the stronger he would be . Even if it was the smallest decimal of a boost. Something would always be Something
It wasn't much, but in this world, a fraction could very well be the difference between life and death.
"I need more," Kaelen muttered, his eyes narrowing. The fear was still there, but it was being slowly paved over by a cold, desperate pragmatism. "I need to hunt others."
Then there was a strike that went of in his head
'There was the first one!'
He thought of the very first Mud Crawler he had killed—the one miles away on the silt flats. He had been too delirious to check for a shard. It was out there, sitting on the stone ground waiting to be claimed.
He set out almost instantly
The morning was here for a while but unlike yesterday he was hydrated and moving with a purpose of pursuing strength and maybe on the way he would fine a food source
He retraced his steps, everywhere looked almost the same but the memory of his first brush with death acted as a very powerful compass.
Hours later, he reached the site. The flat stone between 2 pools of mud where he had struggled for his life.
But there was now something approaching there too from the opposite direction he was
He expected that the corpse of the mud crawler had dried out under the sun so he doubted there would be a water source but not his shard was gone too.
There was another Nightmare Creature that was not standing over the mud crawler. It was bigger and unlike its smaller counterpart this one stood roughly at the height of a Dog
Its appearance was not that different from the crawler aside from a few differences one being other than still having mud on it despite being out of the source there were bits of gravel in it. This one still had the little crab legs it also had 4 longer ones and one of those legs was dug into the body of the crawler
'This filthy bastard'
As Kaelen watched, the creature brought the corpse to its 'face' that consisted of just a vertical slit that opened to reveal rows of needle-thin, rock teeth. It bit into the corpse and ripped swallowing an organ or 2 and eventually reaching the shard which crunched in its mouth
It at the shard, Kaelen thought, his grip tightening on the granite shard until his knuckles turned white. It ate MY shard
Kaelen knew he could win in a head on fight but that it also might entail some risks that could be avoided
So he did what any human would He used his brain
He began to move, not toward the creature, but in a wide, agonizingly slow circle. He stayed downwind, his stomach churning as the scent of the creature—something like burning sulfur—wafted toward him.
He looked for anything he could use.
This region was composed of rock and soil, but here, near the basin's edge, the rocks were different. Large slabs of slate stood precariously balanced, weathered by heat and time
Kaelen reached a slab that leaned over the path the creature would likely take to exit the basin.
His plan was simple
He picked up a smaller stone and hurled it.
CLANG.
The stone struck a rock on the opposite side of the basin. The Scavenger froze, its needle-teeth chattering as the vertical jaws clashed. It dropped the body and spun toward the noise, its slick muddy back with stones glistening in the light of the sun.
It let out a high-pitched hiss and began to skitter toward the sound, its movements a blur of speed.
Kaelen didn't wait. He sprinted—not away, but towards the creature with its back turned
But the creature had already reached the rock and realized it was just that, so it turned as he approached and its 'face' pointed directly toward Kaelen.
It let out a shriek that felt like a needle being driven into Kaelen's ears and charged.
"Damn it!" Kaelen scrambled back, heading for a leaning slate slab.
The Scavenger was fast—much faster than the Crawlers. It covered the distance almost twice as fast Kaelen reached the base of the ridge just as the creature leaped, its sharp rock-tipped claws reaching for his throat.
Kaelen threw himself to the side, rolling through the abrasive dirt. The creature slammed into the ridge, its claws carving deep gouges into the stone. Kaelen scrambled up the back of the slope, his lungs screaming, and reached the leaning slab.
He put his shoulder against it. He pushed with every ounce of strength he had, every bit of the energy in his body
"Go... down... you... freak!"
The slab groaned. Below, the Scavenger was recovering, its vertical slit of a mouth opening wide to reveal its teeth. It looked up and hissed, preparing to spring.
With a final, guttural roar of defiance, Kaelen's feet found purchase. The slab tipped.
The weight of several 10s of kilograms of slate plummeted. There was a sickening CRUNCH followed by the sound of something hitting the ground. The creatures leg had fell to the ground
Silence returned to the basin.
Kaelen collapsed on top of the ridge, peering over the edge. The Scavenger's rear legs were twitching from beneath the massive slate slab, its body crushed into the mud. A dark, crystalline fluid leaked out from under the rock.
[You have slain a Dormant Monster: Rock Shard Scavenger]
Kaelen didn't move for several minutes. He just peered below
Finally after a minute, he climbed down, his hands shaking so much he could barely keep his balance. He used another one of the rocks down there as a lever to push the one on the creature of
And then he had 2 dormant shards in his hand that soon entered his soul
'9. 9 shards so far'
He looked at the sky and turned.
'I should head back for now'
He turned and ripped the larger liquid sac from the creature and walked back to his cave