Kaelen was falling, falling while in some impossible height
'What the fuck...!'
The wind was hitting his eyes with an impossible pressure as he descended but he caught glimpses of the where he was but just before it could register he crashed onto the ground and rolled like a ragdoll
The pain of falling from where he was hurt like hell despite the strength of his enhanced body.
Standing up with a groan Kaelen's eyes widened
He was standing on what looked like a piece of a broken island, and above him there was more and below him even more. There were broken houses around that were made out of stone slabs - trees here and there that actually had green
'Well... at least I got to see a tree again'
Here and there he saw structures that looked like wells that had a decent amount of water.
This entire place, all of these structures were surrounded by endless skies in all directions
'... Is this trial supposed to be air?'
He was correct.
Raising his head to look up he already determined where he would need to go.
'Let's wait for a little bit'
It took a long while to walk because he was afraid of ending up flying of the platform he was on, his increased weight due to the stone properties of his body allowed him to stay grounded.
'I need to stack up on water'
He had little left in his body after most of it got evaporated during the fight with the Fractures Flame
'...Speaking of which, lets check out that new memory'
He had something to be glad about
Memories: [Hunters Mark] [Seafarers Satchel] [Swift Swea] [Blazing Blood] [Claws of Flame]
'Hoh?'
That was an interesting name, sounded powerful too.
Memory: [Claws of Flame]
Memory Rank: Awakened
Memory Tier: 3
Memory Type: Weapon
'Yes!'
This was his first weapon type memory and if he was going to fight an awakened devil in about 7 days he wanted to have an actual weapon rather than relying on the bones of nightmare creatures - not that he lacked any of those.
There were still more than a 100 rib bones in his bag
Memory Description: ["I don't want to leave him... He has been with me from the start, I raised him! Why must this happen... why does it call us back?! I wont leave him, i raised him like a son and i will stay by him like a father. We will be together, we wont leave each other, we will burn together "]
'... Why... Why are all of the guardian memory descriptions so depressing?'
He was just glad about his strength increase and the fact that he had a memory but now he just felt depressed.
It was not that hard to decipher all of the stories behind the memories and he had tried to stay away from thinking about it but now he couldn't help but do so
The Broken Earth seemed to have been a leader, forced to watch his subjects succumb to the corruption and forced to kill them, the description [...His accuracy ended their pain and his fast] also showed how he felt personally
The Shattered Sea was a two part depressing tale that felt a lot worse. From what he gained the captain that he took the satchel from was the lover of the Shattered Sea - it was just that he doomed himself and his crew to save her from the corruption only for her to succumb anyway.
And now the Fractured Flame...
What did people raise as their own children? what did the second head of the demon look like? It seemed that this person had refused to leave his pet to die and eventually they both succumbed to the corruption becoming that chimera
Kaelen gritted his teeth
'They are long dead and i'm not going to join them'
Calling on the memory from his soul he watched as two daggers appeared on his hand.
'I would have prefered a long range weapon but this is sufficient'
The blades were red hot and emitted a small layer of fire and he even though he was part flame now he could feel the heat. Kaelen did not have much experience with daggers themselves, but then again he did not have experience with a spear or sword
It was just that he was a sporty kid and adjusted to new situations easily
Throwing the dagger in the air he instantly realised that this entiere place was in the air
'Shit!'
The dagger flew upwards and continued to do so but then something odd happened, Kaelen watched as the blade suddenly disappeared and then
'...Huh?'
The second dagger was in his hand again.
A devious smile spread across his face, instantly he threw one of the daggers again and it flew for about 8 meters before it disappeared and appeared in his hand again
This was one of its enchantments
Kaelen thought about the description to himself 'We will burn together'
The daggers would never leave each other.
Dismissing the memory with a satisfied mood, the depression had disappeared.
'I need to stock up on water'
By stock up, he meant drink
Waking over with difficulty Kaelen made his way to one of the tilted wells and brought his hands down into it with a cupped form, bringing it to his mouth he immediately swallowed
The cold liquid flowed down his throat and he felt energy flow through his body
His body had become an odd mutation of the elements that worked together synergistically
The Stone skin of his body kept the Water blood inside his body and now the flame that existed in his body - which even though Kaelen could not see, was residing in his organs were boiling the water and turning it into pressuresized vapour within his body that was giving him strength
He started to drink more
Eventually his thirst was quenched completely
'Unless there is a magma trial or something i don't need water again for the remaining trials'
The water in his body only evaporated and left it in the fire trial because of the heat, not because of him using his body - the stone skin kept all the water back in his body
It was like putting water inside a pot with a lid and leaving it to boil
The water would boil and turn into steam but will eventually go onto the lid and condense again and turn into water, dropping back into the pot to repeat the cycle.
He immediately went into one of the broken houses and sat down to take account of what he had and rest
He did not need it because his physical body was in pristine condition but his mind was exhausted. It had been a while since he rested and from what he saw there were no nightmare creatures on this little platform
After a while of accounting for his assets he laid flat on the floor, dismissing the swift sea - Kaelen was completely naked.
It was uncomfortable but not as uncomfortable as trying to sleep with armor on
'A charm to lock on targets - Hunter's Mark'
'A storage memory - Seafarers Satchel'
'A armor memory - Swift Sea'
'A jug of endless flammable liquid - Burning Blood'
'Two daggers that are radiate heat - Claws of Flame'
'113 Rib bones of dormant nightmare creatures'
'A decent amount of fish meat left that should last enough for more than a month if rationed to the extreme'
He had a lot on him to aid with the trials ahead - which was tomorrow's problem
He fell asleep
...
Kaelen thoroughly enjoyed his sleep.
When he opened his eyes he immediately got to work walking out of the little rock shack he had already summoned the seafarers satchel - inside lay the the [Burning Blood] and [Claws of Flame]
He could summon it directly from his soul but that would take roughly 5 seconds to materialize fully - with it in his bag he could simply reach in and if he gets one of the daggers the other one would instantly come too.
Even though he knew what was going to come would be difficult his body was flowing with energy
Summoning the Swift Sea he covered up his nakedness and looked up
The rubble was like a "pillar", no it was more of a vertical graveyard. Thousands of chunks of debris—shattered temples, uprooted mountain peaks, and jagged slabs of masonry—were suspended in a localized gravity well that stretched upward until they disappeared into the high-altitude haze.
"This is going to me so annoying" he muttered, testing the weight of his grip on a nearby floating banister.
The climb was a nightmare of physics.
Because the debris was floating, it wasn't always stable. Kaelen had to leap from a tilted little stone to a stump of a tree that span violently with his momentum
His stone-like durability was his only saving grace; several times, his grip slipped, and he slammed chest-first into jagged edges that would have disemboweled a normal human. For Kaelen, it just left a white scratch on his grey, pebbled skin.
Did it hurt like hell though? Absolutely
That was why for the next few hours he made sure to be extra careful as he climbed - as he climbed the air did get thinner which would have caused him to slow down a little bit but his internal boiler of a body kept his muscles strong
He moved like a mountain goat made of granite, jumping gaps aiming for the next stable slap
He was currently hauling himself onto a massive, overturned platform—a flat expanse of cracked marble about forty meters wide—when he froze.
The wind here didn't whistle, it chirped.
At the far edge of the platform, perched on a decorative stone gargoyle that had lost its head, was a creature that looked like an evolutionary mistake - similar to all of the other nightmare creatures
It was the size of a large hound, but its body was unnaturally flat, covered in a mottled, sky-grey fur that rippled in the wind. Long, leathery membranes stretched from its forelimbs to its hind legs—wide, jagged wings designed for gliding through this region
'Is that an overgrown sugar glider?'
The beast's head was deformed, lacking a visible nose or ears, dominated instead by a pair of massive, milky-white eyes and a vertical slit of a mouth filled with needle-like teeth. It hadn't noticed him yet, it was busy preening a coat of razor-sharp talons that tipped its "wings," clicking its beak-like teeth with a sound like snapping dry kindling.
Kaelen sank into a low crouch, his weight pressing deep into the marble. The creature was clearly dormant, but in this environment, it had every advantage - but then again, the ones in the mud did too and so did the ones in the water and even the flame
Even if Kaelen had a shit ton of confidence and knew if he could deal with it he was still going to be carefull, one shove, one well-timed glide, and Kaelen would be sent screaming into the seemingly endless sky where his stone skin would only make him hit the bottom faster - if there even was one
He reached into his bag and pulled out one of the Claws of flame, the other teleporting to his hand.
Daggers vs. a glider, Kaelen thought, his eyes narrowing. I need to ground him before it takes to the air.
He surged forward.
The Sky Reaper's milky eyes snapped toward him, its vertical jaw unhinging with a hiss like escaping steam. It didn't retreat. With a powerful thrust of its hind legs, it launched itself, not into the air, but directly at Kaelen's throat, its leathery membranes snapping taut like sails.
'Why do all these bastards keep going for my throat?!'
Kaelen pivoted, his leg grinding as he planted his lead foot. He swung the right dagger in a rising arc. The blade hissed as it bit into the creature's mottled grey underbelly, the heat cauterizing the wound even as it opened.
The beast shrieked, a high-pitched, warbling sound that vibrated in Kaelen's teeth. Despite the wound, it lashed out with its wing-talons, raking across Kaelen's chest. The Swift Sea sparked, the armor holding, but the sheer kinetic force of the glider's impact sent Kaelen staggering toward the edge of the marble plaza.
That attack would have done nothing if he was on flat ground but here - it was made apparent but still...
"Not today!" Kaelen growled.
As the Sky Reaper tried to bank away to gain altitude, Kaelen threw the left dagger. The blade spun through the air, a streak of glowing crimson that pierced the creature's membrane and lodged deep in its spine.
The enchantment kicked in. The dagger in Kaelen's hand hummed, and the thrown blade vanished from the beast's back, reappearing instantly in Kaelen's palm.
The Reaper, its nervous system shattered by the sudden heat and puncture, folded mid-air like a broken kite.
[You have slain a dormant monster: Sky Ripper]
It began to slide off the tilted marble edge.
Kaelen lunged, his legs s skidding on the slick stone. His fingers clamped onto the creature's hind leg just as its weight hit the abyss. The sudden jerk nearly hauled Kaelen over. His boots left the ground, his torso hanging over a drop that stretched into a purple infinity.
"Grah—!"
His muscles screamed. The pressurized steam within his body hissed, giving him a momentary surge of hydraulic strength. He dug his free hand into a crack in the marble, his fingers covered by the steel armor gripped into the ground
With a guttural roar, he hauled himself and the dead weight of the beast back onto the stable center of the floating rock. He collapsed there, chest heaving, the boiling 'blood' in his veins slowly settling.
He didn't waste time.
He sat cross-legged on the small, isolated slab of marble, the wind whipping his hair as he pulled out a shard of nightmare creature bone he used for utility.
With the practiced, cold efficiency of a survivor, he began to butcher.
The Claws of Flame made short work of the tough, leathery hide, the heat slicing through the Sky Reaper's sinew like a hot wire through wax. He carved away the lean, stringy meat, tossing the slabs into the Seafarers Satchel. The storage memory swallowed the offerings, preserving the fresh kill for the long climb ahead.
Finally, he reached into the mess of the creature's chest and pulled out 2 small, glowing fragments
He looked at the dim light
Crunch.
'231 Shards absorbed'
How many more ?
...
Three days of grueling, vertical ascent
Kaelen didn't even know that his skin could get callouses after becoming stone, apparently it could. It had gotten very annoying especially when dealing with the other Sky Rippers
'I'm glad i haven't run into one of those little bastards in the past day'
After dealing with 30 of them he was getting sick of them but it seems that after passing a certain altitude they had stopped appearing
'Well at least the little shits were easy to deal with'
His count had shot up by a lot
289 Shards to be exact
After a while of climbing he noticed the sky turning dark again and decided to make camp - he had been eating good recently, He came across a bush earlier in the climb and ravaged the entire bush for its leaves, they were very aromatic and they made for good seasoning
Climbing up onto a particularly large platform that was tilted to the left Kaelen entered the underside of a massive, inverted cathedral dome that had become wedged between two jagged stone hills.
He was walking at an angle, his fingers hooked into the ornate stonework, his Stone Skin providing the friction necessary to keep him from a thousand-mile drop.
Then, he heard it.
A sound like a thousand dry leaves skittering over parchment.
From the dark, hollowed-out bell tower of the cathedral, a black tide began to pour. They weren't Sky Reapers though.
These were smaller, leaner— Bat-like
Their fur was like soot, and their eyes glowed with a faint, sickly violet light. There were about 50 of them
"Finally," Kaelen rasped, his voice sounding like grinding gravel. "Something that travels in a pack."
The last time he dealt with a pack his shard count had rose by leaps and bounds
He released his grip on one hand and reached for the Seafarers Satchel at his waist, pulling out the ornately carved wooden mug
As the first wave of bats shrieked, diving toward him with mouths unhinged, Kaelen didn't flinch. He swung his arm in a wide, violent arc.
A thick, viscous stream of deep black liquid sprayed into the thin air, coating the stone pillars and the very atmosphere around him in a mist of highly volatile, flammable essence.
The bats flew straight into the black spray, their fur soaking in the "blood" as they swarmed toward his face.
"Burn," Kaelen whispered.
He one of the daggers into the air, the single drop caught aflame and spread like a wild fire. That was a tactic he learnt from the Sky Rippers, the air up here and the fact that they were falling did not allow the liquid to hit the ground - rather it flew upwards and if he was fast enough he could set it ablaze in the air
A chain reaction ripped through the swarm.
The mist ignited into a roaring, orange-and-red inferno that clung to the stone and the bats alike.
Shrieks of agony replaced the sound of fluttering wings as the Abyssal Bats became living torches. Because the liquid was "blood," it didn't just burn and vanish—it stuck, sizzled, and expanded.
The corpses were falling and they were setting flame to the little plants here and there but Kaelen didn't mind the heat in the slightest.
It wasn't as concentrated as standing in an entire pool of the burning blood like he did in the fire trial
Walking through the flames he became curious as to whether that would even affect him now
[You have slain a dormant monster: Black Brood Spawn]
[You have slain a dormant monster: Black Brood Spawn]
[You have slain a dormant monster: Black Brood Spawn]
[You have slain a dormant...]
[You have...]
They were all falling to the ground - dead
He picked up the first one that fell and dug his hands into the burning flesh pulling out the 2 shards and crushing it
By the end of his harvest he had 331 shards absorbed.
But even though he was very happy about that he was more happy he had a safe place to sleep after 3 days