Once more Kaelen found himself standing outside of a massive gate.
No, now that he looked closer, it wasn't a gate—it was a drawbridge like the one he had seen in cartoons and other movies. But that was not the eye-catching thing.
The thing that caught his eye—well... more like stung his eyes—was the materials that everything seemed to be made of; it was all made of some type of glowing yellow material, and it felt as if looking at a mini sun. It was barely bearable.
Kaelen took in a deep breath
This trial was going to throw an Awakened Tyrant at him—a being that can create a little party to attack him.
He walked into the the city
Everything in the city seemed to be made of the same light-based material, even the houses and streets that were filled with...
'Fuck!'
The entire city was filled with 'people.'
All of them were clearly corrupted, the brilliant light shining from their deformed bodies as well—there were materials like glass shards sprouting from their bodies—all of their gazes shifted to Kaelen
He was the only dull being in this entire trial
He immediately turned around and attempted to get out of the drawbridge out of the city but the drawbridge was closed
Kaelen took the best action he could.
He ran
The moment he made a movement, all of the creatures started to chase; they were fast—as fast as your average person, at least. If Kaelen did not have his special body, he would have already been caught
He managed to dodge the bright, shard-like claws aimed at him by a hair's breadth.
He hated it but the only way he could even have a choice of escaping was deeper into the city with the drawbridge closed, and that caused more and more of the creatures to chase him
Then he saw it
There was a building in front of him that resembled a church
It was tall, three stories high at least—it had no windows, but Kalen could see a large, open top. "Yep, let's go there!"
He did not know how many were in there, but it definitely wasnt more than a 150 chasing him
He focused deeper and ran—his speed increased greatly, at least triple the speed of those behind him. The veins in his body that were now pressurized air currents gave him the enhancements he needed.
Seconds before entering the hunter's mark, he saw 3 dots appear in front of him within the church
'I can deal with that.'
Darting in, he immediately threw the second Claw of Flame into the skull of the creature closest to the door. It didn't seem to die yet as it landed on the ground but continued to move, but with the closest threat removed, he had gained enough time to shut the door and latch it.
Shifting his body around, he immediately ducked his body and moved his hand as if he were slashing a blade—of course, there was nothing there a few seconds ago, but the Claw of Flame he threw came back into his hand.
He brought it up in an arc and it dug into the first being
As expected, it continued to move, but it spewed a torrent of glowing yellow liquid that landed on the ground—so what if it wasn't affected by having its neck stabbed?
He would just take off the head
And so he did; with a roar, he pulled off the dagger and kicked it back—the 3rd one had reached him now.
Kaelen grunted in anger
His arm that had a dagger attachment was slashed with great strength—he made it three-quarters through, and then he pulled his hand back towards him
The head fell to the ground
[You have slain a dormant beast: Shining Subject.]
"Next"
He ran towards the one that attacked him first, which had a hole in its forehead, and did the same thing, and as for the third?
He was a bit tired now after literally falling from the sky and running from a 150 of these freaks, which that number had probably doubled by now
He simply kicked him back down when it charged and smashed its head in beneath his feet until its body stopped moving.
'Why the hell is there so many at once when i have only one arm?!'
He could still hear the rest of them outside like zombies.
'... I swear if by some curse my aspect isnt of the divine rank, I will call for the spell's destruction more than Nephis...'
He paused for a second and just yelled, falling to the ground and laying there
He knew the spell just helped in the aspect of unsealing, not in giving them out, so he could really blame the spell if it wasn't divine.
But it had to be, right?
Right?
Of course! it has to be!'
He pushed the thoughts away and dismissed his armor—being naked in a church felt so wrong, but as far as he knew, this god was long dead.
Kaelen turned his head and went to sleep.
...
Kaelen stirred on the ground.
He felt a wet feeling on his face—"What the...?'
He instantly woke up and started to scream—"This disgusting piece of...!"
The 'blood' of the nightmare creature seemed to have flowed from the corpse and onto the floor, ending up on his body—he felt nasty
'This place doesnt even have any water...'
Kaelen's ears twitched. 'They havent left...'
The hoard of shining subjects were still outside and from what Kaelen could hear, there was roughly twice as much as there was initially
'I need to thin the ranks...'
But how was he going to do that?
He only had about 100 bony ribs on him; he could throw the claw of flame at them, but clearly that wasn't enough to kill them instantly—maybe he could throw it at a target multiple times?
It was possible
'Wait...!'
He had received a memory from the Annihilated Air, and so far every memory that he got from a guardian has helped with his next trial—maybe this one would be a help as well!
Summoning his runes Kaelen instantly started to analyze them
Memory: Ossified Zephyr
Memory Rank: Awakened
Memory Tier: 4
Memory Type: Weapon
Memory Description: "I can't let them kill my babies... but I can't kill them... I am going up. I'm going to escape from this hell and escape to heaven, and if they try, I will be forced to strike."
'There is not a single clue in this damn thing other than some depressing story.'
He did not have the leisure of being depressed right now—all of the creatures so far may be dormant beasts, but what happens if a stronger creature appears?
No, he would need to disperse this crowd—well, "dispose" is more like it
Crossing his fingers, Kaelen tugged on his soul to bring out the memory, and the sparks appeared and coalesced into the memory's form.
'A bow?'
He groaned out loud—what use was a bow with only one hand?
He was thoroughly disappointed.
A bow was good, and it was also a long-range weapon, but how was he going to make use of it? the problem was still there—he only had a hundred bone ribs that could be used as arrows and he doubted that it would be effective enough to behead these things and that was if he, like, used his feet to hold the bow and his one hand to pull the string
The bow was good-looking, though.
The main handle of the bow—the riser—was a thick chunk of bone; the upper and lower limbs also were made of bone but seemed slightly more flexible—most likely the cartilage from the creature's body. The tips had the string attached.
Kaelen let out a sigh
He may not have been too happy about the bow in terms of its usefulness, but he couldn't help but reminisce.
'Gods that old women...' - He smiled
His mother had taken him bow hunting a few times, and he had decent skill with it too.
For a bit of nostalgia, he sat down on the ground and pressed both his feet against the tips of the bow. he leaned forward and grabbed the string, and then something happened
Suddenly, where there was nothing in his hand but the string, something appeared.
It was fast-moving air that was in the shape of an arrow
'This...!'
Letting go of the pressurized air bullet, he watched it whizz through the air and shoot straight through the tree that was placed in the middle of the area.
The hole was clean and large and it forced him to take it back
He took it back; he took it all back
This Bow was perfect; it was great—it was perfection
With this, he could just climb up the church with the stairs, and using the open top, all he needed to do was shoot all of the bastards down—how many shards would be waiting for him to harvest?
Their numbers were clearly growing, caused by the noise—if the edge of the village where he had started from had 150 people and the middle had another 150, by the end of it, the end of the village should bring another 150
450 shards at minimum!
That would essentially put him right next to reaching complete saturation
Kaelen moved to the stairs and started to climb with a smile
'Harvest time!'
...
Kaelen groaned as he pulled the bow string back.
There were more than 400 corpses lying on the ground now—he had roughly 50 to 60 remaining.
He had believed that the process of using the bow would make things move along faster but it was not—in fact, it was extremely boring too, and using his feet to hold the bow made it so much more annoying as well
The thing had actually slipped from his feet down into the hoard a few times but being able to dismiss it was a big help in not having it destroyed
It had been roughly 2 days and a half since he was doing this now
Admittedly, he had taken his fair amount of rest and time to make food, which he enjoyed thoroughly—he also determined where he would need to go after.
While running, he was not able to make a mental map of the surroundings, but up here he was able to do so easily.
In the direction that he came from there were numerous houses of various sizes—they too were all glowing light but that was basically everything aside from himself; here in the middle of the city was where he was—in the church
Behind him was a castle
Obviously he would need to go there, but he couldn't help but wonder what was waiting there.
If these guys were humanoid with reflecting light shards of glass, would the tyrant be a bigger version of that?
He had no idea.
What he did know was that there were just a few remaining nightmare creatures down here and he wanted to kill them in the next few hours and go on his bountiful harvest
...
Kaelen was walking through the empty streets.
He had already killed everyone here, after all—he had harvested them for all they were worth too
From what he had counted, he was roughly at a 870 shards absorbed or something around there and that was excluding the 4 awakened shards he got from the annihilated air, the one he had kept from the captain, and the 5 he got from the eggs
Thats right
Yesterday was his fourth day in the trial of light, and he had made many decisions and done many things. He had also gotten a few things too.
The first thing was the cracking of the eggs—they had not hatched or even started to, but when Kaelen remembered he had them, he immediately tried to crack them open over a stone slab, which he heated with the Claws of Flame.
It was just that he forgot that these eggs were fertilized eggs and not the eggs he got in the store
A disgusting wet lump of flesh fell out of the egg, and out of panic, he immediately stabbed it—when he did, he was given the announcement of the kill and found out the things were awakened.
It made sense in a way because the next step after being a devil was becoming a tyrant
And even though tyrants would form lesser versions, like how the Awakened Tyrant Mountain King produced Dormant Beasts Mountain King's larvae
But if one looked at the description of the bow, the reason would be made clear
These things were once upon a time the Anhiliating Air's mortal children—they were her kids before she became corrupted, and most likely as a result, they had become corrupted too, rather than becoming a nightmare creature directly.
Actually there was the more probable theory that he did not want to think about
The Devil had eaten its kids and used those pieces of them to produce the eggs in which their corpses had entered, thus the mangled form they had in and out of the eggs
Not that any of that was important
He kept all the awakened shards in his trusty bag and vowed to keep all of his shards in there.
Now that he was this close to saturating his core, he did not know if it would have any effect in this nightmare and did not want to waste any progress after all—the runes said
Soul Core
Not Soul Cores
Here in the nightmare where his aspect for some reason did not have a rank—he did not want to saturate the core when it would do nothing.
After he finishes the trials?
Absolutely if it would give him a new core but again, that was not really 1000% guaranteed.
If it were not, the better use of the shards would be to buy things he needs in the real world that would help him in navigating the dream realm—one of which was salt; he ran out of herbs recently and was back to eating unseasoned meat
Oh and as for the memory—it was useless honestly, especially here where everything was just light
A luminous memory called [Glowing Glass]; basically, it was just a sealed glass that had the same growing liquid that the creatures did
Anyway
Kaelen had made it to where he wanted to be
The castle gate