Juno woke up with the light. Technically, he also woke up with the noise of the Dark Sea receding, but details didn't really matter.
High above his camp, Juno groaned and stared down below. He had spent almost a full day carving this little spot into the bone, all for his safety. It was about 5 meters above the ground and dipped a little. This meant that, if anything crawled into his camp during the night, he would not be spotted. It also gave him a great position to assassinate any Nightmare Creature that wandered in here.
Sadly, that meant he had lost almost a whole day, so the only action he got was when some poor Scavenger wandered into his camp, so he had to exterminate it with his usual trick. Boring, but he survived.
He lay still for a few breaths, then exhaled and did his morning recap.
"Day five of this place, and I have twelve Soul Fragments. One Ascended-level Memory, two Awakened ones. No Echo. I need at least another 247 Awakened Beasts to get to my Monster core."
He slid down from the groove, landed lightly beside the fire pit, and stretched once, joints cracking more out of habit than need. Lazily, he took off the Mask and brought Execution down from his perch.
No water yet. No food.
First, he had to get a sweat going.
Juno started with the absolute basics: footwork drills that he had read about back in the Academy. Steps forward and back, diagonal shifts, pivots on the ball of the foot, weight changes that kept him always ready to move, never flat‑footed. The smooth bone of the spine made every mistake obvious — if he overcommitted, he slipped. If his center of gravity was wrong, he felt it immediately.
[Piercing Mind] watched everything.
After a little bit, he moved on to simple katas. cuts at first, then combinations — high, low, thrust, withdraw, cut again. Sunny had done a thousand for his training; Juno forced himself to do at least three thousand.
He spent quality time mentally going over fights he had had, imagining and re-imagining them over and over. He could almost feel how a pincer came at him. He could almost see how a Scavenger would move.
It was incredibly fun to do all this. Juno had expected training to be a massive chore, that he would hate it, and that he would make up many excuses not to do it. He was so incredibly wrong.
Every time Juno did a swing, or imagined a block, or punched the wall, he felt invigorated to do more. He wanted to get stronger; it was as simple as that. Or maybe it wasn't; he didn't really care. All that mattered was that this morning routine was not only beneficial but also massively enjoyable.
Roughly ninety minutes after he had woken up, sweat slicked his skin, and his breathing had deepened into a steady rhythm. His grip felt surer. His stances were more natural. He completed all his morning goals, and it was time to eat and rest.
The water significantly accelerated his sore muscles' recovery and brought them to a higher peak. He drank, then tore strips of half‑dried scavenger meat from a makeshift rack and chewed. It still didn't quite land as food should, but his tongue approved, and that was good enough.
He decided to give himself an hour of rest and recovery. The Dark Sea had long hidden itself once again, so the beasts would start to roam soon. Juno needed to wait for them to do so.
Not having a lot to do, Juno just lazed around silently. He would think of many things as well, like what he would do in Dark City, the Bright Castle, and even what he would do once he came back to the Waking World.
'Decisions, decisions,' he thought amicably. 'So much to do, so little time.'
…
He left Bone Ridge the way he always did: down the spine, through the skull, under the cracked teeth, senses flaring the moment mud replaced bone.
The labyrinth greeted him with its usual smells and sounds. Salt. Rot. That metallic tinge of old blood that never quite went away. Far‑off screeches. Occasional crashes where something large decided something else shouldn't exist anymore. Real pleasant stuff, honestly.
Manipulating his senses as usual, Juno started to slowly prowl the area around Bongo. He now moved through the similar labyrinth much more nimbly, knowing where and how to run if he saw a group.
He wasn't ready to fight a group yet. Hell, he wasn't ready to fight even two Scavengers at once.
Not yet.
The Carapace Legion didn't hunt alone if they could help it. Packs of three to eight, Sunny had said. Enough that one mistake turned into a funeral in seconds. Juno had no armor, no Echo, no shadow, no backup. Just a mask, a sword, and a horrible Flaw that would surely get him killed.
So, one of his biggest rules was not to engage a group. One Scavenger at a time, and no more. He wasn't sure about how he would face multiple of the other Nightmare Creatures, but he hadn't encountered any of them yet, so he didn't really care.
He rounded a bend between two high coral mounds and saw three.
They moved together across a stretch of firmer ground — three hulking shapes of blue shell and scythe‑legs, pincers raised, carapaces mostly intact. No obvious injuries. No limps. Their shells shone wetly in the dim light, perfect and whole.
Juno stopped so fast his toes dug ruts in the mud.
His Flaw twisted in his chest, tasting three kills, three shards, twelve fragments.
'Heh, that's too much, man. Chill out, god damn.'
Fighting his Flaw was sometimes hard, but now it was easy. His survival instinct helped overpower it after all, so it relented quite quickly. He stepped backward, slow and smooth, hoping his mask had activated so he was less noticeable. Finally, he began to move down his chosen path.
'What luck,' Juno thought. 'I was thinking about many Scavengers, and many Scavengers popped up. What's next? A lone Scavenger is going to show up in the next ten seconds?'
The labyrinth, as if offended, immediately supplied one.
'Fucking hell mate, six seconds. Big bad Forgotten Shore really doesn't play, does it?'
He saw the single Carapace Scavenger digging in the dirt, its shell smooth and whole, all eight legs and two pincers there. A Scavenger in perfect condition. It was, sadly, great that the thing wasn't injured. Playing tag had always been fun, so some more of it wouldn't hurt.
He circled, picked his angle, and let Hidden in the Grass blur his approach. The engagement was quick and precise: close in fast, draw the pincer, dive under its arc, drive Execution deep into the lower flank where the shell was thick but not absurd. He planted the blade as far in as it would go, then broke away before the monster could turn fully.
Then he ran.
The next few minutes were the usual geometry.
He made sure to stay just at the edge of the beast's reach, always only a movement away from a dodge. Juno decided mid-fight to lessen his cognitive overload so that he could get used to fighting without his Aspect. Who knew what he would face in the future?
Besides that, the whole fight was dull. Soon, the Scavengers' movements slowed. The gloss on its shell dulled, and it seemed to wither.
And then it died.
[Your desire sharpens]
Pulling his sword out from the Scavenger, Juno started to harvest its Soul Shards whilst thinking.
'This was the fourth guy I've killed with the same method. None of them has tried to pull out the sword or do anything besides attack. I guess beasts are really stupid.'
In less than a minute, Juno had absorbed the Soul Shards and moved on from his position. Now, he had sixteen Soul Fragments and needed 246 more kills.
He had also established a new rule for himself.
Healthy ones: play tag. Injured ones: practice.
…
The second hunt block began after an hour of rest and recuperation, and with exactly the kind of target that rule was meant for.
This scavenger was hurt. Not dying‑tomorrow hurt like the first one he'd ever killed, but damaged enough that its shell showed a web of fine fractures, one of its legs dragged, and the closing motion of its right pincer was a fraction slower than the left.
Juno watched it for a full minute.
'Practice,' he reminded himself. 'You made the rule. Don't be a coward about your own decisions.'
He prowled around the thing until he could approach it from its blind side.
He moved when it looked away.
The opening hit was not Blood Fang's.
He burst from behind a coral mound, sprinted in, and let the scavenger register him only as it began to swing its good pincer. He dove inside the arc, feet skidding across mud, and slashed horizontally against the creature's injured leg.
The blade easily cut through it. Blue blood sprayed everywhere, and the beast lost its balance, giving Juno just enough time to slide back out from under it and create some more distance.
Before too much distance was made, however, the Scavenger slammed down with its pincer against where Juno had just been, missing him by inches. Turning toward his opponent, Juno saw the creature start charging at him. It was so damn fast for its size.
But not fast enough. Not tall enough.
Like a matador against a bull, Juno sidestepped and let his body move.
The morning's drills snapped into place — step in, blade up, cut down.
King's Execution whistled through the air and cut right into the monster's lowered neck, severing it almost completely.
By the time the Nightmare Creature was hitting the ground, the Spell was already whispering to Juno.
[Your desire sharpens.]
The Spell's voice washed through him, heat following it, sharpening the edges of the victory. His chest ached with both the fear of combat and the ecstasy of victory.
Panting, he stepped back, braced a foot against the shell, and thrust Execution into the beast's hard shell. He had to get the shards as soon as possible; he couldn't let himself take a break now.
In less than a minute, Juno had absorbed his shards and left the scene.
The whole fight took about three minutes.
It was tight, efficient work.
It was work Juno could be proud of.
The next scavengers didn't get that much attention.
The third one he met that day was pristine, all armor and ugly intent. He took one look at the way it moved — fluid, fast, no hitch in its step — and did not insult it or himself by trying to practice on it.
In went Blood Fang. Out went Juno. The dance was familiar now. He still almost died once when the pincer gouged a coral wall too close to his head, showering him with shards.
[Your desire sharpens.]
It felt like the others.
Shard. Crush. Whisper. Move on.
The last scavenger of the day, he found not far from Bongo's base, pacing a muddy corridor between two tall coral mounds. It was fresh, if a bit scuffed — not enough damage to qualify for another "practice" bout, not with his shoulder still complaining and his ribs wary of being asked for more bravery.
The fight blurred together: close in just long enough to plant the sword, vault away from a pincer, wait for the stagger, repeat. Blood Fang drank patiently. The scavenger slowed, movements turning from sharp to ponderous.
When it finally toppled, he was tired enough that he almost stabbed the wrong section to pry the carapace open, fingers clumsy on slick chitin.
He got the shard anyway.
By the time Juno got back to camp, he was aching all over. Sure, he had ached the previous days too, but this time around it felt more earned. Juno didn't just run this day; he had actually fought.
Inside the spine, where the world was bone and shadow and the distant hiss of the returning sea, he paused and summoned his runes.
[Soul Fragments: 20/1000]
Three neat lines. A tiny dent in a very large number.
Juno stared at it, feeling the faint, hungry satisfaction from his Flaw curl around the progress like a cat around a warm hearth.
Grinning slightly, Juno headed to bed. He technically had a workout to do, but he was too tired to do it. He earned himself the chance of going to bed instead of trying some more.