"You don't plan to..." Leo growled at him, but let go of his T-shirt.
"Of course I plan to try to assimilate with it. These are dead people. DEAD PEOPLE, Leonard. You are a soldier for fuck's sake. They don't feel anything; their fight is done. But ours is right here. We can still die."
Leonard was silent. He understood why Mal proposed such a thing, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. But he gave in.
"Okay, but I won't try to do that. I am going to finish that animal while you have fun here," he blurted out as he walked away.
'Humans are animals Leo. We are too big for fungi and move too much for plants. Well, I won't enrage him even more. After all, I get him.'
With that, he quickly extracted three Wisdom Cores from the dead bodies. The first conclusion he had to make was a weird one. None of those Wisdom Cores had any rings around them, meaning they didn't even make the first step to ascension, yet they had a Wisdom Core. So he didn't create it when he battled with the existential terror. He simply became aware of its existence. Every human, therefore, had one. Despite the fact he just butchered the three dead bodies for these shiny stones, he still felt unhappy about that conclusion.
'If I can gain some power from them, it means I could just go around and murder normal people for strength.'
He absolutely wasn't willing to go that route. Well anyway, it's easier to find a monster here than a person.
He sat down, two of the Wisdom Cores now in his rucksack and the third in his hands. He went through the familiar process and found himself standing in front of his Wisdom Core. Another one was now in his hands. He repeated the same process as with the Terror Core. He half expected, half hoped he would gain another knot, but that's not what happened. Rather, the purple ethereal circle seemed to change color to something between purple and white. He slowly flew around it and then willed to leave. He didn't feel any change and so he decided to safeguard the two others for later.
He found that Leo had also finished his work. When he asked what it did, he told him that he didn't know yet. That seemed to calm him down.
"Let's go further. I would like to slay at least three more today."
They went out of the door into the street and decided to turn right. They were now going in the direction of the palace, but it was still far away and so they weren't too worried.
The narrow streets slowly diverged into much broader ones, and the houses became more plentiful. There was an eerie sense of loneliness hanging in the air—a remnant of some catastrophe that made the city plunge into ruins. The fact that there weren't any skeletal remains was terrifying him more and more. Could it be some really powerful monster? He had no idea. He felt as if he had been in the City Under the White Sky for an extremely long time, yet he knew nothing about this place that was now his home.
As they walked, Leo finally saw another set of claw traces and started his tracking session. These slowly led them through the streets until they emerged into a tiny town square. Mal was reminded immediately of the similar tiny square where he used to live. It looked small but cozy. He could imagine people walking here on their day off and others having stalls here to sell various stuff.
In the middle was, however, something that interested Mal to the highest degree. A little bust of a woman's face. They were now standing right in front of it. He felt like an ancient historian finding a long-forgotten civilization. It was a beautiful lady, around the age of 25. She had an outstretched hand in which was soil and some kind of seed, possibly. The statue itself was heavily eroded, so he could only guess. His first guess was some deity of earth and fertility. That could very well be symbolized by soil and seed. There was a golden plate, and on it stood:
[Saint Alter of Ir Za'avin]
So she is a saint, not a goddess. 'Ir Za'avin.' That would be the city where she was born. Probably officially recognized by the church which built the cathedral. She could have possibly prevented a drought or brought a new type of vegetable into the land.
It was then that Leonard put his hand on his shoulder. He turned to where he was pointing and saw it. Two wolves were slowly walking towards them from where they had just left. They must have followed them.
'Wow, these creatures are intelligent, it seems.'
The smirk on his face was, however, wiped off when he heard a deep howl behind him. When Mal turned around, it wasn't all that funny anymore. From the left street came two more wolves, and from the right, one more. They were ambushed and outnumbered five to two.
"Fuck"