Ren crouched down, his hands groping through the crushed bodies, gathering every fragment of meat and the remaining chitin armor scraps.
There was no room for disgust. No time for fear. Only survival.
He tore apart the slimy cocoon, flipping over the hollowed-out meat, desperately trying to learn something from the death of the poor creature.
A gap, a sign, a tiny clue about the weakness of the monsters he'd face in this coral maze… But all of it was in vain.
Ren clenched his fist, blood seeping from his palm, dripping onto the damp, ink-black sand.
Damn it...
Ren knew\... time was running out.
The sun had reached its zenith, though not a single ray pierced the thick gray clouds.
The dim gray glow lingered behind the dead sky, but he could still feel it, a shift.
Not light. But instinct.
Something was moving. Invisible. But it could be sensed.
Daylight in this place... was too short. And when night fell, the black sea would rise.
He swallowed, his eyes quickly scanning his surroundings, his movements hurried like an animal backed into a corner.
He had to leave. Before it was too late.
Ren touched the thick thread wrapped around the cocoon, a fiber so hard it felt like cold steel.
Beneath the thread, the dry carcass of the Carapace Scavenger remained almost intact, a hollow shell devoured from the inside.
Without hesitation, Ren drew the crude knife he had fashioned from the creature's claw. He sliced with determined strokes against the tightly bound fibers, each cut tearing through the metal-like material.
Each strand was carefully pulled away, long, durable, almost unbreakable by bare hands.
This was an opportunity. A rare resource amidst the nightmare. With it, he could weave makeshift armor to defend against the claws and fangs.
Or... build a raft, if he still hoped to escape this deadly place.
The fleeting thought of crafting a perfect raft quickly passed through Ren's mind, only to be immediately dismissed.
No. He couldn't. He shouldn't. He wouldn't dare.
Drifting in the Black Sea, lost in the murky darkness like the night before... that feeling still lingered deep in his heart. The helplessness. The disorientation. And the suffocating silence that drove him mad.
Ren could not allow himself to fall into that state again.
He had to act. He needed to find a place to hide, to observe, to regain control.
He would go. Find the place where the spiders dwelled, where they spun webs and dragged the corpses in.
A crazy idea came to him.
Perhaps... if he were clever enough and reckless enough, he could hide inside one of those gray cocoons. Become part of the nightmare.
Just another prey. Already consumed. Nothing more to notice.
The dark thought crept in, clinging to Ren's mind like a cold spider's web.
He couldn't rely on luck. He couldn't go empty-handed. He had to prepare.
Quickly, Ren crafted a makeshift armor from the leftover scraps of the carcass. Hollow chitin leg segments were fastened to his arms and legs, secured with steel thread.
They were still bulky and heavy, but brittle compared to when the creature was alive. He knew that as the makeshift knife easily cut through the shell.
Even so, it was armor. Heavy, stiff, but better than leaving his bare skin exposed to the claws of nightmares.
Ren started with his limbs: protecting his arms and legs, the parts that maintained mobility and the ability to fight back. Losing a limb... was no different from walking into the door of death.
Next came the chest and head. Vital spots. If they were pierced, at least... the death would come quickly, without the chance to feel pain.
A patchwork armor. Ugly. Makeshift.
But it was his only chance for survival.
Ren stuffed the fresh monster meat into a black seaweed bag, the only thing in this place that could be called "resources."
Without looking back, he hurried on, following the trail left by the Iron Spiders.
The black sand bled, steel threads scattered around. The stench of rot and burnt acid lingered in the air. They had gone this way.
It seemed... south? Ren wasn't sure. In this dead land, direction was a vague concept; the sun didn't rise, only faintly appearing through the gray mist.
The wind didn't blow, and the sound of his footsteps echoed, as if bouncing back from his very mind.
But he had to keep going. Staying meant death.
Two more hours wandering through the crimson coral maze, Ren still hadn't made much progress.
He lacked tracking skills, and even less speed to escape the sudden dangers.
His Aspect, while strong in its own way, didn't help at all with reconnaissance or evasion.
To put it bluntly, it was useless...
Each encounter with monsters, or wrong turn into a deadly dead-end, was one more moment Ren lost...more time and a little more patience slipping away.
"If only I had an Aspect that could make me run a little faster, or increase my stamina... I wouldn't have to scurry through this damn maze like a rat..." Ren muttered, his voice bitter.
He sighed, a short breath, as though fearing that even his breath might attract something worse lurking in the darkness behind him.
He was racing against the gray sun, a strange sun hanging in the cold sky of the Forgotten Shore.
...If this really is the Forgotten Shore. Ren wasn't sure. That name was just something he had assigned to this dead land, a place that was both breathtakingly beautiful and eerily monotonous.
An endless maze of red coral and black sand, where terrifying creatures hid in the false tranquility.
But what scared Ren more than the monsters in the coral maze... was the thirst.
He hadn't drunk a drop of water since the night before.
Except for the seawater, so salty it felt like drinking his own blood.
"Wait... if I drank my own blood, would I die?" Some random questions floated in his mind.
Right, only the insane would drink their own blood or anyone else's to satisfy their thirst, or someone who was a horrifying bloodthirsty creature.
Finding fresh water was a luxury for those wandering the Dream Realm; humans would die if they went three days without drinking water.
Even with awakening, superior vitality and strength only prolonged the pain and suffering, as the water was gradually forced out of the blood and muscles.
The Memories that could conjure fresh water were more sought after than high-tier armor or enchanted swords.
Thinking about the Memories made Ren angry; he had once had more than one—a Tier 3 awakened armor set, a specially enchanted sword...
But the family had taken everything they once gave him, cruelly and without hesitation...
The anger suddenly shifted to relief in his eyes. At least... he was free.
The family could take back whatever they had given him, but whatever was truly his, still belonged to him.
Ren extended his hands forward, giving a slight shake to summon a Memory, a soft light flashing across his slender palms.
A small ceramic vial appeared in his palm.
[Oasis Vein.]
The very Memory Ren had received after his first nightmare, a tool-type Memory that allowed him to transform most liquids into fresh water.