Caelum entered one of the ruin that he has found. This is the only ruin that is somewhat intact and usable compared to the others he found. He entered the ruin, through a broken piece of wall which appears to be a dome of a building.
The whole building might be underground. Caelum slowly makes his way deeper until he reaches a dead end as the wall had been collapsed making the entry impossible.
Caelum stopped and examined the room he entered. It was a circular chamber with multiple broken sculptures carved on the wall. Then he noticed a sigil that mostly intact right above the wall of dead end he encountered. The sigil was a downward thrust sword with wing on its back.
He ignored the sigil as he doesn't know what it supposed to symbolism just like anything in this wasteland. Caelum did one final inspection before nodding his head in satisfaction.
'This will do'.
He hope that the two troublemakers would not find this place atleast for a few days. He might need to deal with occasional scavengers and scouts but they pose no threat to him.
Caelum retracted his steps and exit the ruin through the dome and begin to walk in the wasteland. He hope this peace would reign forever. No cries, no sword clashing, no terrains crumbling, not even a single person on sight but he knew better to expect something reasonable than peace specially when it involves the two cities.
Caelum reached an open empty area that has no tight spaces or remnants of ruins except for a giant boulder.
'Perfect for hunting'.
He opens his satchel and retrieve the only remaining three meat of Emberfang hare and spread then on ground. These hares are easy to hunt but provides very less meat that wont last long so he needs something big.
Caleum opened his arm and summoned a glowing sword of aetherforging on his right hand while an umbraft's shadow blade on his left.
He stab both sword on the sandy ground near the hare's meat and slowly move the swords toward one and another. As the sword gree closer, he could feel its rejection of one and another, his hand starting to vibrate as the sword refuse to touch each other as their opposing blessing tries to repulse.
Caelum grips the sword harder and push them with all his might and make the sword touch each other which produce an uncomfortable vibration that keep passing inside the ground.
He just waited ten seconds before he could feel another vibration coming from the ground, a tremor. A smile formed in Caleum's face.
'There you are'.
He dismissed both swords without even bother to yank it out of the ground and started to run toward the boulder and hid behind it. The tremor becomes stronger and stronger until the ground burst open revealing a creature popped out of it making the sand splash all directions.
Dreadfang stalker - a reptilian predator with pitch-black scales and piercing yellow eyes. Its elongated snout was lined with jagged, venomous fangs, and its muscular body was built for both speed and stealth.
The beast was sensitive toward sounds and vibration but the same can be its weakness. It's very hard to see them roam around during the war as the intense aound and vibration coming from both army can overwhelm their senses so they usually roam around after the second horn.
The beast scans the area around and lay its eye on the hare's meat on the ground. It moves toward the meat and start munching on them greedily without a care in the world.
Caelum come out from the blouder and slowly approach the beast as not to alert it. Just when the distance has been closed, he summoned his golden blade and lunged at the beast. Before it could even sense the danger and react, it's already done. It's head dropped down with a thump and its whole body collapsed instantly.
"Well, that went well".
Just then caelum feel another tremor coming from his back and it's very close.
'Shit-'
He turnes and another stalker burst from the ground and lunged at him. Caelum use his sword horizontally and uses it to stop the snapping maw of the beast.
He keep pushing the beat's fanged jaw away while the beast keep pushing the blade inward toward caelum's neck. Caelum was locked in a tug of war with the beast while his hand starts to tremble.
Since the pushing is not working, Caelum dismissed the sword and tilt his head to the right, which make the stalkers fang sank on his left shoulder.
"Argh-".
Intense pain shot through his left shoulder make caelum scream. Caelum immediately summoned an umbracaft dagger on his right hand and thrust it into the beast's eye which make the beast let go if his shoulder and wails around in pain.
Caelum roll out the stalker's way , gets up and run toward the beast while it's still distracted. He dismissed his shadow dagger and summoned a long golden sword instead.
The beast that senses his approach, lunged at him again but this time, caelum got the range. He thrust the long sword directly into the beast's open jaw and make the sword come out of it back.
The beast went limp and Caelum let go of his sword and collapsed beside the beast while the golden sword impaled the beast started to melt into dust on it's own.
There was as no sound other than caelum's rough breath. He glanced at his wound which already started to close slowly but the beast's fang hold venom that will take hours to neutralise on it's and the process will be painful.
"And here…I thought everything… went smoothly. I guess… no peaceful sleep for me today". He forced his word out in the midst of panting.
He still had work to do, move the beast to the ruin, skin them and removing the poison veins so it can be edible. He learned it from his father before-.
Caelum used his hand to block his eye while still lying beside the beast. Tear welled up and started to flow pass the side of his face. Though this tear is not because of the wound.
"Fuck my life" he muttered.