After resting for about an hour, recovering from his worst of the injuries to an extent, Caster got up and started collecting the corpses over under a massive tree nearby.
But not all twelve of them. Two of them burst apart due to the lightning, so they weren't worth saving.
'I'll need a rope to take all these corpses to the settlement. Which I don't have.'
Looking around he found some wines on a tree. Taking them, he bound all the ten corpses he had tightly and tried to pull on them.
They barely budged.
'I'll try again after I am healed. For now, let's just rest.'
He dismissed his armor, to let it repair.
Caster layed down, next to the smelly corpses, naked.
'This might be the freakiest thing I am ever going to do...'
Sighs.
'Whoa... Caster's pretty packing too, just like me from my past life.'
Caster chuckles to himself. He had created a bad habit of talking in the third person a lot of the time.
Just like that, it had been another three hours. Now it was nearly evening. And the rain had stopped.
He must have napped in the middle because he blacked out.
'That was dangerous.'
But at least now Caster felt healed. Completely.
'Good as new.'
Now he resummoned his armor, which started with a leather clothing on the inside then the armor itself, sort of like traditional, medieval armor.
'Finally, I am clothed again. I'd be a bit worried about Cassie seeing me like that but... fourth wall won't let that happen thankfully.'
Finally, Caster went up to the corpses of the nightmare creatures he just killed and pulled on the wine that bound them together.
And this time, he was able to move them with relative ease. Thankfully the wine was strong enough for the task as well.
This task however, spilled blood all over due to the tightening of the wine.
'It can't be helped.'
It was already nearing evening, it was hard to tell with all the clouds but he estimated as such. It was still raining slightly, but the intensity was much lower than earlier.
Pulling on the wine made him soaked in blood again, from the head down to his waist.
It was hard to pull as them as well, not just because of the weight, but because the ground was muddy and they kept getting stuck.
'Look at the crap I have to do for the people in the outer settlements... I nearly died.'
Caster let out a bitter chuckle.
"It's taking so long... hopefully I reach the settlement before it gets dark."
He dismissed the healing charm and summoned the hourglass charm, to let it recover the time it used.
The journey back to the settlements was tiring. pulling over three tons of mass behind him, through thick dirt and mud was not the best.
He didn't even dare use his aspect because he had used up over 30% of the time in his hourglass charm, after just one fight. Granted it was a massive fight.
The efficiency of the hourglass charm seemed to have improved after the first nightmare, for whatever reason. He didn't really care as long as it benefitted him.
He also noted that the effect of his ability, acquired haste, the one that lets him speed up, also improved leaps and bound after Kieron's first nightmare.
The prievious Caster's ability was at the ascended level, but this Caster's ability was the same one, but at the Divine level. So his overall speed had not only become much more effiecient and smooth, stamina wise, it also got a much higher ceiling for speed.
At his top speed, he could outrun an awakened devil that specialises in speed. Like the centaur from earlier.
The only reason centaur was consistently faster in the fight was because Caster was holding back from using more of his aspect than necessary.
This is one major disadvantage that Caster has. His need to constantly conserve his strength if he doesn't want to die.
If not for that, he could possibly even outrun awakened tyrants that specialise in speed.
And this is currently, when Caster's beast core is just 10% saturated.
"How ridiculous will my speed get when I'm a titan?"
He couldn't wait to get more essence. But currently, he was more occupied with other tasks. The more important tasks.
After walking for a while, still pulling the meat, he noticed a small pack of white demonic wolves trying to surround him.
The food behind him was too enticing, even though they should be smarter than that and realise only a predator would have so much food, they are awakened demons after all.
There were a total of three of them.
Caster let go of the wine he was pulling and brandished his sword, summoned his helmet back and charged at the wolves before the wolves charged at him.
Without using his aspect of course.
***
[You have slain an awakened demon...]
[You have slain an awakened demon...]
[You have slain an awakened demon...]
A moment later, the wolves were dead, and Caster stood in front of their dead bodies. He collected the shards and absorbed them. He could have saved them for the book of books, but he decided he needed personal strength more, for now.
He went looking for wines again, bound the three wolved with the rest of the meat as well, and continued his journey back to the settlements.
He got slower due to the increased burden. Thirteen creatures are no joke.
At one point, the wine broke as well, and he had to look for more wines to bind the meat together.
He got attacked by more creatures during the way back. None of them survived.
Caster absorbed all the cores of course and he took back all the corpses. The amount of meat he brought would last the settlement for days, maybe weeks.
This kept slowing him down but at elast he was alive and in good condition to fight.
It took a while, but thankfully, he reached the settlements before the darkness hit the shore.
By now, he had twenty one bodies with him. From the collection of thirteen, he got a devil, five monsters and two demons added further.
Soul Fragments: [168/1000]
"Insane progress for a day. I was at like seventy in the morning."
The settlement's outermost tent, the one that Caster took, was now visible in plain sight. Barely fifty meters away.
***
The sound of the beasts getting dragged wasn't loud, but it was definitely not quiet either. It alerted the people from the settlements. They went out to look at the literal tower of beasts slowly coming towards them. They didn't notice the knight that was pulling on them at first, causing a freak out to occur.
Even Effie, who was coincidentally also coming back from a hunt, saw that and tensed up.
Afterwards someone shouted: "Look, someone is pulling the tower!"
"It's Lord Opposer of Mirracles!"
Hearing that baffled Effie a little. She hadn't been to the settlement in a few days and missed when Caster got to the settlement.
'A true name? A sleeper with a true name?'
She looked at the figure that was pulling the massive hoard of dead beasts with wines.
The figure was of a tall, handsome man, about as tall as Effie herself, who looked to be in his early twenties.
His hair covered in blood, making her unable to guess what color it was off. The blood dripped from his hair to his eyes to his pitch black armor that screamed death.
And he was just calmy walking towards them. Almost menacingly. He looked injured, with all the blood dripping off him, but his face was an uncanny mixture of gentle and stoic expression.
Effie smirked and licked her lips. The young man left a deep impression on her.
'Oh... I wonder how he tastes...'