A figure was moving through the crimson labyrinth. His shoulder-length dark hair disheveled and his icy saber was painted in blue blood. He was leaving behind two scavenger carcasses, fortunately he had avoided an encounter with Nephis.
He had actually seen her, she was dragging Cassia, the blind girl along with her. Luck was by his side that he had not made his presence seen to her. He had fled quietly after, unfortunately taking the path that was infested with more creatures of carapace legion.
Aether had been forced to take on two of them at once, fortunately he had only received a minor wound on his arm. But it was all thanks to luck, one of the scavengers had lost its footing while attacking, that was the only reason Aether had survived.
After absorbing the soul shards he was fleeing, using the charm like a roller skate he was much faster.
And then he was finally able to find a hill that seemed to surpass 100 meters in height. He climbed up the hill with practiced ease and collapsed onto the ground, breathing heavily. The fact that he could have been killed today weighed heavily on his mind.
'I need to be more careful.'
He had overestimated himself.
Forcing himself to sit up, he unloaded his bag. The meat of the worm and the scavengers fell out, fortunately he had decided to cook the meat of the scavenger. So he immediately started eating it like a starved wolf. He had not eaten for days now, and he was thirsty too.
Coming close to the dark sea was not the best idea. It was rising at the moment as he ate his meal.
Aether had decided that he needed to get stronger and more experienced if he wanted to survive in the forgotten shore. He needed to get more experienced and he needed to improve his hunting skills.
Actively hunting awakened creatures as a sleeper was a very bad idea. However Aether was not a normal sleeper. He had defeated an ascended human and an awakened monster while he had only one arm.
Aether was far from normal.
***
In the middle of the night, a sudden storm descended upon the dark sea. Aether was shaken awake from the heavy water droplets hitting his face, he was a light sleeper.
Staying low so as to not be blown over the edge of the platform, Aether cupped his hands and waited until they became filled with rainwater. Then he raised them to his mouth and greedily drank.
'Finally...'
Strikes of lightning illuminated everything above the churning sea. A jagged smile had appeared on Aether's face.
The storm continued to rampage for several hours. Aether crouched in the middle of the platform, enduring its rage. He had lodged his saber into the ground, holding it tightly with his other arm securing the backpack.
He was not going to let this masterpiece of a moss go!
By morning, when the storm finally dissipated, all of his muscles were sore. But the backpack was there! He had succeeded.
Aether was going to keep moving west, since there was more abominations to the west Changing Star was most likely going to travel elsewhere. Which meant that he could hunt as much as he liked while moving the west with no hurries.
He spent half the day mapping out the labyrinth near the hill and observing the nightmare creatures. Unfortunately he could only find the carapace legion and the worms around, all of them were beasts too. He did not consider himself to be able to take on an awakened monster, but he could use some more different species to unlock the first relic.
Then he spent the other half of the day training to throw the spear. It was harder than he thought as the spear never went in a straight line. As the night approached, he decided to just dismiss the spear and sleep.
***
After Aether woke up, he wasted no time to travel down the hill and immediately start heading west once again. He was going to travel not very far from the hill and then come back to it, this way he was going to memorize the paths he took and travel further in this style until he found another hill.
He was confidentially skating ahead when he suddenly stopped.
He crouched down to look at the string just in front of him. It was not an ordinary string, from what he could tell it was extremely sharp.
'I have walked into a trap.'
However it was an underwhelming trap, if he did not have the [False Sight] attribute he would not have seen the string that would have chopped off his legs.
Just at the moment he got up, a tremor shook the ground as a giant spider landed on the mud away from Aether, and the immediately started rushing towards him.
Aether stepped over the string and backed away, creating a mind link with the enemy. However the spider was not dumb enough to walk over its own trap, it directly jumped towards Aether, soaring high up in the air and coming down at him with crushing force.
Aether skidded backwards once again, avoiding the slam of the beast, the Azure spear appeared in his hands as he dismissed the saber. It was a dangerous idea to use it, but it was also the best way to gain experience and skill.
Reading its mind, Aether anticipated and dodged the attacks that came from the spiders long slender limbs. Each attack was fast, but weaker compared to the scavengers. When the spider left an opening between its attacks, Aether would thrust his spear forward and stab the spider.
It was clear that these types of creatures lead their preys into their traps instead of facing them firsthand.
The spider was becoming impatient as its prey struggled against it, it trashed its long limbs against the prey, however the pesky human either dodged or blocked its attacks with his weapons shaft.
As the spider started to create a lot more openings due to its impatience, Aether took the chance drove himself forward and thrusted his spear against it. The spear whistled through the air and stabbed itself against the head of the spider.
[You have slain an awakened beast: Iron Spyder]
Unfortunately he did not gain any memories. But he gained something valuable such as a soul shard and some experience with the spear. Aether could see that he lacked skill in the spear, he would need to train with it more if he wanted to improve himself.
He absorbed the soul shard, and the started extracting the sharp string of the spider. With the help of the [Shell] enchantment, his arm equipped the qualities of [Ever Winter]. So he was safely able to hold the strings.
He loaded it into his bag, which his extraordinary moss-bag endured the sharpness of the strings.
What a mighty bag he had created!
When Aether was about to continue his journey, he heard commotion from where he had come from. He stealthily approached there and observed what was happening.
What he saw both frightened him and made his mouth water.
In the distance five Iron Spyders were fighting against a greater enemy.
It was larger than the scavengers, with jagged spikes growing out of its thick carapace. Its chitin was black and crimson, like an ancient armor splattered with fresh blood. Instead of pincers, two terrifying bone scythes were protruding from the joints of its arms.
'An awakened monster..'
However that was not what amazed Aether the most.
It was the fact that the monster was holding onto a soul shard. And with just one look Aether could guess that the soul shard in its hand was one of the transcended ones! What was a mere awakened monster doing with one?
He needed to get his hands on that thing!
So he got to work.
He immediately unloaded his backpack and started using the strings to create a trap. Aether could tell that the monster was traveling to the west, because there was no other path than this one leading there!
The iron strings would not be enough to cut off its legs from what he could examine out of the fight between the spiders and the monster. However it would most likely trip when it crossed the trap.
Seeing tat he had more time before the fight ended, Aether also decided to dig up from the mud with his bare hands. He did not have much time to do it, so he could only dig out a more limited area.
The monster would not see what is beneath the mud and would not know the depth of it. So when it stepped where Aether had dug up, added with the iron string, it was guaranteed that it would trip or at least lose its balance, giving Aether a single second or two to finish the creature off.
After finally setting up the trap, Aether observed that the centurion had suffered several injuries, creating cracks in its crimson armor that Aether could exploit. The spiders had fallen.
Creating a mind link with the nightmare creatures posed no problem to him as they did not seem to recognize it. The centurion was now rushing forwards, it seemed to be in a hurry.
Aether's heart drummed against his ears as the tremors on the mud drew closer and closer.
And then finally the centurion was here. The mighty monster did not see the strings and tripped on its front feet, when it tried to stabilize itself with the other legs, it stepped too low into the mud and crashed against the mud.
At that moment a figure emerged from the shadows, a spear raised in their hands. His muscles tensed as he prepared himself to throw it. Then he launched it towards the centurion in full force.
The spear whistled through the air, gaining even more momentum and looking much more sharper than it was when in his hands.
The world seemed to freeze for Aether as he watched his spear hit the target.