The corpses were gone
That was the first thing Anakin noticed after they'd descended past the point where sunlight became a memory. The bodies of those hounds were nowhere to be seen, something had already taken them.
Audrey moved ahead of him, her steps measured against the uneven floor. She hadn't spoken since the entrance swallowed them, which suited Anakin fine. There was a particular quality to silence in places like this— as though the stone itself was listening.
The passage narrowed, forcing them to angle their shoulders, and when it finally opened into something wider, Audrey stopped with one hand raised.
Anakin halted. Watching her as she closed her eyes and breathed slowly, she stood there for a few moments before her eyes opened, then they found his. "I can sense three signatures ahead, thirty or thirty five meters, steady yourself"
"Stone Hounds?....." Anakin muttered to himself
She studied him for a moment. "We could go around. Find another route."
Anakin smiled. It wasn't a particularly pleasant expression. "Could we?"
"I'm suggesting we should."
"I'm suggesting we don't."
Audrey's grip shifted on her sword hilt—subtle, yet perceptible, she was frustrated, maybe. Or just beginning to understand his nature.
"Why do you want to hunt them?" she asked quietly.
"They're in the way."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting."
The silence that followed had weight, but Audrey broke it first, exhaling through her nose and nodding once. "Fine….."
They moved forward together.
The chamber opened like a throat, revealing three figures low to the ground with deep red eyes filled with unbound madness. Audrey struck first.
Her blade sang through the air in a precise motion and the first hound's head separated from its body before the creature registered her movement. She was already pivoting toward the second one, each step looking like a dance she had prepared for slaughter.
The second hound lunged at her. She sidestepped with her left foot and drove her other leg into its torso.
"Ghaha!!"
The thing made a distressed noise as it was thrown back several feet. Audrey did not give it time to recover, with another clean slice, its throat was open.
Anakin's target was turning toward her, distracted by the sudden violence, he used the opening without hesitation. Four long strides closed the distance. The hound's jaws snapped toward him. Too high. He dropped beneath them, driving his fist into its ribs with enough force to crack the stone like flesh.
The impact traveled up his arm. Satisfying. The hound's ribcage caved inward, and it tried to howl but only managed a wet gurgle before his second strike crushed its skull into the stone floor.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Stone Hound.]
[Your fate is mending.]
[You have received a Fragment of Fate.]
Anakin straightened, breathing steady, and found Audrey watching him over the dissolving corpses of her kills. Her expression was carefully neutral, but her eyes were a mess.
"You fight too… brutally" she said finally.
"Do I?"
"Like you already know you're going to win."
Anakin dismissed his gauntlets and stretched his fingers. "Is that a problem?"
"It's interesting." She cleaned her blade in the air, blood sliding off like the steel rejected it. " Many people show more respect for the danger."
"Those people aren't me."
"Clearly."
Audrey sheathed her sword and started walking deeper into the tunnel.
Anakin followed, and the darkness closed around them like a held breath.
The hours bled together in the descent, marked only by brief eruptions of violence and the slow accumulation of fragments.
They developed a rhythm without discussing it: Audrey's perception would ping any and all movement ahead, then they'd close the distance, and the killing would start. She moved like water finding its course—An inevitable yet lethal wave.
Four dormant Stone Hounds. Two awakened Carapace Scavengers that had wandered into the tunnels. Another pack of hounds attracted by the scent of blood.
Each fight slowly sharpened the two, working together, they were doing better than most would do. Two mundane people dropped in this hell, Anakin knew she had a whole lot more secrets than she let on.
But Audrey too was watching him now. He could feel her attention like pressure against skin, noting every moment where his strength exceeded what a dormant human should possess, even his style of battle was too rash for a normal person. Well we all had our quirks right?
By the time exhaustion started creeping in at the edges, his fragment count had climbed to 136.
"We need to stop," Audrey said, and her voice carried just a bit of fatigue beneath the measured tone. Even divine aspects couldn't eliminate the need for rest.
Anakin scanned the passage ahead, his eyes had adjusted enough to pick out vague shapes of openings and alcoves. There, maybe twenty meters forward, a narrow split in the wall that opened into what might've been a chamber.
"There," he said, pointing.
They moved to investigate. The chamber was small, barely large enough for two people to lie down without touching, but it had only one entrance and walls smooth enough that nothing could easily climb down from above.
Audrey pulled out a few things from the air, dried meat, water and even a small bundle of kelp that glowed faintly in the darkness.
"Eat," she said, tossing him a strip of meat.
Anakin caught it and bit down. The texture was unpleasant, but he was too hungry to find enjoyment. He chewed methodically and watched Audrey settle against the far wall.
She was studying him again with that analytical gaze.
"You took a hit in that last fight," she said quietly. "The scavenger's pincer caught your shoulder."
"Did it?"
"I saw the blood."
Anakin glanced at his shoulder where his shirt was torn and stained dark, but the skin beneath was smooth and unmarked. The wound had closed sometime in the past hour—faster than last time, which was satisfying to note.
"Guess it wasn't as deep as it looked," he said.
"Right." Audrey's tone was flat. "Not deep. That's why there was blood running down to your elbow."
"Wounds bleed. That's what they do."
"Then how come there is no scarring?"
Anakin met her gaze and didn't look away. The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken questions and the weight of decisions that would shape everything that came after.
"My aspect is complicated," he said finally.
"You've mentioned."
"I'm still figuring out what it does."
"That's convenient."
"It's the truth."
Audrey held his gaze for a long moment, and he really didn't know what to say. Because Anakin himself didn't know what his aspect was, not even if he had one or not. Instead of confronting him, she just nodded slowly and took a drink of water.
"Everyone has their secrets," she said.
"That we do."
"But if yours get me killed—"
"They won't."
"You can't promise that."
"I just did."
She studied him for another moment, then leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. "We'll sleep in shifts. You will take first watch. Wake me up in four hours."
"Understood."
Anakin settled against the opposite wall, and let the silence settle around them like dust. The kelp's light flickered against stone, throwing shadows that moved when nothing did.
He pulled up his runes in his mind's eye, confirming what he already knew.
Fate Fragments: 136/700
Five hundred sixty-four to go.
The number should have felt daunting—an impossible mountain to climb—but Anakin just felt the familiar pull of hunger, that addictive need to see the counter rise. Weeks of descent ahead. Hundreds of creatures waiting to die. Each one brings him closer.
Closer.
To what, he didn't examine too closely. Some truths had teeth.
Across the chamber, Audrey's breathing had evened out despite her claim about taking watch–exhaustion had won. Anakin could have woken her, reminded her of the shift rotation, but he didn't.
Let her sleep. He didn't need rest yet. The Ring of Burden kept his body light, kept exhaustion at bay, and there was something almost peaceful about the darkness when you stopped fighting it.
The tunnels carried sound strangely, carrying distorted echoes that suggested movement in passages that might've been ten meters away or a hundred. Clicking. Scraping. The distant howl of something that was probably starving.
Anakin listened to it all with detached interest, If something came, he'd wake Audrey.
If nothing came, he'd let her rest.
Either way, when morning arrived, not that morning meant anything down here, they'd keep descending, keep killing, keep accumulating fragments until the counter filled or something killed them.
Those were the only two possible outcomes.
Anakin smiled in the darkness, and the expression held no warmth at all.
He knew which outcome was more likely.
The howling started during what Anakin estimated was the fourth hour.
Multiple nightmare creatures, moving through the connecting passages with the sound of their wet claws scraping on the stone. Coming closer. Following their scent, sound or just the instinct that there was prey down here worth hunting.
Anakin didn't move immediately. He listened instead, counting the overlapping echoes, one, two, three….
Four. Maybe five.
When the clicking grew loud, he silently shook Audrey awake, her eyes snapped open, A sword already appearing in her hand with brilliant white sparks, Anakin was already standing with his gauntlets manifested.
"How many?" she asked quietly, sleep vanishing from her voice like it had never been there.
"Four at minimum."
"Can we avoid them?"
"Why would we?"
Audrey looked at home, really looked at him, and something shifted in her expression. Her face grimaced but she did not speak further against the idea, an understanding settled inside her, her ally was not someone who would overlook opportunities in terms for survival.
"You're insane," she said.
"Are you hitting on me now? At this time?"
"That wasn't a compliment."
The first creature rounded the passage entrance, it was, much to the two's surprise, a Carapace Scavenger, its shell pale and segmented, pincers spread wide in anticipation of easy prey. Three more followed behind it, clicking and scraping as they squeezed through the narrow opening.
Four. Anakin had been right.
"I'll take left," Audrey said, already moving.
"I'll take whichever ones don't die first."
She almost laughed. Almost. Then her blade was singing, the first scavenger's extended pincer was hitting the stone floor in a spray of pale ichor.
Anakin moved while it was still falling.
The second scavenger saw him coming and lunged, its pincer aimed at his chest, fast, yet entirely predictable. He sidestepped with minimal effort, caught the pincer mid-strike with both his hands, and pulled.
The scavenger's momentum worked against it. The pincer tore free at the joint with a wet sound like breaking wood, the creature shrieked, its high and piercing voice echoing all around before Anakin's fist caved in the front of its shell.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[Your fate is mending.]
[You have received a Fragment of Fate.]
He didn't pause to dismiss the notification. The third scavenger was already moving, trying to flank while he was occupied, Anakin turned into the attack instead of away. Letting one pincer scrape across his gauntlet harmlessly while driving his other fist into the gap between shell.
Its chitin cracked. Something vital inside ruptured. The creature collapsed.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[Your fate is mending.]
[You have received a Fragment of Fate.]
Anakin straightened and looked across the chamber. Audrey was standing over two dissolving corpses, her blade clean of any blood, breathing barely elevated. She met his eyes, and there was something in her expression that hadn't been there before.
Wariness.
"You're not even winded," she said.
"Should I be?"
"Yes, Normal humans should be"
"Human? What makes you think I'm human?" Anakin decided to play along, he dismissed his gauntlets and examined his forearm where the pincer had scraped across. The gauntlet had taken the impact, but there was a thin line of blood where the claw had found skin. Shallow. Irrelevant. "You handled yours efficiently."
"So did you." She didn't sheathe her sword immediately. Just stood there, watching him with that analytical gaze. "Too efficiently. Like you weren't even trying."
"Is there a wrong way to win? Plus they were mere dormant beast"
Audrey almost snorted "Mere? Are you seriously calling a nightmare creature mere? While you yourself are a sleeper?"
Anakin smiled, that crooked expression resurfacing on his face, if only she knew. Anakin did not answer her though, he found a comfortable spot to lay down and closed his eyes.
Audrey's hand was still on her sword hilt, not quite ready to dismiss it just yet. She was starting to decide how much uncertainty she could tolerate before it became a liability.
Finally, she sighed and sheathed the blade.
"Get some rest," she said. "I'll take watch properly this time."
"Not tired."
"That's part of the problem."
The Ring of Burden was keeping exhaustion at arm's length, and his mind was too active for sleep, plus his eyes were glued towards his runs.
142/700.
Six more kills. Eighteen fragments added.
At this rate, he'd hit 600 within three weeks. Maybe less if they hit denser populations deeper down.
Closer.
The word whispered through his thoughts again, and this time Anakin let himself acknowledge it. Whatever waited at 700 fragments, it was worth the descent. Worth the lies. Worth Audrey's growing suspicion and the risks he took that should have killed him.
It was worth everything.
Across the chamber, Audrey sat with her back to the wall and her sword across her lap, eyes on the entrance but attention somewhere else entirely. Thinking. Building a picture of Anakin that didn't match the story he'd told.
Let her think.
By the time she figured out what he really was, it would be too late to matter.
After all, he was the stro-
Fuck no, not doing that, nope.
Author note: cough cough, ok im back, i just have a advice for all of you, dont go to collage and if you do, dont spill coffe on your DAMNED laptop. Thank you
-- Emperor Rossele