The familiar voice resonated in his ears, cold and mechanical, 'Slain a White Hunter?' He let the moment settle around him like mist before he reached inward and summoned his card.
The Slayers can summon their card in physical form when they are in Spirit Realm, because they become five times stronger here.
The card materialized into Sezel's hands, "Show," he muttered.
The card transformed into the silver and gold gleaming status window. Sezel hastily read it from top to bottom, there was nothing new, everything was the same as it was except a small red dot on the arrow beside his Fable.
With trembling fingers, he tapped the arrow. The status window unfurled further, and strange new data spilled out.
[Fable - Master of Death]
[Tier - 1 - Rising]
[Evolution points - (5/10,000)]
[Soul Shards - 10/100]
Sezel's eyes squinted, 'Wait, what is this Soul Shards thing, and how do I have 10 of them?' And apart from that, he also got 5 Evolution Points, whatever they were, he was not told about them in the classes.
Stranger still, there was a new option at the bottom of the gleaming window: Inventory. An urge pressed at him, and Sezel obeyed, pressing the glowing icon. Instantly, the interface vanished, replaced with a grid of empty blocks—rows and rows of small, shadowy squares, as if promising treasures he didn't yet understand.
'Huh, what is this?'
Sezel pondered, but the silence had no answers. Only more questions—questions that branched and multiplied until he felt dizzy beneath their weight.
He set it aside with a sigh, teeth set in frustration. The pain in his side wasn't gone. His wound bled less than before, a big patch of crimson had already appeared on his shirt, reeking of human blood, a unique scent in the oppressive smell of the black ichor around him.
No use worrying for now. He'd survived worse. Forgetting that for now, he looked at his haul. First, he crouched beside the beast he had killed by stabbing it in the heart. He remembered the class in which Raelion taught them about how to survive inside the Spirit Realm.
The first was to take the Spirit Energy from the beast that you have killed.
He placed both his hands on the chest of the corpse and closed his eyes. 'Think of it like flow of water, from the dead beast's core to your own Spirit core.'
A subtle light shimmered beneath his fingers. The glow crept into his hands and surged through his veins, threads of color glinting beneath his skin. Sezel shuddered as a strange warmth spread to every corner of his battered body.
A current of life that was not his own wove itself into him, threading through muscle and bone. Gashes sealed and bruises faded; his wound stung fiercely, then dulled as new skin closed seamlessly over ragged flesh.
With a gasp, Sezel tore his hands away, shocked. The beast's corpse began to smoke and fade, dissolving into a haze of glittering mist until there was nothing left but silence. "What... What did I just do?"
According to what Sezel had learned, he was supposed to channel the Spirit Energy from the dead beast, but it was more like he was converting the beast's very body into his life force.
He quickly ran his hand over to where the wound had been. His mind reeled as he stared at his gut. The shirt was caked with dried blood, tight and uncomfortable, but beneath it his skin was new. Untouched.
Sezel's pupils shrank. Something like this had already happened with him before too. "My arm regenerated and the wound in my chest closed on its own."
But when those things happened he was not conscious, and now his mind questioned, how did that happen? Did he absorb the life force from some beasts in that cave?
He stood, brushing grit from his pants and grimy shirt, tension draining as reality pierced the fog of survival. He peered out; only blackness lay beyond the narrow, ghostly shaft of light from above. 'Is this place just a hollow mountain?'
Sezel's thoughts snapped back to the present. He summoned his card again to confirm his suspicions. This time, the card pulsed with a faint, golden aura, as if feeding now on whatever he'd just consumed.
"Show."
The only change he noticed was in the number of Soul Shards. He had gained some. The numbers shifted.
[Soul Shards – 20/100]
A strange excitement flickered within his heart, 'What will happen when I have 100 of them?'
The answer felt close—dangerously close. From absorbing that White Hunter, his count had leapt up by ten, just like before. Maybe the other ten were a reward for the kill. Or maybe they'd lain dormant, earned in ignorance. Either way, it meant possibility.
It was all just questions and no answers. He was just about to discard the screen when a red glow over the inventory button caught his eye. He clicked on it, and inventory opened.
But this time it wasn't empty. One of the top-left blocks showcased something. Sezel narrowed his eyes. He remembered Raelion telling them something about a rare happening of getting objects when they absorb the Spirit Energy from a beast.
Sezel curiously clicked on it, but nothing happened. Sezel reached out with his mind, willing the object to appear. With a pulse, something round began to form out of thin air, and soon a pair of something that looked like a glass was present in his hand.
"What is that? Glasses?" he sighed. "But I can see clearly." He turned them over, baffled. Ordinary, unimpressive. His eyesight wasn't weak at all.
He started to dismiss them, until a flicker of color shimmered across the lens as he lifted them to his face. The wall in front of him was visible through the lens, and there was nothing but darkness without the glasses.
He grinned sharply, surprise blooming. "This… is amazing." But his celebration barely had time to spark before it died, smothered by the heavy silence. The cave seemed to shrink. From somewhere out in the dark, footsteps echoed.