Sezel summoned his card, a rectangle of silver gleaming with its sharp golden outline, perfect and cold in the half-light.
"Show," he whispered, voice thin and strained from anxiety. The card responded instantly. Across the air blossomed that familiar translucent screen, silver and spectral, painted with strange hope and endless questions.
He skimmed to his Fable at once, thumb deftly clicking open the panel.
[Fable – Master of Death][Tier – 1 – Rising][Evolution Points – 10/10,000][Soul Shards – 20/100]
His eyes held on the numbers. Sezel stared at it for a long moment, the only thing that increased were the evolution points, and only by five. 'Damn, so I get five evolution points per kill.' A surge of frustration crept into his jaw. What would ten thousand even mean? Evolve into what? He had no more answers now than he'd had the first time the card appeared.
But apart from that Sezel was more concerned about the soul shards, he didn't get any from killing. So, he gets them after he absorbs them.
The curiosity wanted him to achieve the easier part, if he gets ten of those from every haul then he just needs seven more, they seemed much easier than the evolution points to gather.
A smirk played on Sezel's lips, 'Let's see what happens when I have 100 of them.'
Sezel touched the dead beast's body with both of his hands, and imagined the Spirit energy flowing from the beast's core to his Spirit core. The faint light pulsed under his skin, moving through his veins, throughout his body.
He opened his eyes and examined the screen once again.
[Soul Shards - 30/100]
The number of Soul Shards went up by ten, hence proved that when he absorbs the beast's core he gets Soul Shards.
The corpse at his feet drifted into mist, just as the White Hunter before it, dissolving like a forgotten dream.
'So, when someone's Spirit core is absorbed their body just evaporates.' This was considering the body was even there to start with, in this place, the lines between real and fake felt too thin to hold up to scrutiny.
He took a slow breath and explored the chamber, maybe in hope of finding something useful, in the giant's place. Everything here was far larger than normal. Disappointment soured in his throat. If there were treasures for the taking, they were too massive to be of use to someone his size.
Eventually, he drifted to the threshold of the ancient door. It stood overhead like a cliff wall, dwarfing him completely—he felt like an insect pressed up against the hull of a shipwreck. Beyond it, a new world beckoned. He gulped hard, he would be safe as long as he hides inside this place, but he came here to seek answers. If he had to be safe, he would have been sitting in his room now.
'I need to walk further.' he was determined.
Steeling his will, Sezel crossed the threshold, and the world changed at his feet, a corridor stretched forward, so vast that four trucks could pass together side by side.
At the far end, a metal grill awaited. He padded to it, peering down—and his blood turned to ice. The floor ended abruptly. He was on a high interior balcony, one level up in a fortress of monsters, not men. Far below sprawled a chamber that resembled the gathering hall of some primordial castle: gigantic stone benches in regimented lines, a road wide enough for entire armies.
'Maybe this place is a giant's castle.' Sezel thought.
He looked over his head, at the center of the ceiling high above the hall a chandelier suitable for a palace hung silently, its iron arms choked with rust and knotted in webs.
But he had no time to dwell on what was lost or what never was, this place was abandoned, and covered in darkness that had never lifted in ages it seemed. "How does that black thing live in this place?" Sezel thought.
Indeed it was a question of how did that red-scythed creature manage to live here, even if it was his lair there was not much food around. Today, Sezel had brought food to its mouth but on other days it must leave this place to hunt.
"And that would mean an exit."
Sezel can't waste his time here, the main thing right now was to scale the land and reach to the heart of this gate. Considering it was an A-Rank gate the area opened by this gate would equal two or three countries in size.
And for a place this large the expedition would be expected to last at least a year or something, and looking back Sezel was all alone ever since he came here, no other slayer was transported here in this giant castle.
Stepping back from the grill, Sezel continued his trek along the vast corridor, trying to find stairs that lead to the ground floor, because if there was an exit, it would be on the ground floor.
'I need to be careful to use the pistol, sound might trigger that beast.' In a place as hollow and silent as this, the gunshot would echo far and wide and that would put Sezel in danger by exposing him to the beast he saw earlier.
He pressed on, threading through the vast gallery. Steps echoing, each chamber he passed was a ruined shell, every relic inside untouched by anything but dust and time. He wondered for a moment—'Wait if no one is here, does that mean the giants have gone extinct or did they just abandon this place?'
But it would be a bold claim to say they even existed to start with, here inside the Spirit realm everything was a fabrication.
"What exactly is the Spirit realm?" the question now haunted more at Sezel's mind. He just walked through the corridor, lost in distant thoughts when suddenly a voice called out.
"Hello, mister," the voice filled with innocence and fear, called out to him.