Wary, Silas chucked his knife at the motionless beast. With his newly bolstered strength, the blade tore through the deer's thick hide and lodged itself deep into its flank.
The animal didn't so much as twitch.
Silas exhaled, a crooked smile tugging at his lips. "Well, it's dead, thankfully." A chuckle slipped out, light but tinged with exhilaration. The rush of adrenaline pumped through him like fire. Fear should have weighed him down, but instead, joy filled him. A raw, unfiltered sensation of triumph.
It was the first time in a long while he had truly felt something. Something powerful.
"Am I turning into some sort of battle-fanatic…?" He licked his upper lip, savouring the metallic tang of excitement, before shaking his head. "Doesn't matter. As long as I can keep feeling like this."
Approaching the deer, he mulled over his mission, only to pause as a faintly glowing arrow blinked into existence in his vision, pointing downward. It hovered insistently over the beast's skull, gleaming white against the muted forest gloom.
"Well…" He huffed, almost amused. "With every moment that passes, it feels more and more like I'm in some sort of video game."
After grabbing the knife lodged in the beast, he crouched beside the carcass and followed the arrow's command.
However, just as he was about to plunge his knife into he fallen beast, a soft white light shot out from the corpse, causing him to close his eyes.
"What the—" Silas shielded his eyes.
As he felt the glare settle, he opened his eyes to be met with the same sight he had seen before the appearance of the white light.
Nothing seemed to have changed.
"Did I just hallucinate…?" He muttered.
Still, with a quick shake of his head, he refocused on following the direction of Charon, plunging his knife into the deer.
The blade carved into flesh with a wet resistance, parting hide and muscle until bone scraped against steel. Silas grimaced but pressed harder, twisting until the cranium split. Blood spilled out as the cloying scent of iron filled the air.
As he pried open the cavity, his knife then brushed against a solid shape. Something unnaturally smooth amidst the sea of flesh.
Silas dug it out slowly, and as it came free from its organic casing, the object glinted from dim light filtering through the branches.
A bead. No larger than a marble, glowing faintly crimson, as if a drop of blood had been crystallised and compressed.
[Beep!]
[Scanning contents… Successful!]
[Unknown Virus]
[Description: This is the aggregation of a strange virus, manufactured by an unknown entity. Analysis and comparison of known viral strains indicate symptoms include: loss of impulse control, increased aggressiveness, alteration in taste to facilitate a carnivorous diet, a shortened lifespan of only a few years, and reduced fertility. The virus is hypothesised to spread through the exchange of bodily fluids, most prominently through bites from the infected.]
Silas stared at the bloody bead, thoughts surging through his head.
'This virus was manufactured? So it isn't tied to the Rapture…' His head tilted slightly as the thought deepened. "Hmmm. Then what did this unknown entity intend to accomplish with it?"
For some reason, his earlier doubts returned to him. The Rapture had descended prematurely upon Earth, before humanity had even been ready to colonise other planets.
"Interesting. How very interesting." Silas' eyes glowed faintly, an unsettling smile tugging at his lips. He was growing more and more grateful that he hadn't died. After all, how else could he savour such a mystery? A mystery that could very well imperil every life still clinging to the planet.
[Beep!]
[Mission Accomplished! Rewards Are Being Dispensed!]
Hearing this, Silas closed his eyes and savoured the rush of foreign information as it seared itself into his mind. When his eyes opened again, his panel had changed, his Martial Arts skill had been replaced.
[Raging Thunder Fist]
[Description: A martial art that doubles as both a training method and a combat style. Through continuous practice, the body learns to filter and absorb Primordial Energy, increasing strength with every strike.
Born in the Orion Martial Dominion, its practitioners drew energy into their flesh to shatter mountains and rival warships. Its most famed master, Imperial Marshal Kaelvar Dros, the "Thunderheart General", became a living storm, feared across star systems. Yet his ambition led him to massacre a world for treasure, a crime that branded him traitor. Though Kaelvar later perished in revolt, his technique survived, carrying both his brilliance and his infamy.]
Letting out the breath he had been holding, Silas clenched his fists, the lingering rush of adrenaline still thrumming through his veins. His gaze shifted to the carcass of the Earthbound Deer sprawled before him.
He frowned.' I shouldn't linger here. At this rate, something else will smell this and come running.'
His eyes dropped to the strange red orb nestled in the deer's open skull. Its glossy surface gleamed faintly under the fractured light that seeped through the canopy. Silas hesitated, brows furrowing as a moment of doubt surfaced.
What was he supposed to do with this thing?
"Ah, whatever." Silas shook his head.
Whether fortunate or not, he had neither the tools to contain nor the means to destroy the bead. Leaving it here was his only choice, as much as the thought grated on him.
Rarrgh!
Grrrghhh!
The guttural roars and low growls of unseen predators echoed through the forest, rolling closer with each breath.
"Well," Silas muttered with a mirthless chuckle, "I guess that's my cue to leave."
He rose to his feet in one smooth motion, casting aside the knife that had touched the bead. The bloodied blade clattered against the stones with a dull ring, abandoned without a second glance.
Leaving behind the ruined clearing, littered with corpses and drenched in blood, Silas slipped back into the forest. His body ached with every step, the earlier exhilaration draining into a dull heaviness that clung to his limbs.
More than the physical fatigue, it was the strange drowsiness creeping over him that unsettled him most—dragging his mind toward the abyss of sleep.
Branches snagged against his clothes as he skulked through the undergrowth, each rustle sounding louder in his fogged awareness. His eyelids grew heavier by the moment, blurring the shapes of the trees into dark, swaying shadows.
'Not here… not now…' He thought, his consciousness slipping.
With what little strength remained, Silas hurled himself into a thick bush, forcing the branches closed over his frame. The thorny twigs clawed at his skin, but he didn't care. Better hidden and scratched than found sprawled in the open.
As the world around him dimmed, he curled in on himself, clutching the faint hope that the foliage would mask his scent and sight from whatever prowled the forest.
Silas felt a strange clarity seize his mind.
Though he drifted in a vast, lightless void, there was no confusion, no haze. His thoughts burned steady.
[Beep!]
[Soul Absorption Skill Activated!]
[Spirit increased by 0.1]
[Spirit increased by 0.1]
…
[Earthbound Deer Memories Archived!]
The familiar panel flickered into view, and Silas' lips curled faintly. 'So that's what the white light earlier was… absorbing not just its spirit, but its memories.'
Before he could dwell further, the void fractured into light, and scenes began to cascade before his eyes.
There was a fawn. He watched fragile little thing stumble through an ordinary woodland. Its days passed in sunlit forests and moonlit clearings, growing, running, surviving.
And then… came the Rapture. The sky tore open, and waves of amethyst light bathed the land. Plants twisted, beasts convulsed, and the fawn, now a stag, watched its world split apart.
It fed on a strange brown fruit. The moment its teeth sank into the flesh, its body convulsed. Horns thickened and jutted into jagged spikes. Soon it found even the earth beneath it heed its call.
The next series of scenes came in fleeting fragments, offering Silas only scattered glimpses. He saw the deer swallowed by shadow, its antlers sinking into a pitch-black mire as its vision dissolved into darkness.
The vision shifted again. The stag now lay bound in a sterile chamber of metal and glass. It was some sort of laboratory. Its body was pinned against a slab by restraints that glowed an iridescent silver, its chest heaving as indistinct shadows loomed around it.
Silas seared into his mind the scenes before him, how the air carried a suffocating stench of antiseptic and dread. How he could feel cold instruments cut into the deer's flesh time and time again.
More and more flashes followed, too fast for Silas to properly grasp. Strange runes flickered past its eyes, and a chorus of whispers in a language he could not recognize pressed against his ears.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the stag's perspective lurched back to a primeval forest, standing once more amid the warped landscape it had once known as home.
Silas opened his eyes, as he felt a discomfort spread across his body. His surroundings bled into sight as he realised back in the real world, his body shoved in a bush, leaves rubbing against his face, branches poking at his body and the smell moist dirt assailing his nose.
Groaning, he forced himself up as he called up his panel.
Name: Silas
Attributes:
[Constitution: 1.7] [Spirit: 2.7]
Talents:
[Eye of Omniscience] [Soul Absorption] [Illusion Control]
Skills:
[Basic Illusion Control (Lv.1) — A skill granted by host's awakened ability. It uses talent to create minor illusions, limited to only vision.]
[Raging Thunder Fist (Lv.1)]…
Rubbing his head, Silas tried his best to sort out his thoughts.
"Great… so this is the Soul Absorption skill Charon mentioned?" he muttered, massaging his temple as he mulled over what he had seen and gained.
'So not only have I increased my Spirit attribute, but I also know there are quite a few other monsters infected by this… virus.'
That thought left him unsettled. The virus was clearly manufactured by someone or something. But Silas could not fathom what their aim was.
Had this virus already spread around the world?
Have humans already been infected?
Hell, better yet, were there still any humans left?
Or had the planet already been overrun by these twisted abominations?
Silas pushed through the thicket, his body still sluggish but his thoughts sharper than ever. A haze of mist clung to the forest floor, coiling around his ankles as he walked through the forested landscape.
"But I wonder…" He whispered, "Did I become drowsy because of the Soul Absorption? Or was it my own illusions taking their toll?"
No answer came, and perhaps that was for the best. He shook his head, keeping low, eyes darting for movement as he navigated through twisted trunks and broken branches. Time dragged, until his eyes fell upon the familiar shimmer.
The portal.
Its faint ripple of light pulsed between the trees, distorted like the surface of water disturbed by an invisible breeze. Without hesitation, Silas stepped through.
The world shifted in an instant. The heavy silence of the forest gave way to the desolation of crumbled stone and fractured streets. He found himself once more in the ruins of Westershire.
Collapsed walls leaned against each other like broken ribs. Streets were choked with debris and overturned carriages, all painted in a dull ash-gray by layers of dust. Still, Silas was glad to be back.
'I should leave… try to see if I can find any people outside. Maybe… maybe other cities were unaffected?'
The thought offered a flicker of hope. Yet even as he clung to the thought, the world answered back with something else.
A piercing scream.
High-pitched. Raw. And… human.
It cut through the silence of Westershire like a blade.