The moment he opened the door there was an odd sensation and then he was somewhere else. His eyes that were once glancing at the gorgeous starry void was now filled with dirt.
That was not a comparison, it was a fact
All that lay before him, behind him and all around him was a vast expanse of gray and brown
The smell of the earth was rich here. Too rich as if ... as if there was nothing else
Where... where am I now?
He was still a bit shaken from the recent events. Committing suicide and being Transported to the world of your favorite novel and being given the chance to develop magical abilities was not something that was supposed to happen in anything other than fantasy novels, anime and manga
And yet he was now here
Transported to a new world and given the chance to develop magical abilities
'This really is my life now..'
This isn't a book anymore, Kaelen thought, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
This isn't a story I'm reading in Class
And so the first thing he did once coming into consciousness fully was survey the surroundings because he knew what he could find here and he knew how dangerous it would be for someone like him.
'Nightmare Creatures...'
He unfortunately was not Sunny who had spent a large part of his life living in the outskirts developing his cunning and self preservation skills nor was he Nephis who had been trained in combat by one of this worlds most powerful minds
He was a 16 year old who's most daunting struggle came from being kicked out of a rich family and living on the street for a year and a half while having full access to homeless hampers and public facilities
'I feel like those hard times are things I will be wishing for pretty soon'
He stopped.
'Runes...'
The runes would give him the description of what he was here. What ability would he have?
Maybe how Sunny got the [Child of Shadows] and [Fated] he would get something similar. Maybe his attribute will help him survive this mud land and he was sure he must possess something akin to [Fated] , There was no was he was sent here without something at the very least
'Now how to Summon those runes...'
He thought for a moment and then as if responding to his inexperience they appeared
...
Name: Kaelen
True Name:
Rank: Aspirant
Soul Core: Dormant
Memories: -
Echoes: -
Attributes: [Formless], [Fateless Fate]
[Formless]: You can assimilate though perseverance
[Fateless Fate]: A being not from this world now residing within its threads that cannot bind you, move you or break you. Your actions are your own and your story is yours to write and the stories of others can be written by you to.
Aspect: [Void Sprite]
Aspect Description: [A Sprite carries the essence of the elements, A Void sprite hath not chose the essence to which it belonged to]
...
No, he was taking it back. Being in this world gave him choice.
That attribute Fateless Fate gave him something that others in both worlds didn't and for now he didn't know what that 1st one meant.
Being in that old world where the rich got richer and those at the bottom sunk deeper with no control over it. At least here he would be able to claw his way to power or have the honor of dying while trying
'Though id prefer to leave death out of this'
There was a few moments of him standing in place thinking of a decision in which he can move and after a few seconds he chose to move forward.
As he walked the surroundings were almost all the same. There were pools of mud here and there that seemed to be made of flowing rivers, also of mud.
There were stone and rock formations around and even mini mountains of gray rock.
The ground that had no mud or stone had a mixture of gravel and sand.
'This place has no life... wasn't there supposed to be some people and nightmare creatures somewhere'
He stopped on a slab of rock that was besides 2 mud pools.
He squatted and ran his fingers through the mud and the moment he raised his head well...
You remember the saying: When you stare into the Abyss the Abyss will stare back at you.
Well now he was staring into the mud and the mud was staring back at him
There was a bulbous shape that was there in the mud with barely any distance between him and itself. He couldn't make out its form yet due to the mud but It looked like a Horseshoe Crab from his world the only thing was that it was a meter long without the tail
Its yellow-brown eyes matched with his black eyes and they were both stationary as if time had frozen
But then there was an odd sound something between a growl and the sound of mixing sludge.
And then with a wet, bubbling sound, the beast lunged.
Kaelen froze. His instinct shouted at him to run, but his legs felt like lead. He watched as the creature launched itself
It wasn't that fast, but Kaelen was clumsy... well not clumsy rather he was too inexperienced.
He scrambled backward, his foot catching on the edge of the slab he was on and he tumbled into the muck behind him and thankfully there wasn't another one in that mud-pool.
The beast was on him instantly and its weight definitely did not match its size. It felt like a literal pile of rocks was trying to crush the life out of him.
"Get... off!" Kaelen wheezed, his hands sliding uselessly against the creature's slick, muddy hide as he grabbed its sides to push it off
And suddenly it did not look like an horseshoe crab anymore
It looked a lot like a worm with miniature legs like a crab and a maw of teeth but instead of a slick seamless skin it had an exoskeleton of sorts that seemed to be able to keep the mud stuck to it but now it was slipping off after being removed from the source
The trauma of the last two years - the accusations, the expulsion, the loneliness—boiled up into a frantic, hysterical surge of adrenaline.
He didn't want to die. Not like this. Not after he had finally been given a second chance, however cruel it was. It was his
He reached out, his fingers clawing through the mud besides him and then he felt something while pushing the beast away, and eventually with adrenaline pumping through his blood he pushed it off and then it was now on the slate again
Kaelen woke up from the mud as it slowly leaked of his body and in his hand was a broken piece of rock. It was heavy but he managed to lift it .
He walked up to the beast that had already found its grounding again and was no longer upside down. It reared its body back preparing to launch itself again
But it never got the chance
Kaelen screamed, the sound lost in the silent air of this place. He brought it down on the creatures body. The pained screech of the Nightmare Creature and the sound of his roar melded together
One hit. Two. Three.
His muscles burned. His lungs felt like they were on fire. The "soft" boy from Earth was breaking this thing apart over and over till the chitin broke and the flesh was being breached. The pained screeches sounded over and over becoming softer and softer with the sounds of rock hitting rock becoming louder
The beast had stopped moving slowly and now all that was left was a few twitches of the legs and then it stopped
With a final, guttural yell, he drove the rock deep splitting it in two.
Kaelen fell front on his knees and his hand was placed on the ground where blood and mud mixed. He was gasping for air, his chest heaving. His hands were shaking.
[You have slain a Dormant Beast, Mud Crawler.]
[Your Soul grows Stronger]
He had barely heard it
'My first kill and it was a dormant beast... well technically I am one too'
Is this it? Is this what it means to live?
'Maybe the old world did have some advantages'
After a few minutes of heavy breathing he woke up and looked forward into the direction he was going to originally.
He looked around and saw what he was looking for to his left - 'I'm keeping this rock'
Night was coming and he couldn't see in the dark and while there was still like 5 hours of daylight left and he might need to kill something.
But unknown to him
A mist of gray and brown had seeped into him