Chương 18: Caution and Pride

He bit his lip, considering what to do from here. The first time he heard whatever the creature was, if there was one, he'd been so sure it was something in front of him. Was that acoustics, or had the monster simply looped around him afterwards and followed since then? He wouldn't run yet. The next time the noise happened, he'd see if it was simply a coincidence that it stopped when he looked behind him.

* So caught up was he in listening for a specific sound or matching his steps, that he very nearly missed the moment he heard the familiar pained groans of one of the other monsters in the area. The lapse in attention was enough to cost him, though. There was one of the vertical openings several feet back, and he might've been able to make it to safety another time, but that chance had already passed.

The edge of the monster appeared from around the corner, and he gave up on trying to run, putting his entire mind towards killing it before it could reach him. His Windwhip was already mid-air when he heard the scream, and the edge of his whip slammed into the creature's leg, br-'BOUNCING OFF?!' Despite the anchor seed's toughness, it was redirected with ease, the tactile sensation from it revealing it'd barely managed to make the leg stumble.

He reeled it back in quickly; he hadn't tested the rib-legs before, maybe they were bony and hard, like the steel of the Cannibals' camp. The creatures did have something magical in them, perhaps that was it? Viper-like, his whip shot out again, aiming straight for the thing's eye. It tilted its face to the side, but the seed still hit it square in the head. Yet, again, the seed's momentum stopped dead. For some reason, his whip couldn't pierce the monster as easily as it could the glassy stone around them.

He reeled it in again, panicking slightly as he realized he'd have to engage it in melee- even as its stilted legs made it tower over him. The monster had already crossed half the distance, but maybe he could send his whip out and tie around one of its le- It leapt through the air, aiming to land on top of him, the mouth curving along its lower body opening wide.

'New plan.' His whip went to the side, thankfully hooking into the stone with the ease he was used to, and his entire body jerked as he pulled himself out of the monster's trajectory. It scrabbled along the ground after landing, sliding a foot or two before reorienting itself to him. In that time, he was already making moves to change the tools at his disposal. The seed in his palm disappeared for a single vulnerable second, pushing out of his upper back a moment later- right between the shoulder blades.

Both hands gripped his sword, and the seed swung out, floating behind him, swaying as it awaited his command. There was no reason to summon the whip from his palm, he was just more used to tools being used through his hands. This way, he had a better sense of balance and could put more force behind his swings, but the seed was ready to extract him at a moment's notice. They stood against each other for a beat of stillness. Exploding into action at the same time, they rushed one another.

Its two front rib legs fell like mountains, and his blade came up to parry- a feint, of course, he had no idea how to parry. The seed was already hooked into the wall, and he hopped gently upwards as the line reeled him back two steps- just enough to avoid getting crushed- and he swung out, throwing his entire body into the strike. It was like cutting down a tree, but the feather was still unnaturally sharp. His arms shook with effort, but its thin edge went three-fourths of the way through.

He let the Windwhipped Seedblossom reel him the rest of the way in, just in time as well, considering the creature kicked forward, screaming in pain as blood sprayed from its appendage. Its baleful blue eye glared at him, and it was forced to lift its front right leg off the ground, lest it crack all the way through. Nine other legs to keep it upright, its speed was barely reduced when it lunged for him again, bringing him into the fray once more.

He kept to its injured side, striking at its flailing hurt arm and making it hiss and flinch in pain. Circling one another, they both kept a weary gap between them, but Aaron knew time was on his side. It hadn't stopped bleeding profusely, and the longer the fight ran, the weaker it would get. He wasn't the only one to come to this realization though, and the beast began intentionally taking hits to get closer, advancing as he drew back.

After the third thin cut, he watched in its eye as it began to tone out the pain, and suddenly threw caution to the wind. Going berserk, it used both arms to strike at him, even as its broken limb let out multiple sickening cracks; despite that, it worked, and before Aaron could adjust to it, he'd already been hit square in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him and sending him flying. It was only because he always had a death-grip on his blade that he didn't drop it mid-air.

The lower half of the monster's injured front leg connected by little more than a thin strip of bone, yet it still leapt at him while he was mid-air, bracing itself on the cracked bones to jump forward. He hadn't even gotten the chance to take a breath in, but his whip was already shooting upwards and into the ceiling. With a painful jerk, he moved his body high enough that the monster wouldn't touch him, but the whip didn't wait for it to land either.

He'd been treating this as some kind of turn-based combat- he needed to overwhelm the thing, not give it a chance to move, just as it had done to him. The whip interwove around its middle left three legs, and he was yanked down with it. His weight pulling against it forced it to land on its right side, and the leg finally gave out, snapping in half and forcing the monster to roll onto its back.

There was no delay between it landing upside down and him plunging the blade into its chest, right for the glowing core as, once again, he felt a crack. It seized and thrashed, but he was already ducking low when its legs tried crushing his head between them. Again, only a few seconds later, it went limp. He almost immediately dropped his blade, hands grabbing around his neck as he choked on nothing. He'd never gotten the chance to recuperate after getting his stomach and chest clubbed by its legs.

Yet, after a few perilous seconds, his lungs finally kicked into gear, and he took in a deep, gasping breath, stumbling to his knees, eyes bulging in their sockets, watering. Alternating between coughing and gasping for air, he eventually threw up, groaning as he held his stomach and the lower ribs that'd been kicked.

'Wow, getting the wind knocked out of you hurts a lot fucking more than I thought it did. How do people just shrug that off in shows and stuff? I feel like some of my ribs are broken…' His Primary kicked in after a few seconds, helping dull the pain, but by that point most of it was already gone; he could only attribute it to being such a shock to his system that it was incredibly unpleasant.

The concentration of energy to his Primary told him that there would be significant bruising around his stomach and his ribs were maybe a little fractured, but nothing life threatening, and definitely not enough to justify the pain it'd put him through. He stood straight once more, observing the body, and contemplated what to do. He tried getting the System to study the corpse from a distance, but no screen appeared, so again, he held his hand near the part that'd been glowy, and read what the System had to say.

{Interlink Fragment - 1/?} {Warning: excessive absorption of fragments may lead to unexpected outcomes.} It didn't say anything different or about his existing one, so he checked his Status. {Primary Ability: Onward Evermore Resistance: 1. 1 Sensitivity: 1 *Weight: 1 Corruption: 0 Fragments: Interlink 1/?} While its purpose was indecipherable, after some contemplation, he decided to absorb this one as well.

The first had done little to nothing, so he wondered if he'd be able to get more details once the reaction was a bit stronger. Last time, all he did was feel a little jolt run through his body that dried up before doing anything, so perhaps this one would build enough on it that he could understand it more? So, again, he decided to absorb the corpse, watching it flake away, collapse, and surge through his skin. Knowing what to watch for, he was able to feel the energy, studying it more deeply.

By the time it came to a stop, he'd found several important pieces of information. Most obvious was that it felt like it was not his Primary doing this, not at the start at least. Despite the corpse taking a golden hue, it had a very different tone about it. Next, he verified that it was running along the same path as the previous fragment- and that they were changing him. With each rotation, a new path was carved just a tad deeper through his flesh. Enough times, and it would be stable enough to be completed.

Most concerningly though, was how it felt once his Primary integrated it enough; with its noise drowned out under Onward Evermore's own, he found himself understanding it a bit more. This wasn't a language like Primaries, nor was it a great catastrophe like the Mushki's- it was simple, slow, and… friendly would be the best way to describe it. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. He rubbed his chin, comparing it to the feel of his current Secondary.

Windwhipped Seedblossom kept the explosivity of its predecessor piece from the Mushki, a very aggressive feel to it. So, if he chose to complete these fragments, would they be something useful outside of combat? Something slower-acting, maybe a utility? He couldn't say he hated the idea, but he wished he could know what it was before earning it. Turning that thought over in his head, he considered'Can I?' He knew the pattern after all, so what if he just manually recreated it?

He did have a higher-than-natural Resistance, the stat used to manipulate internal energies…

'Doesn't hurt to try,' he thought to himself, then turned a piece of his attention inwards, trying to shape his energies into the previous pattern. Having learned his lesson though, he most certainly did not forget to watch his surroundings. After two instances of wishing he'd been closer to a hole in the ceiling, he decided to basically hop from one to the other, moving forward in bursts from one potential hiding spot to the other. * {Required Interlink Fragments:? -1} Seeing the notification pop up, he abruptly cut his practice short, ending it there. Apparently, it was possible to lower how many he needed too, which shouldn't have come as a surprise considering he was carving the path himself now. But it was not so easy. Not only did it require finer control the more defined the paths within him became, but he forgot more of the pattern, making it harder. He decided to not mess with it anymore from here, lest he potentially break the mold he was trying to create.

But it wasn't for naught, as he now had a better idea of what it was doing. Several times during his experimentation, he felt his attention expand outwards, visions overtaking his eyes of a few different places he'd been along his journey. So, the ability was some sort of clairvoyance ability? No wonder the monsters weren't fighting with it, because what good would that do? If they could even get it to work of course.

The pieces he had felt somewhat difficult to work with, but that was less because it was a fragment, and more an aspect of the ability. So, clairvoyance that was a bit hard to control, or conditional in some way. He wanted to hate it, so he could justify being suspicious of taking fragments from warped monsters… but he had to admit, he was intrigued. If he were to guess what "Category" of ability it was, it had to fall under Sensitivity as its Stat, what else could it be?

Sensitivity was the only one that interacted with his senses.

'I'll have to put them out of their misery anyway. At least this way I will carry a piece of them with me.' * His attention was sharpened to a point, ready and waiting for anything to jump out at him. He caught every time the rustling happened, but no matter how quickly he looked or in what direction, he could never spot anything. Despite that, he continued forward with new ambitions and the desire to complete this ability sooner rather than later.

There were no more mishaps with the grays, and he was able to ambush each of them with ease. After five fragments, in addition to the "Fragment's worth" of practice he put in, he finally received the notification he'd been waiting for. {Secondary Ability Discovered: Mycelaric Tuning.} The lines forming the mold crystalized, and it became something more defined than it'd been before, for good or ill. Before, it was somewhat random when he would get a vision, but there wasn't any real cost.

Now, he found that it would only respond to him if he had two plants of some kind to look through; one as the input, the other as the output. If he did, he could link them together, and see through one and into the other. When he was getting visions of the places he'd been to before, he was seeing through all the previous seeds he'd dropped.

Now, if he wanted to do that, he'd have to permanently designate one of them as his "Eye," while holding a plant to look through that would accept the information and feed it back to him. Cameras, kind of. There were still a lot of blank spots in the ability, niche uses that he wouldn't know the result of until he tried, but the core of it was "Look through one plant material into another," and he was eager to test it out now. After all, there were a few seed bulbs on his back…

and he did have the seed at the end of his whip… so… He checked his Status, verifying what he'd suspected. {Primary Ability: Onward Evermore Resistance: 1. 1 *Sensitivity: 1 *Weight: 1 Corruption: 0} And, yes, Mycelaric Tuning was under the Sensitivity tab. Happily, he reached for the spark of his new Secondary, and watched the energy flow out of him and towards the seed. Only a second after his new energy touched the air, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head, and blacked out.

* POV: Otto, one of those holding the rope Aaron was tied to after he challenged the Mushki.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOOUUUUU!!!" Aaron shouted as the Mushki finally succeeded in breaking the last car in the line. The great and terrible beast paused, staring at Aaron, before completely leaving the rest of its prey behind, sparing all those who hadn't been smashed or stabbed by it already Looking at the shirtless man staring down that… monster, Otto couldn't help but realize something perhaps concerning about their de-facto leader. He was completely fucking insane.

Otto should've pieced it together when he saw the man half-melted with cancerous growths bursting from his skin, but Aaron simply could not be entirely stable; not as an insult, but a simple necessity to do what Aaron had done so far. There were a few rumors surrounding him, some who were eye witnesses, like Aaron's previous landlord Gary, while others quietly expressed the fearful results of their abilities.

There was a group of people who'd gained something called "Scan," allowing them to access the data packets of other people- basically, letting them see what the System found noteworthy about them. After Aaron united them, people had gradually begun to open up, a bit more information surrounding their leader came to light, giving Otto even more context.

Aaron was someone who'd tragically lost his entire family just a couple years before entering the Underworld, whose first interaction was with the Mushki they now ran from. The Mushki was literally the first other creature Aaron saw. Past that, the file got vague or harder to read. He was melted, stabbed, and torn apart by monsters, then he entered the camp and fought his way out there, functionally dead by the time he'd rescued the others. Otto was only now realizing…

Aaron had almost certainly cracked along the way. Too much stress, too little time to adjust to his situation, too many terrifying things to process, and his sense of reasoning had to be shot. But maybe… that was what they needed right now. Because nothing in the Underworld was sane. Based on everything they knew about this monster, even from others who'd scanned things about it, they were dead in the water. The moment it saw them, their fates were sealed.

Yet, as Aaron pointed his blade at it, grinning, Otto could only trust in his plan to deliver a dose of fart spray, if he was reading the bottle correctly, directly into the gullet of the Mushki. He could even see the vision- without its absurd sense of smell, they just needed to get far enough away, and they would be able to escape. Without it? They could drive for days and the Mushki would always catch up- not like they'd last that long, considering it was faster than their cars.

Aaron stabbed off the ledge, backing up, but never taking his eyes off the Mushki as it got closer and closer, the beast shattering everything it touched, enraged by its supremacy being contested. And, before Otto's thoughts could spiral any further, Aaron took a running start and leapt off the back of the car. Straight into the monster's mouth.

The beast tried spearing Aaron through, and Otto saw little more than a blur from both parties before the Mushki was sent reeling, screaming in pain while Aaron fell to the ground sliding along the attached rope. Otto and the others didn't hesitate, pulling as hard as they could to bring him back… but he saw something there, behind Aaron's eyes. Resolution. Their leader… cut the rope, and slid down a diverging path. Horror, despair surged through them all. Why? Why?

After what he'd done, the Mushki would never let him go. If he wasn't on the car, he had no chance to escape…

'But… if he was on the car… none of us would have the chance to escape.' And indeed, he watched as the Mushki flew into a blind rage, not even glancing in their direction as it crashed through the Underworld, down another path. The procession was deadly silent. As a result of them all being different heights, every single person had watched Aaron sacrifice himself. The most they could do was not allow his sacrifice to be in vain.

* Otto sat, leaning against the wall, eyes fixated on the frayed end of the rope in his hand, the events turning over in his mind again and again.

'Would I have had the resolve to do that as well, if I had to? Would I be willing to throw my chances at escaping away, if it mean the others could?' There was something he'd noticed about everyone who had a Primary: Every single one was distinct, wildly human in their own way. They were everything that they were. Nicole was the most Nicole-person ever, and Aaron was the most Aaron. They didn't hesitate, because they knew who they were.

Even Amelia hadn't collapsed when faced with an army of cannibals, she'd retaliated. Yet, here he was, despondent, sitting uselessly in the rearmost car. What could he do? He checked over his Status again, looking at what he had been granted. {Blessing of the Deepcaller: Nautarix Satiation: 0 Toughness: 0 Adaptation: 0 Pride: N/A} He hadn't been granted much of anything.

His interaction with the System didn't even explain what any of this meant; all he knew was that someone named Nautarix had decided to give him a Blessing.

'What good is any of this? What good am I?

'I'm nothing before the Mushki I can't even do anything on my own, how can I compare to people like Aaron…' But he knew it wasn't that simple at all. What did Aaron have that he didn't? An ability that made it harder to kill him, yes, but was that really what made him special? Or did he get it because he was special? After all… what good would the ability to survive a bit longer do when he was fully digested by a terrifying beast?

The truth was, even without his Primary, Aaron would've been a dangerous individual to be trifled with.

'I need to be better. I need to be stronger, not just physically, but in will.

'I am not the best Otto I could be! I'm just a guy cowering because he doesn't have magic, well tough shit! I didn't have magic last week either! Nothing has changed, so the least I can do is my best!' He didn't feel the brush of something stirring in his chest, too furious at his own uselessness.