Chapter 76: Long Night
Hours passed, slow as frozen serpents. The night thickened—deeper, heavier. And gradually, their bodies began to respond. Tingling in the limbs. Muscles groaning, but moving. One by one, the trio finally managed to stand—staggering, battered, but upright.
They wandered off to gather wood, scratching at the ground and roots, their movements clumsy but determined. Back by the rock, they lit a small fire—meager, flickering, but enough to break the damp and stir their minds awake.
They sat around it in silence, eating a simple but warm meal that brought a hint of life back into their bones. And as they ate, they began pulling out the anima gems they’d gathered earlier.
The one from the Awakened Beast had been set aside. Placed on a stone, almost with silent reverence. No one had spoken of it directly, but everyone wanted it. It burned with curiosity, with temptation—what kind of essence could a monster that powerful hold?
So they pounced on the others instead. All harvested from second-tier creatures. Each held a good dose of raw essence, enough to strengthen their bodies, harden their flesh, reinforce what had been broken. But it had to be refined, purified. And that wasn’t painless. Or risk-free.
But they knew it: keeping up a pace like this—hunting, absorbing, surviving—was dangerous. But it was also the only way forward. The only way to prepare for the worst. The only way not to die next time.
That night, at the edge of the bottomless chasm, none of them slept.
They stayed awake, eyes wide open, senses on edge. Something in the air unsettled them. A diffuse tension, invisible but omnipresent.
They kept thinking back to the last clearing they’d crossed. A place too calm, too neat. A space even the creatures of the area seemed to avoid—as if life itself refused to exist there.