Chapter 194: Fuel
Julius let out a grunt that sounded like laughter muffled under a layer of mud. He watched as Dylan crouched beside the first still-warm corpse, his hands trembling with exhaustion but his fingers nimble, probing beneath the creature’s glistening, pustule-covered skin.
"But these aren’t even classified beasts. What good could their gems possibly do for a full-fledged Awakened like you?" he growled, arms crossed over his chest smeared with black blood. His expression was a mix of disdain and raw curiosity. He spat a thick brown glob near a mutilated limb. "Vermin. Their gems—if they even have any—are worth less than the dirt under your nails."
Dylan didn’t look up. His fingers, skilled despite his exhaustion, pressed against the crushed skull of the creature. A slight resistance, a small lump beneath the slimy skin. He dug in, thumb and index finger working with surgical precision until he felt a hard little sphere, no bigger than a fingertip. With a wet schluck, he pulled his hand free. Between his fingers, something glowed faintly in the dim gray light—a dull, grayish concretion veined with black, pulsing weakly like a dying heart.
"Maybe I’m different from the other Awakened you’ve seen, Julius," Dylan murmured, his voice hoarse but clear in the death-scented silence. He wiped the slimy gem on his filthy bandages, examining it critically. "To me, a spiritual essence gem is still spiritual essence, even if it’s low-grade. It’s... fuel."
He had no pockets—hell, he was completely naked—so he had to absorb it right then and there. It happened so fast he didn’t even need to close his eyes. By the time the last wisp of essence left the gem, he was already moving to the next corpse, the one whose spine Julius had shattered. His hands searched again, tireless, methodical, like a scavenger sifting through rubble for treasure invisible to others.
Julius watched him, motionless. His amber eyes, usually full of scorn or violence, now held something unfamiliar—perplexity. Seeing this Awakened, this boy with a dying stigma, naked and shaking like a leaf, stooping to pry pitiful energy scraps from the carcasses of minor monsters... It was absurd. Pathetic. And yet, there was something in Dylan’s silent determination, in his relentless scraping for even the faintest dregs of essence, that unsettled the giant.
"Fuel?" Julius repeated, the word sounding strange in his mouth. He tracked Dylan’s hand as it extracted a second gem, even smaller and duller than the first, from a gash near a beast’s groin. "For what? Lighting a firefly?"
Dylan didn’t answer immediately. He finished checking the third corpse—nothing—and moved to the fourth, the one smashed against the rocky outcrop. His fingers met firmer resistance near the shattered spine.
He worked longer this time, tearing through cold flesh to uncover a slightly larger gem, the size of a marble, its gray a little less dull, with a faint but perceptible inner glow. A tired but satisfied smile touched his lips.
"To keep my flame burning, Julius," he said at last, straightening up slowly, his legs stiff. He clenched the small gem in his fist. For a moment, it almost seemed like a faint heat radiated from his grip, a thin vibration that had nothing to do with the tunnel’s damp chill.