Chapter 24: The Hunt Begins

Elias had a decision to make.

Looking around him, he realized that he may be lucky or unlucky to be in a Fragment of Divinity that he recognized. Suddenly, the tales he heard about the city of Stormfall being the place where the Storm Ascendant Asulon had killed the God of Dreams Dhamtos no longer seemed like an exaggeration. If a Fragment of Divinity were here, it could only mean that a God had been killed around Stormfall, and he had entered one of the Fragments.

Another realization he had was that the tunnel was dark, but his new attributes were making it possible for him to see clearly around him. Even without knowing this place like the back of his hand, he could easily figure out that moving ’forward’ would take him out of the tunnel because he could see that more light was streaming ahead, or he could move ’backward’ and enter deeper into the tunnel.

He could either leave this tunnel and go outside or proceed deeper into it. It took less than a second for Elias to make his choice, and he turned away from the light and headed deeper into the darkness.

Elias’ body disappeared into the darkness, and deep quiet returned to this place. In the spot where Elias had summoned his Status screen for the first time, cracks had appeared on the ground from the shockwaves of Lumina that erupted from his body.

He had not noticed, but those cracks had spread from the ground to the statues around him, and several of the Statues of the Ascendant now had cracks in them, and from those cracks came whispers, as black drops of blood, as thick as mud, began to slowly drip out from the statues.

Then, with a deep grating sound, the head of one of the statues began to turn towards the direction Elias had headed, and the whispers from the statues grew. Like a scapel tearing through flesh, these whispers began to touch other statues, and cracks began to form on their bodies of stone.

Elias knew this tunnel to be about 15,000 meters long; it may extend for much further, but he had no idea, and he had previously calculated that the total number of Statues of the Ascendant Asulon should be between 6,600 and 7,500, when he placed the size of each statues into consideration, since all of these statues were twelve meters tall, with five meters of spacing between each statues.

Since the statues were on both sides of the tunnel, it was easy for him to calculate these numbers as he just doubled the count per the length of the tunnel.

This thought had briefly flashed in his head when he entered this tunnel; however, how could he know that behind him, a whisper was spreading, and each statue of Asulon touched by this sound was beginning to crack and shed blood.

One by one, every statue in this gallery of vanity was awakening. The Hunt had begun, and yet the Hunter remains unaware.

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As he moved, Elias felt as if gravity had no hold over him; his motions were almost too smooth and effortless, and this was what he had always seen and envied from other members of the Order, and now he had it. Yet, something about his body felt different from theirs; there was a grace in his motion that was almost impossible to describe, and the figure of the Commander entered his mind.

’Yes, I think I should possess some of her grace, but is this not too early to be this powerful?’

His body was moving through the tunnel many times quicker than before, as a single stride from him was equal to four strides from his previous mortal frame. At this moment, Elias truly realized how lucky he had been in his hunts. If his prey had used their powers and advantages better than they usually did, then he would have no chance despite all of his preparations.

One thing that really drew his attention was his Durability at 22. bringing up one of his forearms, he pressed a finger against it with all the strength in his arm, and the skin gave back just enough, then pushed back with elastic defiance. He had no blade with him, but he could already tell that his body was many times tougher than Josef, whom he had spent close to three hours struggling to dismember. That man was a blasted Fury Forge, and he was not even a Level 1 Wisp.

He had been walking down this tunnel for less than a minute, and except for the statues of Asulon standing on both sides of him, there were no monsters or any visible threat. It would seem that at the moment, he had made the right decision to go deeper into this tunnel. If he had a week to survive in this place, then he needed to have a base where he could fortify and protect, so he needed to see what was at the end of this tunnel, and then figure out how to protect its opening on the other side.

Elias had not forgotten that his primary objective in this place wasto Seed his Lumina and create a lasting connection with this Fragment.

This was his priority, and for him, what was also important was slowly exploring everything he had seen on his Status screen and coming to terms with all the changes he was going through at the moment.

Elias had barely explored a small portion of what had been displayed to him on the Status screen, and that was deliberate. With his character, he would find himself ruminating on every word he had seen, and that would distract him from his main objectives.

Understanding the changes in his body was important, which was why he had focused on his attributes, and what he needed to do next was Seeding his Lumina, which he had no idea how to do, but the Commander had said he would be guided, which he thought had to do with his Status Screen itself.

He gasped in pleasant surprise when, at the thought of Seeding his Lumina, a small section of the Status Screen appeared before him.

Rank: 0 (Seed Stage – Lumina Seeding Pending)

[Locating viable areas for Lumina Seeding… Multiple Locations found… Accept Instructions?]

Elias blinked, reading through the noticfication one more time, noting that there were multiple locations and wondering if that would turn out to be relevant, but everything seemed to be in order, and he saw no reason not to accept whatever instructions were to be given to him, and he mentally nudged the Status screen to accept whatever it wanted to give to him.

The Status Screen seemed to freeze for a moment, and then Elias collapsed to the ground and began seizing as a flood of information poured into his mind.

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