At this point, trying to sleep would be a mistake. It would only aggravate the restless, worn-thin exhaustion Nic felt, much like a drop of water would only make a man in the desert remember his thirst and feel it ten times worse.

He sat down in the lotus position, closing his eyes to meditate instead.

“Cultivation map.”

With his eyes closed, the golden runes blossomed in the dark of his skull.

Essence 27,046 / 27,046

+ 25.696 per Minute

(3.212 Base)

100% Local Modifier

+ 100% Dominion

+ Devoured an E-Class enemy (200%)

+ Consumed a F-Class treasure (100%)

+ Rested in toxic environment (300%)

Demonic Essence &%##!~

Titles -

Witness of the New Dao

---

Ferocious Beast

(Rewards 18,500 First Wave Credits to your killer. Increase bounty by 500 with each Native you kill. Each dawn, gain credits equal to one tenth of your bounty.)

Sage-Artisan

(The Hand of Ash technique is recognized as your creation, and all costs related to it are halved.)

Cultivation Base (Unranked)

XII Physical Strength (0/6,000)

III Mental Acuity (851/8,000)*

II Spiritual Clarity (2,917/4,000)*

II Regeneration (10,682/20,000)

Looking over his gains of the past day, Nic noted with satisfaction that his Spiritual Clarity had ticked up slightly again. While the statistic would be increasingly hard to raise through the System, since normal Essence couldn’t be used, his natural progress in that area was more than satisfying.

Better yet, after a few days of building up, his Spiritual Essence had filled the three ‘reservoirs’ provided by his three Concepts.

Three thousand Spiritual Essence…

Nic braced himself and drew the energy into the single node between his eyebrows. It flooded in, a whirlpool of starry energy surrounding a dark aperture no larger than a fingernail. As the node drank in energy and deepened, it felt like a newborn star was blazing between his eyes.

The sensation faded, but the light it had spread throughout Nic’s being remained. He could see his meridians, the lines and nodes, more clearly than ever. The energy flowing through his veins had gained a new definition, becoming more purposeful and less turbulent; it was the difference between a rough, flooded river and a clear, deep-cut channel.

As he opened his eyes that same illumination spread into the world around him.

The wind in the grass…

The dizzying heights of the open sky above him…

The scent of blood coming from the hunting grounds…

Spiritual Clarity was deeply tied to perception, each advance in rank letting him observe the world with greater sense and focus. But it was more than that. It let him experience the world, as if it was shedding layers of callousness and coldness from his soul. When he looked up, it wasn’t just that he saw deeper into the blue sky than ever before…

It was that his entire mind was mesmerized by the thought of flight. A childish wonder that electrified his entire being.

The world felt larger and more complete. It was a joy simply to draw breath for those first few moments as he settled into his new perceptions, and when Nic drew out a gourd of water to drink, that plain water was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

Life was good.

Primordial Mist Shard (E)

Creates a mist that contains the weight of the ages, stealing life and weakening those who survive. An almost truly unique Shard, with few if any defenses existing to its power.

III Increase Toxicity (334/8,000)

Add Aura Efficiency (0/5,000)

I Secondary Slot (0/100,000)

Poison Devouring (Complete)

Mist Armor (0/50,000)

Petrified Warriors (200,000)

Jewel of Ages (500,000)

Without hesitation, Nic channeled 10,500 of his Essence into Primordial Mist’s Aura Efficiency. It had been ignored for too long, and while none of his other Shards were so expensive in terms of aura that he was regularly struggling to use them…

Primordial Mist was simply too expensive. He’d found himself struggling to fuel its ravenous power more than once in recent days, especially with the addition of his equally aura-hungry Eight-Directions Ring.

Totemic Hieroglyphs (F)

Creates tools of bone, rock, and leather that contain nascent divinities, able to grow and rise towards the heavens as they serve you. A high-quality magical shard.

V Base Enhancement (0/3,500)

I Add Essence Efficiency (346/2,000)*

II Additional Secondary Slot (0/100,000)

Summoning Limit (0/50,000)

Spirits of the Earth (Complete)

Shard-Crafting (0/100,000)

Speaker of the Lost (0/10,000)

Tributes for the Divine (0/100,000)

Next, he focused on Base Enhancement for his Totemic Hieroglyphs. Pouring in 12,000, a familiar surge of power flowed through his fingertips as he pushed the new skill up by three ranks. If he’d been more willing to focus solely on his newest Shard, he could have maxed it out then and there…

But as always, there were a thousand different directions he needed to go. Ten-thousand things to spend Essence on. A hundred-thousand to worry about…

Nic sighed and shook the brief feeling of helplessness off. There was always going to be another mountain…

But he could climb this one just fine.

“Inkspur, wake everybody up. We’re going out to hunt.”

---

As dawn rose, seven black, rectangular gates snapped open in the high air. There was a second of pause…

And then the sky was full of falling bodies. If it had been one or two, it might have been absurd, funny in a sick way. With hundreds falling at once…

It was like watching a horde of locusts descend. They poured out without end, countless bodies locked together, already clawing and grasping at each other before they hit the ground. Nic watched them as they bled across the sky…

He’d positioned his hunters on one side of the chasm, and put himself on the far side. Splitting up meant doubling the risk - but it was the only way they’d even have a chance of winning the hunt.

The wretches slammed into the ground, and the hunt began.

The first to fall were luckless and doomed. They were pressed down by the weight of bodies tumbling after them, crushed into the base of the swarming mob. The ones that came after had a hairs breadth of a chance to pull their way free before they, too, were dragged under.

Nic was waiting.

His blade of choice was the fire blade. The quickest, most offensive, deadliest blade. The only one that held no potential for defense.

Reaching into his bag, he drew out an item he’d received long ago. The tail of a demonic lizard. It had been gifted to him as a ‘life saving treasure’ by the System when he’d first broken through the rankings; it promised to enhance his regeneration and grant him Essence for every foe he killed.

Today was the day for a slaughter.

He gulped it down, feeling the tiny shard of flesh dissolve into rushing, vibrant energy within his core, an energy that sang with the furious heat of vengeance…

Nic stepped forward and decapitated the first wretch he met with a single swing. The next was speared through the stomach, opening its guts to the air. The third caught the blade whipping up again, severing its right leg and arm. The fourth, a downwards strike, chopping its skull in half…

Cold, brutal efficiency and the hot flare of the flaming blade drove the mob apart. Nic reached the swarm’s heart and breathed out a gust of Primordial Mist, sapping the life from everything it touched in an advancing wave of gray death.

Where they escaped, he chased them. Where they turned to fight, he cut them down.

Nic had become an engine of death. With each kill, he could feel an energy being dragged out of the dead and into his core. Blood splattered his face and made the ground underfoot wet, turning it to a vile-smelling mud.

More were coming.

The first survivors were clawing their way free of the horde now. The ones who’d cut and killed their way to five, and gained new, stronger forms. They lunged at Nic in the hopes of a kill, a quick advance, an escape from the press of bodies.

Nic didn’t even try to defend. He let claws rip away chunks of his face, bone-blades stab into his chest. For a moment he was surrounded and all but destroyed-

He spat out a blast of Primordial Mist and vanished into the gray fog, reappearing as the bodies fell still and crumbled to dust around him. The energy he took from their deaths stitched his flesh together, healed the cuts that went down to his bone. With each step there was less sign of the damage. As he tore through the battlefield, he felt unstoppable, full of something that was neither anger nor joy…

Violence. It was the sheer capacity for violence. The kinetic thrill of feeling his sword connect and cleave through flesh.

The raw triumph of surviving when countless others died.

Drawing on the Eight-Directions Ring, Nic was everywhere. His blade left trails of fire cut into the air long after he’d teleported again, reappearing elsewhere, following the fight and arriving wherever there were many targets clustered together- leaving when there were none.

Yesterday, the battle had stretched on until his bones ached with the weight of his sword. Now, the only pause was to wipe the gore from his face, and yet he felt invigorated as he waded through the battle bringing death…

“COMMANDER! Your TROOPS are in DISARRAY. DARK AND VILE BEASTS HAVE ARRIVED!” Screaming for his attention, Inkspur dropped out of the sky to flutter around Nic’s head. Wiping out the last of the wretches, Nic turned to see what his little wyvern was fussing about-

A flare had gone up.

The battle on the far side of the chasm had turned.

While the hunters had held the line, they were facing not one, but two E-Classes at once. A massive creature with horns and tusks, the worst of goat and boar, was smashing away at their defensive wall. In fact, the two defenders had been broken away from the fight altogether.

Lou, the halberdier, was darting and ducking around the beast, stabbing at it like a matador to draw its attention while his slowing frost slowly drained away at its speed. The shieldsman, whose name Nic still had to learn, was taking the hits head on when he could, absorbing the force and throwing it back in rippling waves of red.

Without their two sturdiest members, the rest of the hunters were thrown into disarray. They fought with the remaining wretchbeast, a massive avian with fiery wings, but they were constantly scattering and running to escape as it lunged after them with its claws. The sheer quantity of their attacks was pushing it back, forcing it to be cautious…

But it was a losing game.

Sooner or later it would break through and snatch away one of them.

“Redjaw!” The lindworm leapt from his back, roaring at the smell of blood in the air. “Defend me…”

Leaving his companion to fend off the wretches on his side of the chasm, Nic drew out the bow Hollowsong, nocking a talisman arrow. It sung across the gap, slicing into the wretchbeast’s wing.

The beast barely noticed-

Until the talisman exploded and tore away a huge chunk of flesh. The beast fell from the sky, crashing against the earth in an ungainly struggle. Three more arrows struck it in quick succession, blasting craters into its wings, grounding it for good. The poison-mist snare wrapped around it and held it down.

As Nic grinned in satisfaction, his hunters did the rest. They closed om on the injured beast like a swarm of ants taking down a beetle. In the brief moment it was unable to fight back, they pressed it down with the weight of their attacks and tore it to shreds.

It was a day of blood and victory.