Solomon sneezed as he walked through the desert. He was completely unaware that his teammates had just decisively abandoned him.

It was night and a brilliant white moon was the only light in the desert. Because it was night, the desert was freezing cold and frost had formed on the sand.

Above him, stars peppered the sky in glowing galaxies of multi-coloured light. The moon on this planet was much larger than earth's moon, as well as being closer. It shone brilliantly like a sun in the night.

Although the night was bitterly cold, Solomon felt a warmth in his chest when he looked up at the stars.

Some part of him felt comfortable being in this harsh environment. The endless sand dunes drifting off into the distance were bare and the sky above was vast.

Within this majesty of nature, he felt small. Yet, this insignificant feeling was comforting. He knew that he could go in any direction he chose. He could travel as far as he pleased, unbound by the cavern walls and ceiling.

The warmth in his chest was shielding him from the bitterly cold winds that crossed over the surface of the desert.

Whenever Solomon breathed out, a thick mist steamed up from his breath. He had been travelling all day and was nearing the north pole of the planet. The desert was growing colder and colder, but due to the lack of water here, there was no snow.

Instead, the sand was tightly packed together by frost. During the day this frost would evaporate and the sun would scorch the sands again.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out, Solomon sighed. He hadn't had a real rest for days as he was climbing on the ceiling of the cavern or falling down lava waterfalls.

He stopped moving and sat on the ground. 'Is this all there is to my life? I wish I had a little more agency' he thought bitterly.

Being tossed about by the waves of circumstance left a bitter taste in his mouth. Recently, he felt like all he had been doing was running from place to place without much choice.

'I doubt fate is real, so I won't blame that. It is just my luck that is bad.'

Solomon loosened his sitting posture and fell back onto the sand. His face was towards the glittering heavens and his back was pressed against the frozen sand. Yet strangely he didn't feel cold at all.

Everything here just felt so natural to him, almost like he was one with the very universe at this moment. At peace at last.

Of course, moments such as this are always fleeting. That's what makes them special.

Solomon gazed up at the stars above him and stretched out his hand towards the blinking lights. He almost felt as if he could reach out and grab them. Then, without fail, they slipped through his outstretched fingers.

Burning jealousy smouldered in his chest. To be free like that. Hanging in there in the glittering night sky without a care in the world. Such an existence would surely be less stressful than his.

It was in this strange state of contentment and jealousy that he drifted off into sleep. A sleep littered with dreams of floating amongst the heavenly bodies of the night sky. Where he belonged.

...

Solomon was woken by his alarm. For some reason, it was clacking incessantly, worming its way into his head. He reached over to turn it off and his hand slapped sand sending grains of golden sand flying everywhere. 'I don't have an alarm!'

In an instant, he remembered where he was. Without another thought, he rolled to the side, just barely dodging a strike aimed at his head.

He sprung to his feet and jumped backwards, just barely dodging another strike aimed at his feet. Now, he could get a good look at what had attacked him.

Completely opposite to last night, the sky contained only one object, the sun. An enormous glowing ball of fire illuminated the desert with its light. The frost had melted and the golden sand underneath was revealed.

Not far from where Solomon had slept, the sand was pushed aside to form a hole. Beside this hole was the creature that had attacked him. An enormous black scorpion loomed over him. It stood at 2 metres high and was over 8 metres long. Each of its six legs was short and came to a point.

The scariest part was the claws. They were as big as Solomon and looked like they could be used to crush a car in half.

Shortly after taking all of this in, he realized what had attacked him. Behind the scorpion, he caught sight of its tail. The monstrous appendage was divided into segments and covered in the black exoskeleton. At the end of the was a thin hooked spike that dripped with venom. Every time a drop of this venom hit the sand, it would sizzle and smoke.

Solomon gulped when he saw this monster. Just the claws alone were terrifying, never mind the tail that was poised like a viper, ready to strike.

Despite his nervousness, Solomon had a strange feeling when he saw this scorpion. Perhaps it was familiarity. It had been a while since he read his racial inheritance but at least he could remember that he was a scorpion demon. 'Perhaps they could be allies' he thought.

Such optimistic thoughts were cut short whenever the hulking scorpion lunged toward him with its vicious claws outstretched.

Grimacing, Solomon stepped to the side and evaded the claws while making sure to keep his eyes on the tail. That was where the real danger lay. Once he was injected with that venom, he would be finished.

The scorpion hissed at him in annoyance and its claws made a sharp clacking sound as it clicked them together in anger.

Taking careful stock of the situation, Solomon made up his mind. 'I'm going to kill this asshole that woke me up from my first good sleep in weeks' He swore to himself.

Although he had only been dodging so far, Solomon was no pushover. After risking life and limb to collect minerals from the ceiling of the second circle, he had gone through some major changes. The major changes came when absorbed the weapon fragment.

His horns, which were originally black, had streaks of white arcing down them like lightning. While the rest of his body had grown stronger. The major changes came from his tail. Its colour had remained a dark black with a hint of red at the base, the changes came at the upper parts of the tail.

The tip and upper quarter of his tail was bleached a bone-white like it had been dipped in paint and was striking to look at. Originally, his tail was hooked at the end, but this had also changed. The hook had straightened out into a sharp point that looked like a big metal spike.

In general, his strength had gone up a major level and now he could test it on one of his fellow scorpions.

'Why am I getting weirdly excited? I better be careful or I'll end up as a muscle brained idiot.' Solomon warned himself to try and calm his racing heart.

With little effect, he could only embrace those aggressive, demonic impulses and use them to his advantage. Without pause, he ran at the scorpion.

Drawing the two daggers from his waist, he readied himself to strike. Frankly, he doubted that they would be able to pierce the scorpion's thick exoskeleton, but it was still worth a shot.

Once the monster saw Solomon run at it its anger flared up. It hissed venomously and the clacking from its enormous claws increased in intensity. It readied to strike whenever he got close enough.

Keeping a careful watch on the monster venomous tail, Solomon threw himself into its strike range recklessly.

A claw filled his vision that he deftly rolled under. Getting as close as he could until he saw the tail coming toward him. Jumping back he barely managed to dodge the strike of the tail and then, he responded in kind.

His own tail struck out in a flash of white and impaled the venomous tip of the Scorpions tail. The monster screeched In rage and flung itself towards Solomon who had temporarily stopped.

Solomon jumped onto one of the oncoming claws and flipped onto the scorpions back. Now that the scorpion's tail was out of commission this was the safest place to be.

Sensing it was in danger, the scorpion reared up and tried to shake off the demon clinging onto its back. In response, Solomon drove his daggers into a gap in its plated exoskeleton and clung on for dear life. If he fell he would most certainly be crushed.

With heavy breathing, Solomon pulled himself up and stood on the two knives as footholds. The scorpion that was still reared up screamed in pain, it could reach its own back to get rid of the source of the pain.

Standing precariously on top of the knife handles, he waited for the creature to tire. After a few seconds, the scorpion couldn't hold itself upright anymore and decided on a new tactic.

With a crash, the scorpion flung itself towards the ground. Now that its back was facing against the ground it felt relieved. 'Surely that pesky creature was crushed' It thought.

Those were to be its last thoughts, however. The next thing it saw as it faced the sky was Solomon as he fell down towards the Scorpions exposed underbelly.

With a sickening sound of metal against scraping against exoskeleton, the spike at the end of his tail slid through a gap in the scorpion's armour and pierced its neck, pinning the creatures head and crushing its windpipe.

A gurgling noise came from the scorpion's ruined throat before it twitched and when quiet. Solomon let out the breath he had been holding since the start of the fight when he eventually felt the life leave its body and hopped off the corpse.

To check it was dead, it sent a dagger through one of its compound eyes and destroyed the monsters brain as well.

"Now what?" he asked no one in particular. This was pretty much the first monster he had killed and he didn't know what to do next. He had heard from Hyde that they always ate the monster's heart but honestly, that sounded disgusting.

"Still, it feels like a waste to just leave it here," Solomon said with a sigh. Under the scorching sun, it would surely rot and attract many nearby scavengers so he didn't want to stay here too long.

While he was deliberating, he felt his blood was still boiling. At first, he had thought it might be due to him being excited from the fight but apparently not.

'This reminds me of how I felt whenever I discovered that weapon fragment, although much weaker' He remembered when he realised the feeling felt familiar.

He turned to look at this tail that was sneaking its way towards the corpse without his permission. Sometimes he felt like it had a mind of its own. "Can you absorb that too?" He questioned the tail.

No reply came back, but what was he expecting? no matter how impressive his tail was it couldn't talk. In the end, all he could do was watch as it went about its business.

Like a snake, his tail approached the scorpions exposed underside and wormed its way in between the exoskeleton surrounding the scorpion's heart.

Solomon shuddered at how gross it looked and felt but stopped himself from pulling out. His thoughts were along the lines of 'Now that I have come this far I might as well...'

He could feel everything as his tail burrowed its way through the Scorpion's chest and embedded itself in the monster's heart. A familiar suction feeling came from his tail. It was the same he felt whenever he absorbed a metal.

Within the scorpion's body, all of its blood flowed backwards towards the still heart and suction force of the tail. In a second, all the blood was gone and the corpse had shrivelled up inside the exoskeleton.

Solomon could feel something flow into his tail and circulate throughout his body, giving him increased strength that he hadn't passed prior to now. Inside his tail, a new organ was forming and the sharp point at the end hollowed out.

Soon after, if Solomon thought about it, venom was pumped out of the newly formed organ and flowed out of the hollowed-out spike at the end of the tail. The venom that dripped from his tail didn't react as violently as the original scorpions had when it hit the sand. 'It should be about half as strong' Solomon estimated.

Although it was slightly out of character, he couldn't help but grin at this development. Maybe later he would have to go scorpion hunting.