My mana stopped regenerating at some point, even when I slept. The same went for my regeneration.

The only food I've found in the desert is as dry as the desert the creature inhabited. I haven't found any vegetation, not surprising as any plant that could survive the molten glass storm's path would be near the top of the food chain.

*Click Click*

"Yup."

I have no idea what the antlion is saying, but I agree. The past week has been challenging.

Walking barefoot in the desert, especially a desert that rains fucking glass isn't the worst part. It's the fucking sun.

I never wanted to destroy a celestial body before, but I wish the sun would fucking explode.

[Resistance: Fire 370 > 400]

Eventually, my fire resistance stopped growing. It gets progressively worse. It's like I'm baking in my own skin.

The only respite I've had since arriving at this fracture was the little antlion. I'd expected the antlion to wander away when I slept but she stayed nearby.

It seems like the little antlion doesn't have qualms with the heat, lucky bastard, but relishes in it.

I should probably name her... Maybe something after her color combination. Yellow and green. Beryl, sure, why not? Names can change, so there's no need to be too hung up on semantics.

Beryl waves her antennas around in the air like she's trying to soak as much sun as possible.

She bites down on my head, and I pull a hulk leg from the makeshift sled made from the runic antlion. She nibbles on me when she's hungry. She takes the limb and cracks the shell open with her mandibles before feating on the meat inside.

She got surprisingly good at that.

I'm thirsty. I lick my cracked lips with my arid tongue and decide to jump again.

Every so often, I'd try to get an areal view, no matter how brief, to find anything but antlions and hulks.

I push Beryl off my back before jumping. What I see on the horizon causes me to fall flat on my face on my descent.

I'm pretty sure I saw water. An oasis! There's an above zero percent chance that I'm hallucinating, but that doesn't matter to me. If I don't get water soon, I'll turn into human leather.

I push myself up and start running in that direction. My movement is sloppy but quick. I stop myself before backtracking and picking up my antlion and sled before running off.

I completely ignored a scorpion that tried to sting me as I stepped past it. It couldn't pierce my flesh anyways.

The watering hole is real! A pond a few hundred feet wide surrounded by wet ground and vegetation is being camped by a pride of lions. They seem territorial, but I'm not afraid of them.

A bunch of females surrounds one maned lion.

[Kantarr Lion lv70 D]

[Kantarr Lioness lv65 D]

There are around twenty of them watching me.

I throw my sword right into the skull of the lv70, killing it instantly.

Critical Hit!

-720

[Prey on the Weak]

I don't want to fight an entire pride of lions when the first source of water I've seen in a week is sitting right next to me.

"GET, GO ON. SHOO."

I don't know if activating the title was necessary or if the group of lionesses was smart enough to cut their losses regardless, but the large group scampers away.

I placed the antlion on the runic carapace I've been toting around with the forearm filled with hulk eyes.

"Watch my stuff."

*Click Click*

"I probably should've skipped trying to teach you how to talk and instead taught more commands."

*Click?*

"Sit, good girl."

I rush over to the water's edge, but something is a bit off with the water. In this heat, the water would evaporate almost instantly, and if it didn't, it would be at a boil.

I'm too thirsty to care. I dunk my head underwater and drink to my heart's content.

Sweet bliss.

I immediately started throwing up as the sudden intake shocked my body. I pant, catching my breath before hydrating myself at a steady pace. I don't want to make another mess.

I don't care if this water is tainted. Water is water. I can't think about the long term If I'll die in a few days.

The water is cool and refreshing. Steam almost forms off my body as I cool myself off. I hadn't sweated in days since my body refused to waste any water.

The sand and blood drift off my body as I float on the surface of the sizable pond. Now that I've cooled my head, I've realized that this pond is probably teeming with life.

I wonder what the source of the water is? I want to investigate this pond, but I don't know if something powerful lurks in the water. Maybe an underground water source has breached the sandy surface and is constantly rejuvenating the oasis.

That doesn't tell me why the surface water isn't hot but cool to the touch. Maybe it's just cold compared to the heat I've been feeling for the past week.

I crawl out of the water before anything happens. The corpse of the lion is sitting right next to the water. I might as well eat something.

I find a flat rock and drag the lion over. I cut thin strips of meat off the body and cook them on a flat rock in the sun.

Beryl comes over with my stuff after seeing me climb out of the water. I feed her strips of raw meat before consuming mine.

During my meal, a twenty-foot crocodile bursts out of the water, scaring the shit out of me!

Its scaly body has many porous holes with water streaming out of it. It bites down on my leg, piercing my flesh and trying to drag me into the water.

[Fresh-Water-Crocodile lv200 C]

-550

(-113)

*snap*

"AH! FUCK!"

[Resistance: Piercing 200 < 210]

The fucker broke my leg and pulled me to the water. I grab my sword with both hands and strike down against the creature's head over and over.

-477

-456

-491

*CRUNCH*

-580

(-120)

It bites down on my broken leg even harder, ignoring my attacks as they cut deep into its flesh. I don't have any traction to stop the creature from pulling me under.

Vortexes of water start to shoot out from the creature's porous holes, rapidly spinning the crocodile. My leg is still in its mouth and will probably be lost if I don't do something.

I spend a lot of mana on [Bolster Resitance] for piercing and slashing.

I don't have any "ripping off limbs" resistance, so I'm hoping that slashing resistance also resits ripping and tears.

At the same time, I rapidly heal my wounds. I've never stopped stabbing this entire time.

+1000

-297

-380

-479

I was searching for its eyes because I wanted to gouge them out, but this fucker is so big that I can't even reach with how it has my leg. If anything, I got lucky that it only has one of my legs rather than my entire lower body.

The death roll commences.

The stream of bubbles that flow around me distracts me and impairs my vision. The massive creature is trying to rip off chunks so it can eat me better.

-300

(-75)

(x5)

It doesn't manage to get my entire leg off, but it's heavily damaged. I can see my blood turn the clear waters murky and red.

It took almost two thousand of my health with just one spin cycle.

I'm light-headed and still dizzy, but I found one of its eyes with my other foot. I use the rest of my mana to heal my wounds as I kick out with a [Donkey Punch].

+750

Critical Hit!

-660

The [Fresh-Water-Crocodile] finally lets go of my leg as I almost pop one of its eyes into mush.

I can't feel my leg, just pain where the crocodile bit me. If I didn't see it hang there mangled, I would've thought it was severed from the thigh.

The crocodile is still alive, but it looks heavily injured. I have no mana left for healing, and if it gets another grab on me, I'm a goner.

[Health Points: 1220/2400 (+140% Bonus)]

My health is trickling down as I'm losing blood. I grit my teeth and hold my sword in front of me. I can try to swim away, but I'll get picked off.

The jetstreams on the crocodile start to go full blast as the creature charges rapidly toward me with its mouth open. I can almost feel the water level rise.

I pump some of the extra stat points into [Vigor] and meet this creature's charge with a [Cross Counter].

[Vigor: 200 > 300]

[Health Points: 1220/2400 > 2420/3600 (+140% Bonus)]

My fist punches the roof of its mouth as it clamps down on my arm.

-1060

(-225)

-1238

My clenched hand blasts straight through the creature's maw as it digs its teeth deep into my shoulder. I probably should've punched out with my prosthetic hand, but I instinctually used my right hand.

I grab the dead [Fresh-Water-Crocodile] by its tail as it starts to float up to the surface. I tug it ashore.

Now I have more meat.

My previous cook site is now underwater, so I have to relocate.

I search for Beryl since I haven't taught her how to swim yet, but I find her floating with my stuff, trying her best to swim towards the shore. It doesn't seem that she likes water.

*Click Click!*

I swim past her with one arm and one leg, stopping so she can climb onto the body, hitching a ride. She makes sure all my stuff is secured before clicking her mandibles.

*Click Click*

I tugboat the body onto land, leaving a trail of blood the entire way. I still have no mana, and I'm losing health rapidly.

I [Broken Blood] for some spare mana before holding my leg in place and blasting the wound with healing. I don't know if I can reconnect severed limbs, so I'm glad it was attached, even if it was only being held on by sinew and muscle.

I'm too tired to find a flat rock to cook my food. Everything around me is wet anyways, so I'd have to travel away from the oasis.

I eat the crocodile raw after skinning its hide. It has a bunch of holes where the water came out, so I'm not sure it would be worth much as a source of leather.

It's chewy and bloody. Not bad.

~

I wanted to take a short nap after eating raw meat for thirty minutes.

"Wake me up if something approaches."

*Click Click*

The sand isn't unbelievably hot, just warm. It's comfortable.

*Munch Much*

I wake up to the sound of eating. Beryl is munching away at the crocodile. I didn't look for it earlier, but where did that lion corpse go?

I look around for the lion's body. The oasis' water level shocks me. It has significantly gone down.

I took my nap around twenty feet from the water's edge, and now it's over a hundred feet away.

My attention gets grabbed by Beryl trying to eat something blue from the crocodile corpse. I take it away from her, much to her annoyance.

*Click Click Click*

It's small, around the size and shape of a kidney. Instead of arteries, it has many more tubes that have been severed.

I flick it. It's hard like a crystal.

[Manaorgan]

Oh?

No other descriptors meaning I don't know enough about it.

"Beryl, very rarely when a creature dies, its mana would congregate on an organ instead of forming into a crystal. Usually, the mana forms aimlessly, but in this case, it forms at the part of their body that see's the most mana in their lifetime."

*Click Click*

"I'm telling you this since eating it might cause unintentional side effects. Like sickness or death."

*Click Click*

"... I don't even know if you understand me."

*Click Click Click*