Chapter: 11 Dream Realm
Mark opened his eyes after a brutal fall. It was good that he was stronger than average sleepers, or wouldn't have been able to be okay after falling so hard on the ground.
He looked around and was stunned for a moment. In front of him were the hollow mountains, which was a death zone where no nightmare creatures below the corrupted rank existed. And right opposite that was the black water sea of the forgotten shore.
Mark was helpless for a second. He couldn't believe that he would have to choose if he wanted to casually reach the Dark Castle or enjoy his time in a literal death zone by testing his overall combat power until the 'cohort' comes here to get the thing they want.
Somehow, Mark chose the latter. Maybe it's because he is becoming more and more like the inhabitants of this world, crazy.
Mark didn't choose to stay here just because of enjoyment. After all, that would be foolish. And he was no fool, the reason he is staying here is because has the [Guardians blessing].
Memory: [Guardians Blessing].
Attributes: [Sanctified Ward], [Celestial Aegis], [Beacon of the lost]
The only attribute that gave him confidence was [Sanctified Ward].
[Sanctified Ward] Attribute description: "A radiant barrier of divine energy encircles its bearer, nullifying harm and forces unworthy of its grace. Those who strike with malice find their blows dissipated as if swallowed by celestial light"
'Nullifying harm and forces unworthy of its grace.' This is the part that gave him the confidence to survive here while being weaker than a corrupted nightmare creature. What could possibly be worthy of striking divinity? It would at minimum be sacred or another divine. He will be unharmed from corrupted and great nightmare creatures, and about nightmare creatures at cursed rank, he can always avoid them.
While he was thinking these things, suddenly a frog-like nightmare creature attacked him from the back. Since Mark had high senses, he was able to dodge to the side. He quickly summoned [Guardians Blessing] along with [Godkiller].
As both memories were being summoned, the creature took back its long tongue and prepared for the follow up attack.
Mark knew he couldn't use the Godkiller more than once. Because the backlash would literally create a dangerous space crack. And his current body can't even stay close to it. When he tried it once before, he made a very small cut in space, like that of a fingernail. And the moment he tried to touch it, his hand started to crack.
At this moment, Mark has to make sure that his gains are more than he has to lose. He looked around him and saw a hoard of fish-like nightmare creatures under the dark waters of the forgotten shore.
He quickly lured the frog toward the hoard of nightmare creatures. He jumped into the water and the frog creature followed. The hoard of creatures notices him and rushes forward to devour him. When both of the corrupted creatures were close enough, Mark used the Godslayer with some of his essence and threw a sword slash.
The slash rushed forward and cut open a space crack in the midst of the hoard rushing toward him. The creature's body started to crack and one by one all of them started to bleed and their bodies started to turn to dust. Strangely, the soul shards weren't affected by the space turbulence. As the soul shards were falling to the depth of the dark sea, a familiar voice rang in his ears as the spell announced…
[You have slain an awakened beast…]
[You have slain an awakened beast…]
[You have slain an awakened monster…]
[You have slain…]
Mark quickly used a name that teleports him to a short distance. And appeared about a distance away that the space crack won't affect him, but the backstabbing frog wasn't so lucky. Before that thing can even notice something wrong it got in the range of the space crack. As its body started to crack and blood gushed off its body, it let out a miserable cry but the water didn't let it affect him.
[You have killed a fallen demon…]
[You have received an Echo: Kal of the Forgotten Sea]
Mark dismissed the dark sword and avoiding the space crack he went down to pick up the shards. After picking them up, he got out of the dark waters, totally drenched. He put the collected soul shard on the ground and sat down.
He got twenty awakened shards and two ascendant shards and an Echo. After breaking the soul shards mark looked at the runes explaining his core's current status.
[Core rank: Dormant]
[Void Core: 24/1000]
[Void Fragment: 344/1000]
"So, my core saturation needs soul core and my second core formation needs both killing creature and soul cores. i can doo both things at the same time." he muttered
"At least I can get my second score before I need to go back to the dark Castle." He said to himself. Suddenly something clicked in his mind. "Wait a second, why did I only get 300 fragments, when I literally killed a fucking god? And where are my 7 divine sour shards? I can literally saturate my core if I had only one or two of them." At that moment the system prompt appeared.
[Host, these are all the fragments the Spell had, the spell isn't like you who can get void fragments. And about the soul shards, you can't get them because they were just a sub-dimension where the nightmare took place. You can't expect the spell to go broke, do you?]
Mark calmed himself. It was reasonable that the spell can't give you the things you experienced in the first nightmare. The spell needs soul shards to create the memories and echoes. But he still can't let go of the feeling of losing the million dollar lottery ticket, right after winning it.
Anyway, Mark entered his soul seat and looked at the frog-like Echo. The runes read
Echo: Kal of the Forgotten Sea
Rank: Ascended.
Tier: III
Attributes:
Description: "In the dark waters of the Forgotten Shore, where ancient tides whisper of drowned empires and nameless horrors stir beneath the waves, something waits. Half-hidden in the abyss, cloaked in the silence of the deep, it watches. And when the time comes, it leaps."
Mark was glad. At least it can guard him when he is resting. When he was about to close the rune he noticed something interesting. Below the runes of this frog was the rune that read
[Turn into a Wraith for 10 Fragments?]
[Y/N]
"So, I also have my own special echo-like servants." He mused. It was known throughout the story that most divine aspect users have their own respective servants that are only available to themselves with the only exception being Nephis.
Sunny has his shadows and Mordret has his reflections. Now, Mark has something called Wraiths. Even though he didn't know how these wraiths worked, he was pretty sure he didn't want this frog thing to be his first Wraith.
So of course he didn't convert it.
After taking a full rest, Mark went inside [Paradise]. Before going, he summoned Kal to remain here, and then his figure disappeared.
Mark first took some rest inside. There was one thing that gave him a big advantage. Inside paradise, time was within his control. Even though he can at most turn it to one month outside will be equal to seven months inside. In other words, the time ratio inside and outside was (1:7).
He quickly lay down on his handmade bed and went to sleep.
***
An unknown place of the Forgotten Shore.
A group of three people were sitting on a high reach of crimson corals. They were surrounded by the dead bodies of carapace scavengers. After some time of silence, a whisper escaped from someone's mouth.
"It's gone" a short girl with black hair released the hand that was covering the tall girl with silver hair. They were relieved that the underwater creature that was noticing them was gone.
The silver haired girl asked with a sigh of relief. "So, what rank was it?"
Sunless went close to the bodies to extract the soul cores, while replied "Great Tyrant. Which we can't defeat right now, no matter how strong we get unless we become ascendant."
Nephis chuckled a bit wistfully.
Sunny looked at her, puzzled and asked "what?"
"Nothing, it's just that people would have thought of you as a fool when you claimed to be able to kill a great nightmare creature as an Ascendant if they didn't know you." After a pause she added "but I know your capabilities, so, I believe you."
After a bit, her look suddenly turned serious as she asked "but, I need to be sure, is what you were saying true?"
Sunny stiffened, and replied with a cold tone "are asking about the end of humanity?"
Nephis shook her head and said "About Mark dying because of us."
Sunny's face darkened, which wasn't noticeable in the dark "Yes."
He paused and added "Not again. I will make sure he survives. That is why I came back."
To be continued…