He returned to the living with a cold smile. Nearby, the creature still feasted on his previous corpse. This took him aback for a moment.
'So every death of mine leaves my corpse.'
Then he looked at the position where he had died previously. There wasn't his corpse—not even bloodstains.
'Only one of my corpses will be there at the same time.'
Or was there a different reason? He had to find that, but not now. Because the humanoid monster, probably sensing him, turned around to look at him. Dimitri took a few seconds to study its appearance.
A humanoid structure without any features except sharp jaws everywhere on its body. Disgusting—and so it should be cleansed.
"Smelly," Dimitri said, raising one hand experimentally.
Instantly, ghostly energy materialised in his palm. He could feel countless threads connecting instantly to his hand, ready to pull whatever lay ahead.
Dimitri locked his eyes with the now-confused monster and gave it a low, bloodthirsty smile.
"Goodbye."
He swung his arm, and a spectral maw appeared everywhere his blood had stained, biting into the monster with hungry growls. Even Dimitri felt goosebumps seeing mouths like his biting and devouring the monster.
Within seconds, the monster stopped its struggles. The devouring continued until its body completely disappeared. He pulled the threads once more, feeling a huge amount of blood filling his body.
He had a feeling that now his body contained double the amount of blood. He walked towards the position where the monster had disappeared, bending down to pick up a small glowing stone.
'Mirage seal…'
Energy stones left by Mirage monsters after dying. A Decker could use it to either upgrade their cards or Ring. Dimitri put it inside his pocket, deciding to use it appropriately as per his needs.
"The monster I killed is a Feral. It had no bloodline, or I should've gotten a blood vial."
Ferals were the weakest monsters out there in the Star Line. Yet he had been killed by it in a surprise attack. The monsters were classified in ranks and their bloodline defines how far one can advance in this ranks.
The strongest bloodline ever discovered in a monster on their continent was Ancestral. That was a hundred years ago. That battle was so terrifying, it was the reason why his grandparents disappeared.
His grandparents were Channellers, standing at the top of the food chain. Yet the two of them failed to successfully defeat a Feral Mirage with an Ancestral bloodline. That alone said how difficult it was for a human to fight against Mirages.
Keep in mind, Feral was the first stage of a monster's power, while Channeller was the third stage of humans.
Dimitri looked down at himself.
A twelve-year-old. How could he fight such Mirages? A mere teenager by Earth's standards.
'Wait… Earth?'
He knew his world was previously called Earth. But that was the past. Now they were in a collective spectrum of stars called 'Elantris'—a group of planets that had human population.
There was no reason for him to think of himself as a child, because Star Line challenges had to be completed by an aligned within a year. Dimitri thought again, then he recalled the changes in his mindset after the aligning ceremony.
Everything started after he saw that man in the void… no… he saw his other self in that void. He had started to change. In a more humane way? He wasn't sure.
But one thing was certain: Dimitrios Diamantakos wasn't the same as yesterday. And the current version of himself was better in every way.
"What to do now?"
In every Star Line challenge, the children would be grouped according to suitable alignments, so they could support each other and finish safely. Such groups were called cohorts. They would become fixed groups in the future, with endless possibilities—if they survived.
Currently, Dimitri was alone in a challenge that people almost called an Apocalypse-level risk. There was a possibility that there might be monsters with bloodlines… perhaps even higher bloodlines.
Could he fight against them and survive? Wait…
A low grin appeared on his face. How could he forget? It was better if he died. After all, for others, death was an end. For him, it was a new beginning.
And with renewed confidence, Dimitri decided to scout his current area. He looked around again. He was in an open space. The bushes here were almost dead. The sand formed hills and holes everywhere.
He bent down and took a fistful of sand. They were soft, unlike the hard sand particles in normal lands. A frown etched itself on his face.
'Something is wrong.'
Because the sand was unnaturally soft—like something had filtered out the bigger grains, leaving only finer ones. What could have done this? An understanding crept into him, followed by a huge lightning spark in the sky.
His surprised gaze followed the surroundings in clarity before he cursed in a low voice.
"It's a fucking riverbed…"
And not of a river that dried out eons ago. He walked towards the bushes, trying to pull them out of the ground. Even after countless tries, he failed to pull them out. Don't forget—he wasn't any ordinary boy anymore. He was an aligned, with inhuman powers.
Seeing his attempts to pull these bushes prove futile, he stopped to think. Then, with a thought, he activated 'Sanguine Liquefaction', his whole body turning to liquid as he entered the ground towards the root of the bush.
After some time, a mass of blood-red liquid rose from the ground, shifting into a little boy of age five. His dark hair swayed in the wind as his dark golden pupils glinted with curiosity and a bit of doubt.
Dimitri rubbed his chin. The underground was filled with water. But the sand was harder than iron. He could only enter the ground because the bushes had created gaps. Otherwise, he couldn't.
'Am I in a marsh or something?'
Then his eyes fell on the part of the ground where he had died the second time. The blades had disappeared completely, but he was sure they were still there. And this terrain was filled with such traps and abominations everywhere.
Albeit death wasn't scary anymore, Dimitri didn't want to die useless deaths. Even if every death of his granted him a card, his build only had a capacity of fifteen. He didn't want to fill it with useless or identical cards after dying the same way over and over.
So he decided to be guarded at all times. If he found a way of death that was beneficial, then he could die.
If not… hehe.
'The other party has to die…'