Ragnar set the corpse against the wall in a corner.

He walked over to the pieces of cloth scattered on the ground. This should have happened when he first turned into his shifted form, when he was unconscious.

Although he did not have any liking for these clothes, in fact, he kind of hated them, in this situation, it was a waste.

What was he going to wear now? He had no interest in walking around naked. Even if there weren’t any other humans in this cave network and only Shifted creatures.

He picked up a piece of cloth and wrapped it around his groins like a loin cloth. This would have to do for now. At least the most important part would not flap with the wind when he ran.

He decided to use this spot as a hideout since this part of the network seemed somewhat detached from the rest. He could bring in more corpses here to hide them for as long as possible.

He would also be needing to sleep since he will definitely be here for more than a day. If he manages to keep his tracks hidden, that is.

He was finally ready to explore his actual ability that he will be relying on for maybe, the rest of his life, at the very least.

***

Ragnar left this section and started scouting. This time, in the opposite direction.

He had tried using all the abilities from his Shifted form by now. It turns out, he can use invisibility while he is human as well, but only for 10 seconds at once. And the next use can only be activated after 30 seconds. It also sucked his essence like crazy.

As for his Ethereal form, yeah, no luck there. He could not even activate it.

He was currently walking through the dim glow from the viridescent crystals as he tried to avoid the puddles. This form was not water resistant like the other one, unfortunately.

He had located his black dagger along with the clothes as well. He moved without creating any sounds, a trick from his ‘heydays’.

“Heh”

He really might have taken after Lady Beth.

While walking, he tried to think about the ways he could use the shockwaves. He could not think of a use for the Sonic waves right now, so they would have to wait. They could always serve as another boost in his attacks.

He gazed at the blade in his hands, its black surface reflected his eyes that now had a spark of life within them.

He tried channelling his shockwaves through the Dagger. It started vibrating as a slight hum echoed through the cave. It wasn’t very loud so, Ragnar wasn’t worried.

He kept increasing the intensity and he saw, as the vibration of the blade kept getting quicker and quicker, it started creating afterimages.

He did not stop there and kept increasing the intensity of the shockwaves. Eventually it reached a point where the dagger became completely still. It was vibrating so quickly that his eyes could not catch up with it.

A smirk crept up his face as he sliced the air with his dagger.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

*Swishhh*

It now felt like an extension of his hand.

He brought the dagger next to a crystal in the wall and what happened next even shocked him.

He had expected it to shatter the crystal on impact but that didn’t happen. The dagger entered the crystal with zero resistance whatsoever. A chime reverberated as the blade moved.

He sliced downwards and still; he faced no resistance as if that part of the crystal was evaporating into thin air. A crevice had formed in the crystal where the Dagger had passed.

This turn of events turned his smirk into a genuine smile. This was going to come in handy.

He took out the dagger and stopped channelling his shockwaves. The state of it swept away his smile as he frowned.

This wasn’t satisfactory, to say the least. The blade looked battered as if about to fall apart. It had chipped in several spots.

Ragnar had looked at the dagger with his Ethereal vision before and it was just a normal dagger. He did not expect anything more from that bastard. However, this would be a problem.

This would only be an immediate problem though since he could get an Artifact Dagger when he is back in HCR. But that would mean he only had one or two more uses of this Dagger.

He could always go with the mandibles of the Quaraxis he was going to kill but they would be much harder to get comfortable with. He had been using this dagger since forever.

That said, he already had an idea as to what he was going to do.

He stared at the crevice in the crystal and kept his palm on it. How about shooting his waves directly at the target?

He started off with high intensity this time, the amount he thought would be sufficient to shatter the crystal.

But that might have been a bit too much, because the crystal shattered for sure. A sharp clatter was heard followed by a resounding Boom as a hole appeared in the wall.

The booms echoed through the walls of the cave as a cloud of dust formed around Ragnar.

The hole in the wall was large enough to fit the Quaraxi Soldier he had killed before.

He looked at his palm, as another smirk crept up his face, but now it was time to run. This one might have created slightly more disturbance than he could account for. He remembered the way he had taken to reach this place because he was taking note of it this time.

But he wasn’t heading back to his new hideout. Because it was not the end of this adventure yet. He still had plenty of essence and energy left in his body.

He had expected his essence to run out very soon considering his human Core looked pretty lacklustre as compared to his Shifted one, but that didn’t happen.

He had noticed that he was using the essence at an equal rate from both his cores no matter which form he was in, that meant he could use the essence that a normal human would have, as well as the essence that a primordial creature would have, both in any form.

This was a very neat surprise for Ragnar since that means he would have one less reason to turn to his Shifted Form.

The path Ragnar had taken this time was clearly headed downwards since it was on a slope, he was headed deeper into the nest.

He became more alert than usual. He did not have the senses of his Shifted form so he had to rely on his Eyes and Ears. The Quaraxi made so much noise when they moved anyways so he should be fine.

He thought about the different ways he could use his ability that would allow him so sense his environment better. But the things that came to his mind required better control over his essence. And he did not have that control, yet. He might need to Brainstorm this one.

In fact, he did not have any control over his essence yet. The only thing he can control is the intensity of the waves he produced. He could also channel the waves through other objects like he had with the Dagger.

His plans on dealing with the Quaraxis were dependent on this. Well, nothing fancy, he was just going to blast through them.

He moved at a measured pace as he observed the cave. He lacked the night vision from the Panther since that part seemed to be inbuilt into its eyes and not one of its abilities.

He did however, have a much more enhanced vision if compared to mundane humans, that, along with the glow from the crystals gave him sufficient visibility.

As he observed the crystals, he noticed that their glow seemed to be increasing as he moved deeper into the cave. Although the difference wasn’t much, it was still noticeable.

Good for him since it brightened the cave slightly more.

While thinking in this direction, he suddenly became alert, because he could hear something approaching.

Its slow steps came from below the slope Ragnar stood on. It sounded much less intense than the previous one.

He hid behind a protrusion in the wall as he waited for the creature to approach… which didn’t take long at all