"NO!" Ron yelled, charging over to his wife.

Betty shrieked in pain. The sound echoed throughout the cavern beneath her, the woman clutching her head as she wobbled in place. She didn't immediately fall over. Logan almost sighed in relief, but then she took another step, and that was it.

Everyone gasped. Logan charged over to the hole and grabbed Ron before he fell in himself. They both kneeled over the edge as the Savages gathered around Betty, the older woman groaning as she attempted to push herself off the ground and sit up. They stood about a metre away from her in a circle. None were on their mounts, the beasts curled up in a pile and resting.

The circle widened as the leader of the Savages approached.

"Get away from her, you bastard!" Ron shouted, pulling out his bow.

Logan didn't stop him. Ron used Heavy Blow on the arrow, even activating the bow's inscription when he drew the string. Pierce was a reasonably strong inscription that would enhance the piercing power of any arrow shot with that bow. That was why Logan had no idea what would happen, especially when Ron loosed the arrow at the back of the Savage leader's head.

It whistled through the air with tremendous force. The sound echoed in the cavern, but the arrow was too fast for the leader to react. It collided with the back of its head. The monster stumbled as its head was thrown forward by the impact, but it didn't fall over or take more than one step. Worst of all, the arrow bounced off the back of its head and only left a small chip on the crystal, not even cracking the thick plate.

The leader glanced up at them, its eyes glowing with a vicious white light. Ron screamed and clutched his head. Logan pulled the man back so that he fell to the ground and not into the hole. He then commanded everyone to either get back or hold onto another person so they didn't fall. When he looked down into the pit again, Logan felt his heart sink as the corner of the Savage's mouth curled up in a smile.

The crystal on its arm melted once more. Betty groaned and clutched her head as she sat up. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be confused, which was a blessing Logan hadn't expected. The crystal on the Savage's arm drooped to the ground until it suddenly hardened into a long sword. With a wave of its hand, the blade pierced into Betty's eye and out the back of her skull.

Logan held Ron down to stop him from seeing. He ignored the older man's pleading, his heart set on sparing him the pain of seeing his wife get brutally murdered. There was no point. It would only inflict more pain and trauma on him.

Still, Logan made sure to watch himself, a shocking change taking place before his eyes. As the blade was extracted from Betty's skull, a smokey substance began to pour out of her eye. It curled around the bloody crystal sword as it was slowly sucked in, the weapon glowing with a pure white light.

Once the substance was absorbed, Logan felt something change in Betty's corpse. She was now the same as Janet. Whatever had been sucked out of her head, Betty could no longer be revived. There was no saving her now.

Logan's mind raced with ideas. Was that her soul that had been stolen, or was it something else? It could be anything, but it made the most sense that it was her soul. Even so, the killing was over now.

Logan grabbed Ron and dragged him away before another unfortunate accident happened.

***

After Betty was murdered, the group decided to leave the area for two reasons. The first was that no one wanted to hang around a bunch of Savage race warriors or Betty's corpse. The second was the screaming, which had no doubt attracted a monster or two to come and investigate the scene. No one was in the mood to fight, so they all but ran away until they found somewhere to settle down.

The hole into the biodome was on its edge. That allowed them to find an indent in the wall that was more like half of a cave. It provided little to no cover, but with a few items from the Shop, it meant that no monsters would find them. If they had set up in the middle of the forest, a random beast could get close enough to smell them or even walk straight through their camp by accident.

After purchasing everyone a necklace to protect their minds, Logan helped set up camp and then did some training. Most everyone did besides Ron. The threat of death was ever-present, and the only way to preserve your life was to grow stronger.

The blow to Ron's mind, however, was too much. He was just sitting on his chair and staring off into space. Some people tried to talk to him, but when he only gave half-hearted responses, they went to the nearby clearing to practise their techniques.

Risking your life could bring out a person's latent potential. Logan had made almost all of his breakthroughs during a life-or-death battle, which couldn't be a coincidence. He had also experienced that mental clarity several times now. He knew what it was like to not have the space to think about anything besides a technique. It provided a completely different frame of reference, and being pushed to your limits helped a cultivator locate their flaws.

Those factors made it easy to loosen a bottleneck as long as you had the requisite knowledge. Of course, there was the genuine risk of death to account for. Most people would eventually run out of luck and die. That was why a more relaxed and structured training system was best, which Logan would fully endorse if he were not trapped in a dome full of monsters.

Fortunately, he had experienced a life-threatening day today. And while he didn't make a breakthrough, it gave him a few insights on how he could improve his technique. That was why Logan pulled his spear out and settled into his usual stance.

He started by jabbing at nothing but felt stifled by the lack of feedback and moved over to a nearby tree. It was large enough that two people couldn't wrap their arms around it, and its bark was smooth and ashen grey. It wasn't something that would usually be found in a jungle, but on their short walk over, they had seen all manner of things that didn't exist on Earth.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

The weird tree didn't phase Logan much, so he continued his practice. His spear was sharp enough to rend flesh from bone, yet it barely chipped away at the bark. Even after two hours of training, his shoulders aching and his breathing harsh, he had only left a thumb-sized divot in its trunk.

Typically, Logan would draw a hint of power from the egg to recover his stamina, but he decided not to do so this time. Being tired felt nice. After failing to save Betty, feeling exhausted helped to dull his turbulent emotions.

That was why he did nothing to his hands. The skin was peeling and his callouses were starting to bleed from slamming his spear into a solid tree. Of course, he had experienced much worse. If he couldn't willingly put himself through this much pain, how could he risk his life for the people he cared about?

Then again, did it even matter? Everyone he cared about was probably dead. Without their bodies, he couldn't revive them. And what were the odds of finding them out in the wilderness? Logan didn't want to admit it, but he may never see his family or friends again.

No matter how powerful he became, the dead would likely stay gone. So then did that make all of his efforts now a pointless endeavour? He couldn't save an old woman standing less than ten metres away. How the hell was he supposed to find his family or revive his father, who's been dead for twenty years?

That train of thought only made Logan angrier with himself. He could've tried to calm down, but he didn't want to relax. He wanted to feel pain. He wanted to do something that mattered in his life. He hated feeling useless and helpless and alone and scared, all of those emotions building until he was slamming his spear into the tree without a thought.

Again and again, he swung his spear with nothing but wild thrusts. He didn't even care if his blows were accurate. All Logan thought about was unleashing as much power as he could. Thrust after thrust, his spear carved out a circular hole into the tree until, finally, his body could handle no more.

The spear bounced from Logan's grip and clattered across the rocky floor. There were patches of grass here and there, which was what Logan collapsed onto as he gasped for air. He slowly caught his breath until the pain in his hands began to bother him. They were calloused from training over the last two months, but since he used the egg on himself, they were softer than they should've been.

That was why his skin was peeling off and his palms were raw and bloody. The adrenaline began to fade from his system, the pain only growing more intense. He also felt so weak that he couldn't move. This stoked his emotions one final time, pushing the egg awake so that his condition rapidly improved by the influx of healing energies. His hands calloused over, his breathing settled, and his body filled with strength.

Logan jumped to his feet and grabbed the bloody spear. The egg roared to life as he used his new intermediate technique, his body filling with golden energy. With strength at the late stages of Body Tempering, his spear dug into the bark much more easily. Only this time, the intermediate technique activated on top of his boosted strength, ripping through the bark with a small explosion.

Logan continued to use his technique repeatedly, intent on letting out all of his anger until he failed. Only he didn't fail. This unnamed technique triggered without fail until something changed. All his emotions came together to form one final attack, everything coming together so perfectly that he couldn't locate a flaw even if he tried.

Taking a step back, Logan wrenched his spear out and watched as the largest explosion yet rocked the tree. It was already decimated from his earlier attacks, but now a massive chunk was ripped out of its centre. Pulp and wood chips rained over him and, with a deafening snap, the tree fell over with a bang.

[Congratulations! You have created a new composite technique!]

[What would you like to name this new intermediate technique?]

Logan wasn't too surprised since he had torn down a tree. Still, he smiled and took a moment to think about a name.

[Congratulations! You have learned a new intermediate technique: Seed of Demise.]

The name sounded a bit ridiculous, but that was how Logan thought about it. After using the technique so much, he was clearer on its nature than anyone else. The spear cut through the air, layering it over the tip until it formed a tiny seed. He could create nine layers for now, and when he withdrew the tip, it would bloom like a flower that would herald a person's demise.

An explosive, violent flower, but that was how it appeared. The layers would crack and the surface would open like a blooming rose.

After closing the notification, Logan received a new one that surprised him quite a bit.

[Feat achieved! As a mortal in the middle stages of the Body Tempering realm, you have derived a unique technique based on another, elevating it to the intermediate tier. +400,000 credits.]

[Privilege: Level 3 -> 4.]

Logan excitedly opened the Shop. His Rare spear was already so incredible that he was thrilled to upgrade it again, but while there were more medicines and extraneous items available, there was nothing better than Rare for sale. Instead, a new section appeared.

"Formations," He muttered, unsure of what they could be.

After skimming through the new section, Logan discovered that they were non-combat items with inscriptions carved into them. He could buy a stove that used energy from the atmosphere, a flask that gathered moisture from the air to effectively conjure water, and even protective disks that could be placed around the campsite.

Logan purchased three disks. The first could detect anything with a soul, which included virtually every monster. It would then set off an alarm if it detected a non-authorised soul print. The second was able to seal the presence of the campsite, effectively making it invisible. And the last could increase the ambient gravity in a small area. The first two were defensive in nature and the final one would be used to speed up their training.

Logan was thrilled with this development as no monster could smell or see them, and if something did wander into the field, they would immediately know and wake up. Before, Logan had been rotating through guard duty with Deon and James every night, but now they could finally rest without worrying about being attacked.

That allowed him to sit down and relax with the others. They relaxed as a few monsters came around to sniff the fallen tree, likely hoping for an easy meal. The casual conversation between each sighting was also how he discovered that no one saw the white mist leak from Betty's eye.

"You guys really didn't see it?" Logan asked, leaning forward in his chair.

"See what?" James asked, taking a sip of his beer.

"The mist?" Logan whispered, getting strange looks from Stephanie and Amelia. "You know, that white mist that came out of Betty?"

No one said anything.

Logan explained what he saw, earning reactions of shock and confusion from the others.

"Why were you the only one who could see the smoke?"

"Are you sure that she can't be revived?"

"What the hell did the Savage take? Her mind or… God, I don't even want to say it. Her soul? Did it eat her soul, Logan?"

"I don't know. The egg is probably the reason why I can see it. I'm absolutely certain she cannot be revived for now, and I'm guessing it's her soul. The blade was made out of soul crystals. If there is another explanation, it's not a very obvious one."

Everyone sat in stunned silence for a moment until Amelia sighed. "No wonder Janet died. Her soul must've been devoured by those rats, and because we didn't see the smoke, we didn't know until you showed up."

Logan nodded as everyone became agitated. James stopped drinking his beer, Stephanie didn't take another bite of her salad, and Amelia left her fried rice to grow cold. Soul-devouring. There were so many implications, and Logan didn't like any of them.

Was there an afterlife? What about reincarnation? If you had your soul devoured, did that mean you were dead forever? Logan wasn't really a religious person before they fell down into the abyss. To him, death was the final result of life. It was unavoidable and would come for everyone.

Now, however, there really might be a hell, and it could very well be in the armour of a Savage.