The god’s blood returned into his body as Hale held his knees panting. The god’s blood was truly too troublesome to use, he’d have to find an alternate way to fight. Hale pulled out his bowie knife in his dominant hand and he would use his god’s blood as a shield on his left. Although it would tire him out quickly, at least in this way he would only have to change the shape once and simply keep the shape the same which was multiple times easier than the quick shift he did previously. He previously was quite happy with his concept, although now he was lamenting that it had little to no combat ability.

Although he could use his internal channeling, he had long since learned that there was a difference between internal and external channeling. In the awakening realm you could only use the one that came easiest to you, but once someone moved onto the resonance realm they gained the other kind. So, Hale was hoping that his external had some sort of combat ability, although with his concept he wasn’t even sure what that would look like.

Hale suddenly felt a pang in his mind as his eyes flashed a bright amethyst. Something he had seemingly glossed over, how could he have forgotten? He had seen the massacre in front of that abandoned building weeks ago. He saw their bodies and limbs slightly shimmer with odd colors. And although all those people surely had different concepts they all shimmered that same way, even their skin, meaning it surely couldn’t be an artifact. A technique? Beyond what was gifted by your concept? It only made sense now that Hale contemplated it.

He held out his hand, and with a thought had his conceptual energy rush to his hand. Or, at least that's what should have happened, but controlling his energy in such a way was almost like using a limb you never had before. Except, the limb flowed like a liquid, or kinda like a gas. And it sat within his mind, but not his brain. It was hard to describe but it felt like it was stored in the ethereal. He tried to move it through his body but it seemed to just dissipate the moment it left that ethereal space in his mind.

Suddenly hearing movement ahead Hale gave up his experiment and readied his knife, his other ready to create a shield. Another abomination, same as the last sprang from the darkness of the tunnel. Reacting quickly, Hale formed his shield from the god’s blood and rebuffed the sharp claws that swung at him. He lunged and created a deep slash across its abdomen, a black blood poured out from the wound, creating a sickening smell of rot. The creature wavered, but steadied itself to attack again. These creatures seem to thankfully be weaker than some of the other abominations he had seen in the past.

Without wasting more time Hale slashed again while he had the opening, slashing again into its abdomen, stacking the slashes together the creature’s guts spilled out as it fell to the ground wheezing as it bled out. Hale strode forward and stabbed his knife into its head, killing it.

Although the cave might have been reminiscent of a game, it wasn’t and abominations had no such loot, not even their pelts were useful. Hale could only recollect himself to traverse farther into the tunnels.

He walked further, making sure to stay quiet, although he assumed it would be useless since in the awakened realm you have no control of your conceptual radiation and leaked it constantly. Knowing abominations fed off such radiation and energy, there’s no doubt they’re sensitive to it, but some stealth was probably better than none.

Soon, the tunnels started getting larger and larger until there was no tunnel left, just a dark space that he couldn’t see the edges of. But he heard faint breathing from a short distance away. Hale froze, not sure what to do. But, he knew the longer he was there the more likely they’d be to sense him so he steeled his nerves and broke one of his flares, which he had three of. Tossing it in front of him, it lit the room up. It was a large area, dug by hand, or claw, and spanned at least 30 feet in diameter. But, what entered his vision next made his heart nearly stop. Two more of the abominations from earlier, and third, much larger and much much stronger were huddled in on the other side of the room.

As soon as the flare landed in the room, the three whipped their heads around completely 180 degrees like an owl, first staring at the flare and then their glares slowly shifting over to Hale.

“Well fuck.” Hale muttered as he pulled out his pistol and immediately fired multiple shots at one of the two smaller ones.

He immediately broke into a sprint to run away, but they were even faster than him, or maybe it was that they knew the tunnels more than him. He continued firing behind him, soon his 13 shots turned to 4 in the matter of half a minute. His hearing had long since been lost from firing the gun in such an enclosed area. The abominations, running on all fours, jumped from one wall to the next as they catapulted themselves toward Hale.

Thankfully, one of his shots had found the mark as one of the smaller abominations dropped, spasming on the ground. With two left and only a few bullets left Hale knew he had to take the chance now. He turned on his heel, facing the two barreling towards him. He took a moment to steady his aim and fired. The other smaller one fell as its head nearly exploded. But that was when Hale’s luck ran out as the large abomination caught up to him and swept him away with its clawed hand.

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Hale flew backwards like a cannonball and slammed into a wall of the cave, a huge gash in his chest that made his earlier wound look like a papercut. He could clearly see his ribs at the bottom of the three horizontal wounds from the claws, the pain was utterly unbearable. The inky blood’s tendrils soon reached out to try to pull the sides of the gashes back together. Wherever Hale read that the body goes numb from huge wounds as the body goes into shock was a liar. Hale was sure this was without a doubt the second worst pain he had ever felt in his life, but with the abomination following toward him again for a follow up Hale could only move his focus and brace himself. He summoned out the god’s blood into a small buckler shield shape, but with that the tendrils from the wound could only retract as there just wasn’t enough of it to sustain both. Even his earlier wound opened. But what could Hale do?

The abomination swung both hands down at Hale. He swiftly tilted the shield, deflecting them the side, at least slightly dissipating some of the force but he was still forced an inch deeper into the wall as he spit up blood. He used the last of the focus he had as the shield quickly formed to a blade, the blade extending directly into the chest of the abomination. But, if an abomination of this level could be killed so easily would the awakened fear them like they did? It seemed unfazed from the sword stabbing into its chest and poking out the other side, a second pause was all it gave before its hands lifted up above its head to slam down on Hale again.

With his life or death on the line would Hale give up that second hesitation? Never, never again. In that moment Hale spilled out all the conceptual energy he had, hoping some of it ended up where he wanted it to go. His gamble paid off as his arm and sword of god’s blood lit with a pale violet hue and the change was beyond what Hale could anticipate. If before his arm nearly broke from simply having the sword push into its chest, it now was like slicing through butter. With a flick of his arm, the abomination’s chest was sliced open with ease. Its heart was sliced in half, visible to the open air. Even with this though, the monster seemed to want to continue on trying to kill Hale. in the end though, its arms could only fall to its side as it slowly slumped to the ground.

Retracting the sword, the god’s blood got to work trying to stitch up the huge wounds on Hale’s chest. He felt incomparably weak. Even though the wounds stopped bleeding a minute later, he had simply lost too much blood already. His breaths were shallow and his head spun, if he wasn’t already laying down he was sure he would fall over. And eventually he couldn’t keep up his concentration and his eyes fluttered shut, not having even tried to move from where his body was implanted into the side of the tunnel wall.

-

Rose and Shira walked through streets that winded at odd angles, with buildings that had shapes that seemed to verge on the fourth dimension, breaking the laws of physics. Unfortunately the city was not abandoned, as they had already seen multiple instances of abominations. And each time they did they would change their course to avoid them.

“Ugh, we’ve been walking for two days already and haven’t found anyone, isn’t it time we think of a new plan?” Shira protested.

Rose flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder, her hair, even her clothes, were spotless still. She harrumphed, “Our plan B is already taken care of. Before we were dropped into this world I sent out a distress signal to the Order of the Self. Our only job is to gather everyone together and then watch as the Sheas get slaughtered.”

-

In another area of the warped world sat an abomination on a throne of stone, like the building itself made one for him, perfectly proportioned for the long limbs that this humanoid abomination possessed. Unlike the abominations Hale had seen up to this point, there was no rage in this monster’s eyes, there was a hint of cunning as it looked over the land in its domain from this tall building.

Around the throne were other abominations, kneeling and laying their heads on the ground, as they shivered in fear. A grating laugh escaped the human like one as it slowly rose from its throne. The other cowering abominations slid back in fear.

“Food.” The lanky monster commanded, its voice alone shattering the cement rooftop into a spiderweb. “Soon.”

-

In a place just outside of the warped world’s entrance a man and a woman walked up to the clearing. The woman was a young chinese girl with a shoulder length bob of black hair, her features would be without blemish and heart stopping if not for the deep bags under her eyes. Her eyes were a piercing yellow with swirls of red and green. But her aura was even worse, she was obviously in the resonance realm but she seemed to have little control over her aura as crisp pastel colors swirled in the air around her, they vibrated and shifted before manifesting into and out of reality. It may sound beautiful but instead it looked more like what someone with schizophrenia would see.

The man was a harsh battle tested man in his late 20s, a sharp jaw and a crew cut of wavy brown hair. His aura was completely repressed, he seemed like a normal person if not for faint sounds of clinking metal that seemed to come from nowhere as he walked.

“Well?” The man probed.

“A warped world’s entrance is here. It's made of concepts of darkness and cities, or maybe shadow, or buildings. Architecture?” She spoke out unsteadily.

“Fine. Let’s get this over with. You first, princess.” The man snarked, acting like the word was poison in his mouth. Without waiting for her response as he pushed her forward. She stumbled forward, her aura enough to rip open the opening. He watched her disappear as a shattering sound reverberated, he collected himself before he followed after her, entering the warped world too.