Integrating with his Gens had allowed Eric to see better in the gloom.

Where before the large chamber was dark and foreboding, now his eyes seemed to have adapted to what little light there was, allowing him to see more of the room’s details.

Not that there was much to see.

To his right, the mangled, bleeding, but incredibly still breathing bulk of the dragon was pushed up against one of the room’s metallic walls, and the entire floor in the immediate vicinity was strewn with meat and bits of bone and various organs, all stewing in a thick slurry of stinking, congealing blood and other fluids. Thankfully, most of the dragon’s abdomen and its entire back half was missing, lost somewhere during the explosion and their suction into the Underwend.

Besides the dragon’s body the room contained nothing else, an empty dark rectangle bounded by windowless metal walls. The floor was black, smooth and featureless, with not a single piece of furniture to suggest its original purpose. The ceiling was high enough that Eric could barely make it out, even with his newly-enhanced vision. Looking to the side he noticed the wall behind him had a slight curve to it and on the opposite side, roughly fifty meters from where Eric stood beside Serra’s body was the vague shape of a doorway with a panel beside it, although Eric could make nothing else about it from this distance.

“We already started it,” Eric muttered to himself as he gripped Serra’s small knife and took a step forward. “Might as well finish it, right?”

Armed and determined, Eric walked forth to kill a dragon.

Making his way through the pools of dragon blood and other stuff was unpleasant, especially since his movements stirred up foul scents from the materials he had to walk through. Gritting his teeth and trying to breathe through his mouth, Eric made his way to where the broken and exposed arches of the dragon’s massive ribs created a sort of macabre cave opening above his head. Ropes of torn tissue and raw muscle hung over the cavity, dripping blood, and a warm, wet stench almost made him vomit.

Incredibly, despite its injuries, it seemed the dragon’s body was attempting to heal itself: Mangled muscles were stirring ever so slightly, scabs forming slowly, but visibly, over open wounds. One blood vessel had been severed entirely, but Eric could see that the blood had stopped flowing out of it, while small tendrils of what looked like smaller blood vessels were growing out of the sides and sealing up the cut ends.

Could the dragon possibly survive?

Peering inside the cavity Eric could see and hear the dragon’s huge heart still valiantly trying to push life-giving fluid into its mangled body. The sound was not loud, but the combination of the laboring lungs and beating heart filled the space.

Cutting out that heart should kill the dragon, right?

Giving himself no time to second-guess his decision, Eric plunged into the ruin of the dragon’s torso, arms held forward as he sought out the dragon’s aorta with the blade of Serra’s knife. He had to push himself quite a way inward before he found his target, and the disgusting feel and smell of warm, wet blood and meat enveloped his entire body.

Working by touch more than sight, Eric followed the curve of the heart to a thick, hollow tube where he could feel blood moving in and out with every beat. Placing his palm on the tube, Eric could clearly feel the powerful back and forth rush of the dragon’s lifeblood. Sliding his hand along the surface of the tough heart muscle, he stopped at the junction where artery met heart. Closing his eyes and turning his head away, Eric stabbed downward, then slashed back and forth with the knife.

A warm rush of new blood and slime washed over his upper torso, making him gag with revulsion. The dragon’s huge body shuddered, and a faint whistling cry erupted from its throat, but within a few seconds the beating of the dragon’s heart as well as its labored breathing slowed. Eric backed out of the cavity carefully, and just as he freed his head and gulped in a lungful of air the dragon’s huge body shuddered one last time before going still.

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A sudden wave of notification windows assaulted his vision, causing Eric to stumble as he worked his way out of the dragon’s torso and step free onto the tacky, blood-flooded floor.

“Hellfire! Pig, get rid of these!”

“I can keep them hidden until you have time to look at them sir.”

“Good! Do so!”

The flickering tide of windows stopped, although a small mail icon blinked to the left of his field of vision. Somehow, the familiar message symbol brought a welcome bit of normalcy to the situation. With that matter set aside for the moment, Eric wiped uselessly at his face, clearing some but not all of the gunk that covered it. He made his way along the still quivering bulk of the body, walking around to take a closer look at the dragon’s now-silent remains.

A faint purple gleam drew his attention to the back of the dragon’s head.

Could that be the core?

Carefully, Eric picked his way up the dragon’s front leg, to its shoulder, and finally climbed up the rough scales of the neck until he came to where the faint glow emanated from just below the dragon’s skin.

Using the small knife, Eric struggled to cut into the tough skin at the back of the dragon’s neck, sawing the blade deeper and deeper until it struck something solid. After about thirty minutes of digging and slicing into the dragon’s tough flesh, Eric wiped away the sweat that had sprung from his brow, cleaned the knife’s blade as best he could before placing it in his pocket, and then reached into the ragged wound he had created to finally withdraw the dragon’s core.

Eyes wide, Eric examined the core he held in his bloody, sticky hands.

It was an oval, faceted sphere about the size of both his hands combined and it gave off a shadowy, purple light. The sphere emitted a forbidding cold that chilled Eric’s fingers.

“Pig, what do I do with this?”

A new window opened.

You have obtained an Ancient Void Dragon Core (Epic Beast Core).

Aspects: Destruction, Hunger, and Void

Do you wish to make this your Prime Core? Yes/No

“Yes.”

The glow around the dragon core he held flared for a moment and the heavy sphere disappeared entirely from his hand. Eric felt a warmth spreading from his chest to the rest of his body, his nerves tingling as new energy coursed through his frame. Liquid fire blazed throughout his body for a moment, revealing to his mind’s eye a lattice of fine lines and convergent hollows, a network of light and power that blazed fiercely for a moment before the energy was sucked back and compressed into a small walnut-sized orb near the base of his neck.

You have created your Prime Core.

You may refine aether into the aspects of Destruction, Hunger, and Void

You have gained the ability Dragon Sight

You may now choose your Type

“Congratulations, on obtaining your first core Sir.” Pig said softly. “I have received new information and can help you through the process.”

Eric closed his eyes, sensing energy forming in the air around him.

A stylized humanoid figure floated within the blackness behind his lids. At the figure’s neck area, a brightly glowing circle flared with light, small dark tendrils looking for all the world like a system of veins and arteries extended outward from the circle. Even in the short time that had passed, Eric could see small threads of light from the Core slowly extending into the dark network with each breath he took.

“This is your Gens Schema, Sir.” His AI was speaking firmly, indicating that this information was probably System-fed to him instead of conjecture. Eyes still closed, Eric watched and listened intently.

“The Core you installed is now your Prime Core, which, for the meantime, will be the source of your aetheric powers. Obtaining your Prime Core also allows you to choose a Type.”

Before Eric could ask questions, Pig hurried on, as if afraid of being interrupted.

“As an Outsider, you have immediate access to the three Foundation Stage Core slots. The two other slots, for the Anchor and the Gate Cores respectively, are located here and here.” Eric’s inward vision zoomed into two open circular slots on the left and right sides of his chest, both appearing to be connected to the Prime Core by more of those dark tendrils. “Once all three slots are filled you will have completed the Foundation Stage of your Gens. In order to move on to the next Stage, you must then merge your three Cores into one.”

“And that will give an Archetype.”

“Yes, you may then choose your Archetype.”

“Although you can’t tell me exactly what an Archetype is.”

“Uh… Technically… No, sir, I cannot.”

Eric snorted in amusement at the AI’s helpless tone, but he knew they were still very much in the dark with regards to their new reality: Archetype, Foundation Stage, Merging Cores… There were so many terms to keep track of. Eric knew he would need time to sit down and study all of these options, otherwise there was a chance he would make an irredeemable mistake. Pig would help, but they both needed more information, information that they would only get with time.

At least he now had a Prime Core set, the rest of the stuff could follow. What he needed most now was to find something or some way to help Serra.

With that goal in mind Eric willed his Gens Schema closed, and opened his eyes.

Dragon Sight activated.