"It certainly looks the part," Damien muttered at the thought of Extinction Valley, inspecting the lands. He was currently at the Tempest Channel, an area ripe with chaotic tides that defied the laws of physics.
His first instinct was to check out the Haven, which felt more like the 'eye of the storm' than anything.
*Vzzzzz* A powerful gust of wind suddenly assaulted the area; it was strong enough to take a giant into the sky!
Damien squinted his eyes from the raging torrents, feeling his clothes snapping incessantly. It was all from the turbulent stretch of sea and broken land with collapsing tides, a violent mix of ear-rattling chaos.
Without further ado, the young pirate popped the air, rocketing through the tempestuous channel. Towards the north, he went.
…
It took a total of two hours to zoom through the Tempest Channel.
And much like the island's nature, a downright bizarre atmosphere arrived. Going from the windy and tsunami-prone channel to a dusty land with heavy air.
It wasn't dry but humid. Some patches of trees were in one area, and giant lakes were in another. The biomes shifted from jungle to oak, dark oak, birch, acacia, and any type of wood the mind could imagine.
Damien paused his steps, taking in the very abrupt change in environment. His masterful Haki stretched out to hundreds of meters of land, looking for anything worth mentioning.
"Hmm," he mumbled, wrinkling his eyebrows with an unsure expression. "That's odd, not a single 'destructive' element in the air here."
The pirate's eyes then turned heavy, "But the nature all around me is… distant."
Damien continued his scan, going from biome to biome, across grass and trees, until arriving at something moving amidst 50-meter-tall trees.
"A person?" he asked, his eyes slightly widening. Damien's empathy picked up on the surge of emotions, narrowing down to fear and desperation alongside immature unsteadiness: "No… a kid."
"To think people are living here." In a moment of curiosity, the undying pirate sprang ahead to the child over 300 meters away.
The boy was noticeably surprised at Damien's arrival, jumping into a ready position with faux confidence.
Like the boy, Damien was surprised—the kid had some interesting features beyond the human norm.
Dark, ashy skin with hair sprung up like that of an owl, topped with dull yellow eyes with huge pupils. He wore a dark garb and a thick scarf around his neck.
The boy looked at Damien like some kind of ghost, a mix of curiosity and nervousness.
[Boy Image (in Discord)]
Suddenly, a dull echo went off, sending tremors through the earth below and bringing the duo to a halt.
Something big was here.
"Corro, stranger, pik's non wop aca, ta monsters nama miko!" The boy spoke with great fear, though it was nothing but gibberish in most people's minds.
Boom!
The giant rock suddenly exploded into countless pieces, unveiling the monster that had arrived.
The boy yelped, shooting ahead to grab Damien's hand and run for it. "Corro, corro!!!"
Ignoring the boy's persistence, Damien watched the creature that had arrived. "What the hell are you supposed to be…" the pirate muttered, taken aback by the creature.
The creature was an eerie, otherworldly horse-like being with an elongated head that opened into a massive, gaping mouth filled with sharp teeth. Its thin, spindly legs and 40-meter-tall emaciated body gave it a grotesque and unsettling appearance.
[Creature Image (in Discord)]
{Stop.}
The voice was laced with Damien's deep connection to the world and its creatures alongside Conqueror's Haki—a command that even most Sea Kings would follow. The command shook the forests with its demanding tone and drilled into the monster's ears.
An ear-rattling roar exploded from the beast, its demeanour getting far, far angrier to the point its eyes glowed a menacing red.
The horse monster raised a hoof and slammed it onto the tiny Damien, sending powerful shocks through the earth.
The young boy gave out a desperate cry as he saw the foreigner crushed by the massive beast, his mind plagued with dread.
A brief silence followed by a casual voice: "Fine, let's do it the hard way…"
*Whizz* The air squeaked as a black shadow flickered in the sky, arriving at eye level with the horse monster.
"You have a face not even a mother could love."
The words didn't make sense to the beast, yet it could hear the disgust in its adversary's voice for some reason. The beast erupted with fury, opening its mouth wider than before.
*Crunch!* With a swift move, it wholly enveloped the pirate, eating him whole.
"..."
"Gwuaah!" The beast suddenly gave out a thunderous cry, its eyes filled with pain. Under the shocked eyes of the boy, the giant horse-monster fell with a loud thump, dead.
*Krrrr* A large gash opened up from the beast's stomach, a sole silhouette walking out.
"The heart is located inside the stomach," the young man muttered, shaking his head. "Never seen that before."
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.
Damien turned to the side, meeting the lad's jaw-dropped gaze. The child gave a slight yelp, wincing in fear.
"Ka'm non pata da tee to."
The boy's expression suddenly changed, turning from dread to curiosity.
"To dub Han'ei Suru?"
Though in Damien's mind, the words were: "You speak Han'ei Suru?"
The pirate slightly nodded, "It was an elective."
Question marks went off in the boy's mind as he looked perplexed. Naturally, the truth was Damien's Voice of All Things working to translate the boy's thoughts into something understandable—a link that worked to translate Damien's speech as well.
"Stranger, we should go before it gets dark!" The boy pulled the guest away and into the forest ahead.
'He has quite a lot of strength for a boy his age,' Damien thought, feeling the tug that would quickly snap a thin tree in half.
They zoomed through the forest, an array of creatures watching their retreat.
Everything was big. Even the mosquitos were the size of the average human. Hundreds of eyes watched as they continued, darkness creeping behind.
"Such anger…" Damien muttered, feeling the creatures' mix of emotions. It was beyond anger; rather, it was pure, seething fury!
They were enraged to the point where Damien's Voice did not affect them!
…
[Half Hour Later]
The boy went through various hidden paths and shortcuts, dashing onwards.
Along their path were some extraordinary things.
Just recently, Damien had cut down a horrendous-looking thing. It stood twenty meters in height, pale in colour and somewhat humanoid. It had a giant mouth that stretched from one shoulder to the other, with a human arm peaking out as a tongue; it was like a titan but even uglier.
[Creature Image (in Discord)]
A swamp they ran through had some form of a sea monster. It was in the shape of a snake that had the mouth of a Kraken.
Something truly monstrous.
[Creature Image (in Discord)]
…
"We're here!" the boy's chipper voice went off.
Damien nodded, examining his surroundings. Unlike the odd atmosphere of the Ring of Untold Horrors, this place was heaven. There was a serene air backed up by a gentle breeze. The moon had shown itself, bathing them with cool moonlight and unveiling the area: "The Haven, a fitting name."
"Come, Stranger!"
The boy gestured for Damien to follow him, taking him far into the safe area.
The undying pirate narrowed his eyes, feeling the gazes of dozens of people—they were human, or at least with human intelligence.
"Don't worry, the Stranger saved me!"
The child's voice calmed the tense air as a few people slowly but surely walked out from the shade of the trees.
Damien was a little taken aback by their features.
They all looked human but had some animalistic characteristics about them.
Some resembled frogs, some snakes, and some birds. A few women had a half-snake body, while many men had animal arms and body parts—not in the sense of Minks, but rather human-animal hybrids.
.
"Fukuro, where did you find this Foreigner?" came an elderly voice.
The owl-like boy smiled brightly, "He saved me from the Forsaken Horse!"
The people seemed surprised by the news, looking at Damien in a new light. The surge of wariness also calmed down. However, the spread of entities ready to fight impressed the pirate.
He saw one of them even plop down a giant boulder the size of a shed, doing so with ease.
A woman with feline features placed down two giant trees that she seemed to have uprooted from the ground.
An old man rubbed his back, calming down the dense black energy coating his arms.
"You saved Fukuro, many thanks to you, Foreigner."
Damien gazed at the pale man who seemed to be the leader of these people. He had glowing yellow eyes that had no pupils. His facial hair floated in the air, giving off some ambiguous vibes. He needed the assistance of a cane to move around.
"I am the Village Chief Choro."
"Damien."
The two eyed one another, equally surprised by the other's appearance.
[Choro Image (in Discord)]
"Please join our feast as a welcome."
Damien nodded with a smirk and went forward.
…
Night fell, though its darkness was shunned by the bright torches that lit up the Haven, showcasing the thriving community.
Damien drank some odd-coloured liquid that had alcoholic attributes, gulping it down.
"I didn't know foreigners could drink so well, so here, take another one!"
"It's a good day, let's enjoy it!"
Damien soaked in the primitive culture, enjoying its simplicity. The folk danced under the campfires, a cheerful mood settling in.
"Old man Choro, can you tell me how you can live so cheerfully while surrounded by such hellish lands?" Damien asked the old man.
The Elder sighed, putting down his drink. "We are protected," he replied solemnly, "protected by the Spirit of Fear!"
His words quieted everyone else, robbing the feast of its energy. A silence crept in, leaving the crackling flames as a sound source.
Choro saw Damien's curious eyes and elaborated, "I don't know what it is, but it was a being of fear born in our most desperate time! When the Forsaken Beasts rushed into our home twenty-one years ago, the Spirit saved us! It declared our Haven its territory, forcing all other beasts to comply."
Choro looked at the guest with dreadful eyes, "It's a being of primal fear, but it saved us. It saved us all!"
Damien felt both gratitude and fright in the old man's voice, which made him even more curious. However, before he could address his further thoughts, another voice arrived: "Chief, it's almost midnight."
The words came from a shirtless mandrill-human hybrid with vibrant facial markings and a muscular physique.
"Roark, yes," Choro acknowledged with grim realization, reaching for his cane to stand up. "You're welcome to stay with us, Young Damien. The Spirit likes to hunt at this time, so we should sleep."
[Roark Image (in Discord)]
Roark sought to help the older man return to his home; meanwhile, another Extinct came to the pirate's side.
"You're the outsider. Hmm, if it weren't for Fukuro's words, I would have pummelled you!" the giant boar-man standing 15 feet (4.6 m) bellowed. "But since you're a good person, I'll give you this drink before we all go to slumber!"
The warthog-human named Buta passed a barrel of alcohol, grinning through his giant tusks.
[Buta Image (in Discord)]
…
[A While Later]
It was an eerie remnant of the boisterous feast now plagued with silence. Damien placed his empty cup down, looking at the surroundings.
"They really all went to sleep without a single lookout," Damien muttered under his breath.
It was truly odd. The people of the Haven, barely a few hundred of them, who call themselves the Extinct, were comfortable with their location to such lengths; they trusted this entity with their lives and their very lineage.
While enjoying the tranquillity, Damien pieced together some information about the geography that Choro had given him:
Tempest Channel: An area with endless tides that grow more chaotic as the moon arrives.
Stormy Beach: An area of constant rain. It usually cycles through all types of precipitation over the day; sometimes, it rains, then snows and hails, but never a second of serenity.
Desert of the Starved: A dry and barren land. It was a long stretch of heat with endless sand and dust—no dunes or elevation, just a blanket of radiating sand.
Hell: An area coursing with active volcanoes that erupt every few weeks—Instead of lakes of water, this area had lava lakes.
Tremor District: A dry land that trembled with earthquakes daily. Ranging from gentle shocks to apocalyptic quakes.
Ring of Untold Horrors: Surrounded the Haven with various forests filled with a plethora of enraged beasts that were far stronger and bigger than their standard counterparts.
Tundra of Fleeting Hope: A land far northeast with pure cold. It also saw no nighttime and was perpetually bone-chilling bright.
The Unknown Regions: Filled with poisonous lakes, boasting a daily schedule of acid rain.
No Man's Land: An area that experiences unpredictable changes in its gravitational fields every few minutes, from floating in the sky to being crushed into a paste.
.
Damien inhaled the fresh air of the Haven, lying down on a bed of hay, somewhat lost. The truth was that the pirate was unsure of what exactly he was still missing.
"Hadean allows me to touch at atomic-level dismantling," he recalled. "But that also means my Awakening isn't just this."
Damien was aimless. Extinction Valley boasted a vast array of chaotic elements, all converging into a single territory, but that didn't exactly hand him the keys to the final stage of the Pulverize-Pulverize Fruit.
The first day brought him to a single thought he would abide by for the next few months: "Each region has its unique trait. Perhaps it can inspire me in some way… I guess there's one way to find out."
To Be Continued…