Depthless Hunger

Chapter 235: Bone and Fear

It took Kai three full days just to get a general sense for part of the jungle, which didn't come close to fully exploring it. There was a den surrounded by bones that he chose to avoid until later, as well as a large field of plants that seemed to be carnivorous. A river fed into a lake, which he avoided temporarily just in case it held anything particularly nasty.

What he stayed farthest away from, however, was the signs of civilization to the northeast. As near as he could tell, there was some kind of poor community living in a fort on the other side of the second river. After the gang's attack, not to mention all the trouble in Krysal, Kai didn't want to deal with them. They seemed not to notice him, so he decided to leave them alone.

Just surviving in the jungle could have been fun, but Kai couldn't let himself ease up. Even while he was doing this, Zae Zin Nim's pursuers were catching up. As much as she might want to deal with everything herself, she was counting on him to find a way forward.

So Kai returned to the lake, despite his apprehensions at the dark water. He placed Sahagin's Soul back in his primary abilities and then leapt in to take on the monsters the jungle had to offer. Within a few hours he'd been electrocuted by some sort of jellyfish and nearly bitten in half by a massive crocodile, but the monsters weren't so strong they could snuff him out. If he kept his wits about him and used all his strength, he could come out the victor and retreat to his camp to recover.

And, more importantly, to experiment. Most of the monsters in the jungle were clearly not powerful enough to become a permanent part of his soul, but they left enough essence for him to work with. Now it was finally time to attempt some things that he'd been avoiding for the sake of caution.

First he confirmed a number of theories, mostly to the negative. He couldn't just eat the same monster over and over to increase the strength of an ability, and feeding lesser abilities into others didn't give him a cheap path to increasing them rapidly. There seemed to be a law of diminishing returns if he kept feeding abilities continually.

Merging several equal abilities into Behemoth's Heart had been the right path, then. He tried to feed the lesser aquatic monsters to each other and then merge them all into Sahagin's Soul, but it only worked moderately well. Its rank had increased from delta to epsilon, but he wasn't sure how much of that was just because of further training the ability.

It wasn't useless, however. The crocodile essence especially added some real force to Sahagin's Soul, letting him hit harder and faster underwater. When he got back out of the pond, he actually felt sluggish, and not just because he was dripping wet.

What he needed most was a mobility skill, or at least something that let him tap into more speed. He was fast by normal standards, pushed by his D-rank Physique and the secondary benefits of Behemoth's Heart, but he was still slow compared to his fastest opponents. By testing he discovered that he could improve his speed even with a single weaker monster that had a fast essence. The problem was that he had so few slots, it was a waste to fill them with anything but an exceptional skill.

He didn't come to any solutions before his region of the jungle was disrupted by a thundering sound. It interrupted his meditation in between hunts and he looked up from his tree perch, surprised. Whatever it was, it didn't match the jungle sounds he'd come to know.

From his vantage point he could see it: a strange bulky creature that trundled forward on six legs like tree stumps. Its back and sides were covered in shaggy green fur, but the front of its head seemed to be made of almost solid bone. He could barely even see the eyes, gleaming in recessed sockets within the bone plate. A wide mouth was filled with flat teeth, but that didn't stop the monster from swallowing some of the jungle animals whole.

The sound was caused by it rushing forward, slamming through trees that got in its way. Intrigued by such a powerful monster, Kai tried to examined it closer.

Monster: ???

Threat: VII (Eta)

>

He couldn't discern enough about its nature, but it was an Eta-ranked threat, definitely worth his time. Since it didn't have spikes, claws, or other obvious weapons, he decided to meet it strength for strength. Kai ran ahead to get into its path and then picked a good spot.

Soon the beast charged at him... and Kai's legs shook in fear.

Its bone plate hit him with jarring force, sending him tumbling through the forest so rapidly he snapped through several trees. His chest ached like his heart itself had been bruised, and he was more than a little stunned, but what really shook him was that moment of fear.

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Kai forced himself up on one hand, preparing to face the monster again. It was turning on him, a bit awkwardly and slowly before it could charge again. Nothing but a big hairy bull... and yet he felt another rush of fear.

His monstrous essence wanted to roar back in defiance, but bravery or arrogance wouldn't save him here. What helped him break through was a subtler observation: the legacy of the Shademonger was active, as if defending him from a mental or spiritual threat. After everything he'd faced, even a powerful monster shouldn't inspire fear like this.

Growling almost subconsciously, Kai got back up and forced himself to stare down the monster. Waves of fear struck him like an assault, and now that he could identify it as an attack, he could fight back. This monster seemed to be casting fear into his mind.

When it charged again he leapt out of the way, and he wasn't entirely sure if it was the fear or just caution. Whatever this power was, he absolutely needed to understand and defeat it. Unfortunately, it seemed to be a pure chakra ability and no amount of meditation or cultivation could overcome it. Even after Kai retreated, only distance made the foreign emotions disappear.

Since Omilaena said that chakra was intuitive and emotional, Kai decided to try to gain understanding through combat. He'd been feeling a bit nauseous, likely due to all the chakra in the environment, so maybe he needed to push through that. Before the monster left the region, he went to confront it again.

Focusing on intellect, he managed to construct a variety of traps and weapons, just as a test. Unfortunately, the monster's eyes were too armored within their bone sockets and all his thrusts glanced off the plate. With his limbs still trembling slightly, it was all he could do to make an attempt and get out of the way. When he led it into a pit trap, the monster rolled forward and smashed the stakes with the heavy bone, then crawled back out. Log traps bounced off its fur and it was too strong to tangle its legs for long, so little worked.

Repeated confrontations made it easier to cope with the unnatural fear, but he couldn't overcome it directly. He discovered that one monstrous ability definitely worked: Void Gaze could freeze the monster's charges in place. That would have been enough to let him kill and eat it, but he needed to gain more than that to feel like he'd really won.

He was fairly confident that Baleful Breath would work as well, but he didn't want to go that far. Not unless he didn't have any other choice.

Even aside from its mysterious fear, the monster had so much raw strength in its charge that he struggled to deal with it. Kai retreated and tried to contemplate the fundamentals of Physique. His body was reinforced with mana - that had been the primary benefit of reaching F-rank Physique a long time ago, after all. That meant his flesh was partially magical, a step toward a manifested attack. He had begun flowing qi through his body as well from his cultivation, which doubly reinforced it.

Now he had chakra flowing through him, both from everything he ate and just breathing it in from the air. Was that clashing with the power he already had? He did feel a bit sick and unbalanced, but Omilaena had said he should be able to adapt. Maybe his body was seeking mana or qi and not properly absorbing all the chakra. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to command it to do what it already did instinctively.

That thought finally brought him back around to the unnatural fear. It was like the monster was hitting some human instinct directly, manipulating his mind instead of his soul. There were many techniques that attacked the mind, even if they weren't common on Deadwaste. Whatever this one was, he was still struggling to build a defense against it.

Once it had eaten many of the trees as well as some other monsters, the new beast began to wander north. Kai could try to herd it back to keep fighting it, but that was only moderately effective. If it was going to escape, should he keep trying to overcome the new ability or just eat it and hope that would grant him the capacity?

Amid all his theoretical thoughts, Kai forgot about the strange little community in the north. It was only after he heard screams that he realized that the monster must be targeting them specifically. He raced through the jungle after it, not sure what he would find.

A family of bronze-skinned elves had been sailing up the river, presumably to visit the community. Now they were desperately flailing as the monster wallowed into the water as if it intended to charge straight into them. The fear that always struck Kai seemed to control them completely, leaving nothing but panic as the monster drew closer and closer.

Kai leapt at full speed and slammed his feet into the beast's skull plate. Not trying to hurt it, just applying raw force. It sailed backward into the air, roaring and tumbling. Before it could fall, Kai froze it in midair with Void Gaze.

His plan had been to build another trap while keeping an eye on it, which might have been absurd. Except while thinking about that, Kai realized that he hadn't been feeling any fear. The sensation was still lurking in the air, trying to penetrate his mind, but it had been forced out by his urge to save the family. Maybe that was the real insight: he couldn't neutralize or deny the unnatural emotion, only replace it with something else.

Before he could enact any kind of plan, he heard a different sort of screams. The elves were all yelling at him now, and though he couldn't understand a word they said, they were pointing toward the river. Were they still panicking, or...?

Taking his gaze away from the beast canceled Void Gaze and it dropped back to the jungle. Before it could land and get its footing again, Kai met it with his strongest Tyrant's Claw. It failed to penetrate the bone, but it did send the monster tumbling deep into the jungle, far enough that the aura of unnatural fear vanished.

When he turned back, he saw that the family's fear hadn't gone, only shifted. They were terrified not for themselves, but someone else - there, a struggling body in the river. A child must have fallen in all the panic when the monster attacked.

Kai instinctively dove into the river as soon as he understood and Sahagin's Soul swept him faster than the current. Small carnivorous fish scattered at his approach and suddenly he had a small child in his arms. Kai leapt out of the river as soon as he had a firm grip, carrying the child to safety.

Once on the bank, he saw that the elven family was staring at him, wondering at his intentions. Despite the fact that the greatest danger had passed, Kai stared back. Somehow he'd ended up caught in the problems of others again.

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