The dialogue window popped up in his vision – the thing he focused on the most was the new ability that was added after augmenting the soul artifact with the fragments of the mole-rabbit monster core.
"...now that I think about it... it doesn't say anything about the time limit or when it expires... could it be that it's a passive ability that just... stays active the whole time...?"
Viria muttered to himself in disbelief.
If he was right then the single ability alone was ridiculously good for the low grade soul artifact. The bone weapon ability was already good, but it only affected the weapon – what was the use of it if he would miss his swing or simply didn't kill the enemy in a single strike and was too slow to escape? The rabbit aspect on the other hand granted the speed of the mole-rabbit to the user at all times – be it movement or attack.
Viria gulped down his saliva and after checking one more time whether the monsters were still busy, he hurriedly carved out the bones and carefully timed the moments of turning them into the trash so that he would not be spotted.
"Repair."
The young man declared and after the bones and the soul artifact fused together, he discovered a nice surprise – maybe because the overall durability of his artifact was much lower than before, the repair only took half of the usable bones, leaving him with some spare ones.
"Now then..."
Viria muttered to himself with a rather bloodthirsty smile while stuffing the mole-rabbit bones (trash) within his clothes and leaning from behind his cover, prison shiv in hand.
*WHOOSH*
"Scwegh...!"
*thump*
Preparing to run away the moment he was spotted, Viria launched himself from behind the rock, and stabbed the nearest mole-rabbit in the throat, slicing it open and ending the creature's life in one swing. He even managed to return to his spot in time to see the mole-rabbit right next to the one he killed look up at its fallen comrade.
"Scwee?"
*crunch* *munch* *gulp*
... just to have it let out a moderately surprised sound and start munching on the freshest corpse...
Mole-rabbits definitely were not amongst the smartest monsters out there, that's for sure.
"This is such a good chance to hone the technique ~"
Viria's teeth flashed as he grinned, clenching his soul artifact in excitement.
After the last attack, the durability dropped only by two points, so some of the worries the young man had about it were alleviated...
-------
"SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!""SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!" "SCWEEEEE!"
"SHIT! SHIT! SHIT SHIT!"
Viria was dashing through the monster grounds with a remaining of a large pack of mole-rabbits right behind his back.
He thought he had a hold of the situation, but after successfully killing off eleven monsters and trying to snatch a body to salvage bones from to restore the durability of his soul artifact, he was spotted and, well – the screeches of the furious molerats attracting more and more of their brethren were the best evidence of how exactly things were going for the young man.
No bones to repair the weapon and only two points of durability left on it were up there contending for the worst possible outcome.
Of course, Viria could turn around and try to kill at least one more mole-rabbit, but the problem with that was that it was well-known that soul artifacts that got broken or damaged lost their abilities until they are restored.
And there was no need for a genius to figure out that if Viria would lose the effect of rabbit aspect ability, he would not be able to keep the distance between himself and the frenzied beasts.
"...!"
Viria gritted his teeth seeing the closed gate.
He of course should have expected that outcome, as locking it properly was the correct thing to do, but it certainly was bad for him in his circumstances.
The young man had to slow down and unlock it before pulling the gate open which all wasted precious time.
"SCWEEEE!"
"SHIT!"
*WHAM*
It wasted so much time, in fact, that before he could even properly unlock the simple mechanism, the fastest of the mole-rabbits chasing him flew straight at him, and hit the gate after Viria barely managed to dodge it with a curse.
The sudden dodge may have saved him from the single attack, but it also exposed him to all the other monsters that were not going to stop and check on their concussed brethren.
"..."
There was no time to scream, no time to curse, no time to regret his decisions.
*CRUNCH*
Viria barely managed to raise his right hand to at least strike one monster first, but the strong front fangs of a mole-rabbit were already digging into his forearm – with dozens more on their way.
The blood gushed out and plashed into Viria's eyes
...and his head went blank as the world seemed to stop once more...
It was just like back then...
The older brother of the scummy cheater that Viria's previous incarnation, Jackie, sent to the ICU after leashing out and nearly killing him, talked some of his friends into ganging up on Jackie after school on his way home.
One of them thought it was a good idea to get a baseball bat with nails hammered into it – the first swing missed but not completely – one of the nails grazed Jackie's forehead causing the blood to flood the boy's eyes.
Punching. Getting hit back. More punching. Blood. Punching. Broken bones. Punching. Teeth punched in. More punching. Blood. Cry for mercy. Blood. Cracked skull. Blood. Shattered ribs. Blood. Crushed throat. Blood. Blood everywhere. Bloodied bodies sprawled on the ground everywhere around.
And the lone boy was barely able to keep himself up, shaking from the ridiculous amount of adrenaline coursing through his veins.
"YOU FUCKERS TRY TO KILL ME?! ME?! BRING! IT! ON!"
Viria roared deafeningly putting up a guard and backing off on the stones slippery with a thick layer of blood and gore.
"...huh...?"
Only when the white edge of his soul artifact covered his vision because of the way he was holding it, the young man managed to come to his senses.
Only silence responded to his confusion.
No screeches of frenzied monsters, no clapping of jaws or scratching of claws...