"..."
Viria gulped down his saliva and relaxed just a bit.
The twitching bodies of dozens of freshly killed mole-rabbits beaten up to a pulp were littering the ground.
There were more bodies than mole-rabbits the young man remembered chasing him.
"...ugh...!"
After a moment of staring at the corpses in confusion, the jolts of pain pierced through Viria hands, making him feel as if someone was stabbing them with red-hot nails.
"...oh... shit..."
Just a glance was enough to explain the reason for that.
There was barely any skin left on his arms – his fists had almost every single bone exposed – many of which were straight-up cracked, and the muscles on his right hand were barely attached to his skeleton after getting viciously bitten and clawed at.
The moment he realized the state he was in, his limbs dropped down limply as if not knowing how badly wounded he was the only reason he could move them up until then.
*clang*
The prison shiv fell onto the bloodied ground and bounced to the side – funnily enough, the blade was only sprinkled with blood and the handle was the part that was doused with it – clear proof that despite all that happened, Viria didn't cut a single mole-rabbit during... whatever kind of frenzy or berserker episode happened to him.
[Prison shiv (mole-rabbit bone) – low grade soul artifact – it sometimes breaks but can be remade from any kind of trash in your possession.
Abilities – Bone weapon (The higher the mastery level, the higher the damage dealt by the weapon) - - Rabbit strike (Adds the speed of a mole-rabbit's jump to the attack)-[Mastered] Rabbit aspect (Imbues the user with the speed of the mole-rabbit)
Mastery – level 5/10
Durability 1/12 –repair– -remake-
???]
"...what are you...?"
The dialogue window with the soul artifact description popped up into Viria's vision and the young man breathed out in disbelief seeing a new element that was added.
The more Viria stood there and the less adrenaline was coursing through his body, the more exhausted he was getting.
While clinging to the remains of his consciousness he recalled his soul artifact and decided that the best option for him would be to get out of there – having at least the first barrier separating him from the monster spawning grounds gave him some chances of survival and staying there trying to salvage the materials from the corpses definitely did not.
So he stumbled towards the gate and finished unlocking it by pushing his shoulder into the block that monster as dumb a mole-rabbit could never figure out.
"..."
Biting his lips as he raised his left hand with almost every bone cracked to pull open the gate and after a few more steps he was out.
"Oh! You're out alrea... WHAT IN THE WORLD?! ARE YOU OKAY?!"
"...?!"
As Viria was reaching his trembling mutilated hand, a female voice called out to him cheerfully, before getting high-pitched in pure panic once the person in question had a good look at him, causing the young man to flinch and take a step back.
"...honestly... I guess this is the worst I ever got it..."
Viria spoke hesitantly, struggling to figure out the intentions of the unknown young gold-haired woman – well, he was more exhausted and barely clinging to his consciousness than hesitant, but still.
"What happened?! Did another rare spawn show up or something?"
The gold-haired woman gasped staring in horror at the terrible wounds that hurt just as bad as they looked.
"...what's a rare spawn...? Ah, wait, I get it... no... just a bunch of normal ones piled up and... I guess I punched them all...?"
Viria furrowed his brows before nodding in realization and trying to shrug his shoulders before stopping because of the pain.
"Wait – you fought with a whole pack?! What were you...! Wait...! Did you say you punched them? Wasn't your soul artifact a dagger or something?"
The woman gasped, taken aback, and asked, gulping down her saliva.
"...it's a shiv..."
"A shi... eh...?"
Viria explained, feeling far too bad to be bothered about sharing too much information about himself.
But his response definitely left the gold-haired woman in shock.
Shivs weren't uncommon weapon soul artifacts – many people had them, actually – but they were always trash grade and nothing else.
"A-anyway! That doesn't matter! You are lucky that you managed to escape before mole-rabbits ate you! What were you even thinking?! A pack of twelve can easily kill a martial artist at the high low level of cultivation, even ones in low middle levels would find it challenging!"
The woman complained, confusing the worn-out young man about the reason she cared.
"I didn't run. I killed them all though... Now, if you excuse me... I need to find Bossac..."
"Wha...?! Oh... true. We need to get you to the clinic."
Viria declared and dragged his feet forward while the gold-haired woman who was about to show a lively reaction again calmed down and nodded in realization.
"Hey, let me just..."
"Do. Not. Touch. Me."
The young woman breathed out and approached the slowly moving young man and reached out to him, but was met with an extremely cold reaction that caused her to flinch and move back.
"... thank you for understanding..."
Viria nodded at her although his grim expression was expressing something other than gratitude.
"..."
The gold-haired woman rubbed her hands together not sure what to do in that situation – she didn't want to just leave the young man to his own devices, because he would definitely faint and die somewhere along the way...
...but he was very stern about refusing to get the help...
"...haaaaa..."
She breathed out and was about to follow Viria anyway, but before she did, she realized that the gate of the first barrier wasn't properly locked.
The gold-haired woman walked towards it and hesitated.
"...yeah right, killing a pack of dozen by punching it..."
She scoffed to herself, not believing the young man's words, and pushed the gate open just enough to put her head through and have a quick look...
*thump*
The moment she saw the carnage right outside, her knees went weak and she plopped down on her butt.