Chapter 134: Unseen Claws

Valerian walked through the thick forest. The white trees were passing by him, but he couldn’t focus right now. Not on the dangers that lurked in this forest, not on the warning Asterion gave him.

All his thoughts were focused on one thing.

He was scared. No, he was terrified to his very core.

If he could sweat, he would be covered in it from head to toe, and if his heart still beat, he would hear it in his ears.

He stopped walking for a second and leaned his back against one of the trees, exhaling deeply.

’Fuck.’

He slid down on the tree bark and felt the cool grass beneath him. Leaning his head into his hands, he stayed still for a few seconds. His mind drifted back to what had happened, and to Lyra.

The unassuming girl that gave him some of her food, invited him into her home, and even told him the tragic story of her family. He was terrified of her.

He still felt the iron grip around his body, the strength that he had no chance at matching even if he channeled his divine mana. She completely overpowered him physically, something that should be impossible; he had seen her status. And he could clearly remember seeing her strength at only D.

And yet, when she wrapped her arms around him, he felt trapped, unable to leave even if he wanted to.

’Just what is this place?’

Her unusual strength could very much have something to do with her race, maybe a racial ability that made her unnaturally strong.

But no racial trait could make her this strong while staying at D rank. There was something else.

’I can’t go back, not now at least.’

He didn’t want to go back to the village for now, and he especially didn’t want to step foot again in that house.

’I have to get stronger, I can’t wait any longer.’

Pushing himself up from the tree, Valerian looked around and obviously didn’t recognize a thing.

’First, I need to find a way to sense these monsters.’

He couldn’t be ambushed again by these monsters that just managed to slip past any perception ability he had. Before he could learn to cast mass destruction space magic, he needed to have a better understanding of space.

Walking through the forest, he tried to send out his mana to sense the surroundings with his spatial perception. He could clearly sense the trees, the roots, and the leaves. Everything looked perfectly normal.

That’s why he was more than surprised when he felt a claw impale him from behind.

’Not again!’

He swung around, his arms coated to his elbows in his [Primordial Scales]. He aimed his sharp black claws where he thought the head of the attacker was.

But his arm only met thin air, as the claw disappeared from his stomach.

’I can’t get too injured, I don’t have my healing.’

He wouldn’t be paralyzed by the pain, and he wouldn’t bleed out, but the wounds could still impact his movement. And if he were to lose an arm or a leg, he didn’t know how long it would take to regenerate it.

Looking around, Valerian wasn’t able to see the monster. Like before, it perfectly slipped past his senses.

’Space, space, space.’

He tried to force an enlightenment in space magic, like it happened with the portals, to maybe get the answer on how to defeat this thing. But he got nothing.

The white claw appeared again, centimeters before cutting at his legs, trying to immobilize him. But this time Valerian was prepared, and jumped over the claw.

Overloading his body with his divine mana, he folded the space around his arms, not to teleport them, but to decrease the distance itself.

The monster turned its head up, its purple glowing eyes widened for a second before the armored hand, stretched out like a blade, hit its head.

The monster had no natural defensive abilities; its whole body was made for hit-and-run maneuvers. So there was nothing protecting it as Valerian’s claw slashed through its head, breaking through the bones and impaling the head.

Purple blood flowed down Valerian’s arm as the dead body of the monster turned limp. Now that it was day, he could really get a good look at it.

’Damn, it’s ugly.’

The white skin stretched taut over its body, the horns that looked like it was trying to imitate a dragon, and the starry parts of its body that glowed subtly.

He threw the body to the side and retracted his scales.

’Ew.’

After rubbing his hand clean on the grass on the ground, he walked to the corpse of the monster and inspected it. He flipped it on its back and stared at its chest.

’How would the core of such a thing look like?’

Driven by his curiosity, Valerian activated his scales again, but this time only covering his index finger in the sharp claws.

After enhancing it with his mana, he cut open the body. His finger cut through it like a hot knife through butter, and he could see the inside.

’What the fuck?’

The reason he was so confused was that the monster had literally no organs. No heart, no lungs, nothing, only a perfectly round sphere sitting comfortably in a body that looked more like a bag of only flesh and blood.

The core was a shining purple, with little stars dancing inside it, and he could feel the space bending around it.

Sticking his hand into the chest, he pulled out the core and wiped it clean on the grass. He held it before his eyes and turned it around, inspecting it from all the sides.

’Hmmm. What would happen if I...’

A crazy idea came to his head. It was something that he had never tried before and it might just not work and only be utterly disgusting, but hey, it was worth a try.

He raised the core over his head and opened his mouth as wide as he could. When he pressed the core into his mouth, it felt like his jaw was dislocating, but he just kept pushing it into his throat.

’Disgusting.’

He felt the slight traces of the monster’s blood that were still stuck on the core, and just the thought of where it came from made him sick.

When it reached his throat, he had to make sure not to just vomit it up on the spot, which took a great amount of mental power.

"Ahg..."

With one final swallow, the core disappeared from his throat and entered his body.

"Haaa.... Haaa, that was horrible."

Breathing heavily, he still had the taste of monster blood on his tongue, which refused to go away, no matter how much he tried to spit it out.

’Did something happen?’

Looking up from the disgusting corpse, he looked at the surroundings and tried to find any difference. But...

’Everything is the same. So it was worthless...’

With a disappointed sigh he stood up, and turned away from the corpse. When he walked away, there was something on the edge of his vision that took his attention.

’What is that?’

It looked like the space was bent around something moving between the trees; it was a weird sight. The distortion stopped and Valerian could feel something watch him.

’Is that what I think it is?’

Eager to find out if the torture of eating the monster core was really useless, he walked in the direction of the distortion.

Matching him, the distortion also walked in his direction, before suddenly flying at him. And while Valerian couldn’t see it directly, he didn’t need to, to recognize a pounce attack.

Unlike the times before, where he was helpless until the moment right before the claw hit him, this time he could vaguely see something.

Not waiting, his scales covered his arms, and he flooded his body with mana. His perception sharpened, and just to make sure, he also activated his [Dragon Eyes].

This new sensory ability, paired with his [Dragon Eyes], laid the figure of the attacking monster open as plain as day, and he could even see its status now.

│─────── STATUS ─────── │

│ Race : [Void Echo]

│ ─────── ORIGIN ─────── │

│ Core : A+

│ ────── ATTRIBUTES ────── │

│ Strength : B+

│ Agility : A+

│ Dexterity : A

│ Intelligence : F

│ Void Mana : A+

│ Charm : -

│ ─────── TRAITS ─────── │

│ [Void Body]

│ [Existential Null]

│ [Spatial Phasing]

A grin appeared on Valerian’s face. The monster came closer, and he could see the stealth that surrounded its body being undone when it was close to striking.

But since he could see every movement of it, dodging the claw wasn’t a problem. He ducked under it and channeled his space affinity through his scales. A purple film appeared around them. Wherever they touched, the space was sliced apart, leaving thin strips of emptiness before they were filled again by the surrounding space.

His claws sliced cleanly through the torso of the monster, cutting it into two halves.

When the monster dropped on the ground, Valerian looked down on it before kneeling beside it and covering his claw with space again, cutting it open and revealing its core.