Name: Tatehan
Level: 3
Species: Human (Enhanced)
Knowledge: 41/100 [+7]
Repair points: 11/100
[ABILITIES]
• Gravity Manipulation - Level 5
• Regeneration (partial) - Level 4
• Enhanced Durability - Level 0.3
[Inventory:]
Rock sword
Tatehan had been starting to wonder if he'd see his stats. When he had killed the dwarf brutenecks and gained their cores, the stats screen hadn't appeared.
He looked at it now without much interest. It wasn't like there was anything complex about it anyway.
There was no strength stat, no agility, none of those typical game mechanics. It was only his knowledge and abilities that were getting upgraded here. His repair points too, but lately he'd been fighting more than repairing.
The canyon entrance was exactly as the AI had described— unstable.
Tatehan stood in front of it, scanning the rock formations. Two sheer walls, roughly sixty feet high, formed a natural corridor that couldn't have been more than twenty-five feet wide at the opening. The walls were composed of layered sedimentary rock—Mars' geological history stacked in horizontal bands of red, orange, and brown.
What concerned him most were the visible stress fractures running up both walls. Deep cracks, some as wide as his fist, indicated the rock was under constant pressure. Loose debris scattered at the base confirmed what the AI had warned about, collapses were common here.
The entrance sloped slightly downward, leading into a passage that bent sharply after about thirty feet. He couldn't see beyond that curve. He summoned his visor and tried, but even with his helmet's enhanced vision, the shadows were too deep.
The ground was treacherous, uneven, covered in loose stones that would make running difficult if he needed to move fast.
He summoned his rock sword and made sure his armor was fully active. It wasn't, so he summoned the rest and took a breath.
Time to go in.
The path descended between rising walls of rust-colored stone. At first, the canyon was wide enough for Tatehan to extend both arms without touching either side. But with each step forward, the walls closed in. Soon he had to turn sideways to squeeze through gaps where ancient water had carved narrow passages through the rock.
He was in a bit of a panic at this point. What if he kept going and the place became too cramped to fit through? That would only mean one thing, he'd be crushed to death.
He tried to get the thought off his mind. He tried thinking of the spaceship, space dragons, normal mythical dragons like the ones he'd read about on Earth, anything, just anything to get his mind off this place.
He also tried to breathe slowly. He hadn't drunk water after the long walk, and if not for his enhanced body, he'd be feeling the effects now.
But he had this unique ability to control his breathing. Like when he first left the spaceship to look for brutenecks, when he should have been panicking and scared, he had just seemed calm. His heartbeat didn't spike like a normal human's would, and that was what he was doing now.
I mean, humans can control their breathing, but Tatehan was able to do so extraordinarily. Like when a normal human would need to catch their breath very quickly, Tatehan could just keep his slow no matter what.
The canyon network kept getting more cramped as he went further in, but he was surprisingly able to fit. Now his fear wasn't about monsters, he doubted any would be here, and if there were any, it would either be one or just a few.
His real fear here was something collapsing on him. The rocks in the canyon network weren't stable, so he was certain that with him moving through, they were prone to fall.
It wasn't like humans or monsters went through here frequently, and those that did probably had large rocks fall on them or something.
The stone face showed layers of different colored sediment, dark red at the base, lighter orange bands in the middle, pale yellow near the top. Each layer represented centuries of geological formation, creating striped patterns along the canyon walls. Cracks spider-webbed across the surface, some shallow, others deep enough to hide his entire hand inside.
That made Tatehan wonder, since Mars had been terraformed for humans (with enhancements) to live in, did that mean other creatures adapted too? He had seen flies littering the corpses of the dead brutenecks back in the bruteneck area, and now he was seeing spider webs across the surface of the walls.
Overhead, the orange Martian sky appeared as a narrow ribbon between the towering cliff faces. Tatehan gazed at it, and surprisingly it seemed like a picturesque sight to behold.
It was scenic, even, as he gazed upward. Shadows pooled thick at the bottom of the canyon where sunlight never reached directly. The temperature dropped noticeably in these shaded areas, making him shiver despite his enhanced body's tolerance.
He looked forward now, starting to panic a bit. This was an area that would make anyone want to faint out of fear. It seemed like an endless maze in a horror movie, intoxicated with darkness and some lurking creature.
The light from above managed to shine through, but it was darker here. Darker and more brooding than before. Tatehan held his sword tight. Even though the place was cramped and a bit tight to move through, he had managed to keep the sword ready, taking precautions in case something came at him from behind or in front.
It took courage to even go through this place. To enter this canyon. The first and most obvious risk was some parts of the large stone and rock collapsing. Second was the walls being so cramped he might get stuck in them. Third was some monster grabbing him from behind or jumping from above.
It might not even be monsters,perhaps snakes. But all these lesser creatures didn't bother him so much. He had his armor on and his helmet, so there was no place to penetrate.
Tatehan continued walking, and just when he thought everything was going well and normal... a rockslide.