The camp descended into chaos as the monsters rampage, like it owns this place. Firelight flickered on and off, while pieces of bloody meat with some bones attached, were thrown and layed everywhere.
"Ahh"
"Help me!!"
Someone's arm flew past Micheal, while someone else was being dragged into the fog, while screaming for help.
Through the madness, Micheal breathed continuously, his vision a bit blurry from panic and overdose of adrenaline, as he look around the chaotic massacre, he thought he was safe with the armed aspirants, here but who knows they would be the first one to die, and so easily. Their weeks of training and fancy equipments were nothing but a joke.
"F*ck this all! The gods were surely playing with us!"
Then his eyes landed on the corpse of a monster, there he saw it, something glowing faintly near the fallen creature's chest. A beautiful crystal, pulsing with dim grey light.
Micheal cannot help but be drawned by this beautiful gem, and out of nowhere he pick it it up without thinking of consequences.
[Essence Shard Detected — Corruption Level: High]
[Do you wished to Absorb Essence?]
Someone nearby, a civilian reached for one out of curiosity. But then, the crystal cracked and black smoke burst out from within, devouring the man's hand before he could scream.
"Ahhh!" The man screamed in pain, his hand were turning into a grotesque monsters hand as well as him, slowly but surely. Then the man collapsed down in the ground, twitching, and the grotesque flesh are slowly turning his body into a monster, but before it did, gunshots rang out.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Jorden appeared and shit six consecutive rounds of his high caliber pistol, before he stopped, the man's body also finally stopped turning into something grotesque.
"Leave the crystals you may found on the ground! They are corrupted by the corrupt essence!" He shouted loudly, towards his armed comrade as well for the remaining civilians alike.
But the crystal on Micheal's hand pulsed again widely again, it was faint, rhythmic, and seemingly sync with his heartbeat, or that was what he thinks.
Actually, it was his Gift stirring, as if hungry for the crystal on his hand.
"Sorry for not listening, the boss I didn't vote for..." Micheal whispered with a mischievous smirk, and gripping it tightly in his hands, cracking the crystal almost immediately. His inner being was torturing him to crush this thing, like he needs it so much that it erased his reason for a bit.
The crystal then liquefied instantly, sinking into his palm like molten glass and followed by his world exploding into color and pain.
[Essence Absorbed: 11 Units]
[Essence Accumulation: 11 / 100]
[Gift: [????] — Function Activated Temporarily]
He dropped to his one knee, gasping for air. His every nerve screamed in pain and he could do nothing to stop it, while around him a massacre were unfolding, he's vulnerable now.
But beneath his searing agony, he felt something has change, his senses felt stretched and highlighted. He could hear the scuttle of distant claws and the minute heartbeat of something hiding in the dark.
Suddenly, he moved before he thought what was happening. He gripped tightly at the rebar in his hand, while turning his searing pain into rage, and that rage to fuel his strength, he suddenly swung it in a clean arc, shattering a monster's skull that appeared so close to him, from behind. Light bled from the corpse, coming from every part of it's body to condense into its chest, forming another crystal.
Then another prompt flickered in his eyes.
[Essence Absorbed: +7 Units]
[Total: 18 / 100]
He absorbed another crystal again, he cannot stop himself from doing it as his body yearn for it, like an addict. The pain he felt lessened this time, such that he stood straighter, but still panting heavily, with a bucket of sweat coming off his entire body.
The Gift he have seems to whispered over his ears, so quietly, in a tone beneath thought:
Eat. Adapt. Survive.
It repeatedly whispered it, until a moment later, it was finally gone like it didn't actually happen.
All around the disheveled camp, people fell one after another, armed man or civilians and the like. The trained squads fired their bullets continuously like they ave infinite ammunition, surely panicking and out of their minds now, but there comes the slashing sound of the monsters claws, and they screamed. They died one after another.
Do their bullets tore through some beasts, but others simply reknit themselves up, their black–blood dripped continuously on the ground, smoking like an acid.
Then the ground was soon littered with corpses of humans and unsightly monsters. Their essence crystal glowed faintly in the dark, numbering in hundreds, like stars scattered across the dirt.
By the time the last shriek of the monsters died out as they retreated back on the fog, only a fraction of the crowd remained.
...
When the red haze softened into gray morning upon the wasteland, silence has settled over the ruined camp. The once bustling scenery from before, with countless people talking and multiple exquisite tents, set up like a proud semi building are now were just ruins, and bloody broken bodies scattered all over.
Jorden walked among the dead, with his jaw clenched, and his uniform torn apart, he looks like a pitiful middle age beggar right now.
His men gathered essence shards that were strewn over the ground carefully with thick protective gloves, storing them in pouches marked with warning about the danger of corrupted crystals.
"Everyone, don't touch a crystal if you every saw one, especially when your barehanded" Jorden ordered and shouted at the remaining crowd if survivors. "To use this thing, we need to refine them first, and we can only do that back on earth with essence shards refining facility"
Everyone that heard him just keep quiet, they just experience hell today, they don't have the mood to pick up crystals on the ground. Exhausted and mentally drained, they sat quietly in the corner, huddling to each other while some sobs quietly.
Micheal sat and leans against a cracked pillar, his sweat have dried on his skin, while his fingers still trembling around his weapon, the 'legendary' rebar.
The faint glow under the back of his hand still pulsed softly. He then opened his interface:
[Essence Accumulation: 23 / 100]
He exhaled, laughing faintly. "I don't know what's this essence thing, but it's makes stronger, and that's all the information I need." Then his face become serious and thought deeply. "But accumulating to much essence in one go seems dangerous, especially when I use my so called gift. I almost lost myself because of using it continuously."
While he was busy reflecting on himself, a few survivors stared deeply at him. Some with fear, while other with suspicion. They'd seen him touch the shard barehanded and he still walking fine like it's normal to just touch corrupted essence without protection.
'Let them wonder' Micheal noticed their piercing gaze and pay them no mind, they don't deserve to know what's happening to him, just who are they!
He then glanced towards the far collosal Tower again. It looked closer now yet also far, its veins of pale light pulsing continuously like a heartbeat. The air between it and the camp shimmered faintly, with the fog around become very thin but still visible. He doesn't have a good impression of this fog, but he can't get away from it as it were everywhere, so he can only continue treaking this path.
What Micheal didn't know is that, deep inside him, his Gift stirred quietly again, not a voice, but a pulse of instinct.
The flesh remembers what it consumes.
A faint thread of light rose from a nearby corpse he just absorbed essence from, and it sank into the back of his hand without him noticing. This is his first true absorption.
It burned bright and the feeling was cleansing like fire licking through his veins.
Micheal grit his teeth, as he stared at the tower of bones from afar while gripping at the rebar on his hand, smiling as he did. "Guess I'm finally on the real path of Ascenders."
Above the ruins, the Tower of Bone pulsed once that seemingly vibrated throughout the wasteland, as if it had heard him.