Ash watched as the shell scavenger lunged its chitinous pincer forward to tear off his head. However, he used the technique he learned from Dren.
Roll.
Rolling was essential in any type of fight, especially in battles like this where one false move meant death. Avoiding the first attack, he spun again, dodging the second pincer that descended where he had been a moment before.
The pincer dug deeply into the mud, getting stuck for an instant.
Taking advantage of that moment, he used his innate ability and activated his sword's enchantment.
Without hesitation, he launched an attack at the joint of the right arm that connected it to the torso.
Ash felt how his sword cut not only flesh—he felt how he had cut something else, as if it were a veil. He watched as the scavenger's pincer fell to the ground and the creature became weaker than before.
Ash took advantage to now cut one of the scavenger's legs. It let out a cry of pain and rage.
Ash felt the same sensation.
'Now I understand. I'm not only attacking its body, I'm also directly attacking its soul,' he thought. A smile drew on his face at this new knowledge. This was only one part of his trick ability as a possessor of a Divine-ranked Aspect.
He wondered how many other secrets he would discover about his Aspect as he grew stronger.
All these thoughts occurred in an instant within his mind.
The scavenger spun its pincer, using it like a whip against Ash.
Raising his sword, he felt the impact. His body was thrown backward, leaving a line in the still-wet mud.
Ash looked at the scavenger. It had weakened enormously due to the two previous attacks. One of its pincers was no longer in place; there was only a stump spilling blue blood.
Then it was missing one of its cut legs.
He calculated that he would only need two or three more attacks to kill the creature.
The awakened beast lunged forward with its remaining pincer. Ash avoided it by jumping to the side, using his sword to strike directly at the chitinous shell. Against all odds, his sword had cut through the creature's thick chitin, also cutting its soul.
Moving away, Ash watched as the scavenger collapsed to the ground after he struck it for the third time.
'Huh? It's already dead?' He thought, confused, but the voice of the Spell whispered at that moment.
[You have killed an awakened beast: Shell Scavenger]
[Your soul grows stronger.]
[You have obtained a Memory.]
'Please let it be armor,' he prayed internally, summoning the runes of his new Memory. What he read made him give a wide smile.
The runes read:
Memory: [Castaway's Mantle]
Memory Rank: Awakened
Memory Level: I
Memory Type: Armor
Description: [On this forgotten shore, only a cursed oath remains unforgotten.]
Enchantments: [Toughness]
[Toughness] Enchantment Description: [This armor possesses great resistance to cuts and blows.]
Ash immediately summoned the Memory. He watched the gray threads around his skin, and a few moments later, he had a dark blue mantle made of fine fabric. It possessed parts of armor made from a kind of hardened but flexible chitin, along with high boots.
"Finally, my prayers were answered," he murmured happily. He no longer had to worry about walking around with just an indigenous loincloth.
Sighing, he looked at the algae bag. Looking around, he made sure nothing was approaching, so he began to obtain meat from the scavenger. Of course, he also took the shining soul fragment and placed it in the bag.
Soul Fragments: [96/1000]
'I got two fragments from killing the scavenger, so my assumptions were correct,' he thought, satisfied.
After taking as much meat as he could, he gathered materials to make a campfire and prepare the meat.
Ash made sure he had all the necessary materials. Securing the algae bag, he used the rope to begin climbing. Sometimes he used the coral protrusions to aid his ascent, other times he used the rope.
In the end, it took him about ten minutes of climbing to reach the flat base, where he observed Cassie sitting in a corner with a face full of worry.
Climbing up completely, he let out a sigh of relief. He felt his arms burning from the effort and exhaustion of the brief but intense fight.
"Cassie," said Ash, making the girl look in the direction of his voice with a face full of relief.
"I'm back. I got us food. Oh, and I got a Memory. It's armor."
...
For Cassie, the silence had become her enemy.
Since Ash left over the edge of the high coral with the rope she had given him, Cassie had remained motionless in the same place where he had left her.
Her hands gripped her own knees, her nails digging into the fabric of the mantle without causing her the slightest pain as she tried to control her breathing.
"I'm going to look for food," he had said, with that calm voice that didn't seem to get upset by anything. "Stay here. Don't move."
And she had nodded, as if she could see him, as if her blind eyes could find some comfort in the direction of his voice.
But now Ash wasn't there.
And the silence was absolute.
Cassie had never known a silence like this.
In the awakened world, even in the deepest darkness, there were always sounds.
The sound of conversations in the cafeteria and in the hallways that she sometimes walked and had memorized to guide herself. Or even when some worker helped her get to her room.
But here... here there was nothing. Only emptiness.
Only nothingness stretching infinitely around her, as if the entire world had been swallowed by the mouth of some colossal beast.
"Calm down," she whispered to herself, hugging herself tighter. "Calm down. He said he'd come back. He said that..."
A roar interrupted her thoughts.
Cassie tensed like a cornered animal. Her head turned instinctively toward the direction of the sound, although she couldn't see, although she didn't know what had made that noise. But she had felt it. She had felt it in every fiber of her being, in that primitive instinct that all humans have engraved deep in their DNA.
It was a hunter's roar.
It was a roar of hunger.
And it came from below.
"No..." Cassie whispered, curling up against the coral wall. "Please... please..."
Another roar, closer this time. Or perhaps not closer, perhaps it was just her imagination, but to her ears it sounded as if the beast was right below where she was sitting. As if it could climb. As if it could reach her.
And then, silence.
Not a peaceful silence. A dense, heavy silence, charged with uncertainty. A silence that didn't know if it meant the beast had killed Ash and was now moving away, or that Ash had killed the beast, or that both lay dead in the darkness, or that...
Cassie bit her lip so hard she tasted the metallic flavor of blood.
"Please," she whispered into the void, not knowing who she was praying to. "Please, let him be okay. Please, let him come back."
The minutes crawled like hours.
Cassie began to count. It was the only thing she could do. Count her heartbeats, count her breaths, count anything that gave her a sense of time in the midst of this black eternity.
One. Two. Three.
She reached one hundred. She reached two hundred. She reached five hundred.
The cold began to seep into her bones. Fear turned into something deeper, denser, more terrifying. And at some point, between heartbeat six hundred thirty and six hundred thirty-one, Cassie accepted the possibility that Ash wouldn't return.
That he had died.
That she was alone.
That she would die alone, in this place forgotten by the gods, with no one knowing what had become of her.
Tears returned to her eyes, hot and salty, sliding down her cheeks as a sob got stuck in her throat. She didn't want to cry. She didn't want to be weak.
But she was afraid. She was so afraid that her legs trembled and her hands wouldn't stop shaking and her heart seemed to want to leap out of her chest.
More minutes passed. Or perhaps seconds. Cassie could no longer distinguish. Time had become liquid, amorphous, impossible to measure. There was only her and the fear and the darkness and the growing certainty that...
A sound.
Cassie held her breath.
It was a different sound. Not a roar. Not a growl. It was... it was a scraping. Like something climbing. Like something approaching.
Her heart stopped for an instant.
The beast. The beast had climbed. The beast was coming for her.
Cassie wanted to scream, but no sound came from her throat. She wanted to run, but her legs didn't respond. She could only stay there, curled up, trembling, waiting for the impact of the blow that would end her life.
"Cassie."
The voice arrived like a ray of light in the most absolute darkness.
Cassie blinked, incredulous. Was it...? Was it him?
"Cassie, I'm back."
Relief hit her with such force that for a moment she thought she would faint. The air she had been holding escaped her lungs in a trembling sigh, and the tears, the tears she had been holding back, flowed freely down her face.
Ash was alive.
Ash had returned.
"I got us food," he said, and his voice sounded tired but calm, as if going down to face a nightmare creature was an everyday thing. "Oh, and I got a Memory. It's armor."
Cassie wanted to say something. She wanted to ask if he was hurt, she wanted to ask what had happened, she wanted to ask so many things. But the only thing she could do was listen to her own sobs as relief completely overwhelmed her.
"Ash..." she whispered, and his name tasted like hope in her mouth. "I thought... I thought that..."
She couldn't finish the sentence. It wasn't necessary.
Ash was silent for a moment. Then, Cassie heard his footsteps approaching. Not too close. Just enough for her to know she wasn't alone.
"I'm fine," he said, and although his voice was still calm, there was something in it that Cassie couldn't identify. "The beast is dead. We have meat for several days."
Cassie nodded, although she knew he couldn't see it. Then, with a still trembling voice, she asked:
"Did you... did you get hurt?"
Another silence.
"Nothing serious," Ash finally responded. "Just some bruises. The new armor will help."
Cassie wanted to smile. She wanted to say something funny or nice or comforting. But the only thing she could do was keep crying, crying with relief, crying because she wasn't alone, crying because he had returned.
"Thank you," she whispered, although she didn't know exactly why she was saying it. For returning. For fighting. For existing.
Ash didn't respond. But Cassie heard the sound of something heavy being deposited on the ground, and then the rustle of someone sitting down not far from her.
"I'm going to prepare the food," he finally said. "You should rest."
Cassie nodded again. She leaned against the coral wall, hugging her own knees, listening to the sounds of Ash moving around her. The rubbing of wood. The crackle of a spark. The crackling of the fire beginning to burn.
And for the first time since she had awakened on the Forgotten Shore, Cassie felt that perhaps, just perhaps, things could be okay.
"Ash..." she murmured, almost without thinking.
"Mmm?"
"I'm glad you came back."
The silence that followed was different. It wasn't the empty, terrifying silence from before. It was a warm silence, accompanied, full of presence.
"I'm glad too," Ash responded, and although his voice was still calm, Cassie swore she could hear a smile in it.
Soon, Cassie caught the aroma of meat cooking over the fire.