[Set in Stone] Chapter 1 - Guardian of Stone

Kyrie, Eleison. We are bound to this cold wasteland, by a will not thy own. 

••

"Where the hell am I…?"

I had said to myself that day. My tattered winter coat shielded me from most of the cold, while my ignition bracelet kept me warm. I had somehow forgotten my scarf that morning, which I rarely ever do, especially since the Decay. It's usually not cold enough outside to have been a problem for many, but I'd been spending my entire day in the Decay, and that cold can eventually add up. Not that I'm actually cold, but I have to channel more and more spirit to keep myself warm. It's not fun constantly draining lifeforce to simply stay warm.

Oddly, I had been covered in snow earlier, with my entire coat hood packed with snow. This was despite the fact that it hadn't snowed since I left my home at what I assume was dawn. Now, it was probably evening, judging by how much darker the already black clouds had gotten since then.

I suddenly feel that something is wrong with my location, like I'm disoriented. I know I've been here before, but it doesn't feel like it. I feel like it was the first time in my life being here, even though I've traveled this route numerous times. Yet I feel like I've repeated this moment a hundered times over. I haven't sensed any abnormalities since last month, and even then there was only a singular infant Folatr. Elder Folatr's aren't really problematic for me either, I've fought at least a hundred so it's nothing new. 

I've lived out here in the Decay since before it froze over. I've counted maybe… four years since that day, though I may be wrong. The day when mine and everybody's lives went downhill. The snowstorm, now named the 'Decay' cut off all of our communications with the outside world, so I don't even know if there is hope outside of the Boundless Barrier. 

"Ah…"

I take my mind off of the past and turn my head to the right, sensing what I felt earlier. I stare across the dull and dark tundra of white snowfall, the unchanging dark-black clouds building up suspense in my mind.

I put my left hand on the longsword handle on my back. The blade shattered a while ago, so I just use it as a base for a stone sword. Like that little blond guy who just had a handle as his sword. 

Observing my surroundings, I can see a glowing outline of something around 20 meters away, coming from the ground, presumably a gas. I wouldn't have been able to see it without Soul Sight, the ability to see the Soul flow. For whatever reason the gas is here, it must be dangerous. I can't pretend like anything and everything WILL try to kill me out here in the Decay, even nature itself. 

And yet, nothing happens. 

Not a single sound, not a single vibration within the earth. The only thing I sense is my heart pounding rapidly in my chest. My legs having also gone slightly numb from the cold a little while ago, due to canceling the spirit channeling through the ignition bracelet in anticipation of a monster.

*sigh–

I breathe a sigh of relief, while a cloud from my breath appears, floats, and disappears in front of me. It's not like I'm currently in the position to fight. I need to find out my location first. Whether or not I've been here, I don't know the directions to my home from here. That is my current number one issue. 

I naturally follow my footsteps, of which I was once somewhere I recognized. But I can't seem to follow my tracks for more than ten steps. I somehow keep steering off-trail every time I lose focus. I feel… delirious. Nauseous. Exhausted. I could have sworn I felt fine a few minutes ago… why the hell am I… 

"So damn… tired…,"

My thoughts are delayed alongside my physical responses. This is terrible. I have to get back home before I encounter anything like this. 

My vision narrows, I start to stumble, my breathing becomes unstable. What could be the reason for this? That damn gas…? 

Wait. If I could see it with soul sight, that means it was imbued with spirit, which means… a living entity? 

A White Reaper. 

The thing that's affecting me right now must be its ability to produce a dangerous gas that causes various problems and symptoms. The gas it produces is basically just carbon monoxide, but oddly, it has a smell. 

That of shit. 

I wasn't able to pick it up earlier because it just started producing it seconds ago.

Seeing a White Reaper in action beforehand really puts it into perspective as to how dangerous it is. I've never actually encountered one before, but they seem terrifying enough by description to fear.

To survive monsters like this, people have to have access to advanced technological weapons or Awaken as Originator, people who can cast their Spirit into the world.

I try to calm and control my heart and mind. 

( Yeah… )

( … )

( It's… not working )

I simultaneously failed both. The unchanging clouds really didn't put any ease in my heart. This vastless and unchanging tundra truly made any sort of disturbance worthy of a heart-attack. Especially when such a dangerous creature could be crawling nearby. 

My heart beat rapidly as I continuously failed to control my bpm. Possibly more from the gas than fear. No, definitely from the gas. Puffs of my condensated breath appear in tandem with my heavy breathing. My shrouded mind constantly lost focus due to the poisonous gas it was constantly emitting. But why hadn't I seen it yet? I've been going back-and-forth in my mind for quite a while now, and yet it still hasn't made an attempt to eat me. In my artificially induced panic attack, I hadn't noticed that I was unconsciously fidgeting with my [ Stone Ring ]. 

Right then, the snow began sifting under my feet. My boots starting to sink into the snow below me. The puffs of my frozen breath cease to appear as I hold my breath in response to the threat.

It's hiding underground, which is quite evident now.

( Welp… I should make a move… too. )

I summon a stone slab directly underneath my feet and launch myself far into the air. Snow flies everywhere in a wave, majorly obscuring my vision of the ground as I fly upwards. 

As the Guardian of Stone, my abilities revolve around stone, with a few extra abilities alongside it. 

Anyways, while in the air, I pull out my broken blade from my scabbard with my left hand. Looking at this handle and shattered blade makes me think about why I carry such a useless item around. Sentimental value, I guess. Also because the grip feels much better than cold, hard stone.

Using my stone manipulation, I slowly form a simple longsword blade building up from the handle. It moves like water crawling upwards before ceasing at the tip of the blade.

Looking down at the stone slab and cloud of snow, I summon a stone block underneath my feet, and send it falling downwards towards my previous position. 

However, that action was completely useless, as the stone slab I jumped off had already hit the Reaper. Right after this stone block slammed against my previous slab, the White Reaper surfaces from the side in a cloud of snow.

A giant squirming monster much like a worm, but significantly wider, jumps up at me by slamming its tail into the snow. Keep in mind, this is only a White Reaper, and not an Alpha or King.

From what I can see, it has four red and webbed eyes. With two front bladed legs, like mantis claws but made of bone. And its muscular, dark beige tail, which displays black dots that run alongside the tail. These are actually holes, judging by the dark beige skin visibly torn around them. Its head is jagged with several rows of spike-like skin flaps and was also as white as snow ( aside from its tail ). It lacked legs and moved by slithering in the snow, like a snake. It's around 10 meters long, half that wide and half that tall. Its overall shape was a cone. It jumped by slamming its massive tail down, which is kind of breaking several laws of physics, but I'm not the one to question such trivial things anymore. 

Anyways, I summon another stone slab underneath me midair and crouch in preparation to jump. The slab tilts backwards in the direction I was moving, and I launch myself backwards, flying horizontally and slightly angled to the ground. Whilst still airborne, I raise my right hand above my head and summon a stone block. Its shape contorts like water for a split second before shooting out like a rocket, closing in towards my landing point.

[ Crushing Wall 25% ]

Four walls of stone appear from the same stone projectile and enclose an area far outside where I'll land. Using stone manipulation and memory command, I cause the four walls to close in, pushing and loosening the snow to soften my landing. Around 6 feet of snow gets in my landing point before I manipulate my stone walls underground.

The rough landing left me in a daze for a second, but I managed to compose myself right after landing. 

I took out my gas mask from my satchel and placed the ear loops around my ears. It's necessary to clean these after every use. After putting my gas mask on, I looked up to where the Reaper was. 

Aaaaand… it's right in front of me. 

[ Great Wall ]

I summoned a small block in front of me, which immediately exploded into the shape of a wall. The split second it took to finish made it look like stone lego bricks crawling out into the shape of a wall. But without the studs.

The Reaper crashed loudly into my stone wall, probably being injured in the process? I don't know, I'm still on the gas. This stuff doesn't get out of my system instantly. It also changed my vocabulary a little. What an oddity. But since my gas mask is on now, I can concentrate just a little more than before. Since the gas was a massive handicap. 

I immediately summoned a pebble in my hand and threw it over the wall. As soon as it hits something, I'll shift positions between it and I. 

The pebble makes a quiet *tap, indicating to me that it hit the Reaper. I immediately shift positions with it, covering the pebble and I in bright purple light squares. Upon shifting, I stroke downwards in hopes of landing a hit. 

Turns out, the pebble landed on the wall, so my stone blade hit the top of the wall. The strike's recoil sends a shock throughout my arm. I should have known it wouldn't make that sound if it hit softer flesh…

I really didn't have my day going as I fell off the wall to where the Reaper had been. The clang of my strike had caused it to react and begin circling the wall. 

Thankfully, my [ Regeneration Amulet ] finally activated, briefly showering me in a dazzling green light. This amulet is a Guardian Artifact, but it's currently damaged. I really need to find someone who could repair it, but it's not like I've met its creator in a really long while, some time over a year and half. 

Wait, the recoil was considered a major wound? No, it must be the gas. The amulet's always been delayed since I ventured into the Sarlato city alone, so it must consider the gas dangerous enough to activate. 

Aghhhhh… I can finally concentrate now. 

The Reaper had fully circled around the wall, leaving clouds of snow behind it and was now approaching from my right hand side.

I held my right arm up towards it and summoned a stone, the stone contorting like water before a stone pillar extends as fast as a bullet in the shape of a spear towards the Reaper. It's one of my memory commands; [ Stone Spear ].  

It attempted to dodge my attack, but [ Stone Spear ] was simply too fast for any creature of its size to succeed. The attack pierced the Reaper from mouth to tail, skewering it like a kebab.

Its red blood shot out and sprinkled the snow behind it, tainting it the same blood red. And yet, it wasn't enough to kill it. 

Thankfully, my attack stunned it for more time than I needed. 

I snapped my fingers in my right hand, activating my [ Ignition Bracelet ]. My stone sword reacted and lit up into a bright red then an orange colour, of which it also emitted crazy amounts of heat. 

The blade let off steam as I dropped a pebble where I currently stood before I leapt at the Reaper. 

I sliced two of its eyes in one clean motion, followed up by an upwards slash, cutting its lower jaw clean in half. Some of it's blood splatters on my face and on my coat, immediately emitting steam and condensate. Now it didn't have the ability to devour me whole, or so I thought. 

It suddenly leapt at me by bashing its tail into the snow, while its claws closed in on me from both sides. Its ear-piercing shriek stunning me for a split second, splattering blood from its jaw wound in my face. 

I nearly got sliced into three pieces before I shifted between the pebble I had dropped beforehand. Bright purple squares envelop me and the stone like a glitch effect as we shifted positions, the Reaper slicing the air where my previous position was. 

I'm not going to give it any time to rest. 

Landing on my right foot, I looked back at it as it squirmed around, unable to ascertain my location due to slashing its eyes. That glorious crimson liquid— blood, rolls down the Reaper's jagged face, staining the pure white snow the brownish-red of blood. 

I'm surprised it isn't some other colour, like green. It's not like I understand what makes blood different, but I'd assume it would be different. I guess I'm just bored of purple and red.

The faint smell of iron, from all of the blood I spilled from the Reaper, fills my sense of smell through my gas mask. I probably shouldn't extend the fight any longer if this much airborne matter is passing through the mask.

Using its blindness as my chance to eliminate the Reaper, I summoned and flicked a pebble directly above the Reaper and shifted positions with it, enveloping the pebble and I in glitchy purple squares, as always. 

Right after the shift, I threw a pebble down at it from above and summoned an enormous stone block above myself. Shifting between the thrown pebble, I stabbed the Reaper's head, attempting and successfully keeping it under the falling block. Stabbing my blade into its head, I drag my blade through its flesh from the head, to the body, and all the way to the base of its massive dark beige tail.

Despite this, it was somehow still alive and moving with several major injuries. I could see a chunk of its brain fly past me. The steam of its evaporating blood and condensed breath covered both our surroundings, it and I. The same reaction with the blood on my face, with more blood splattering onto me.

I struggled to hold onto it a little as it squirmed around viscously, trying to shake me off of its body. More of its blood is showered everywhere the harder I hold onto it, including more rended pieces of its flesh and organs.

I remember the stone block I summoned and look up while removing my blade from the Reaper's flesh. The stone block is less than half a second away from impact. Before I could get crushed by my own attack, I shift with the giant block, leaving me standing atop of the block as it crushes the Reaper underneath. 

*Splat

A loud splat sound rang out for a split second. 

The White Reaper's blood is showered in a massive wave around me, landing on and tainting the snow that familiar brownish-red of blood. The area covered is nearly twice as large as the Reaper was long.

Wow… that was really weak though. I thought I would be facing something that would be a challenge to me. I guess it is why it's the lowest tier White Reaper after all.

I didn't have to activate blood fusion, any advanced techniques, and only used one artifact… I basically killed that mf in my base form. How pathetic. All that hyperventilation for nothing. I even managed to think it was smart. That thing was dumb as a monkey. …Monkeys are surprisingly smart. 

Oddly, I didn't hear any of its bones breaking, so it possibly had a cartilage skeleton. Maybe it was like a shark moving through water, but instead it was snow? 

The smell of blood and various other bodily fluids suddenly penetrates my gas mask and into my nose. It's something I have to smell everytime I kill another living being. It's not the killing that I mind, but the smell. It isn't actually unbearable, just that I can't handle it well, even after hundreds of kills.

*HUfFHuhUHHff

Never mind. The smell is genuinely unbearable.

I leaned forwards and forcibly exhaled out of reflex, coughing up a terrible noise into my mask. The stench of internal organs is much more prevalent in monsters than in humans, but this one was significantly worse. It smelled like what I assume is a full breath of those ammonia things. It gave me a near equivalent adrenaline rush from our previous battle. 

I fall backwards on my butt into a sitting position with my hands behind me as I take deep breaths of the cold air through my mask, the smell now lessened by the faint winter winds of the Decay that are currently murmuring in my ears.

The stone block I sit atop of will stay here after this battle, like all my stones do. 

I stand up and hop off the stone block onto compact snow. Though my vision is blocked by that temporary flash of dark colours due to standing up too fast.

Come to think of it, why was this one here? Usually they came in pairs, but there was only one here, especially odd as it was far from the nearest White Reaper nest. Did something kill its partner, or something else? Whatever, there are much bigger things to worry about now. 

I looked down to my left hand, the one wielding my blade. It had started cooling down; slowly shifting from bright orange to a glowing red. Wisps of steam float around and off the sword, the same as the blood on my face. It looked like a weapon slowly cooling while being forged by a blacksmith, the winter cold slightly accelerating its cooling process. I don't know why, but looking at this after every battle is soothing, reminding me of my old friends… somehow…

I hop off the massive stone block, departing eastward. After a few minutes, I take off my gas mask and identify a marker I had built a few months prior. This was the landmark I failed to recognize before. Walking up to the monument, it kind of looks like some ominous statue that would be a cliffhanger for the end of a story. Like an angel descending to bring upon judgment to the world. Coulda sworn I didn't add eyes to it…