Azalea Plateau
Arino stood at the bank of the river watching the side he had crossed from, hoping nothing would emerge from that strange jungle to come after him. The light here on this island was normal at least, without the titan beneath it to shatter it.
He turned around to inspect his new locale, and hopefully find some more food after losing his berries, but the creaking of trees being broken echoed across the water. What caught his eyes was not the pack of Bonehounds he had expected to be chasing, but a massive bug of some kind. It was monstrously large, with long red spikes coming from it's legs.
On those spikes, were the impaled bodies of nine Bonehounds. That pack would have torn Arino into shreds in less than a second, but that giant spider had killed them all silently enough to not have been heard by the hounds or Arino.
Like it was spearfishing, the spider lowered it's abdomen near the water and thrust a single limb into the water. Hooked on it's end when it was pulled out, was the corpse of Arino's quarry.
'I will never kill another spider in the village again if i can avoid this bastard!'
Not one to leave his prayers to the dead gods, he turned to walk inland. No jungle, and he didn't see or feel anything that could want to kill him. The stone beneath him gave no answer either, so he felt he was truly safe.
The Mirelith Arachnoid hadn't followed him across the river, seemingly content with it's hunt. Arino was grateful to have some peace, but this island wasn't exactly an oasis. The Azalea Plateau was beautiful, thanks to it's namesake, but the scattered bones couldn't quite ruin the image. He had no plans of staying the night here, so the bones should leave him alone.
Arino wasn't very happy about losing the body of the Bonehound and it's core, but the essence he did feel trickle into his soul was euphoric. He had long since been training to awaken naturally, which required him to sense and manipulate his essence, but he hadn't been able to move any of it before the Spell descended upon him.
He knew that the Spell calling him Dormant meant he would be unlikely to move it at all until he found a way to progress through the spell, but it wasn't that simple. When concentrating on his ability, he felt this feeling like his Core was agitated somehow. Considering the lethal implications of his Flaw, he wasn't sure his ability was safe to use. He was worried however that he wouldn't have a choice soon.
Night was approaching.
Standing across from a strange boulder, Arino prepared to give his ability Soul Forge an actual attempt. The description was strange, and unhelpful to him so he felt all he could do to understand it was try. He tugged on an invisible connection to a muscle somewhere not in his body or mind, but in his soul.
The hair on his arms stood tall as his eyes opened wide at a sudden surge of energy. Essence wasn't exactly flowing through his body like it would an awakened, but Arino felt it start to saturate his body. It hadn't spread very far from his core, but he could feel something was strange.
Arino released his control over the ability, letting it stop, but the feeling didn't go away. The essence he felt in his soul was gone, but something was different. Diving into his Soul Sea, he was shocked to see visible changes. The core at the top of his Soul Sea was starting to cool from his ability. The flames subsided enough to let him see tiny little roots spreading from it.
He almost lost his balance when he realized that his soul was integrating into his body. It had long been concluded that the soul and the cores are separate, with the core being a physical manifestation of the soul. His soul however, was growing into his body. Was this the key to avoiding death by his flaw?
Thoughts were racing through his mind when he realized he hadn't even done a before blow on the rock in front of him to test his strength. He knew of course, that he wouldn't put more than blood on the rock if he were to do so before the Spell's infection of him.
But what about now? How much stronger did his ability make him?
Arino pulled his arm back hoping this wouldn't result in a broken hand, and hit the rock face. A small crack echoed across the plateau as dust was shot up. His eyes would have opened wide if it wasn't for the dust, as there was a little fissure in the stones face. His hand hurt like hell, but it definitely wasn't broken. The feeling of his body being well saturated with essence had begun to wane, but very slowly.
'I hope this will last me through the night. Or at least until I can kill something else.'
Arino walked carefully across heaps of bones, some much older and larger than others. He saw ones that definitely didn't belong to humans, and some that seemed to just be much larger human ribs.
Moonlight broke through the clouds and Arino felt the stone beneath him begin to pull at his mind, telling him to run, and so he did. The blue blossoms around him were dying, giving birth to new buds, which bloomed into terrible red roses.
Tattered blue petals flowed like the wind across the plateau settling on the bones, and light began to come from the cracks in them.
In the wake of Arino's still enhanced movement, the petals around him were awakening their skeletal counterparts faster and faster. The phenomena was catching up to him.
His blades flashed in front of him stinging every bone that began to rise above his waist as his charge was slowed, managing to chop some of the younger remains but the bones touched by time were not even scratched.
Finally, he felt something in his soul.
[You have slain a Dormant Beast, Lucent Skeleton]
Another little chunk of essence surged through him, and it was not waisted on a single blow this time. He pushed against the bones scraping to grab his heels as hard as he could and shot forth back at full speed, barreling through several skeletons before breaking past the point where they were already moving.
[You have slain…]
[You have slain…]
[You have received...]
Every couple seconds one of his feet would stamp down shattering a bone or two and pushing him forward. He didn't activate his ability any further to conserve the essence he had just gotten, and it was a smart decision because he came to an impasse not more than ten minutes into the chase.