Cores

[You have slain a Fallen Demon, Right Hand of Ignis]

[You have completed the Trial]

[You have gained a Memory as a Reward.]

'What a tough bastard. He was way too strong. I am lucky that I had a elemental advantage against it. '

The moment the trial ended, the lava slowly started to disappear as the room also started to lighten slightly.

Caspian recalled his Echo and Trident before summoning his runes.

Name: Caspian (House of Night)

True Name: Poseidon's Trident

Rank: Dreamer

Seas: 2/7

Creatures drowned: [32/250]

Memories: [Bag of holding], [Oak Spear], [Chilled Trident], [Flying Chariot], [Scales of Water], [Heart of Ignis]

Echoes: [Aviquus]

Attributes: [Animal Commander], [Storm is Power], [Blessing of the Storm]

Aspect: [Underwater King]

...

[Animal Commander]: "Animals naturally follow your command. Animals that live in the sea enjoy following you even more."

[Storm is Power]: "You gain hidden Strength when a storm is happening"

[Blessing of the Storm]: "You were blessed by holy water, created by the Storm God itself."

Aspect: [Underwater King]

Innate Ability: [Underwater Breathing]

Aspect Ability: [Water Conjuring]

...

'Ignis's Heart, huh ? So that's my reward for conquering this Trial. I wonder what it can do. No need to wait, let's just read the runes'

[Heart of Ignis]:

Type: Charm

Rank: Ascended

Tier: 2

'Jackpot. I don't have a charm yet

Attributes: [Flames of Life], [Fiery Rebirth],

[Flames of Life]: "A warm heat burns deep inside your Heart, slowly healing you overtime."

[Fiery Rebirth]: "Only once can you come back to Life but a part of your humanity will burn away when the time comes."

'So it basically just heals me, even from death once, huh ? Defenitely useful.'

***

Ragna has been controlling the body of the big scorpion-like Creature for a while now. Sadly he needed to use all of the ten rings to control it, meaning that he couldn't let the Flower Cera was playing with stay alive for now.

They wasted their time by just talking over random stuff, like how friends would.

And Celeste of course could not stop teasing him at anything and everything.

"Ragna, you're good with your fingers, huh ? Controlling a beast with just a few strings. Your future wife will defenitely be happy ~"

Ragna sighed and looked over his shoulder and ignored Celeste's remark

"Girls, do you have anything planned for the future or anything that you want to archieve ?

Celeste pouted because Ragna ignored her teasing but she was also the first to answer.

"After awakening I'll probably visit my family for a few days. I don't really have anything else planned except becoming stronger. I also won't stop after ascending, like many people do. I also know which citadel I wanna go to."

"Oh, really ? What did you chose? And why ?"

"I want to go to the Chained Isles. I heard the gravity can change drastically there under conditions so I think it's the perfect place for me since I can fight back against the forces there."

"Chained Isles ? Never heard but it's suited for you, I guess. And you, Layla. Do you have anything planned after awakening ?"

"I don't really have anything to do .. I'll probably live in the Academy and just spend most of my time in the Dream Realm. I'm not sure which place tho. And you, Ragna ?

Ragna sighed and scratched his back, thinking for a few seconds.

"I'm not really sure. I could pick from multiple options, to be honest. But there's one that intrigues me the most. First I'll visit my parents too since I haven't seen them after my First Nightmare but then I plan to make my Aspect Legacy public.

That will surely gain the attention of the great clans, which will maybe make them fight for me. And then, I plan to make my own clan and make the great Clan I joined give me my own place in the Dream Realm."

Both Layla and Celeste didn't say anything for a moment while Cera still slept on his shoulder.

"What a noble path you want to follow. You really decided to create your own Legacy Clan as an Awakened ? Fucking prodigy."

"I'm only doing that because I need strong Allies in the future so getting status and being in the care of a great Clan would be very beneficial for that."

***

For a month, their Journey on the scorpion continued. They, of course, had met and fought many different kinds of Nightmare Creatures in that time. Some weak, some strong. Some big, some small and some scary, some not.

The cohort and grown stronger in that time and slowly, Ragna everyone got closer to filling their core. Ragna was the closest tho and now only needed just a few hundred liters of blood spilled more, to finally reach the goal and see what happens when he did.

Ragna couldn't really tell how much longer it would take since some creatures only spilled like two liters while other spilled 15 but he was getting closer each day.

***

They small cohort was buried under a wave of creatures right now.

Layla and Ragna had actually met them before, inside of the village when the sandstorm appeared and the Stonebugs flew over it, killing everything in their way.

There were way more than last time, hundreds of them, all attacking the cohort.

Layla just splashed out ink in every direction and weakened all of them.

Celeste just crushed many under her gravity powers and Cera just shot out beams of blood, slowly killing one after the next.

And Ragna, he was just slashing through the swarm, holding the Mirrorblade tightly.

There were too many tho. The hard bodies of the Stonebugs flew against him, slowly breaking his bones.

Yet, they just continued and continued.

Ragna pushed through, slicing a Stonebugs body in half and then going to the next.

Ragna suddenly felt a pang at the backside of his head, as one of the Stonebugs flew against him.

He turned around and sliced him in half, the attributes of the Mirrorblade making it stronger.

[You have slain a dormant Demon, Stonebug].

[You have spilled Blood].

[Your Core grows stronger].

Ragna could feel his blood dwindling. He was pretty far away from the others since he fought very directly and offensive.

Thats why all around hi, there were just dozens of Creatures, all of their hard bodies crashing against him.

Ragna summoned the [Dreamwalker's Blanket], manifesting it a few seconds later. He threw the large blanket forward, catching a lot of the fist sized bugs before attacking the ones he didn't catch.

Slowly but surely, the number of creatures around him got lower and lower as he also got closer to filling his core. He had maybe killed around 100 to 150 beasts right now, all of them spilling a little bit less than two liters of blood.

Ragna mindlessly continued, his body moving automatically as he killed more and more.

To be honest, what he was doing right now was very impressive.

Even most Awakened would have struggled yet he pushed through as a sleeper, of course with the help of the others but still.

As he suddenly felt a pang in his core, feeling that something inside him was close to changing, he decided to slowly fight his way back to the others, feeling like he would need protection soon.

(Cera, protect me real quick.)

(Okay, Papa. Do you feel okay ?)

(Yeah ..)

Ragna summoned his runes, knowing exactly where he needed to look.

Blood Spilled: [9992/10000]

'So close .. I should probably wait till filling the core. I don't know what will happen when I reach the 10000 so I should do it when we are in a safer situation.'

(Cera, I won't be able to fight much against this swarm. You girls will do fine, right ?)

(Yeah, don't worry. You can just relax. We'll get through this.)

As the three slowly killed all of the beast, Ragna just relaxed, feeling like his core was slowly about to explode.

Not many creatures were left anymore so Ragna decided to kill a few too again.

[You have slain ...]

[You have slain ...]

[You have slain ...]

[You have spilled Blood]

[Your Core grows stronger.]

As every Creature was dead, all of them fell down on the ground, exhausted.

Ragna clutched his chest as he felt more pain.

[You have filled your Core with Blood.]

[The harvest begins]

As Layla and Celeste saw him, clutching his chest with visible pain, they got worried.

"Ragna, are you okay ?", asked both of them in unison.

Y-yeah .. I already told Celeste in the Academy but my progression path is slightly different than others and my core just filled up, so let's see what happens.

Suddenly, Ragna's consciousness got send into the sea of soul.

It looked kinda different than usual since the blood from the ground was flowing up in thick paths, slowly meeting eachother and building something round.

[All the accumulated Blood is comming together.]

Ragna's pain grew as he felt his blood pumping through his veins but suddenly everything disappeared.

[A new core has been born out of Blood]

Bloodcores: 2/7

Blood Spilled: [0/20000]

'...'

Infront of him, in the sea of soul, now stood two identical bloodmoons, two cores.

'Wait, what ? Two cores ? Don't only Nightmare Creatures normally have multiple Cores ? Is this because of my Divine Aspect ? Can Celeste get another Core too ? How strong am I now ? What changed ?'

Thousand questions ran through Ragna's head but there was one thing he was sure about. He was now way stronger than a sleeper should be.

——-Author's Notes——-

Words: 1580

Reached two cores !!

Almost 1am for me 😭

I wanna go sleep soooo

Peace ✌️