章節 23: Beasts in the Dark

Night came quickly to the forest. The dense canopy of branches hungrily caught the last rays of twilight, casting the ground into premature darkness.

All this lacked importance to Rackshar, as he stood glaring into the deepening shadows.

"You dare to challenge me?" He growled.

Two glowing emerald eyes moved in the darkness, slowly descending from a tree.

As their owner reached the ground its form became clear in the last glowing of the sparse daylight. It was 1.5 meters tall, walking on its four thick stump like legs. Its body was covered in a rough brown shell, like the bark from a tree. Its head, protruding from its shell-like body, was similar to a bears.

It paused and, without a sound, its bark like shell bristled up into thick spikes that launched straight at Rackshar.

Rackshar jumped into the air, reaching out with his right arm and activated Elroth's core causing an explosion that hurtled him to the side, narrowly avoiding spikes.

"You damn athonex!" he shouted, as the rolled to regain his footing.

The athonex swung its body around with surprising swiftness launching another barrage of the spikes that continued to grow from its shell.

Rackshar dove toward the athonex, and right before the next barrage hit him, he placed his hand on the ground and another explosion sent him airborne over the spikes. He arched his body and came down on the athonex's shell which had yet to recover its spikes.

Rackshar grabbed its face, his eyes filling with a sinister light.

"Learn your place." He sneered, as the athonex's head erupted under Rackshar's palm.

Its legs trembled for a moment before collapsing, its head nothing more than a stump of gore protruding from its neck. Rackshar stood on its back looking down at his fallen opponent, his sneer still hovering on his lips.

Jumping down Rackshar stumbled to the side. He glanced at his leg and a look of disgust formed on his face. A spike was sticking out of his right quad.

"This damn shattered soul!" He growled as he ripped the spike out and began to bandage the wound. 'The movements are sloppy and I can't even use all of its senses yet. If this had been a harder fight and I only realized I was injured once I stumbled, I would be dead.'

Rackshar sighed, regaining his composure.

'At least I'll be well compensated for it.' He thought pulling out Elroth's knife and moving back to the athonex's body.

*****************

Rackshar sat in front of a fire, its flames casting deep shadows around the surrounding forest. The athonex's body was being used as a back rest while Rackshar examined two orbs laying in front of him.

'Two grade-1 plant cores, not a bad catch since my current body only has a grade-1 fire core.' Rackshar picked up one of the cores. It was murky green in color, looking at it up close, its insides were a collection vines, constantly squirming and crawling over each other like snakes.

'A crawling vines core, allows one to grow vines out of their body. Must be how that turtle was able to climb a tree.' Rackshar put the green core down and picked up the muddy brown core. 'Bark shell core. Athonex's are one of the only ones who use this to form projectiles, most use it just as armor.'

It had been 3 weeks since Rackshar took over Kaleb's body and left the Mountain tomb. Although he had traveled many miles away from the tomb, Rackshar had avoided leaving the forest. Kaleb's weak body had been a constant stressor for the dragon, for while his aura scared away most forest beasts, he was attacked regardless.

If even some weak and stupid forest creatures were willing to risk fighting him, Rackshar worried about the intelligent beings that he would find if he were to venture too far from the tomb. They would be able to easily tell that Rackshar's aura was nothing but a bad dream, scary but without the substance to cause any harm.

With that in mind Rackshar had spent the last three weeks training his human form and familiarizing himself with the intricacies of being a bipedal being.

Dragons Body: +10

Dragon's Body Amplification: +10%

[Strength: 23.2] (6 -> 11) + 10 + 2.2

[Dexterity: 17.6] (6 -> 6) + 10 + 1.6

[Constitution: 20.9] (5 -> 9) + 10 + 1.9

[Stamina: 27.5] (10 -> 15) + 10 + 2.5

[Magic: Crippled]

Rackshar's brow furrowed when he saw his dexterity. He had struggled to use his bodies coordination and that had made it hard to train his dexterity making it fall behind the other stats. It pissed Rackshar off that dexterity had been one of Kaleb's forte and yet he was having trouble even maintaining it.

Rackshar hated to think that that human was better than him in any way. Especially since, though Rackshar would never admit it, he respected Kaleb. Kaleb had a strong mentality and a stronger soul that had even given Rackshar pause. Therefore, Rackshar felt he was in competition with the deceased human that he had taken the place of.

His blurred eyes and mind refocused on the two cores in front of him. He grabbed the bark shell core with his left hand and held it in his palm.

"How to do this?" Rackshar muttered as he focused on the core.

Seeing no results, he began to hold it against the human's core points. He started with the chest since that is where most armor type cores were created. Next, the abdomen where the central spells were kept. He then tried both legs and finally, after all else failed, he held it against his temple.

Humans were the only species that Rackshar knew of that had a core point in their head. In fact, while humans did not have as many cores as the great races, such as dragons who had 10 cores, this head core was one of the unique strengths of the humans. The head core of a human could strengthen all other cores that a human used by several folds, depending on the strength of the head core.

Rackshar scoffed and threw the core to the ground with a gesture of disgust. He wanted to incorporate other cores into this body just like Kaleb did with Elroth's core. It was something Rackshar had never heard of before. While expert blacksmiths could use cores in weapons and other inanimate objects, living being could not use them that way.

If only he could take in seven stolen cores, then Rackshar could have gotten to the Dragon's Spring far easier. Now it looked like he would have to find another way.