Blood Core
『Chronicles of the Blood Tower』
"Huu… Huu…"
Gasping for breath at the scene that lay before Rasmus he tried to collect his scrambled thoughts. He lay there sprawled on the ground for a few minutes before a stench of urine and blood made him realize that he had pissed himself.
Ashamed he tried to think of what to do. He had been traveling along the plains for, God knows how long, in search of food or any kind of source to eat.
His stomach growled and trembled slightly. He turned his gaze to the bodies of the gigantic monsters that had brawled just minutes before and gulped down his saliva.
He picked himself up and walked slowly towards the bodies.
Rasmus had no kinds of prior experience hunting or skinning animals in the wild so he didn't know what was edible and what wasn't but he had a vague guess. When thinking of which creature he would rather eat to supplement his hunger he looked at the worm surprisingly.
"Well, it looks like dinner is worms from Hell…"
He grumbled unsatisfied. He went to the part of the lower body that was ripped apart by the minotaur as he didn't have any tools to get into the meaty parts of the flesh, and had to make do with eating from the already open area. He crouched down and took a look at what was inside the creature.
Immediately he regretted looking.
The dark crimson blood was splattered in all sorts of directions from the jagged flesh and was dripping what seemed to be some kind of bile behind organs he had never seen before.
Immediately, he started retching but to no avail he didn't have anything digested yet so yellow stomach acid burned the top of his mouth and was spat out.
"BLEGHH… Urp… BLEGHHH"
Daniel raised his body and wiped his mouth disgusted at everything before him. But, his will to survive was greater than the sense of disgust he was feeling.
He unwillingly stuck his hand out in the outer region of the innards and scooped a lump of flesh that seemed detached from the organs to support the exoskeleton of the worm.
He closed his eyes and stuffed it in his mouth. He didn't bother to slosh his tongue around to get an ever worse taste of what was to come and started to chew it as fast as he could before gumpling it down.
"Phew…"
He breathed out a sigh of relief before a burning sensation came up from his stomach. Thinking he was about to retch again, Rasmus clasped his hands around his stomach and waiting for the undigested flesh to come up but alas, it didn't.
Suddenly, the veins on his arms started to twitch and Rasmus's body immediately went into shock as his eyes rolled back and the whites of his eyes were all that could be seen from his face. The veins that were twitching on his arms were just the start. His body started to convulse and the veins around his entire body went from the greenish tint to pitch black. He started to gurgle inexplicable sounds with his mouth and a white paste started to flow from the corners of his lips.
"ARGHHHHHH….. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
He was still conscious despite going into shock and could feel a huge sensation of his blood boiling to a heat unbearable for him. The black veins started to vibrate as if resonating to his heart beat which was accelerating and it looked like a black spiderweb had been etched across his entire body like a tattoo.
The veins started to move from their original places supporting the body and mingled and tangled together into a black circular crest in the middle of his chest. Rasmus was feeling like someone had poured tar and oil over the center of his body and branded it with hot iron.
The black circle that branched the black veins etched across his body slowly started to formulate into a diamond shaped pattern and Rasmus felt as if something was ripping his chest from the inside out.
Eventually, after some time, the diamond crest lurched out of his body partially and embedded itself into his skin. The black blood convusling in the veins slowly started to die down and resumed to a somewhat normal heartbeat.
Rasmus' eyes slowly returned to normal as he started to breathe deeply to steady himself.
He looked down at his chest and saw the black diamond protruded halfway inside his body and fainted on the spot.
---
About an hour later, Rasmus came to.
"What…"
He was confused as hell and terrified at the changes that occurred to his body. He focused his attention towards the crest and felt an incredibly small, if not miniscule, faint source of energy pulsing from it.
He swallowed his saliva slowly and tried to assemble his thoughts.
'Is this because of the flesh of that thing? No, maybe it's this place. But…. if that were the case I would have had this happen to me the minute I came here'
Rasmus quickly denounced the random thoughts and questions he had, and came to a somewhat stable conclusion.
'The meat, no maybe the blood of that creature or any other creatures in this land stimulated this change in my body'
He had to get more information. Nonetheless, he also thought that whatever he was right now was not one hundred percent human.
He gathered his weight under his legs and tried to stand up. He put his arm down to support his weight and suddenly, a crunch sound came from it. He panickedly looked toward his hand but there was nothing wrong with it. It was the ground.
The ground he used to support his arm in standing up cracked under the pressure.
He stared at his hand in disbelief as if he was a caveman who just discovered fire.
'Did I… Did I just do that?'
He asked himself. Whatever happened to his body seemed to enhance his physical strength at the very least. But, he was almost certain it was unstable at the moment.
He quickly resumed his thought process towards investigation of the creature's body and scooped out another lump of flesh. He examined it looking at it slowly but didn't see any distinct characteristics that shouted 'This is it! This is why!'
So, he took another bite hesitantly.
Immediately, a warm but not scalding energy traveled from his stomach just ate the meat and filled his body with an odd sense of fulfillment. The energy circulated throughout his body as he felt it travel through his body in all the different places and then gathered in one spot.
The black diamond subtly tingled with the gathering of the energy and dissipated it. Rasmus looked down at the black gem in his chest and noticed a very faint and dark red light. It was so small that it was almost unnoticeable at first but as he fixed his gaze at it it was there and he was certain it changed albeit at a small level.
Rasmus then stomped his foot to see if there was any immediate difference in his body now with the energy gone to the gem and the ground shook a little bit and gave way. This time there was a little bit more force than intended and rocks shattered from the ground into pebbles and he looked at himself in amazement.
"Woahh.."
He knew immediately what to do and started to eat any edible parts of the worm he could find and filled his stomach to the brim.
He then sat down in a meditative posture as the energy was swarming in his body. He closed his eyes and focused on the center of his chest. The energy pulsated and vibrated through his body like oil lubricated in a car's engine. He felt inexplicably powerful for some reason.
'With this… With this would the outcome of facing the minotaur be different?'
He pondered. It was possible but there was no circumstance at the moment to determine it.
He thought to himself what he should do about the gem embedded in his chest once the energy stabilized in his body. He looked at the now slightly more scarlet but still overwhelmingly dark black diamond and thought about the name.
"Core… No... Blood...."
'Blood Core'
He thought to himself as the corners of his mouth curved ever so slightly into a grin as he looked forward into the vastness of the barren wastelands.
'I'm going to survive, and I'm going to fucking find out who or what did this to me… They'll pay… I'll make sure of it'
He stood up with the power residing in his body giving him a confident posture. But, deep down inside his heart… The flames of rage glimmered again ever so brightly. He was going to live.
Chapter 3 - Fin