Chapter 387: Progress toward hatching: 1%
The wolves shrieked in despair and tried to chew out their own body in a mad frenzy, removing chunks of flesh infected with the venom, but the venom was too much. Wherever Damon’s poisoned blood dug in, the ichor boiled, corroded, and refused to mend. One by one, the Abyssfangs collapsed into twitching heaps.
Damon did not waste time and absorbed all of their essence. A series of notifications chimed in.
[Ding! You have slain Abyssfang]
[Ding! You have extracted +2 Strength]
[Ding! You have extracted Abyssal Resilience +1]
...
...
...
It was only a matter of time before all the wolves dropped dead. By the time the last Abyssfang let out its death cry, the black fog had thinned just enough to reveal the crater once more. Damon stood in the center, his entire figure soaked in ichor, his crimson eyes glowing with unrestrained hunger.
He was just about to activate [Stealth] and disappear when suddenly something unexpected showed up in his hand. It was the egg.
Hmmm? Damon raised a brow. He tossed the egg back into his storage space. However, the next moment, the egg once again showed up on his hand. "What the hell?"
The egg pulsed faintly, the silver streaks along its shell glowing brighter with each thrum, like a heartbeat in sync with his own. Damon’s crimson eyes narrowed, suspicion flashing. He hadn’t summoned it. His storage wasn’t malfunctioning either. He could feel the egg rejecting containment, refusing to be hidden away.
The aura leaking from it was different now. Before, it had been dormant. But after the Abyssfangs’ deaths, after the flood of ichor and venom, it felt... more alive.
"Don’t tell me..." Damon muttered, holding it up. The shell radiated a faint heat, the streaks pulsing faster as if responding to the blood and ichor still dripping from his hands. It wasn’t random. The egg was reacting to the carnage.
"Can this guy absorb the abyssal ichor?"
As if answering his question, a system notification popped up.
[Ding! Unknown Abyss-Infused Egg has reacted to Abyssal Essence.]
[Ding! Progress toward hatching: 1%]
Damon was livid with happiness. He thought that he would have to jump through all sorts of hoops just to find a way to hatch this thing. But two seconds later, he had already figured it out!
That poor bastard in his last life must have somehow slipped in between his friends or enemies and stolen this egg and then immediately got the heck out of here. That was probably why he had never been able to figure out how to hatch this thing.
Damon waited for the egg to eat to its heart’s content. There was only some essence left because he had already sucked everything dry prior to the wolves’ deaths, but it looked like the egg was able to siphon off abyssal essence even from the flesh and bones.
The egg pulsed greedily in his palm, faint streams of black ichor rising off the twitching Abyssfang corpses and spiraling into the shell. The silver streaks grew brighter with each wisp it consumed, as if veins of molten light were being etched deeper into its surface.
Damon was even more pleased. If it could grow just by leeching the leftovers of what he didn’t fully drain, then it was all the better. He did not have to slow down his pace at all.
Damon gave it a couple of minutes, and when the pulsing eased into a steady dull glow, he once again tried putting the egg back into the storage space. Since the thing was done eating, there should not be any particular reason why it wouldn’t simply go inside any like other objects.
At least that’s what he thought.
The very next moment, the damn thing was back in his hands once again. Damon frowned. After a series of experiments, he finally gave up and strapped the egg to his chest with a piece of cloth. What else was he supposed to do? Carry it in one hand and fight? That wouldn’t be the most convenient thing in the world.
Damon scowled, running a hand through his ichor-stained hair. "Great. Now I’m a babysitter."
Still, his crimson eyes gleamed with satisfaction. This wasn’t a curse. Not for him. Where others had floundered for years with no answers, he had already unlocked the key. The egg thrived on abyssal essence. It was a perfect match.
The only problem was its stubborn clinginess, no storage, no concealment, no escape. It wanted to be with him.
"Fine," Damon muttered under his breath, adjusting the makeshift harness as the egg pulsed once, like smug agreement. "But don’t slow me down. If you’re going to leech, then you’d better grow into something worth the trouble."
He pulled his cloak tight, hiding the glow beneath his chest, and turned his gaze deeper into the ruins. Two more targets still awaited him, and the Abyss wasn’t going to wait politely.
Damon pressed deeper through the ruins, past the warped streets and broken towers, until the shattered avenues opened into what had once been the grand central plaza of Lotera.
The plaza was no longer flat. Instead, a small hill of jagged stone and blackened earth rose from its heart, as if the ground itself had been forced upward by some obscene hand.
At the very top of the hill jutted massive, crystalline shards of Abyssal Steel Ore, glimmering like black diamonds. This ore popped up here and there throughout the hellish zone, but this cluster right here was the easiest one to obtain.
Abyssal Steel was known for its extreme damage resistance, both physical and magical. While most metals corroded under exposure to ichor, Abyssal Steel thrived in it, drinking in corruption and converting it into resilience.
Forged properly, it produced weapons and armor that were unnaturally sharp and near-indestructible. More importantly, there was a 50% chance that any weapon or armor forged with it would become epic or higher grade.
For blacksmiths, this was nothing short of a miracle material, one that could change entire factions overnight. Since Damon currently had a big group of talented blacksmiths, he would be an utter fool to let such a chance slip through his fingers.
***
Mass release sponsored by Syphatrol