He ended the crafting session and found himself back with the scarabs.
His cuts had stopped bleeding, but looking at the ground it was very damp and he began feeling weak. He had lost a good bit of blood before his wounds began healing naturally.
Opening his inventory he saw the items were together in a separate place titled elixers. Both bottles appeared by his side. Grabbing the first one he gulped it down without hesitation noticing it didn't have a taste at all.
[Alleviate - to completely restore health, stamina and open wounds at a rapid pace.]
With wide eyes and a definite smile, he watched every cut and open wound on his body disappear as if no wounds ever occured. There was only smeared blood left, and his body suddenly felt rejuvenated after being surrounded by a turquoise light.
Damon didn't know how to feel, he was feeling terrific, like his body was rebooted and reborn as the faint turquoise glow faded from around his body. Excited to see the second elixer he created in action, he read the information again.
[False will- allows you to harness a temporary will of energy to ward off all beasts below the level of a prime beast for one hour.]
Turning the bottle up, the green colored liquid dripped from the corners of his mouth as his jaws expanded and his stomach jerked in sudden displeasure. His tounge swimed around feeling the many tiny seeds the mixture produced.
A pungent and absurdly bitter taste soaked in his mouth as he struggled to swallow. His stomach jerked upward constantly as if it was rejecting the liquid before he even took it down.
A dead musty smell filled his nose as he exhaled through his nose which almost made him spit it out, but with great determination he held it in, forcefully swallowing it in one fast gulp. To his surprise the smell and taste disappeared the moment it hit his stomach.
A rush of ominous energy emersed him releasing a black fog that thinned out stretching to the point it was unseeable, but a mountain of pressure could be felt all around him and the next moment he stuck out his chest feeling indestructible.
Damons body began emitting a serious amount of blood lust and the air around him became stiff, the scarabs began moving around becoming agitated. One by one they began flying out the hole and seconds later they flew out in bulks and then in multiple swarms, rushing out to safety like they were running from a wonderous powerful enemy.
"Ha, its working."
Wasting no time he walked up to the orb grabbing it tight. Unlike lower tier orbs it didn't just look organic. It felt like he was pulling out an organ as the scales around it seemed squishy instead of hard.
Pulling with all his might the vein like roots began popping like rubber bands and he suddenly felt something. Something dangerous, a second ominous power, much greater than what the elixer created for him pushed out with great force making his eyes turn white, rolling in the back of his head, the ground began shaking as if a earthquake was being born.
The walls collapsed and his body had become like a statue. His vision wavered as his consciousness began slipping, it was nothing he could do, he couldn't even fully process what was happening. Just before he passed out he felt the ground below him shatter like glass.
Falling in complete darkness still holding on to the core his body twitched trying to move, time seemed to slow down as the fall felt like he was being drowned in obscured shadows.
Fang was standing over the hole Damon dug looking at the little part of the dormant beast they discovered when he noticed its color began changing. It turned grey like stone and began cracking out of nowhere melting and turning into a dust or ash like material.
"Is it coming out of its dormant state ?, This isn't good." He thought backing up nervously.
The ground began shaking violently creating huge cracks, breaking up the soil all around him. He started running, but everything was happening too fast, the ground sunk in snatching his body down like a shark pulling its prey underwater. Ice spikes grew from his palm and dug them into the side of a wall that had not yet fallen as he found himself hanging on to the side of a huge hole dangling in nothing but darkness.
He called out to Damon and Calvus with all his might while creating two large ice spikes stabbing them into the ground for a stronger and more steady holding method rather than the small ones he used a second ago. He had begun to pull himself up when the rest of it came crashing down casting him in a dark void.
"The hell is going on." Calvus shouted in fear. The forest was shaking and crumbling to pieces. The stream he was in began twisting like a whirlpool, an image of him appeared on the bank and he swapped places. Before he could take further action, the ground caved redirecting the stream towards him. He transported his body again and again and the same thing occurred.
Everything was collapsing too fast and he couldn't get far enough away from the stream or the ground which continued it's assault. He had no choice, but to swim against the strong pulling force of the beast urine, the swirling piss pool was too strong as it sucked him down like a spider being flushed down a toilet.
Slowly opening his eyes, Damon saw nothing but darkness, he could feel a cold and wet sensation all around him as he could barely notice the weight of his body.
Moving his limbs he realized he was floating and the cold he felt was water. He groaned while turning over attempting to swim, but could feel rocks or something hard under him.
Feeling his way around he crawled out the water until he felt nothing but dirt and rocks, collapsing on his knees.
"Myyyy life." He said flipping over on his back letting out a sigh.
He laid there for a second before thinking about the soul core. Sitting up he went into his inventory and it was there, he threw out a few light orbs all around him and in the water.
Being able to see more he could tell he was still underground, but in a much larger area. He couldn't tell how far the water went back so he threw another light orb as far as he could.
It casted light upward while floating and a giant pair of blue slit like eyes the size of a semi truck appeared a hundred or so meters behind the light orb.
Damons heart dropped to his stomach, he tried moving but a white glow surrounded him forcefully keeping him frozen. He couldn't move an inch, the light was holding him so tight it felt like he was being compressed. It was the same paralyzing energy he felt with Radix, the dragon and all the others, but at a far lesser degree.
The only thing he could do was think, think of his demise and death as the hair all over his body shot up like spikes. The light was so powerful he couldn't even tremble in fear. It was crazy because fear was all he could feel.
As it got closer a titan crocodile head surfaced with bright white scales. The ridges on the back of its neck were like sharp diamonds casting a impenetrable force of light that cut through sections of the darkness around him.
"Is it, but how, I have its soul core, It shouldn't be alive." He thought in disbelief.
The white light released him, but the caiman was now in front of him. It's massive head fully out of the water, he knew it was useless to try and run, all it had to do was reach out and he'd be done. In fact, he didn't want to run for that simple reason. Knowing it wouldn't help at all.
It starred at him with a deadly unwavering gaze that spoke death into his soul. He could feel it's power was imminent carnage that could take his life with the slightest movement.
Its gaze remained on him for some time before he gained the courage to move, thinking of the first thing that came to his mind, he acted slowly.
He took out the core and placed it on the ground trying to give it back. More diamond sparkling light lit up the entire place and now he could see every inch of the beast except its tail as it was submerged in the water.
It looked at its core with the same death gaze and suddenly it's body began melting like an ice sculpture being put under extreme heat turning into a giant blob of white liquid with sparkles of small crystals. The next moment the liquid was sucked into the core and he received a message.
[White diamond back Caiman soul core obtained.]
The beast was gone as quickly as it appeared. He rolled back over in relief and eventually sat up starring at the core, He didn't know what just happened, His first thought was maybe what he just saw was the beast actual soul, but he wasn't sure at all.
"I gotta get out of here before something else crazy happens." He told himself.
He used the soul core as a source of light, It continued to illuminate the whole place without blinding him. He could tell he was still within the huge mountain they had crawled in running from the spiders. He was now at the base of the mountain which had a huge underwater cavern.
Looking up he could see a gigantic hole where he fell from after everything collapsed. He then noticed an object floating with a slight shine of many colors.
"Wait, isn't that."
Walking waist deep in the water he was able to retrieve a dead prism scarab. Looking around, Damon eyes lit up as more and more popped up. He didn't waste anytime collecting them especially after he remembered their only weakness was to overpower their defenses or drown them in deep enough water.
He smiled knowing it was all because of his luck. Their weren't nearly as many as before, but he thought seventeen was a pretty good number of considering how he got them.
He sat down thinking how happy he was for adding four more points to his luck when reality hit him.
"Oh no, Calvus and fang, I've killed them."
The second he thought about them his coms device on his wrist began glowing. Picking it up, calvus spoke.
"Dude you're alive, where are you."
It was a relief hearing his voice, for a moment he had thought the worse. They explained their surroundings to eachother and learned they were in completely different sections of the underground water caverns.
Calvus had contacted fang giving them a three way connection and he was also alive, but in a separate place. Damon played as if he had no clue what happened.
All of them were still inside the mountain, but In different locations. They agreed to stay on the coms to try and find each other, Damon found multiple tunnel ways and chose one counting on his luck.
He ran instead to capitalize on the situation, he hadn't finished his daily routine. Taking a short break he took out the boulder and began lifting it up slightly and dropping it down.
"Dude, tell me you're moving rocks out of your way and not working out with that stupid boulder."
"It seems and sounds that way." Fang said.
" I told you guys, It's my routine."
"Dude, that can wait until we get out of here, I've been on the fence about you being nuts, but I'm pretty sure about it now."
Damon chuckled and continued, hours later Damon was the first to find a way out. Fang was second and Calvus was last. They were still separated however fang ended up in a familiar area.
"It seems I'm near the area where we encountered the spiders."
"Hey fang. Why is it you start your sentences with it seems."
"The same reason you say dude a lot."
"Dude that's not true."
They all burst out laughing, but Damon turned silent shortly after a few things came to his mind.
He was feeling bad about his actions, one or all of them could have died back there. He didn't completely trust them, but he didn't want to harm or kill them either. In fact he had become to believe they were sorta like friends.
Fang made the decision for everyone to try and find their way back to home base. Looking at his surroundings Damons gut became heavy.
"You guys, I think we should stay near the entrances we came out of, until morning. "
Agreeing with Damon they all set up camp in the tunnel they were in. Fang blocked himself in on both sides while Calvus and Damon had to tough it out next to a wide entrance.
Calvus made an image of himself standing at his entrance. Everything was blinking in and out except for his eyes.
Damon just propped himself against the wall and kept watch. He doubted anything would come from the way he came considering the prime beast that was dormant kept many beasts from entering.
Now that the prime beast was gone he didn't know how soon other beasts would notice and try to make the mountain their own shelter. He still couldn't believe how lucky he was to get a Grand prime beast core.
It was crazy to him how such a magnificent powerful beast was so vulnerable all because it was dormant.
" I guess even incredible beasts can have horrible drawbacks as well when it comes to their power. No matter how strong they are." He thought referencing it to how his rain ability was limited because he needed the sky for it to be of use.