He dreamed of the black castle standing in the center of the ancient city. He dreamed about the gates opening and darkness spilling out. He saw the vile red moss crawl into the throne room. It was as if it were all one organism, and it rested on the ancient throne—a city governed and ruled by an abomination made from red moss. He felt pain and fear flowing through his entire body.
He woke up in a cold sweat and the agony of his grazing injuries caused by the wolf amalgamation. He slowly got up and gazed at the sky. It was still the same dead light, but he must have slept for a long time, since the body of the dead wolf had now been completely absorbed by the red moss, with only bones remaining. But there, at the center of the skeleton, lay a dark stone.
Lukas got up and slowly walked to the skeleton. The stone was entirely black, but it was also shining. A black light emanated from the stone. It didn't lie on the ground but instead levitated a few centimeters above it. In fact, the stone itself was roughly 7 cm in diameter. Around it levitated a small circle of some ethereal purple material, with something that looked like two knots tied on the purple circle.
Lukas was a gamer; he liked manga and anime. If he were in any such story, it was clear: this was the reward for defeating the monster. All he needed was to simply pick it up and absorb it. He would gain some magical power, or he would unlock some system and be able to invest points into strength or magic. But this world was too brutal and unforgiving. The stone right here could be the seed of corruption that forced the wolf into mutating into the state he found it in. He could very well turn into such a monster himself after consuming it. After all, he didn't know where he was, but there should be some reason for the fall of the civilization and the birth of such monsters. It didn't look as if the situation was so bad at the beginning, so something had to change at some point in the life of this civilization that slowly caused its downfall.
After a while, Lukas came closer to the stone. He tried to focus his intuition, which had warned him correctly against the red moss and the wolf amalgamation, but it was silent. If the stone were truly dangerous, his intuition now failed to capture that danger. He slowly lowered his body and picked up the stone. It was cold to the touch; the ring seemed to be entirely intangible, but Lukas was fine. Touching it did nothing to him. But he still wasn't willing to consume it. It was something that came from a monster.
Perhaps he wouldn't think about it that much if it were purely white or shining in some other color than—well, let's see—black, purple, red, and maybe orange. He could imagine it as some kind of soul shard. He decided that the best description of this stone was "monster shard" and simply ran with that name.
He decided to wait on consuming it. If he wanted to leave this place alive—assuming there is a way to do so—he would need more power. Just this one fight had left him half dead, and he had won only because of the red moss, which he was now convinced was a much more scary and powerful monster than the wolf. There was obviously some kind of magic in this world, and he just had to come to terms with how to obtain it. Right? It wouldn't be fair if there wasn't any.
"Maybe I will actually find some soul shard or something like that."
"System open."
"Open."
"Login."
"Log out."
He made a circle in the air with his fingers and acted as if he wanted to open an invisible menu. When that, obviously, did nothing, he felt stupid and turned to the door. He stuffed the monster shard into his right pocket and some meat into his left, and then walked out into the long corridor from where the wolf had come.
It soon led him to the stairs, and when he descended them, he found himself in front of a door that clearly led out of the building. He slowly opened it, thanking the gods there weren't other wolves in the corridor and praying there wouldn't be any outside.
He found himself on a small street. It was entirely empty, outside of the occasional red moss crawling across the pavement. He made a mental note not to fucking step on it and looked around. To be honest, he had no idea what to do. There were few obvious choices, but none were good. The first one was the most obvious: he could go to the castle and kill whatever sat in the throne room. If this place had a boss, it was that thing. The obvious problem was that whatever was on that throne was hopelessly powerful compared to him. He could do the same thing with the ancient cathedral, but the same problem applied there. If there were something there, it was probably something ancient and powerful. He could try to make a journey to the dark tree, but again, what if there were something there? All of these places seemed like the next step, but they looked like boss arenas, and Lukas was level 1. No, more like level 0 now.
He could also try to find and fight more monsters, kill them, and hope they drop something like a soul shard. But there was also a problem. It was possible that the thing he fought was super strong and that monsters here are much weaker than that, but he found it somehow implausible.
'The wolf was probably the weakest thing here, and I can't defeat that in the open air. I would have to create a good situation, work ahead, and prepare long for each fight, and even then, it was a gamble with my life.'