For three days, the grotto was Ren's world. Time was measured not by the sun, but by the slow, painful process of his own recovery. He rationed the sips of pure water, his body crying out for sustenance. The gnawing hunger was a constant, dull ache, a reminder of the mortal frailty that underpinned his immense power.
His meditation was a grueling exercise in patience. He could feel the tainted Aether of the peninsula swirling just outside his sanctuary, a chaotic, tempting poison. He resisted it, focusing instead on the slow, painstaking process of drawing forth the minuscule amounts of pure, untainted energy that existed naturally within the deep earth and stone around him. It was like trying to fill a lake with a single drop of rain at a time.
On the second day, his Aetheric channels finally stopped screaming. The injury from the backlash was healing, but he could feel the scar tissue, a slight, almost imperceptible knot that impeded the flow of his power.
"A flaw in the vessel," Zephyrion noted, his voice a clinical assessment. "Using the Heart of the Tempest's raw power was a desperate, crude act. It has left its mark. Your control will be... imperfect. You will need to find a 'Stoneweaver's Root' to properly mend the channel. They grow near sources of geothermal heat."
Another problem for another day. Survival first.
On the third day, the gnawing hunger became a real threat. His body, deprived of energy, was beginning to cannibalize itself. He was growing weaker, not stronger.
"You must hunt," the spirit stated simply. "There are creatures deeper in these caves. 'Cavern-Crawlers.' Blind. They hunt by sound and the scent of Aether. Your cloak is useless. But your control is not. You must become a true ghost. No sound. No movement. No Aether."
Driven by a hunger that was now a physical agony, Ren agreed. He left the relative safety of his grotto, his movements slow and deliberate, every footstep placed with a practiced silence. He was a predator now, but also prey.
He moved deeper into the cave system, his senses on high alert. He found a cavern where a colony of phosphorescent fungi cast a dim, blue glow. And he saw them. The Cavern-Crawlers were pale, six-legged creatures, like eyeless geckos the size of large dogs. They moved with a jerky, unsettling quickness, their heads twitching as they tasted the air for the scent of life.
There were three of them. In his prime, he could have dispatched them with a thought. Now, they were a mortal threat.
He flattened himself into a recess in the rock, his body utterly still. He suppressed his Aetheric signature completely, a trick that was now second nature. He held his breath. He waited.
One of the crawlers, its head twitching, sensed something. It skittered closer to Ren's hiding place, its long, forked tongue flicking out to taste the air. It was feet away. Ren could smell its damp, earthy scent.
He did not move. He did not breathe. He was a statue of flesh and armor.
The crawler's head tilted. It could not see him. It could not smell him. But its primitive instincts told it something was wrong. It let out a low, questioning hiss.
It was about to sound the alarm.
Ren acted. He did not use Aether. He did not use a grand kinetic blast. He focused his will on a single, tiny, loose pebble on the cavern floor, twenty feet away. He gave it a minute, invisible kinetic push.
The pebble rolled, dislodging a few other small stones with a soft clatter.
It was all the sound that was needed. All three Cavern-Crawlers instantly spun towards the noise, their predatory instincts completely overriding their vague suspicion. They swarmed the spot where the pebble had fallen, their claws scraping against the rock as they searched for the source of the sound.
In that moment, Ren moved. A silent, black-clad shadow detaching from the wall. He drew a simple, sharp-edged rock he had picked up earlier. He did not have the energy for a Thunder's Needle, but his physical strength, honed by the First Tempering, was still formidable.
He fell upon the nearest crawler from behind. Before the creature could react, he drove the sharp rock into the soft spot at the base of its skull, severing its spinal cord with a single, brutal, efficient strike. It collapsed without a sound.
The other two crawlers, their attention still focused on the decoy sound, didn't even notice. Ren dispatched the second one with the same ruthless, silent efficiency.
The third, finally sensing the death of its pack mates, spun around with a hiss. It was too late. Ren was already on it, his strike swift and final.
He stood in the silent, blue-lit cavern, his chest heaving, his hands stained with the creature's dark, viscous blood. He had not used the storm. He had not used the thunder. He had used a pebble and a sharp rock. He had survived, not as a Raijin, but as a simple, desperate hunter.
The taste of the creature's meat, cooked over a tiny, carefully shielded fire he managed to start with two rocks and a spark of Aether he could barely afford, was the most delicious thing he had ever eaten. It was the taste of survival. The taste of might earned not through divine power, but through the grim, bloody business of staying alive.