'Should be getting close shouldn't I?'
Gwin wondered while thinking of his most recent kill. He had slain the sun seeker while tearing its throat out with his bony maw which meant that the blood had been allocated to the pyrrhic hounds sculpture. Once he had finished the monster sculpture for it he would finally be able to complete an enigmatic transformation for his echo. He wasn't entirely sure what it meant but it had required two effigies for him to [Rejuvinate] his echo. He checked and saw it still had some way to go.
'Oh well. I'm still not even sure it's a good thing. My aspect wouldn't sabotage me would it? Maybe I'm being overly cautious…'
Perhaps he was but it was that caution that had kept him alive so far so he felt inclined to believe it.
Gwin was soon forced to abandon his kill when a hoard of nightmare creatures began approaching from one of the larger caverns. Currently he was wandering in a network of smaller man made tunnels that he assumed had been a sewer system at one point. These man made tunnels had been connected to a much larger and vast set of caves probably from some large earthquake. Gwin avoided going into these larger caves like the plague and for good reason. Not only were there fallen abominations but nightmare creatures traveled in much greater number there not to mention any unknown horrors that might be lurking there. Safe to say if he valued his life he wasn't going to go anywhere near there. He had already paid the price for wandering too close and he was still paying it. Something quite awful had followed him from the abyssal darkness. As he traveled through the pitch dark looking for an exit with toothpaste a deep and hum resounded around him suffusing itself in the walls. Gwin himself noticed the hum despite it being almost invisible to the human senses. Luckily his senses were far from human but unluckily this meant that the thing hunting him had gotten close without him noticing.
'Crap! I need to move!'
Gwin trotted through the cave using his superb night vision to avoid cave ins and dead ends and the nests of tribes of nightmare creatures. He narrowly avoided running straight into a patrol of abominations and circled around them. That was when he heard the first sign of its arrival. The swarm of nightmare creatures that had converged on his kill had erupted into a litany of shrieks and wails. The fearsome sounds of combat…no, a slaughter echoed through the caves. Their silent killer made quick work of them while Gwin had already made more distance. Almost instantly the tribe he just snuck passed erupted into the same chorus of wails, snarls, and howls before being ruthlessly and silently snuffed out.
With no time to waste Gwin dismissed a gauntlet and his charm and turned one of his fingers into a hooked claw before running it across his palm. Red blood poured from the wound as he gave toothpaste the mental command to raise his paw. Gwin smeared his blood all over his foot and leg before commanding him to run down a separate tunnel. He closed his wound with the kiss of Kesh and ducked into a small tunnel close to the ground. Toothpaste met his command with hollow loyalty as he darted down the tunnel leaving a trail of tantalizing blood in his wake.
'Please work!'
Gwin huddled in his spot just as the last of the cries and wails died down. He recited a quiet prayer in his head that this would not be the moment the abomination had finally caught him.
A scythe-like talon followed by a huge leathery wing landed right in front of him silently. He saw through the darkness the large ears and strong legs of the enormous bat abomination that had been hunting him for so long. Gwin did his best to calm his racing heart. He kept his breathing even and steady. The bat shifted its head around as if listening before catching a scent in the air. It moved onward through the tunnel quiet like a mouse. Even after it had disappeared from his vision he remained in his spot. He had been hasty to leave once before and it had nearly cost him his life. His foe was a conniving one, a devilishly cunning foe who was able to hide itself from his senses and track him down.
'That was close..'
He needed to move while he had the chance. Once it realized the trail had gone cold it would backtrack. He needed to get the hell out of here before that. He began going back where he had come from. As he did the pungent odor of blood filled his nose. He stumbled upon the eviscerated remains of the nightmare creatures he had just passed.
'I shouldn't…..I should…'
He had some time, didn't he? He had commanded Toothpaste to run for a while and he had already dismissed him so there should be some time. He couldn't pass up on all of these free soul shards! He changed both hands giving himself the hooked claws of the perforated hunter and got to work. It wasn't clean and precise like last time, he didn't have time for that. He messily dug them out and crushed them. Sometimes he simply plunged his hand into them and crushed it while it was still in there.
'Vlad will be here soon..'
That was the moniker he had given his harrowing pursuer since he had reminded him of a villain he had read about once in a webtoon. It just seemed fitting and it wasn't like he actually knew its name! He wasn't going to ask either! He cursed the builders of this city for making their sewers so large in the first place! If they hadn't that house sized bat wouldn't be able to fit!
He came across the next group and was met with a similar scene of carnage. He was really pushing his luck this time but he decided to go for their shards as well against his better judgement. He used the claws of the sun seeker this time just in case he needed to hurl a glob of flaming mucus to make his escape. He needed time to charge it up after all. He could create the glands that made the mucus however he couldn't just outright create the substance inside them, he had to wait for the glands to do their job. His face, neck, and hands were covered in pale orange scales. His teeth were elongated and sharp and his tongue forked. He occasionally flicked it outwards hoping to catch the scent of Vlad before he was upon him.
After crushing each shard he used his monstrous strength to hurl the corpses into the path of where he came from. Toothpaste helped too after being resummoned. He had a few new lesions from his mission but nothing too dire. Luckily Gwin had enough time to gather them all and create a huge mound of corpses.
'Try finding me through this!'
With that thought he opened his toothy maw and released a large glob of flaming mucus. He used every bit he had saved up to make the biggest possible orb of flames he could. It crashed into the mound of corpses and coated them in the viscous fluid. In only a moment the mound grew into a blazing inferno filling the cave with black smoke and the savory smell of burning meat.
A pair of glossy black eyes shown through the fire on the other side.
'Oh crap..'