Silken rough stone was awash with deep violet hued liquid. Raw green flesh of rot waded in their shallows, kicking about the fetid blood. Their bodies poured from overhangs and climbed from crevices as they walked towards Quies.

  He held his stained crimson blade tight, veins coursing his cursed life through his body. With its enhancement, he felt like he could crush a stone to pieces with his bare hands. His eyes stared with steadfast…

  …boredom?

  He put his other hand over his mouth, covering an exhausted yawn.

  Regaining his composure, slightly, he lowered his hand into a fist. The purple blood beneath the feet of the disgusting creatures tensed at his iron grip.

  With his other hand, he swung his blade across and through the damp air of the cave. The purple liquid slid off of its lusterless surface as it sliced through thin nothing. A wave of air swept forward…

  Khik!

  Unwillingly following the will of its commander, spikes of violet jutted upwards from the liquid, cleanly impaling the creatures on sharp-tipped pikes. Bones crunched and dying muscles tore at the hands of their own blood. Even more violet poured out of the puncture wounds, fueling the rampage of the pikes

  “Ghrogrllll…”

  Life faded from the infected eyes of the mudskippers. With that single attack, Quies had killed every single one of them in the cave.

  Every single one.

  ‘...d-damn.’

  To be able to take out the horde of mudskippers in one blow, Quies had to kill more bloodskippers with his blade. Well, he didn’t really kill them. He simply amputated their extremities—whether it be an arm, a leg, or both—and waited for their foul smelling blood to spill across the floor…

  …As any other obviously sane, calculated man would, of course.

  A lazy strategic person Quies was. A laziness which almost got him killed on a few occasions, and a strategic mind which had saved him on several Still, it worked, so long he was firm in what he was doing.

  Quies closed his eyes and took a sharp breath. His muscles, once tensed, now relaxed. His racing heartbeat began to slow as the rapids of blood within his veins calmed down.

  The foul smelling air drew in closer to him as the pent up tension began to wind down. Quies waited a few seconds, watching for any movement within the lifeless, impaled bodies of the mudskippers.

  Ba… dump…

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  Their heartbeats slowed to a stop. Not only did he focus with his eyes, but he also listened intently with his ears. He focused both on their heartbeat and their song. One represented the presence of the body, while the other represented the soul. If both were extinguished, then Quies was sure that the beings in front of him were truly dead.

  The small wound on his thumb almost finished clotting—taking its time due to Quies’ hemophilia—as he drew in his crimson blade. Before he did that, though, he flourished the fine sword in the air as to get rid of any unwanted contaminants, like the putrid, violet blood of those creatures.

  Sword reabsorbed back into his body, Quies stepped forward with careful intent.

  The cave was eerily quiet. Even the light, featherweight step of his greaves on stone reverberated on the walls of nature’s confinement.

  For a cave, it was actually quite tall—or, rather, it was much taller than it was wide. Quies was able to walk throughout its spacious width comfortably. His leather greaves were able to get an ample grip of the stony floor.

  All different types of stones diversified the tall faces of the quiet cave. Fragments of granite were scattered on top of limestone floors. On the walls, gray igneous diorite splotched the walls, mixed with darker basalt. It was… extremely strange. Very strange, in fact. However, a lot of things were strange about this island…

  ‘eugh…’

  Quies, not wanting to dirty his clothes, lifted the lower edges of his unbuttoned trench coat—so as to not get any of the mudskipper blood on it. He didn’t want to ruin its beautifully fashioned hickory-colored fabric. His armor was made for these conditions, so he didn’t mind stepping in the blood with his greaves, but his coat was not. Perhaps it would suffice for labor-based work, but not for killing.

  He walked through the expansive pool of violet liquid, stepping in a way as to not splash the water about.

  ‘If I remember correctly, up there…’

  Quies studied the coarse walls of the cave. If he remembered correctly, there should be-

  ‘There!’

  His eyes locked onto a ledge slightly overlooking the cave. Its surface seemed wide enough for one to lay down comfortably with minimal fear of rolling off.

  A few more steps forward, and he was out of the mass of mudskippers and their blood. The stench was still there, though.

  His focus shifted slightly to his legs, a temporary surge of power flowed through them.

  ‘Hup!’

  Jumping upwards, he released the energy in his leg muscles. The tension released like a wound spring, flying into the air higher than expected.

  Grabbing onto the ledge with his hands, he focused on his arms, this time. He pulled himself up with ease, though a little bit of blood dripped from his thumb as his blood enhancement wavered.

  A light breath escaped his lips as he stood up fully, dusting off any debris from his coat once he was standing.

  ‘Well, well, well…’

  He glanced around the surface of the wide ledge. It was just like he remembered.

  On the far wall, tally marks grouped in five were scratched onto the surface. They were marked down in a faint, white chalk-like residue, presumably from the half-expanded piece of white stone resting at the foot of the improvised tablet.

  Among the stone, there were other objects which littered… decorated the ledge. Dry fish bones were crumbling; an improvised wooden and stone knife stood beside it. A wooden stick with its end filed down to a cone leaned on a pile of firewood. Twine and other materials rested near them.

  Of course Quies remembered this place—he had lived in these conditions for a little under a quarter of his life!

  ‘Home sweet home.’