’Well, it’s finally done!’
Hadeon sighed as he sat down near the corpse, ignoring the scrambled head. He shifted his gaze towards the wound on the back.
After taking a few deep breaths, he started to tear down the chitin armour, reaching for the white half-roasted flesh inside.
He ripped a big piece of charred meat off.
The ant’s flesh was pale and fibrous; it looked appetising, well, if he didn’t know it was harvested from the ant instead of any conventional livestock.
Without another thought, he sank his teeth into the half-burned meat that looked slightly overcooked, and instantly grimaced.
’Why does it taste like this?’ Hadeon looked at the meat, his face bearing an expression of disgust.
The meat was so bitter, and the smell. It smelled like earthy medicinal herbs, as if they were left to rot in a damp swamp.
And instead of juices, it was leaking oil and waxes, making his stomach churn.
Hadeon forcefully swallowed it, not trying to waste any of it— taste buds be damned.
He can’t afford to have luxury in this accursed world!
After filling his stomach and packing some for later, in his dirty towel that he was using to cover his face to stop ash from entering his nose and eyes.
What now remained of the ant was a mutilated head and hollow endoskeleton; not much of flesh left in it.
Sadly, he didn’t gain any spirit after killing it.
As for the ordinary grade soul core, it was barely enough to give him any enhancement, even after consuming it and the 2× glitch effect. He didn’t feel any major improvement in his strength.
If he wanted to level up faster, he needed to hunt strong creatures and a lot of them!
And for that, Hadeon had finally decided to leave this place.
He wanted to leave the desert as soon as possible; there was nothing left to do in the barren desert. There were no creatures to hunt, no food to eat and no water to drink!
Staying in the ash wastelands was nothing but a waste of time!
***
It has been almost eight days since Hadeon came to this world.
Interestingly, there was no night and day, as there was no sun in the sky to cause the periodic shifts of light on the planet.
In the past seven days, Hadeon had come across five more levels.5 Obsidian Acid Ants, and using his newly acquired skill, he had killed all of them very easily, no longer resorting to the filthy stick; as for the gains, he had absorbed five ordinary-grade soul cores, but zero spirits on his hands yet.
He was sure that the planet— The first layer of hell he was currently in was called Draven. With a single massive supercontinent in the middle, surrounded by an ocean of boiling lava.
To leave the planet, awakened were given objectives to first reach level twenty-five and then find a portal hidden somewhere on the planet; each layer of hell hovered over seven of them.
Only by defeating the warden, the one who guards the portal, could one gain access to it and return to their home planet.
As for their location, Hadeon had no idea of it!
He had to find them himself; for that reason, he was wandering in the ash desert to find a way out, and after following the trail of those ants for seven days, he finally reached what looked like a badlands.
If he was right, he might have walked around a hundred miles in the last seven days.
The land had gradually become more solid, the loose wet ash now replaced by gray compressed stones. His legs no longer sank into the ground, making his journey much easier.
No ash dunes in his sight; instead, steady gravel and grey compact rocks filled his vision, carved lava stone-obsidian hills, and cliffs towering over hundreds of meters.
The place stretched far beyond without any end; his surroundings had changed a lot. The wind had grown calmer and warmer, and there were more varieties of exotic flora and fauna flourishing everywhere.
’Looks like I have finally escaped the damned desert!’ Hadeon cursed loudly as he looked back, seeing the last of the ash dunes slowly diminishing in size until replaced by badlands.
For the last week, he was walking every day for thirteen hours with a bare minimum of six hours of sleep.
He was still thirsty, but having awakened, he could survive without eating and drinking for almost a week.
And absorbing five ordinary soul cores that he had gained from the ants had made his voyage less painful.
It was only a miracle that he found those ants in the desert, and also thanks to them... he was able to reach this place, following their direction.
’It’s always good to trust the animals in a desert for direction!’ He added.
Nonetheless, it was still a very boring week, but thanks to having a system that kept disturbing him without any reason and pointing out useless things throughout the day and night.
It passed quickly.
Hadeon moved carefully, studying the surrounding land, which was filled with different sorts of vegetation: trees, bushes and herbs. All exotic, with some having grey bark and red leaves, some with black leaves and white bone-like branches barbed with sharp thorns.
Strangely enough, he didn’t find any animals in his sight.
Not even an insect!
The whole place was dead silent, except for the shuffling of dry leaves and the eerie whistling sound of winds passing through the obsidian hills.
’How strange!’ Hadeon wondered as he knelt to pick something.
It was a fresh pellet of a bird or a land reptile.
’Something dropped it not long before!’ Hadeon thought.
"Seeing the size and its shape, it’s probably a big bird and probably a herbivore one!" Hadeon studied it carefully before wandering his gaze in the sky and at the tall cliffs.
’’Nothing?!’’
Hadeon moved silently under the white barbed trees as he saw a sea of red in the distance; it looked like a forest fire from the place he was standing on.
"Crimson Flame Cactus!" He shouted.
Hadeon remembered what those things were.
Crimson Flame Cactus was one of the most famous fire resources of the Planet- Draven, used to boost the growth of flame abilities after drinking its sap.
It was quite famous among the pyromancers in the early days of hell expeditions.