[Two Months Later]
A full sixty days since the arrival of the Sin Incarnate to the chaos that was Extinction Valley. Yet even now, he remained far from the primary goal.
"It would be nice if I could just soak in the environment to Awaken my powers," a young man's voice resounded in the area. He wore a rolled-up dark grey shirt with intricate designs, leading to a pair of tactical pants.
[Clothing Image (in Discord)]
However, the disgruntled voice was overshadowed by the island-rattling explosions and vibrations that continuously went off.
Earth shook to the point that it seemed like a liquid, trembling incessantly. As the tremors died, another, many times more powerful one arrived and brought its hell with it.
*Rumble* The entire area never stopped shaking. It had been going on for decades now!
Damien walked through the barren place, looking down at the cuts forming along his shirt. "Tch, I'm running out of clothes for this," he complained, annoyed from hopping around the broken terrain.
Every so often, the earth below would open up with new crevices and ravines, while other rock formations would be shoved at one another, birthing hills and even mountains—such was the nature of Tremor District.
The pirate's complaints fell on deaf ears as he leapt from a shifting cliff and landed a good 50 meters away, dodging a gaping crater that had just opened.
"Feels like Whitebeard is playing with a pogo stick."
…
For the past two months, the undying pirate had travelled from region to region, inhaling the vast disasters in the hope of having an epiphany.
He went to hell and enjoyed the frequent rain of fire, then shuttled to the Tundra of Fleeting Hope to cool off or the Desert of the Starved for a nice tan. He even went to the Unknown Regions to bathe in the highly poisonous swamps, practically taking his body's immune system to another level.
Unfortunately, this wasn't the kind of story in which one could settle down in a lotus position, absorb some disastrous energy, and break through to the next realm.
"Huh, I guess that wraps that up." Damien looked around and saw that the ground slowly began to change, the very biome shifting. He had already walked through the entire Tremor District!
However, the clearing trees revealed a far more absurd sight that even left the infamous pirate with question marks: "What the hell is this?"
The ground was fractured into jagged pieces, glowing with ominous red light as though the very earth was bleeding. Spires of rock jut out at unnatural angles as if they'd been violently displaced from deep within the earth. Dark clouds loom overhead, laced with red lightning that crackled through the sky, mirroring the destruction below.
Damien smelled the rusty air as his boots dug into the broken ground. "This… should be the start of the forest-y Savage Lands," he scratched his head in confusion, pulling out the map to confirm his recollection.
A span of Haki later, Damien understood the setting.
It turned out that this shattered land was indeed previously a forest but had been laid to waste by some destructive, unnatural power.
"Whatever caused this, it must have been a Devil Fruit... a powerful one at that."
[Wasteland Image (in Discord)]
Alas, there were no answers here, and Damien could only move on. The ruined area only spanned a kilometer or two before the Savage Lands' actual appearance was here. As expected, it was a sprawl of trees in an endless forest.
…
Damien spent most of the day simply walking through the forested areas of the Savage Lands.
It was now nighttime. It felt primal.
"These plants have zero connection with me. They've evolved beyond nature itself." Damien studied the overgrown greens of the land, bewildered by it. Giant vines hung about from the sky-high trees that stood at least two hundred meters off the ground!
Any further exploration was paused as a thunderous roar echoed in the pirate's ears.
Damien blinked in surprise as the monstrous roar originated from a living plant.
The plant monster was an eldritch abomination, its twisted body of green tendrils wrapped tightly around a massive tree. The tendrils were lined with thick, thorny spikes and topped with mouths to devour prey.
The Sin Incarnate was quick to dodge, just before a giant crater opened up beneath where he was.
[Plant Image (in Discord)]
*Krrr* *Kirririri* Odd sounds resounded behind Damien; he was surrounded by more such monsters. "This place has quite the inhabitants."
Such was the truth of the Savage Lands. A foreboding forest where twisted and grotesque plant monsters roam, transformed by unnatural, eldritch powers. These abominations, once ordinary trees, now possess dark, decaying bark adorned with thorn-covered vines that pulse with malevolent life. Some have grown clawed limbs and spindly legs, allowing them to creep through the shadows with a spider-like grace. In contrast, others sport multiple grotesque heads with hollow eyes and gaping mouths that emit eerie whispers and distorted screams.
"It's grown a conscience," Damien muttered. "They all have."
[Images (in Discord)]
Damien sighed and hopped to evade an incoming punch from a grape tree shaped like a gorilla. Meanwhile, he pulled up some interesting information:
>=-=----[]---<>---[]---=-==-=----[]---<>---[]---=-=---[]---=-=---[]---=-=<
Damien nodded at the power of the fruit.
Like every other Mythical Zoan, it came with an added ability resembling a Paramecia. In this case, it was the black fog's plague-like nature and the ability to control and manipulate fear.
Damien stepped forward and placed his foot on the man's chest: "Wake up."
A stream of Pulverizing energy dove in, bouncing through the victim's body and rearranging their insides; it could be considered a gentle wake-up.
"Ugh," came a groan from the man's bloodied mouth. His eyes jet open, unveiling the dark pupils.
The man had slicked-back dark hair that matched his eye colour. Tattoos ran across half his face and down half of his body. He was left in blue pants, unveiling a muscular yet bruised torso.
[Image (in Discord)]
"The Spirit of Fear? Not that menacing in this form."
The man audibly growled, his eyes a mix of anger and pain. His fury leaked out in a resounding boom, sending ripples of pressure through his body.
"Such raw Haki," Damien examined with narrowed eyes. "Not exactly what I was expecting… What's your name?"
The man gnashed his teeth in defiance, only to be left shaken as Damien unleashed an overpowering weight onto his body, forcing him to the floor.
"...Solomon," he spat out.
[A/N: Pronunciation: saw-luh-muhn.]
Damien smiled and sat at a fallen log. "You protect these people even if they look at you in fear?"
Solomon coughed out a wad of blood from the internal damage, glaring daggers at his adversary: "I don't care how they see me; I protect them because I want to. What's it got to do with you, outsider?"
Damien noticed the venomous tone, especially at the 'outsider' part: "Jeez, you guys are really touchy with foreigners."
"..." The pirate silently examined Solomon with a questioning look, leaving the latter man to get further aggravated, "What!?"
"Well, you look like you're in your mid-twenties," Damien commented, cocking an eyebrow. "Choro told me you saved them twenty-one years ago... I find it hard to believe a brat could push away all those feral monsters."
His eyes grew curious as he hypothesized, "I can only assume your power tapped into some fear deep within those beasts..."
Solomon's annoyed expression warped into shock. This time, he glared at the enemy with some speculation, "Why do you know so much about my curse?"
The question left Damien chuckling, again annoying the young beast further. "Curse, is it? Sure, whatever. But you know, Mythical Zoans are quite rare to spot in the wild… did you eat a disgusting fruit before turning into that form?"
Solomon slowly sat up, leaning his aching body onto another collapsed tree. He frowned at the question, "I became like this when I ate a hideous-looking bird in hunger."
Damien blinked, "You ate it alive?"
"I got lost in the woods and fell hungry. What's so wrong about that?"
Damien chuckled at the answer, connecting the dots: "Host Devouring… devil fruits really are quite the thing."
Solomon didn't seem to listen to Damien's mumbling and demanded, "Whatever! Just kill me already!"
The undying pirate looked at the man's fiery eyes, brimming with acceptance of death. Emotions of helplessness, anger, and relief flooded from Solomon's body.
Damien entirely ignored the dark-haired man's words and got up to leave.
"Am I not worthy for you to kill!?" Solomon roared, rushing to his feet only to fall from the residual pain.
Grunts echoed from the Zoan user's mouth as he looked up to see Damien tear open a 10-meter-tall hole in the mountain, providing a straight path to the sea beyond.
A chilly wind assaulted the injured Solomon, forcing him to shield his face. The opened mountain had unveiled another landmass in the distance, across the turbulent seas at the Extinction Valley's shores.
"No Man's Land," he mumbled, shaking his head from the chills running down his spine. "No one can survive there… it's a death wish!"
Meanwhile, Damien breathed in the chaotic air rushing from the distant hell, a place even worse than the regions he had already visited. The previous two months had already churned some new ideas and understandings of his power. Now, the final island was calling out to him.
He returned a signature pirate smile to the kneeling party, waving aside the warning: "The Extict were quite hospitable, so I'll let you live. See ya around."
And much like before, Damien was gone, shooting across the darkness of the night into the unknown, all under the speechless Solomon.
To Be Continued…
Author's Corner.
Damien has perfected Hadean Release and essentially tapped dismantling at the atomic level, yet he remains unawakened. Now, he hopes to find the key to his survival from the imminent God Valley at the final island of Extinction Valley.
What do you guys think of the Wendigo fruit?
Images are available on Discord alongside other niche details: https://discord.gg/aJHHHPvb6q