Thunder rumbled off into the distance. The sounds of metal shearing in two. Screams. Human, guttural screams, followed by a thud that created tremors reverberating on the ground.
Eren awoke in a sweat, thinking he’d had another nightmare. But even as his eyes adjusted to the light of the lamp next to his bed, thunder still persisted. Screams echoed.
Outside his room, nurses ran in a rushed panic.
Something was happening. He could feel it.
He got up off his bed, stretching his legs forward before he stood up. Pain shot through his hamstring as the full weight of his body bore down onto his feet.
Yesterday’s Foundational Moveset training had left his legs feeling like it had when he ached to walk.
He walked out of his room with a slight limp and followed the sounds of panic. The shouts and commands were muffled only by the walls.
Following the voice of the woman on the intercom, he found himself in the emergency room.
...
...
...
Everything was in chaos and disarray.
Gauzes lay strewn under beds, various medical instruments made mountains in any elevated flat place in the area, and blood stained the floor leading from the entrance.
Groups of nurses and doctors tended to patients. Some were on dedicated beds, some still on gurneys—no other place to put them in.
The patients, Eren realized, were Awakeners.
They wore armor. Medieval, some of them: metal cuirass over leather vests, full chestplates, composite lamellar layers. Some however, were made of exotic materials both from organic and inorganic materials. It looked... chitinous, borne probably from the Phantoms they hunted.
What were Phantoms?
In all depictions he saw, they were four-legged, talon-footed, shadowy creatures. Their shapes were vague. Size, indeterminate.
At first, he thought they were tenebrous and hazy like their namesake. But after seeing these armors, he started to doubt that.
Awakeners hunted Phantoms for materials. It’s how they made their living, said Nieve. Therefore it was safe to assume their armors were molded from Phantom remains.
Yet could they really harvest materials from a shadowy creature with amorphous shapes and gassy edges? Or were those depictions essentially a censor put on by the United Governments to shield ordinary people from the horrors of Phantoms?
Did he have to get a License in order to find out?
Pained groans broke through his thoughts. The doctors had trouble containing a patient’s poisoned wound. Rot spread wildly through the man’s arm, reaching up to his shoulders.
Eren stopped in his tracks.
Barceus grass will stop the spread, his medicinal instincts called out. Preventing the wound from festering will always be the best course of action when dealing with an attack from a—
"Frigid Arctic Rodent," Dr. Reid called out. "Those rats will be coming in hordes, so let’s get our anti-sceptic ready. This will not be our only patient today."
Eren’s mind flashed with thoughts, lightening his mood, fueling his excitement.
The Frigid Arctic Rodent was proof of cultivation beasts being present in this world.
These creatures were part of a massive ecosystem; they could never exist by themselves. They required sustenance from a type of vegetation that prospered in a nutrient-rich soil that had been defecated by the Glacial Squirrel.
And if the Glacial Squirrel existed, then their prey must also exist, and so on and so forth. At the very least, their entire food chain must still exist somewhere out there!
Were these cultivation beasts what they called Phantoms? And did the materials they drop be the progression materials he needed?
This gave him hope. Perhaps his choice of Ascension Arts won’t be limited by his environment.
He wanted to observe more, but a nurse soon approached him and guided him back to his room. He was not welcome there.
>>>
>>>
>>>
"A portal outbreak," Nieve explained a few hours later. "It wasn’t forecasted, so the Awakeners were caught off guard."
Everyday on the news, Eren watched Portal Forecasts delivered as if it was the weather. They appropriately labelled each as a percentage chance of appearing. Their region was supposed to have a 0% chance of spawning a portal today.
Rogue portals were rare, according to Nieve, but not unprecedented.
Unfortunately, the United Governments also underestimated the level of the portal, causing weaker Awakeners to fight against Phantoms above their pay grade, leading to multiple injuries.
"There’s no casualties this time, which is great," Nieve said. "But it’s only a matter of time until it all comes crashing down. We’ve been having an unusual number of rogue portals this year. Too much.
Anyway, this caused a lot of pressure for Dr. Reid, which means more pressure for me."
"You love the pressure," Eren remarked as he punched the air. Sweat flicked out of him as he continued his training. "Admit it."
Nieve was laying peacefully on his bed before indignantly sitting up to glare at him. "Shut up before I tell on you. You’re not supposed to be practicing that, you know?"
"And I’ll tell her what you told me. I don’t think Dr. Reid will appreciate the fact that you call her the Frizzy Terror behind her back."
Nieve flashed him a crude sign with her fingers before turning her attention back on the TV.
Meanwhile, Eren finished up his reps and wiped the sweat off his face. Nieve skittishly scooted off his bed as he took a seat beside her.
"What’s with that look?" Nieve asked him, wary. She’d spent too much time with Eren not to know what mischievousness looked like on him.
"I just have some questions," he said innocently, leaning towards her.
She frowned, before shaking her head. "I told you, I can’t tell you anything! The United Governments keeps a strict watch on everything around Psions and Phantoms."
It was her phone he borrowed to search the internet. He tried to borrow her license too, but she declined, saying that it had security measures in place against it.
Eren’s smirk was filled with teasing. "I can’t even peek at your screen while you visit the Awakener website? Come on. No one will know."
"I... " Nieve squirmed in her seat. "I forgot I had to check on a patient," she excused.
"You’re off your shift."
"I know!" She rushed out of his room, her high pitch squeal echoing off into the hallways.
Once the door closed, the smirk on Eren’s face dropped.
He’d have to figure out another way to research Awakeners, it seemed. Thankfully, there were plenty of them right here in this hospital.
They were in their own section of the hospital, inaccessible to all non-Awakeners.
But the thing about being a cripple in a cultivation world was that you learn a few tricks to help you get all the advantages you could get.