A new dilemma had presented itself.
Should he risk traveling through this hell just to meet up with them? It was highly likely that it was another sleeper that got stranded in this place, so the two could work together to escape the caverns. It could've been Gracia, Sylas, or even Emma.
But that meant he had to risk getting spotted by the army of Nightmare Creatures that were busy massacring each other. Although they were distracted, if he was noticed by them, then they would all try to kill him in a temporary truce. In that case, it was better to find them another time.
'Decisions... Decisions'
And even more annoyingly, [Judgement] wasn't saying anything. Did that mean both choices were correct? Or that they had the same benefit?
'Does it matter anyway?'
He had to go find them. He didn't know why, but for whatever reason they were glued to that location. It was extremely likely that the Sleeper he found was trapped, or at least unable leave.
Taking a deep heavy breathe, Epsilon wrapped some excess gorilla skin around his mouth, before entering the forest of carrion.
**
He trudged through the land of silence and rot. As he walked, the ground beneath him squelched and squished as it grew soggy from all the blood, and pale limbs of Nightmare Creatures jutted out like branches.
The air was thick with the stench of decay and smoke, making Epsilon question if coming here was a mistake. The miasma was about to make him pass out.
Ahead loomed a mound, a grotesque hill made from the fallen stacked high by the chaos of the dream realm. Epsilon stopped at its base with his eyes fixed at the summit.
To his left there was a wall of corpses, and to his right were even more. His only hope now was up.
And so he began to climb.
His hands found twisted shoulders, his knees dug into shattered ribs. More than once he slipped, sliding down with a cry of frustration, but he clawed his way back up with his Jaw clenched. The corpses shifted beneath him, groaning softly under his weight, not with life, but from the slow collapse of their weight.
A hand snagged his leg as he passed, making his heart freeze. Quickly shaking it off and looking down, Epsilon sighed.
He was hallucinating. This Miasma was really getting into his head.
Pushing himself, he finally reached the top. He stood there, swaying, the wind cutting across his face like a blade. From there he saw the land of corpses stretching even further beyond, and a ring of the natural forest forming just around it.
To the even further north, opposite of the shrinking lake that Epsilon arrived in, the end of the cavern waited patiently. It was a massive weathered yellow brick wall, with a single exit right at the bottom.
It was open, gladly allowing any creature to leave if it liked.
But at the centre of the corpse world, were a horde of Nightmare Creatures that had been waging war. It was the two species of creatures that made up this whole the place.
The chimeras, and..
'Calling them Gorillas wouldn't be the right word...Primates?'
The Chimeras and Primates.
Looking around the battlefield, Epsilon spotted what he was looking for. Hiding on a pile of corpses, just out of sight, was another human. It was hard to tell their gender or face from this distance, but Epsilon could make out their long dark hair.
'Emma?'
She appeared to be wearing some kind of memory too, although it was hard to tell what it exactly was. She looked to be staring down at the bloody fight below, as the two groups of Nightmare creatures massacred each other.
Their fight even seemed to be coming to an end.
Fresh corpses from both sides littered the ground, as the two sides growled and hissed at each other. They had taken a fair share of their own beatings, having lost around the same number of fighters.
It was time to retreat.
The primates slowly backed away, as the chimeras continued to growl. But eventually, they backed off too. Very quickly, both sides retreated to their respective territories of the forest.
The East for the Chimeras, and the West for the Primates.
The second all traces of them had disappeared though, the sleeper which had been silently watching them kill each other, quickly ran down the pile of corpses she hid on with a sword in hand.
'What is she doing?'
There was nothing left to fight, and there didn't seem to be any stragglers either. Going down their was risky in its own right, so what was she planning on doing?
The moment her sword plunged into the chest of one of the fresh corpses, he realized it soon enough. This whole battlefield, was a giant treasure trove waiting to be exploited.
'Their soul shards...'
The two Nightmare creatures seemed to be entangled in some sort of war, where both sides had to retreat once they got too injured. In that situation, the corpses became incredibly valuable to both sides as it held their soul shards.
Typically they'd come back later, or send scouts to retrieve them so that they themselves may grow stronger, or at least prevent the opposing side from using them. But this time, there was a new group here to take advantage of that gap.
The humans that had realised an opening like this existed. Free power was right in front of him, and that girl had been exploiting it for gods knows how long.
Epsilon quickly jumped, and began to slide down the pile of corpses. As soon as he reached the bottom, he summoned his dormant ability turned dagger, and shoved it into the body of a warrior chimera. Of course it was tough, he was using a dormant weapon on an awakened creature.
The girls eyes darted over to him for a short moment, but she quickly got back on task, as she harvested two soul shards from the corpse of a Primate. Without hesitating, she quickly moved onto the next.
By the time she finished going through 5 corpses, Epsilon had only gone through 2.
'If only I had an actually memory...'
Tearing through their flesh was too difficult.
Once the girl finished, she looked at Epsilon one last time, before giving him a signal. Quickly, she darted off towards the place she hid earlier, but her goal was even further then that.
Epsilon flinched. He could feel another pack of Nightmare creatures approaching the empty battlefield. The scouts of both sides were coming to retrieve their spoils.
Without hesitating, Epsilon chased after her.