Ruins

Cinder sat up, staring at the pulsing corpse in front of him. It was a grave born class which meant it was atleast 1 rank higher than him.

'It seems like the fungus was controlling the stag,' Cinder thought to himself before staring at the second message.

***

[Item Received: Mossrot Sandals]

Cinder summoned the item details like he had been taught before.

***

Description: Woven from damp bark and thick with soft fungal overgrowth, these sandals seem half-alive—moist to the touch and faintly pulsing with decay. Despite their rotted appearance, they're surprisingly light.

Tier: Low

Enchantment — Softstep: Natural sounds made by your movement are suppressed while walking on organic terrain. Footsteps are muffled to silence.

Details: An old hunter's trick—mimic the stillness of the rot beneath you, and nothing hears you coming.

***

Cinder summoned the sandals in front of him while he read.

Cinder stared at the sandals floating before him. They looked like something peeled off the bottom of a swamp—frayed bark, patches of wet green moss, and something white and soft clinging to the soles like old mold.

"…I hope that isn't alive."

He reached out anyway. The moment his fingers brushed the surface, a faint dampness spread over his skin. Not enough to drip—just enough to feel wrong.

The system's message lingered in the air beside them, flickering softly.

Softstep.

He read it twice.

"So, they make me quiet," he muttered. "Not bad."

They weren't flashy. They didn't burn, or crackle, or do anything even remotely cool-looking. But quiet was useful. Quiet kept you alive.

He dropped to the ground, slipped off the battered shoes he'd looted from the outskirts earlier, and tugged the Mossrot Sandals on. The moss curled gently around his feet like something that was trying to hug him—and not in a comforting way.

"It is indeed alive…" Cinder sighed as he walked around.

He stood, took a step. No sound.

Another step. Still nothing.

"Alright," he said. "Still disgusting. But I'll take it."

Items had a small chance to drop, however everyone received an item after their first kill.

Like a participation trophy from the system.

Cinder walked over to the rotting corpse, using his blade he cut out the soul core.

'If the system said I killed a spore does that mean it has 2 cores?' Cinder moved and started carving away at the spots where the fungus was denser.

He started at the chest and moved slowly towards the head before finding it.

'It does have 2…' Cinder stared at the stag that had been dead long before he killed its host.

Cinder crushed both cores in his hand before walking away. He felt the Nythe enter his body and felt the distinctness of his muscles growing stronger.

'Even though it was a Graveborn class it was fairly weak. Are all the monsters here going to be like that?' Cinder slowly started walking towards the ruin he had seen from above while activating spotlight again.

Looking around he saw the heat coming off the recent battlefield and nothing else that seemed out of place.

Cinder moved at a steady pace, each step silent thanks to the sandals clinging gently to his feet. The moss squelched faintly under his toes, but no sound reached the open air. The jungle around him had quieted—thick with tension now that a Graveborn had fallen.

Branches above creaked as something large shifted out of view. Cinder froze, head tilting slightly. A dark shape crawled across the canopy—too smooth for a beast, too fast for a crawler.

He crouched and waited.

It didn't notice him. Or if it did, it didn't care.

When it was gone, he exhaled and kept moving.

The terrain dipped into a shallow ravine thick with rot. Spindly trees with hollowed-out cores stood like broken spires, each one seeping a tar-like resin from cracks in their bark. He stepped carefully, weaving through thickets of overgrown mycelium.

Movement again—this time to his left.

Cinder stopped behind a crumbling stump and peeked through the undergrowth.

A small group of bonepickers scuttled across the path ahead—six-legged scavengers with translucent shells and fungal plumes growing from their backs. One of them paused to sniff the air. Its gills flared.

He didn't move.

The sandals helped, but instinct helped more. Stay still. Blend into the silence.

They passed without incident.

He started walking again, keeping to the shade of collapsed logs and natural fungus arches that arced over the path like skeletal rib cages. Spotlight guided him quietly, sending out low pulses of light that didn't reach too far. He wasn't interested in drawing attention, not until he reached the ruin.

Another hour passed. The light shifted.

Eventually, he spotted it in the distance—a broken spire jutting out of the earth like a cracked tooth. The ruins were half-swallowed by overgrowth, hunched low beneath thick trees with bark like burnt bone. Mushrooms the size of shields clung to their sides, glowing faintly in patches.

Cinder ducked behind a fallen slab and surveyed the area.

It was quiet, too quiet. No movement, no scavengers, no birds.

He adjusted his grip on the blade.

Something was in there.

He could feel it.

Cinder moved cautiously, threading through crooked trees and half-collapsed stones. The air here smelled heavier—wet bark, decaying leaves, something faintly metallic riding in the back of his throat. He kept his head low and his pace slow, letting the Softstep enchantment do its work. No twigs cracked. No leaves rustled. Just quiet.

Minutes passed. Maybe more. The forest floor dropped into a shallow ravine, and beyond it, the ruins loomed—angular shadows jutting from the overgrowth. Cracked spires. Slanted stone walls. A sunken structure mostly buried in roots and time.

But something was wrong.

He stopped.

There, below the ridge—something moved.

At first, he thought it was a fallen corpse twitching with fungal bloom. But then it shifted again, slow and deliberate, dragging itself upright. Not a corpse.

A thing.

It stood tall, hunched and boneless in posture, its limbs too long and too thin. Pale skin, sagging like wet cloth over exposed joints. No face. No eyes. Just a chest that twitched, split down the middle like a wound trying to breathe. And from that open cavity, a pulsing hiss exhaled out into the still air.

Cinder froze, one foot still hovering over the edge of a root.

The thing turned—not toward him, but toward the ruins, like it was listening for something deeper. Its head tilted to the side. Mycelial tendrils slithered from its back like antennae. Then, with a wet crack, it began to move.

Fast.

Cinder ducked behind the ridge and scanned for another route. Nothing. Just the drop and the open ground between them. If it hit the ruins first…

No time.

Cinder started the activation of both of his skills.

He drew his blade and vaulted down the slope, sandals whispering against the earth. The creature didn't react—at least not until he was nearly on it.

Then it spun.

The split chest gaped wide, rows of ragged, grinding teeth blooming open like a carnivorous flower.

Cinder struck low. His blade caught one of its knees—if the joint could even be called that—and something like old tree pulp spilled out. The creature howled, not from its mouth but from its chest, a vibration that shook through the trees and sent a shiver up his spine.

Then it lashed back.

One arm came like a whip. Cinder barely ducked in time, the limb slamming into a stone behind him hard enough to crack it.

He rolled, came up behind it, and stabbed again—this time into the back. But the blade met resistance. Not bone. Something harder. Barklike. The wound didn't bleed.

The creature turned unnaturally fast, body bending in ways it shouldn't. The maw opened again.

Cinder barely had time to recognize the danger. A wave of spore-filled air erupted from the creature's body, rushing out like a fungal scream. It struck the ground, and immediately patches of dormant moss erupted in ghostly green, sprouting tiny hands and reaching vines.

He leapt back, coughing.

No visibility. Movement everywhere.

He closed his eyes and focused. Sound. Where was it?

A step. To the left.

He turned and dashed in a half-circle, cutting wide around the now-flailing Maw. The moss hands clutched at his feet, but the sandals made no noise—just glide and step, glide and step.

He came around again and leapt.

This time he struck into the chest.

Straight into the teeth.

The blade drove deep, biting through the fleshy cavity. The monster shrieked, a final wet rattle—then sagged. The tendrils twitched, then went limp.

It collapsed in a heap, twitching gently, its own rot beginning to reclaim it.

Cinder stood panting, blade still lodged in the thing's core. He yanked it free, wiping it clean on a patch of untouched moss. Around him, the pulse of fungal bloom began to wilt, the life draining from the trap as quickly as it had flared.

"Ugly bastard," he muttered, catching his breath.

***

[System Message:]

Flesh Maw Defeated

-Dormant-class Monster

It was the same rank as him, but 1 class higher.

He checked for a soul core.

Only one this time. Damp and nearly translucent, like it had been rotting even before the Maw died. He crushed it between his fingers and let the Nythe seep in.

Strength. Not as much as before, but it added up.

Then he looked ahead.

The ruins yawned before him now, closer than before. No doors. Just an open maw of stone, half-collapsed and wrapped in vine. Old carvings lined the broken walls—shapes of forgotten beasts and winding script.

Cinder took a step forward.

Then another.

And entered the ruin.