The sound of fluttering wings forced him to cut the exploratory process short and refocus his attention on the situation outside.
After hiding the orb in his inner shirt pocket Hao Xuan looked towards the source of the noise ready to fight but to his disbelief, a familiar little critter was the source of the sound.
It was the Death Moss that had decided to follow after him from the sanctuary. It was leaping through the air with the help of two large leaves on either side that not only kept it afloat but also sent its entire bulbous body hurling forward.
ραпdαn૦νel It tried to stop in time but ended up face-planting a couple of meters in front of him.
"O-oh...are you...okay...?"
He didn't even know if it could feel pain but the more important question was-
"What are you doing here? And what happened to you?? Why do you look like that?"
Its previously long and thin stem was now swollen to about five times the original size.
The spiritual herb used the two leaves in place of hands to get back on its roots very much like a toddler that had just learned how to walk. It even dusted itself off before waddling over to Hao Xuan and opening the top of its stem to reveal dozens of small black orbs inside.
Hao Xuan's eyes widened from shock because he recognized them at first glance.
"More cores! All of these are shadow beast cores! Where did you get so many of them?!"
The herb pointed at Hao Xuan and then in the direction it had e from.
"Me? I left them there?"
It moved the leafy part of its stem up and down as a confirmation.
Hao Xuan got back up on his feet to take a better look at his surroundings. He was surrounded by dozens of corpses that belonged to some of the weaker shadow beasts. There were holes and craters in the ground all over with his own energy dissipating from it.
"So the fight really did take place, it wasn't all fabricated. That's smart, mix reality with half-truths and you can save yourself a lot of headaches. And you are here," he said looking at the herb, "Then...that means the things I saw in there were real as well..."
There was some part of him hoping that maybe, just maybe this was all a part of the illusion and the Orcs were still alive somewhere out there. But that didn't seem to be the case anymore.
He looked over to the right to see the same colossal silhouette of the beast that was destroying this world bit by bit.
"That's real too but...it's not as bad as in the illusion. There is still some time left before it gets there. So it used what was already in the surroundings and exaggerated it for its own benefit. By making me think the world was about to collapse it left me no choice but to run out."
Hao Xuan closed his eyes momentarily to sense the changes inside of him. His internal energy reserves which were almost empty now hovered around 60%.
"Huh...I would have thought devouring that beast would have given more energy but...I guess it all went into the core."
This was by far the largest core he had e across so far.
"Should I just 'open' it here?" he muttered to himself.
That along with all the dozens of smaller cores that the herb brought made Hao Xuan giddy just thinking about it. Each one of them would hold some kind of an ability that he could either absorb to make his own or use to strengthen the other ones.
"At least some good came out of it but I don't want to risk it here. This beast was at the level of a Profound Realm cultivator so maybe its core will be a little different. I'll do it when I get back."
He picked up the herb and threw it on his shoulder, "You stay there for now. Keep holding those cores for me. I can't store them like normal so this is the only way."
The herb appeared to understand exactly what Hao Xuan was saying since it 'nodded' once again before sitting down on his shoulder and gently wrapping its leaves around his neck and arm for support.
Hao Xuan canceled [Wrath of Deimos] since there was no need for it at the moment and went on his way.
A few moments after he left a shadow beast with the appearance of a hyena walked out from somewhere nearby. It was shaking from head to toe while sniffing around the area where Hao Xuan had fought the beast.
It found a few scraps of fleshy scales and started eating them one by one.
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