My lips curled into the first, genuine smile since this whole mess had started. Magic, and learning more about it, that had been my second favourite thing about Mundus. Only Sigmir had been better, but she was and always would be, in a class of her own.

When I stepped a little too close to the downed Shattered, it tried to grab me, forcing me to dodge, the grin fading a little. I only wanted to find out how Blood Magic would interact with their abnormal physiology and was hoping that it might give me some insight into the events. Why had people turned into instinct-driven monsters with burning pits instead of eyes, attacking other humans on sight? Or maybe attacking other living beings on sight, I hadn’t noticed whether they attacked cats or other pets as well. Maybe they simply hated the un-Shattered.

Without a convenient tool to pin the Shattered down, decided to be a little nasty about it, circling the Shattered who, with only its arms to move its body, just couldn’t keep up. The tattered remains of a wide, silky smooth pyjama didn’t really pose a problem to pulling up its leg, though I noticed a small oddity with the feet. They didn’t look like the feet of a creature that had been moving around barefoot, they looked too pristine for that. Unless the person who later Shattered had been some weirdo with incredibly thick and sturdy calluses on their feet, of which I couldn’t see any indication, there should be something visible, some blemish, scratch or cut, but there wasn’t anything.

After a second of consideration, I filed that up under confirmation for the regenerative abilities of the Shattered, maybe alongside some increased physical toughness that allowed them to straight-up ignore damage below a certain threshold. If that ability also extended into the magical, things might get seriously interesting with regards to my Blood Magic, if it allowed them to avoid being damaged by it, while still letting me harvest power. Infinite Astral Power, after the experience with the Nexus, I really wanted that again. But I doubted it would be that easy.

With its paralysed leg in my clutch, the Shattered had some trouble trying to crawl, despite its strength. Arms were simply not designed for that.

Its clumsy attempts gave me ample time to test the physical resilience of its skin, noticing that it seemed to be harder to cut into, and certainly harder to carefully carve than it should be, more akin to thick leather than fresh, human skin. A curious tidbit, but not necessarily immediately important.

My first action was to simply try draining power with Blood Magic, straight from the wound, without any runes to provide guidance or focus. It was difficult, far more so than I thought it should be as if something was trying to prevent me from draining. It faintly reminded me of the fragmented memories I had from the fight against the Giant Yeti, where my foe had tried to devour the Blood Magic I was using, to make it their own before I could actually use it. This might be something similar, only now, I didn’t have the ability to use Death Magic to poison their well, so to speak.

Curiously, as I started to drain power, the Shattered let out a shrill, keening wail, sounding very much in pain and causing movement all around the area. Maybe drawing in more Shattered, maybe catching the attention of any nearby humans, or maybe just irritating some dog with the loud, high-frequency noise, I couldn’t be sure and wasn’t about to stay and find out. Fighting two Shattered had only worked thanks to an overwhelming first strike against one, fighting more would be foolish.

Stepping onto the Shattered’s back, I stabbed my second knife into its brain from behind, twisting and stirring to make sure whatever was in there, was nicely scrambled, the fire in its eyes going out and a few notification telling me I had gained the Blood Magic skill, gained the Dual Blade Mastery skill and, last but certainly not least, had levelled my Ice Magic to two.

Not enough EXP to level up just yet, but one or two extra Shattered would be enough. Curiously, the EXP-Penalty that had punished repeated kills on Mundus was absent, at least from what I could see. I certainly didn’t mind but was curious about the reason. But that would be something to investigate later, for now, I had stores to… explore and supplies to… acquire.

After a quick dash, trying to get out of the area the Shattered had screamed in, I slipped back into the shadows. There was audible movement and while I wanted to kill the Shattered, I knew I had no chance to kill them if they mobbed me, I lacked the levels, skills and, in a way, the allies to fight them. If I had someone like Sigmir up front, willing and able to act as a wall, I would feel much better about my chances in a two-vs-many fight, but with just me, things were a little dicey. Things to consider for later, especially as a Lone Traveller.

Sneaking through the shadows, relying on both the skills I had learned from Mrs Wu and my burgeoning skill in Darkness-Magic, I managed to sneak to the nearest shopping centre. It wasn’t anything really big, just a dozen stores or something like that, spread across two levels.

With a faint grin, I pushed open the door, unlocked to allow people to access the ATM just inside. There was another door, just a few metres further, forming a sort-of lobby, with only a few, fritzing lamps and video cameras to keep an eye on things. There likely was some sort of night watchman somewhere nearby, maybe even off-site, but I was quite confident that they had bigger problems than a little supply acquisition.

Pulling back my fist, I tried to smash through the glass with the hand guard of my butterfly blade acting like a knuckle duster. For a brief moment, I could hear the alarm gearing up to wail, only for a rasping, cracking noise to cut through it, making me think that the electronics had burned out, or something like that. Either way, it didn’t look like there would be a problem with it. Sadly, that didn’t mean I could just enter the building. After my punch, there were some cracks in the glass, but nothing to write home about. The glass was clearly designed to withstand greater force than what my petite body could bring to bear, especially without further enhancement from the system.

But as the saying went, if there’s a will, there’s a way, and with magic, I would find that way. For a moment, I considered trying to freeze the glass and shatter it, but it would take a lot of magic, probably more than I had to comfortably spare. Instead, I formed a spike of Ice, using my magic to smash it into the glass, until I had a small, thin hole. From there on, I could simply grow the Ice into the glass, or rather, into the thin, previously empty, layer between sheets of glass.

It took a few minutes, but given that I was hidden and not making any noise, I could simply wait, relaxing my mind and slowly trying to draw in fresh Astral Power, to replenish what I was using. Finally, the entire inside of the glass was covered in Ice and with a somewhat forceful shove, I applied pressure all along the pane. The result was quite good, making me think that the glass had been designed to withstand impacts from outside, but not from inside the glass, simply because there should be no way for force to ever get applied there.

But thanks to magic, I now had an easy entrance into the shopping centre, with a large supermarket and, more importantly, a good-sized outdoor store just ahead.

A quick thought splintered the Ice I had just conjured into shards, some of them nicely sized to be used as blades, so I picked them up, stacking them on top of my small backpack. They would melt, sure, but not too fast, so I could likely use them for a fight or two.

Or to crack the windows of the outdoor store, their panes luckily a lot less sturdy than those to the outside. A few strikes with the sharper shards of Ice were enough to create an opening and some sweeping gave me an entrance. Inside, I hurried to get a large backpack and some other equipment, mostly tools that would allow me to forage, instead of going for straight-up food or supplies, Sure, I grabbed a few nutrition bars and similar emergency supplies, but only because I was passing by.

Either way, after less than twenty minutes I was back out, now carrying a much larger, mostly empty backpack and making my way over to the supermarket.

There, I continued my rapid acquisition, this time going for things that wouldn’t spoil or would be hard to acquire outside. Spices, for example, might become incredibly valuable, so having a pound of pepper might be worth its weight in gold, at some point. Similarly, salt went into the bag and a whole lot of rice.

By the time I was back at my exit, my bag was stuffed and quite heavy, making me consider ways to efficiently drop it in a fight. But for now, I had to look for a place to hole up come morning and hunt some Shattered on the way there. Supplies were acquired for the short-term, and now I had to begin the Power-acquisition. Or in other terms, it was time to start killing.