CHAPTER 194: FUEL

Julius let out a grunt that sounded like laughter muffled under a layer of mud. He watched as Dylan crouched beside the first still-warm corpse, his hands trembling with exhaustion but his fingers nimble, probing beneath the creature’s glistening, pustule-covered skin.

"But these aren’t even classified beasts. What good could their gems possibly do for a full-fledged Awakened like you?" he growled, arms crossed over his chest smeared with black blood. His expression was a mix of disdain and raw curiosity. He spat a thick brown glob near a mutilated limb. "Vermin. Their gems—if they even have any—are worth less than the dirt under your nails."

Dylan didn’t look up. His fingers, skilled despite his exhaustion, pressed against the crushed skull of the creature. A slight resistance, a small lump beneath the slimy skin. He dug in, thumb and index finger working with surgical precision until he felt a hard little sphere, no bigger than a fingertip. With a wet schluck, he pulled his hand free. Between his fingers, something glowed faintly in the dim gray light—a dull, grayish concretion veined with black, pulsing weakly like a dying heart.

"Maybe I’m different from the other Awakened you’ve seen, Julius," Dylan murmured, his voice hoarse but clear in the death-scented silence. He wiped the slimy gem on his filthy bandages, examining it critically. "To me, a spiritual essence gem is still spiritual essence, even if it’s low-grade. It’s... fuel."

He had no pockets—hell, he was completely naked—so he had to absorb it right then and there. It happened so fast he didn’t even need to close his eyes. By the time the last wisp of essence left the gem, he was already moving to the next corpse, the one whose spine Julius had shattered. His hands searched again, tireless, methodical, like a scavenger sifting through rubble for treasure invisible to others.

Julius watched him, motionless. His amber eyes, usually full of scorn or violence, now held something unfamiliar—perplexity. Seeing this Awakened, this boy with a dying stigma, naked and shaking like a leaf, stooping to pry pitiful energy scraps from the carcasses of minor monsters... It was absurd. Pathetic. And yet, there was something in Dylan’s silent determination, in his relentless scraping for even the faintest dregs of essence, that unsettled the giant.

"Fuel?" Julius repeated, the word sounding strange in his mouth. He tracked Dylan’s hand as it extracted a second gem, even smaller and duller than the first, from a gash near a beast’s groin. "For what? Lighting a firefly?"

Dylan didn’t answer immediately. He finished checking the third corpse—nothing—and moved to the fourth, the one smashed against the rocky outcrop. His fingers met firmer resistance near the shattered spine.

He worked longer this time, tearing through cold flesh to uncover a slightly larger gem, the size of a marble, its gray a little less dull, with a faint but perceptible inner glow. A tired but satisfied smile touched his lips.

"To keep my flame burning, Julius," he said at last, straightening up slowly, his legs stiff. He clenched the small gem in his fist. For a moment, it almost seemed like a faint heat radiated from his grip, a thin vibration that had nothing to do with the tunnel’s damp chill.

"My Stigma is greedy. It heals all my wounds—at the cost of my essence and vitality. So even with this healing factor, I’d rather not get hurt."

Julius clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, as if he’d just heard a poorly crafted lie. But he didn’t speak. He just watched—this shadow-and-guts kid hunched over the dead like some fallen alchemist, or maybe just a starving stray ready to gnaw on dirt if it tasted like energy.

"A flame, huh..." he finally grunted. He rubbed his chin, his hand still crusted with dried blood. "And here I thought you were just a damn masochist."

Dylan didn’t rise to the bait. He knelt again, this time before a mangled carcass whose jaw had been caved in—probably Julius’s handiwork. He dug his fingers in, guided more by habit than certainty. The flesh parted like wet pages, and deep inside, wedged between two shattered vertebrae, was another gem, slightly brighter than the others.

He absorbed it without ceremony, like drinking gutter water when you’re parched. No shiver, no ecstatic spasm. Just a tiny flicker of warmth sliding into his stomach and dispersing through his veins like a drop of diluted fire.

"Don’t care if it’s disgusting," he muttered, more to himself. "I need it to exist... aesthetics can go fuck themselves."

He stood, swaying slightly. His legs held him, but barely. Acid sweat beaded on his forehead. His ribs, still bruised, pulsed under his skin. The stigma was working, sure. But slowly. Too slowly.

Julius took a step forward, his broad shadow nearly swallowing Dylan.

"That thing of yours... it burns your essence even when you’re running on empty?"

Dylan nodded slowly.

"Exactly. It’d rather drain me to the marrow than let me die. A real bitch."

Julius let out a short, bitter laugh.

"And you still like her, this bitch?"

A silence stretched. Dylan finally looked up at him.

"Don’t have the luxury of choice. Neither does she. We’re bound. She keeps me alive. I feed her. It’s not love. It’s... a toxic compromise."

He picked up one last gem, half-shattered. It looked dead. He stared at it for a moment, then let it drop.

"Not that one. Too empty. Even I have standards."

They stood there for a moment, surrounded by the underground slaughter, the stench of rotting meat and metal thick in the air. Julius, arms crossed, frowned. Dylan, naked, filthy, starving—but still standing.

Then Julius turned toward the tunnel’s darkness.

"You done with your snack, or you wanna lick the bones too?"

Dylan raised an eyebrow.

"Give me another minute. I think I’ve got a little room left in my liver."

A sigh, then a sharp crack—Julius kicked a leftover carapace, sending bone fragments skittering against the walls.

"Goddammit. Never thought I’d end up babysitting a guy who auto-cannibalizes through gems."

"No need to get emotional. I’ve been doing this a long time. Poverty was my first teacher."

He absorbed one last gem. Tiny, but just enough to rekindle a flicker of fire in his pupils.

Then, at last, he exhaled:

"Let’s go."