SS Awakening: My Monster Merging System!

The dust finally began to clear.

At first, none of them moved. Helen, Jayden, Varok, and the two Velhari simply stood where they were, staring into the fading cloud with tense expressions. Nobody knew what to expect from inside.

The Devouring Bone Giant had been a Level Seventy Boss monster.

Even if it was weakened, even if its soul stone supply was interrupted, it was still not something that should die quietly. A monster like that should fall with a roar, with half the cavern breaking around it, not with this strange silence.

As the dust thinned, the first thing they saw was the giant’s skull.

It was lowered toward the ground.

The huge body was still kneeling, its chest torn open, and the red light that had burned inside its ribs was gone completely. Cracks stretched across its arms and shoulders, and large pieces of bone were already falling apart.

Then they saw Zich.

He stood in front of the dead monster with his sword lowered at his side. His clothes were covered in dust, his face looked slightly pale, but his expression was calm as usual.

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

Helen was the first to breathe properly again.

"Zich..." she muttered.

Jayden’s expression became ugly almost immediately. His eyes moved from Zich to the dead giant, then back to Zich again, as if trying to understand what had happened inside the dust.

Varok’s gaze was far sharper.

He looked at the Devouring Bone Giant’s posture first. The monster was not sprawled across the ground like a creature that had been beaten down. It looked like it had lowered itself before dying.

That detail made his eyes narrow.

The giant Velhari slowly wiped blood from the corner of his mouth.

"You killed it?"

Zich glanced at him.

"It died."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the part that matters."

Helen almost smiled despite the state of her body. It was such a Zich answer that it strangely made the situation feel normal again.

Varok walked forward and crouched near the broken chest of the Devouring Bone Giant. His fingers hovered above the torn bone for a moment before he slowly stood again.

"This thing did not die fighting," Varok said quietly.

Jayden’s eyes sharpened at those words.

Helen also looked toward the corpse again, and only then did she fully notice how strange the posture was. The lowered skull, the torn chest, the kneeling body; it did not look like an ordinary death.

Zich looked at the corpse once before turning his gaze toward the mound of soul stones behind it.

"Interesting observation," he said. "Now are we going to talk about bones, or are we going to collect those before the realm takes them back?"

The moment he said that, everyone’s attention shifted.

The mound of soul stones was still there.

It had shrunk a little from what the Bone Giant had eaten, but even after that, it was still enormous. Blue, pale stones were scattered in a pile taller than a man.

The giant Velhari’s eyes brightened immediately.

Jayden also stared at it, though his expression remained colder.

Varok did not rush forward. He looked around the cavern first. The channels had stopped moving, the couriers were collapsing one after another, and faint cracks were spreading along the cavern floor.

"The realm is destabilizing," Varok said. "If the Boss monster was tied to the lock, then killing it may start the closing process."

Helen’s expression changed.

"Then we do not have much time."

Zich had already started walking toward the mound.

Jayden frowned.

"Wait. We need to decide distribution first."

Zich did not stop.

"Decide while collecting."

"That is not how distribution works."

"It is how not losing everything works."

Varok stepped between them before the argument could grow.

"He is right about one thing. If we argue here, the realm may reclaim all of it before we finish."

The cavern trembled as if agreeing. Several loose stones fell from the ceiling and shattered near the soul stone channels. A section of the ground near the dead giant sank by a few inches, pulling broken bones and scattered soul stones with it.

The giant Velhari immediately rushed toward the mound.

"No more talking then."

The short Velhari moved as well, taking out a pouch from his storage ring and beginning to collect stones quickly. Helen followed after a brief hesitation, though she kept looking around in case something else awakened.

Jayden clenched his jaw but joined in.

Zich crouched near the largest cluster and began storing soul stones with almost frightening speed. His hands moved cleanly and carefully, storing them inside his spatial bag.

While the others had to gather the stones by hand and place them into bags, Zich’s spatial bag did all the work.

Helen stared at him for a second, finding it slightly amusing, but she quickly shifted her attention back to the stones.

The giant Velhari was far less careful. He grabbed handfuls of soul stones and shoved them into a large sack, not caring if they were mixed with monster cores or not. The short Velhari glanced at him once and clicked his tongue softly.

"You will regret mixing those."

"I will regret not taking more."

Varok collected his share more calmly. He did not take as much as Zich, but his eyes kept moving toward the monster cores, clearly aware of their value.

Jayden finally spoke again.

"If we are dividing by contribution, the human side should receive more."

Zich looked at him.

"You can start by listing what you contributed to killing it."

Jayden’s face darkened, and he shot a glare at Zich, trying hard to conceal the rage he felt within. The air between the two became tense.

...

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