As the mutant's hulking corpse fell still, the air hung heavy with silence—broken only by the rustle of leaves and the distant caws of startled birds.
Kai exhaled slowly, his muscles loosening.
Then-
A translucent blue panel hovered in front of his eyes.
[
Kai snorted and rolled his eyes. "Well, not all have a kind of luck like that."
[
Kai turned from the corpse, crouching by its side.
His dagger pierced through thick hide with a squelch, and after some resistance, he pulled out a core—larger and more jagged than the others, glowing with a darker hue.
'A mutant core.'
He smirked, flipping it once in his hand before dropping it into the leather pouch on his belt.
It clinked against the weight of the other cores, now nearly filled to the brim.
With a flick of his wrist, the pouch shimmered out of existence—slipped into his storage bracelet.
He dusted off his hands and walked to the fallen bodies of the beasts.
