SSS Awakening: Rebirth of the Strongest Vampire God Chapter 728 What are you standing around for, boy?

Thankfully, Damon had spent the last few days practically living inside the logic of poisons, breaking them apart, reconstructing them, understanding everything about them from head to toe. So the moment the symptoms aligned, recognition hit him.

"Found you," he muttered.

This wasn't a simple toxin. Crude in design, but viciously effective. The good news was that he knew how to break it down. The bad news was that the antidote required a very specific herb, one that had no business growing in random places.

"Now the real question is…" Damon exhaled slowly. "Will this place even have it?"

He closed his eyes and expanded his senses, pushing past the cave walls, past stone and dust, combing through the terrain as swiftly as he possibly could. He wasn't optimistic. The herb was a rare one. Finding it here would border on absurd. Then his eyes snapped open.

"…You've got to be kidding me."

There it was. Nestled between two jagged rocks not far from the cave entrance, faintly glowing with a dull silver-green sheen. It was the exact herb he needed. Perfectly intact. As if it had been waiting.

Damon didn't waste a second. He bolted from the cave and reached it in moments, dropping to one knee and plucking it from the ground with careful fingers. The moment he did, low growls echoed from all directions as a pack of savage beasts emerged.

They never got close. Damon released a poison burst without even looking back. The air shimmered briefly. The beasts collapsed mid-lunge, bodies twitching once before going still. He was already turning away, sprinting back toward the cave, blood essence effortlessly flowing into him from the savage beasts.

Back inside the cave, he crushed the herb between his palms, reducing it into a thick, pungent paste. Without hesitation, he pressed it to the woman's lips and forced it down.

Her reaction was immediate. Her body arched violently, muscles locking as if the poison had suddenly doubled in strength. Her breath hitched. Veins darkened beneath her skin. Anyone watching would have thought he had just killed her.

But Damon didn't flinch. What he had done wasn't neutralize the poison. It was forcing it to surface. Stripping away its camouflage and breaking it down partially. Making it something he could fully see, fully grasp, fully control.

Seconds later, he inhaled sharply. He absorbed it cleanly, essence and all, and his body accepted it without resistance.

A new pattern locked into place. Just like that, it was his. He exhaled slowly and swept his hand across the woman's chest. The last remnants of toxic waste were drawn out, evaporating into nothingness. Color returned to her skin. Her breathing steadied.

"Faron…?" The woman's eyes fluttered open. "Faron…" she whispered again, voice shaking. "I am still here…" She pushed herself up with trembling arms, coughing weakly as tears spilled down her cheeks. "You did it… my love… You saved me…"

Damon was just about to correct her and ask her a few more questions when all of a sudden, his vision once again blackened, and his body felt the pull again. Before he could understand what was happening, he was once again back in the red sands, no storms around him this time around.

Instead, there was something else. A small translucent shard was shimmering in front of him.

Damon reached out and grabbed the shard.

[Ding! You have obtained a memory shard]

"What the heck is a memory shard?"

Blood Reign quickly explained. "My liege, these memory shards are extremely precious. They are very, very rare and difficult to come by. I cannot believe that a shard simply popped out of thin air."

Damon frowned. "It sure as hell did not pop out of thin air." He then spotted some sort of disturbance in the distance, probably the start of another storm. "Could this be related to the storm?"

"What are you talking about, my liege?"

"What did you think about that wounded woman and that forest?"

"Ummm… what are you talking about, my liege?"

Damon smiled. "So you have no idea, huh… never mind. One more of these storms and everything will become clear." Instead of waiting for the storm in the distance to latch onto him and come for him, this time, Damon rushed towards it willingly. If he was not wrong, then everything should become clear in a moment.

A few seconds later, Damon once again found himself in the same situation. There was no dying woman or forest this time, but there was a bustling city, and he was in a kitchen.

Stone walls darkened by decades of smoke, iron hooks dangling from the ceiling, massive cauldrons bubbling with rich, oily broth. The air was thick with the smell of meat, spices, and heat. Real heat. The kind that soaked into skin and made sweat bead instantly on his back.

And in front of him, there was a mountain of vegetables. No. That was an understatement. There were thousands of vegetables. Root vegetables the size of a child's torso. Slabs of meat stacked like paving stones. Crates upon crates of produce waiting to be butchered, cleaned, sliced, and prepared.

A massive figure loomed over him. Broad as a bear, wrapped in a grease-stained apron, with a beard so thick and white it could have housed birds. His face was red with exertion and fury, eyes blazing beneath bushy brows.

He looked like Santa Claus. If Santa Claus had personally strangled reindeer for a living.

"What are you standing around for, boy?" the man roared, slamming a cleaver into a chopping block inches from Damon's hand. The blade sank halfway through solid oak. "Do you think the feast prepares itself?! The bell rings at sundown, and if those platters aren't full, I'll skin you and serve you instead!"

Damon stared at him, his face twitching. Could he possibly kill him and directly finish this thing? Unfortunately, he did not know enough about the event and its rules to take such shortcuts. It looked like he had to take the hard route for now. A blood knife appeared in his hand, and he got to work.