Stone-Jaw rumble—fury's roar, sand-heart quake. Basalt jaws snap-air oblivion-crack. Crushed. Swallowed. Ash-gut. Voracious heat-veins hard, but legs? Kid-terror, not hunter.
"Shit!" Bolt. Sand-ankle suck-jealous. Run. Survive. Pillar-twist stumble. Charge-armor mass, leg-claw stone-sparks cold. Shadow-blanket death-mist erase. Panic-swing fist. Hit-shell. Crack. Not me. Recoil-stun. Gap-fissure, pale-throb under.
Hunger-primal surge. Lunge. Hands-rip scale. Black-blood honey-poison ooze-finger. Bite-tear tough-meat. Fire-explode:
[Voracious Lv. 2 Unlocked]
Absorption: +10% DEF (Remnant Carapace – 1hr). Stone endures. Flesh bends.
Back-stiffen. Invisible-crust lover-armor cold-alive. Bellow-air-crack. Mandible-slam. Roll-ground-shake. Skin-hold—scratch, no shatter. Dance-waltz grotesque: dodge-clumsy, blow-shadow, breath-mingle acrid-mineral.
Luck-shard eye-jam quartz. Collapse-convulse slow. Finish-heart dirge-drum.
Pant-mud-black slump-pillar. Mist-thick. Dark-swallow all. Next-time? Thirst-no, lone-gnaw hunger-worse. Finger-fumble pocket. Smart-talis last-living thread.
No-signal zero-desert. Battery... 87%. Wait. Crash-hours? Days? Drain-slow, time-mock clock eternal-drip. Shiver—hope-curse? Shadow-gift? Trap-lost remind? Emma-face blur rain-smile... Call-last?
Shake-flick light. Pale-beam night-pierce chaos-caress fragile-fray memory. Sweep-ground: Jaw-corpse crack-heart break. Far-move. Slow-agonize.
Unveil-twist horror—damned-first line. Hybrid-no pure. Flesh-stone melt-abom. Echo-Petrified: Echo-wing stiff-quartz fracture-membrane, bat-bloat basalt-growth jungle-rape birth-nightmare. Eye-multi gleam-beam lock. Cry-sonic air-solid glass-invis rake-skin fresh.
Back-light flicker-gut. Crawl-drag wing-break, mandible-clack stone-fusion call. Twist-more, realm-corrupt all, essence-grotesque perv. Me? Next-link.
Blink-battery 86.9%. Slow. Eternal.
The crust of remnant carapace held firm against my back, a cold, unyielding embrace that felt like the Realm's mocking gift—protection borrowed from the very thing I'd slain. It was as if the Stone-Jaw's essence lingered, its stony indifference seeping into my pores, hardening my resolve even as the chill numbed my fingers. I slumped against the pillar, the rough obsidian biting into my spine through the jacket, each breath a labored rasp that echoed in the thickening mist. The air was alive with the aftermath: the acrid tang of spilled ichor mingling with the damp rot of the jungle floor, a perfume of death that clung to my clothes like a second skin. My arm throbbed where the acid had kissed it earlier, the flesh raw and bubbling faintly, but the absorption's grace period kept it from worsening. For now.
The phone weighed heavy in my pocket, a relic from a world that seemed as distant as a half-remembered dream. I pulled it out again, thumbing the screen with trembling fingers, the light casting my shadow long and distorted across the sand. 86.9%. That impossible slowness—it defied everything I knew about batteries, about time itself. Back home, it'd drain in hours of scrolling memes or binge-watching bad horror flicks with the guys. Here? It trickled like blood from a shallow cut, eternal and taunting. Was it the Realm's doing, some twisted mercy to remind me of what I'd lost? Or a curse, forcing me to confront the fragments of my old life one agonizing percentage at a time?
Emma's face swam up unbidden, sharper than before in the beam's harsh glow. Not the idealized ghost from earlier flashes, but the real her: hair plastered to her forehead from that sudden downpour, lips curved in that half-smile that always made my stomach flip, her voice cutting through the patter of rain on the awning. "You're such an idiot, Arthur—rushing for a license like it's gonna change everything." We'd laughed then, her hand lingering just a second too long on my arm, the kind of moment that hangs in the air, pregnant with what-ifs. What if I'd turned back in that alley? What if the curtain hadn't risen? Would we be grabbing coffee now, her teasing me about my "big man" driving dreams?
The memory twisted, souring like the ichor on my tongue. What if she could see me now? Slumped in this godforsaken pit, covered in monster guts, veins starting to throb with that unnatural heat from Voracious. The system—because that's what it felt like, some game dev's sick joke—had given me power, but at what price? My reflection in the phone's screen was already changing: eyes shadowed deeper, skin paler, a faint vein of black threading under my jaw like ink bleeding through paper. Human? Or just the start of something worse?
A rustle snapped me back—slow, deliberate, like nails on dry leather. The light swept the ground, catching the corpse first: the Stone-Jaw's carapace split wide, innards spilling in a cooling pile of dark sludge, mandibles frozen in a final snarl. Then, farther out, movement. Agonizingly slow, a drag through the sand that left a furrow glistening with something viscous.
The beam unveiled it: the first true twisted horror, a damned harbinger of the Realm's perversions. Not a pure beast, no—this was hybrid filth, flesh and stone melted into abomination. An Echo-Petrified : what had once been a Veil-Echo, its bat-like body bloated with basaltic growths like tumors from the jungle's rape, wings stiffened into fractured quartz membranes that scraped the sand with a dissonant whine, like glass on bone. Its eyes—multiplied, three pairs of gleaming obsidian orbs—locked onto the light, reflecting it back in shattered prisms that stabbed my retinas. Mandibles of stone clattered from its maw, a grotesque fusion of sonic clicker and crushing vice, dripping a mucus that sizzled on contact.
It crawled forward, dragging a broken wing that trailed sparks of quartz dust, the air around it warping faintly as if its presence bent reality. A cry birthed from its throat—not a screech, but a sonic echo that solidified the mist into invisible glass shards, raking across my fresh skin like a thousand paper cuts, drawing pinpricks of blood that welled hot and immediate. I backed away, the phone's light flickering like my resolve, the beam wavering as my hand shook. This thing wasn't just hunting; it was calling—mandibles clacking in a rhythm that echoed the Realm's corruption, inviting fusion, promising to make me one with the dark.
Run, every instinct screamed, but Voracious stirred, that traitor hunger coiling tighter, whispering of the power in its veins. The Echo-Petrified advanced, slow but inexorable, its bloated body undulating with the weight of its mutations, basalt lumps cracking open to reveal pulsing sacs of sonic venom. The mist around it thickened, carrying the faint, acrid scent of ozone and decay, like a storm about to break without thunder. My mind raced—flash to the phone again, battery mocking at 86.8%, the screen glitching faintly now, lines of static crawling like veins across the display. A map? No, just noise. But the light... it held the thing at bay, its multi-eyes squinting against the glare, cries distorting into frustrated whines.
I circled, keeping the beam trained, the pillar at my back a cold anchor. The twisted lunged suddenly, a burst of awkward speed from its hind legs, quartz wing scraping a gouge in the sand. I dodged, the carapace crust cracking slightly under the strain, and swung the light like a whip—blinding flash that made it recoil, sonic cry warping into a harmless fizzle. Fight or flee? The hunger decided. I closed the gap, shard of quartz from earlier clutched in my good hand, and stabbed at its underbelly, where the bat-flesh met stone-growth. The point sank in with a wet crunch, ichor—thinner, more acidic than the Jaw's—spraying across my chest, eating through fabric and skin in stinging welts that bubbled like boiling tar.
It thrashed, wing-bone fracturing under my weight as I rode it down, the impact jarring my teeth. Mandibles snapped wild, grazing my thigh in a shallow gash that burned like fire ants. But I was in, tearing deeper, fingers slick with its fluids, ripping free a chunk of membrane-veined meat that pulsed with trapped echoes—tiny clicks vibrating against my palm like dying heartbeats. The taste hit as I bit: rubbery rot laced with mineral shard, exploding in a burst of sonic feedback that rang in my ears, blood trickling from my nose in sympathy.
Voracious roared to life, the absorption a dark ecstasy that drowned the pain:
[Voracious – Level 3 Unlocked]
Absorption: +15% Perception (Echo-Scan – Basic Detection, 10m). Whispers reveal secrets.
Clarity crashed in—not visual, but a web of inner waves, sonar pinging the dark like a bat's desperate call. I "saw" the twisted's innards: cracked stone veins leaking, hybrid hunger coiling futile. Around us: three Sand-Claws skulking closer, drawn by the blood symphony, their shells faint-gleam in my new sense. Rolled off as it collapsed, last cry a stifled sigh, heap of inert fusion.
Panting, up. Light still on—86.7%. Held like stubborn spite. Whispers lingered: mist-far, deeper rumble, greater twisted stirring. Jungle no done. Yet.
The scan lingered, a new layer to the world—faint pings like sonar ghosts, mapping the mist's hidden teeth. It was intoxicating, this power, but it came with echoes: whispers not just of monsters, but fragments of home. Emma's voice, distorted like a bad connection: "Arthur? You there?" Static. Gone. I shook it off, pocketing the phone, the burn on my thigh a reminder that gifts here always had barbs. The Echo-Petrified's corpse steamed, quartz shards glinting like broken promises. I left it, limping toward a distant spire cluster the scan flagged as "low-threat"—a momentary hollow in the chaos.
Night deepened, or what passed for it, the phosphor glow dimming to a sullen pulse. My body ached, the carapace fully faded, leaving bruises like love bites from a cruel paramour. Hunger gnawed again, not sated but evolved—Voracious demanding more, its voice a low hum in my blood. The jungle watched, patient predator, its secrets unfolding in the whispers. I pressed on, the beam my fragile sword, the Realm's maw yawning wider. Survive. Evolve. Or dissolve.