The smell of blood and ozone clung to the air, thick and suffocating. Drax stood in the middle of the dungeon floor, the remnants of the black serpent's essence still twisting like smoke around his hands. He breathed deep, tasting it—not just the physical residue, but something more profound: the raw power of a life devoured, condensed into pure essence.
As he inhaled, a shiver ran down his spine. His body, once weak and trembling, felt… lighter. His movements became fluid, his broken bones knitting themselves with eerie precision. Even the pain receded, replaced by a cold, calculated clarity.
"This… is… power," he muttered under his breath, the word tasting alien on his tongue, yet intoxicating. He flexed his fingers. Each joint moved with unnatural ease. Each tendon hummed with a vitality he had never known.
And then he noticed the dagger. Once solid and reliable in the hands of someone unbroken, it had fractured against the serpent's scales. A clean break ran along the blade, shards still sticking to his palm. Drax's jaw tightened, but there was no panic in his expression. Only a gleam in his pale white eyes.
"It's nothing," he thought. "I don't need it."
He let the fragments dissolve into the Abyss, black essence wrapping around his hand like living shadow. He flexed again, feeling the Abyssal core in his chest pulse in response. It was… hungry. And he was finally beginning to understand what that hunger meant.
Before he could ponder further, a ripple of movement tore across the darkness. Five pairs of glowing white eyes pierced the black expanse ahead. They emerged from the void, sleek bodies coiled with lethal intent—white tigers, spectral yet corporeal, their fur shimmering like moonlight against the shadowed ground.
One growled low, and Drax could feel its essence radiating pure predatory energy. He tensed, his new senses screaming that these were not ordinary beasts—they were hunters, drawn to the Abyssal Core as if sensing the power it contained.
Instinctively, he raised his hand. Shadowed energy snaked up his arm and coated the jagged remains of his dagger. He lunged forward, striking at the nearest tiger, but the fractured blade splintered again against its ethereal hide.
The tiger leapt back, snarling, swiping with claws that tore the stone-like dungeon floor. Pain blossomed in his shoulder as one strike grazed him, ripping through the remnants of flesh and essence like paper. Drax barely registered it.
"So this… is what it means to fight," he thought. "To face death and keep going. To… survive."
The five tigers circled him, weaving through shadows, cutting off every escape route. Each move was precise, perfect, like predators that had hunted for centuries. And for the first time in his life, Drax felt the raw edge of mortality—not as fear, but as a sharpened focus.
He lunged again, summoning more Abyssal essence. Shadowed tendrils erupted from the ground, slamming into the nearest tiger, wrapping it in a black cocoon. But two others lunged simultaneously, and he barely dodged, a swipe catching his rib and sending him crashing into the jagged wall of the dungeon. Pain exploded in his side, and he coughed blood.
His mind raced—not with panic, but with calculation. Every instinct, every prior failure, every moment of humiliation fed into this new version of himself.
"I can't rely on hope anymore. I can't rely on luck. I can't rely on others. This… is all on me."
The Abyss whispered in his mind, and he listened. Shadows writhed at his feet, feeding on the fragments of the broken dagger, growing, solidifying into obsidian claws and jagged spines. The tigers lunged again, and he met them with the raw, unshaped force of the Abyss.
The battle was ferocious. He lost track of how many strikes hit him, how many times he nearly died. Each near-death experience burned a memory into him—of his father dying, of his sister unconscious, of every mocking word, every failure he had endured. With each strike of claw and fang, he shed the timid boy he had been.
By the end, he stood bleeding, broken in places beyond recognition, yet alive—and more than alive. His body glowed faintly with black energy, his bones reinforced, his muscles taut and unyielding. His eyes shone with a new light: cold, precise, and frighteningly intelligent.
He stepped forward, the shattered tigers twitching at his feet, their essence now absorbed, feeding the Abyssal World within him. With each pulse of their energy, the black tree in his inner world grew taller, its branches coiling outward like infinite serpents, the red moon above glowing brighter with a knowing, predatory gaze.
"So this… this is me," he whispered, flexing his regenerated limbs. "Not weak. Not timid. Not the boy they mocked."
He could feel his mind reorganizing itself. Thought by thought, strategy by strategy, emotion by emotion, he built a new identity from the chaos: cold, calculating, pragmatic, unyielding. Charisma would follow when needed. Genius, where necessary.
The Abyss had not merely saved him—it had remade him.
And yet… the dungeon was not finished with him. Far in the darkness, a rumble shook the floor. The air warped, and a shadow rose, enormous, its essence radiating authority. The boss of the portal.
Drax's lips curved into a faint, chilling smile. His dagger—rebuilt from Abyssal essence—hung in his hand, black smoke curling around it like a living thing.
"You've hunted prey your entire life… and now, prey hunts you," he murmured. "But I will not die."
A cold wind surged from the portal's depths. The shadows of the dungeon bent and twisted as if alive, responding to the Abyss within him. For the first time, Drax felt the true weight of his power—not just survival, but dominion.
"I am the Abyss," he thought, his voice steady, commanding. "And all who step into my world… will bend to my will."
The red moon of his Inner World glared in unison with his white eyes, as if acknowledging its new sovereign.
And with that, Drax stepped forward, ready to face the final guardian of the dungeon, knowing that when he emerged, the boy who had failed would be gone forever.