The tunnel was a cold, narrow embrace. Just wide enough for Kael to crawl. His breathing came in uneven gasps, mixed with a tremor he couldn't tell if it was pain, fear, or the change devouring him from within.
He crawled with difficulty, his skin scraped by the living rock. His left shoulder was useless after the adventurers' ambush.
'I can't give up now... not after all this'— he thought, feeling like every movement cost him his life.
His only advantage—having escaped through that hidden crack, too narrow for his pursuers.
But the dungeon offered no refuge. Only more depth.
Suddenly, the rock disappeared beneath him.
There was a moment of suspension... and then the fall.
He tumbled down a hidden slope, a steep channel pushing him as if the dungeon itself spat him downward.
He struck roots, stone fragments, old debris, and dry remains of forgotten creatures. Each impact was a new stab.
He felt several ribs give way. Air escaped his lungs like a silent scream.
'Why does this keep happening to me? Did I do something to deserve this?' he thought in despair, yet forced himself to stay conscious.
After what seemed like hours of suffering, his body came to rest upon hitting a damp, spongy surface.
He lay on his back, breathing with difficulty, staring at a ceiling covered in fluorescent fungi pulsing with a sickly blue light.
Kael didn't know how he was still alive. Every muscle ached, and his side burned with the sharp heat of a deep wound.
He struggled to sit up, noticing he'd lost quite a bit of blood. His vision blurred at times.
"Where am I...?"—he murmured in a weak voice, coughing a little—it seemed the spear's effect had lessened— "This can't be real..."
The surroundings had changed—no longer stone corridors, but organic chambers with walls covered in moisture, filaments, and fungi of various sizes that moved gently, as if breathing.
He recognized that kind of structure. In the echoes of his confused memories, he recalled how some parts spoke of the intermediate levels.
And among them, one was especially feared—the 15th Floor, the novices' tomb.
Kael shuddered.
'I'm farther from what I thought. Very far from the exit...'
And worst of all, his pursuers were still searching for him.
If they wanted to capture him, it wouldn't take long to find him.
'They seemed to already know I was here… but how? I don't remember letting anyone see me.'
"It doesn't matter... I have to move. I can't stay here and wait to be found,"—he told himself, clenching his teeth—"If they want to catch me, I'll let them follow my trail until they get tired."
His best option was to keep descending.
According to the fragments of memory he still retained, a few floors down was a vast, safe area where he could hide and recover without so much risk of being captured or worse...
The 18th Floor, Rivira—a safe place where monsters don't appear.
"Maybe there I can find someone to help me..."— he told himself, clinging to that idea like a life raft.
It was his best option, though that didn't mean the path would be easy.
The descent was a mix of madness and endurance.
Three floors ahead, with monsters possibly appearing from any side at the slightest carelessness.
'But going up is a worse option; if they catch me I don't know what will become of me...' he remembered, pushing himself forward.
Having made a decision, Kael sat down, taking a moment to breathe before what lay ahead.
Suddenly, he noticed a small pool of blood left from his fall.
After all this time, an instinctive curiosity about his appearance upon suddenly waking in this new world overcame him.
So he leaned in enough to see his reflection—
Immediately, a pair of crimson, blood-like eyes met his gaze.
Black hair like night, long intimidating fangs protruding from his mouth, skin so pale one might think he was dead rather than alive.
"Is this me?"— he whispered in astonishment, looking at his slightly pointed ears and then his neck, with small scaly spots—the clear signs of the monsters he'd absorbed.
Yet after everything that had happened, his appearance was, to put it mildly, terrible.
His clothes were torn, and a huge amount of what looked like a strange mix of mud and dried blood covered every part of his body, leaving barely anything visible underneath.
'I barely look human...'—he thought with a bit of sadness.
His ears had become somewhat pointed, presumably from the goblins he'd absorbed. And the scaly spots must be from the Lizardmen he absorbed before entering the 4th Floor.
Along with many other small signs of the monsters he'd been hunting since he woke up.
But, if you looked closely, there was still a subtle charm.
"Well... it could be worse, I guess,"—he encouraged himself in a low voice.
Beneath all that dirt and thin bones, there was a wild, undeniably handsome—or rather, cute—attraction?
Without paying much attention to his appearance anymore, Kael stood up.
"How much more will I change?"—he murmured distractedly as he set off—"How much of me is already lost?"
No one answered.
'Maybe there is no one who can answer...'
He looked at his hands.
He remembered how he feared absorbing that goblin on the 5th Floor. How his body had been before it disappeared.
"I have to stop doubting," —he told himself—"My body knows what to do, I just have to let it do what it wants."
His body always screamed for him to absorb, to kill.
And it did so with growing ease.
Kael wanted to cry... but he couldn't.
All that was left was to move forward.
Accepting that if there was a way to survive... it wouldn't be as a human.
Kael moved forward as best he could.
Sometimes he walked, other times he crawled.
He crossed tunnels where gravity seemed to change, chambers where light obeyed no logic, passages where the air itself seemed to absorb sound.
On several occasions, his body was on the verge of collapse.
In one of those passages, he was attacked out of nowhere by a thin, almost ethereal creature that seemed woven from liquid shadow.
It had elongated limbs and eyes that opened and closed erratically.
Kael dodged instinctively.
His hand—almost without him noticing—extended more than he remembered, grabbing the creature by the neck.
On contact, the strange energy he had been getting used to coursed through his body again.
'Don't hesitate...'—he reminded himself, feeling the transfer—'I need to be stronger.'
The creature faded slowly with a sharp screech, as if feeling immense pain from being absorbed.
Kael felt a new sort of clarity.
A movement pattern.
A simple but useful knowledge—how to move without being heard.
How to blend with the shadows.
He was gaining more than strength.
He was acquiring parts of what he defeated.
And that scared him, at least a little.
Upon reaching the 17th Floor, he could hardly stay standing.
He took refuge in a damp crack between two stone formations and slept for just a few minutes, enough to regain some awareness.
Barely resuming his journey, something struck him.
Not an enemy.
Not a visible trap.
But an impulse from within.
A void. Dry. Sharp.
Hunger.
Not for food... but for something deeper.
For vitality.
His breathing became erratic.
His hands trembled.
Every living creature he crossed provoked an unknown hunger.
It wasn't need...
It was desire.
Instinct.
Soon, he was ambushed by a group of beasts that resembled skinless felines with overly wide mouths.
His body reacted before his mind.
Claws appeared where his hands were, and then a roar—unhuman—came from his throat. Then he moved, with swift, precise movements.
'I can't stop now...' —he thought, while fighting like a beast.
He fought without full awareness, paying no attention to his wounds.
Everything was fast, direct, savage yet effective.
When it was all over and he regained some awareness, he knelt before one of the bodies. This time he didn't hesitate.
He didn't need to touch it much.
A mere contact was enough to feel how warm energy flowed into him, closing wounds, strengthening him.
And his hunger disappeared.
The taste of that energy wasn't cruel.
It wasn't pleasant.
It was inevitable.
Then, a vibration ran down his back.
An invisible crack opened before his eyes.
A floating screen appeared, flickering, distorted like the last time.
The letters were blurry, incomplete.
But some lines stood out, clearer than the rest.
[Condition Met...
—Ability Partially Unlocked:
Status: Partial — Emotional Stability Compromised...
Passive Ability in Development…]