The tunnel was a cold, narrow embrace, barely wide enough for Kael to crawl. His breath came in irregular gasps, mixed with a tremor he couldn't tell was from pain, fear, or the change devouring him from within. He crawled with difficulty, his skin scraped by the living rock, his left shoulder rendered useless after the adventurers' ambush. 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 his
An instant of suspension… and then the fall.
He tumbled down a hidden slope, a steep channel that pushed him as if the dungeon itself spat him downward. He struck roots, fragments of stone, old debris, and dry remnants of forgotten creatures. Each impact was a new stab. He felt several ribs give way, his breath escaping his lungs like a silent scream.
After what seemed like hours of suffering, his body stopped 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. The surroundings had changed: no longer stone corridors, but organic chambers with walls covered in moisture, filaments, and fungi of various sizes moving gently, as if breathing.
He recognized that type of structure. In the echoes of his confused memories of this world, he recalled how some adventurers spoke of the intermediate levels, and among them, one was especially feared: Floor 15, the novice's tomb.
Kael shuddered.
He was far, very far from any exit. And worst of all, his pursuers were still searching for him. If they wanted to capture him, they wouldn't take long to follow his trail.
His best option was to keep descending. According to the fragments of memory he still retained, a few floors down was a vast and safe area where he could hide and recover without as much risk of being captured or worse... Floor 18, Rivira, a safe place where monsters don't spawn.
Maybe… he could even find someone to help him.
It was his best option, though that didn't mean it would be an easy path.
The way down was a mix of madness and endurance. Three more floors ahead, with monsters possibly appearing from any side at the slightest carelessness, his chances of making it weren't in his favor. But they were certainly higher than going up and risking being found by his pursuers in his current state.
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, he felt an instinctive curiosity about his appearance upon suddenly waking up in this new world. So he leaned in enough to see his reflection:
Immediately, a pair of crimson eyes like blood met his gaze. Hair black as night, long and intimidating fangs protruding from his mouth, skin so pale one might think he was dead rather than alive. However, after everything that had happened, his appearance was, to put it mildly, terrible; his clothes were torn, and the immense amount of what seemed to be a strange combination of mud and dried blood covered every part of his body, leaving barely anything visible underneath.
The skin on his neck had hardened spots, almost like scales. If before, when he woke up in this world, he barely seemed human, now he looked like a true monster, a strange combination of several of them... his ears had become somewhat pointed, presumably due to the goblins he'd absorbed, 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. Beneath all that dirt and thin bones, there was a certain wild charm and undeniably handsome... or rather, cute?
Not paying much attention to his appearance, 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 him. Not the echo. Not the stone. Not the voices that were no longer his.
Maybe there was no one to answer.
He looked at his hands. He remembered how he had feared absorbing that goblin on Floor 4. How he had avoided it. But now, he no longer hesitated. He didn't need to think. His body knew what to do.
And it did so with increasing ease.
He wanted to cry... but 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 giving out.
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, and his hand—almost without him noticing—extended more than he remembered, grabbing the creature by the neck.
Upon contact, a jolt ran through his body. Not pain... but a transfer. The creature slowly faded with a sharp screech, as if it felt immense sorrow being absorbed, and Kael felt a new kind 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.
Upon reaching Floor 17, he could barely stand. He took refuge in a damp crack between two stone formations and slept for just a few minutes, just enough to regain some sense.
Barely resuming his journey, something struck him.
Not an enemy. Not a visible trap. But an impulse from within.
An emptiness, dry, sharp. Thirst. Not for water... but for something deeper. For vitality.
His breathing became erratic. His hands trembled. Every living creature he crossed paths with 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 instead of nails, a roar that didn't seem human, swift and precise movements. He fought fiercely, without full awareness, not paying attention to the wounds, everything was quick and direct with almost surgical precision.
When it was over, and he regained some sense, he knelt before one of the bodies. He didn't need to touch it much. A mere touch was enough to feel how a warm energy flowed into him, closing wounds, strengthening him.
And his thirst was quenched.
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 as always. The letters crackled, incomplete, but one line stood out, clearer than the others:
[Condition met]
New ability partially unlocked:
Status: Partial – Emotional stability compromised.
Passive ability in development…