Silence settled over the Primeval Sector and the shattered remains of the Abyssal Hound.
But, Val’s obsidian arm was not yet satisfied. It began to move of its own accord.
A predatory heat surged through Val’s veins. This wasn't an infection anymore; it was an evolution. His black veins writhed toward the Hound, pulsing in sync with a long-lost sibling.
‘Come to me.’
Countless black, whip-like tentacles lashed out. They bored into the Hound’s flesh, stitching predator and scientist together in a symbiotic frenzy. The tentacles dragged the Hound’s skull directly into the maw in Val’s palm.
‘Acceptable...’ The voice was heavy, sinking into the silence.
Crunch. Crunch.
The terrifying digestion of another creature's data being forced into his DNA was more than he could process.
‘The hunger sleeps. For now.’
Marcus whispered, backing away. Not even the sight of Stains made his resolve falter this way.
"What... what are you?"
Val didn't answer. He couldn't.
[THREAT ELIMINATED: ABYSSAL HOUND] [PRIMARY CONTRIBUTOR: VALENTIN VOSS]
[CALIBRATION GAIN: +100 CP]
[REWARD: ABYSSAL HOUND PELT x1]
[ABYSSAL EVOLUTION: +2%]
The threat was cleared. Yet everyone knew, something fundamental had crossed the line.
Val collapsed.
Steam rolled off his right arm, the residue of a feast that shouldn’t exist. The blue interface flickered, turning a warning shade of crimson.
[ETHER OVERLOAD PROTOCOL: MARTYR 0996; INITIATING HARD RESET]
[STRUCTURAL FAILURE IMMINENT: STRATUM REINFORCEMENT APPLIED]
[CURRENT STRATUM: THRALL I → THRALL II]
Everything went hazy. Vision fraying. Ears ringing. He felt the cold press of silt against his face, but he couldn't move a muscle.
The tentacles had retracted, slipping back into Val’s skin like snakes into a burrow.
“What the hell is that snakey thing coming from his arms, man?” Rafa backed away, the heavy Rungu dragging through the silt. He didn’t move to help. “Ah… hell no. I ain’t messin’ with this.”
Another Martyr spat on the ground. His eyes were locked on the black light pulsing from the Abyssal Heart. “If he can eat that beast, what’s stopping him from eating us when he gets hungry again? Stay away from him!”
Marcus looked torn.
His gaze locked on the [PRIMARY CONTRIBUTOR] prompt hovering in the air. His jaw clenched.
“That should have been mine. You know it, Val,” he muttered, voice filled with malice. “You’re the one who brought this mess down on us with your friends.”
Val couldn’t scream or weep.
He could only watch the spot where the Abyssal Hound’s heart had been butchered moments before.
Marcus hissed, leaning close enough for Val to smell tobacco on his breath, “Consider this mercy. Better than being eaten by the beast.”
He drew a serrated blade, ready to pierce Val’s heart.
The movement sent fresh agony through his body, but it was nothing compared to the cold iron in Marcus’s words.
“What are you doing?” Elena’s voice cut through, a high, desperate reed.
“Val’s an abomination, Elena! MOVE!” Marcus barked, eyes darting to the treeline shadows.
“He killed that beast for us. And this… this is how you pay him?” Her voice trembled but sharpened with defiance.
Her words cast a heavy shadow over Marcus.
Behind him, the other survivors shifted, their whispers rising into a low, judging murmur.
Marcus froze.
He could feel the tide turning. He couldn’t afford to be the villain. He couldn’t let them antagonize him. Not now, not when he was so close to the exit.
He sheathed the blade, jaw clenched against the rising murmurs.
“We can’t leave him!” Elena’s eyes darted to the pit, to the flickering eyelids of the man on the ground.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“He’s already done, Elena!” Marcus roared, stepping into her line of sight.
“Look at him! He’s cold. No breath left in him. You want to die for a corpse? You want the Hound to eat you alive while you’re crying over a man who can’t feel the dirt on his face?”
Elena looked. She saw the stillness of the grave, the way the silt had already begun to settle on Val’s cheek. She didn’t see the fire still burning behind his pupils.
She hesitated for a heartbeat, terror of the woods warring with her conscience.
Then she moved.
Ignoring Marcus, she dropped to her knees. Through the haze of his fading vision, Val felt hands. Small, frantic, precise—moving over him with surgical care.
“Stay awake, Val. Just breathe. Look at me.”
Elena. She was over him. Her face was tight, locked in a desperate focus. She wasn’t running for the Abyssal Heart ten meters away. She was tearing into an Ortho-medical kit that she took from the Dissonance Chamber.
She wrapped his obsidian arm in a silver-threaded stabilizer, fingers trembling as she tried to slow the black rot climbing past his elbow.
“Elena!” Marcus’s voice screamed from the ridge, distorted by panic. “The vibration from that kill is ringing like a dinner bell for every Hound in the sector! If we don’t move now, we’re trapped in the kill zone. Leave him!”
Elena glanced toward the ridge, then down at Val. Violet fog pulsed through the trees. More Abyssals were coming, drawn to the “Void-Flare” Val had emitted.
She was a doctor—or had been. She knew the math of the human body. She couldn’t carry a 180-pound unconscious man through a primeval jungle while hunted by shadows.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
She reached into her pack, tucked a small high-calorie nutrient bar into his pocket, and touched his forehead, palm cold.
“I… I can’t save us both.”
Elena glanced one last time at Val. Her conscience wavered before she stood.
He watched them vanish into the mist. Ash settled over him, heavy and suffocating.
His last sight was her silhouette retreating into the violet fog, framed by the blue glow of the Abyssal Heart. That was his ticket to the Wormhole. Now, Marcus was carrying it away.
Val regained half of his consciousness to the sound of a dripping tap that wasn't there. It was his own heartbeat, echoing in his skull.
He was alone. He tried to lift his head, but his neck refused. His body wasn't just tired; it was numb.
Val looked at his arm; it was neatly bandaged, the pain reduced to a dull ache.
Elena. She had used a stabilizer.
He checked his pocket with trembling fingers. The nutrient bar was there.
He looked toward the clearing where the Hound had died. The Abyssal Heart was taken. Marcus, Rafa, Elena—they were gone.
He didn't curse them. He didn't feel a hero's rage. Instead, a revelation dawned upon him.
‘Kindness has a radius,’ he thought, his mechanical hiss of breath echoing in the void. ‘Survival doesn’t.’
He fought the paralysis, forcing a single finger to move.
Activate. His Halo glowed into life.
The flickering blue light was the only thing keeping the dark at bay. Even the interface looked exhausted.
[MARTYR 0996]
Name : Valentin Voss
Health : 2/200
Stratum : Thrall II
A red notice flared on his [STATS] tab. Click.
[WARNING! SURVIVAL RECALIBRATION RECOMMENDED]
[PROCEED?] [Y/N]
In his current state, a "level up" could either jumpstart his heart or stop it entirely. With last bit of his breath, Val's finger hovered over the [Y]. He wasn't choosing power; he was choosing to exist for one more hour.
He pressed it.
[ROLLING POTENTIAL...]
In his mind’s eye, he saw the stars spin and lock.
He heard it then. The sound of unseen dice, heavy as tectonic plates, tumbling across the marble floor of his subconscious. It felt less like a game and more like the universe adjusting its ledgers.
A heavy resonance settled in his chest.
[CRITICAL STABILIZATION: INTEGRITY FORCED TO 06]
[VELOCITY OPTIMIZED: 07]
[SENSORY RADIUS EXPANDED: PROXIMITY 04]
Val felt his ribs knit together with a sound like grinding stones. The System wasn't asking for his permission; it was re-editing him.
[TIME REMAINING UNTIL RECALIBRATION: 06H 00M]
‘Dammit! Six more hours! Give me a break.’
Val knew if he didn’t do anything, there was an 80% chance some wild beast will come and feast on him.
‘Think Val. Think.’
There was other red notice in his tab, [ITEM].
Val didn’t have energy left to press it, so he only uses his thought. Thankfully it worked.
STORAGE CAPACITY: 1/1
ASSET: Abyssal Hound Pelt x1
'Wait.'
'The pelt.'
His fingers twitched.
'If it masked the Hound's thermal signature in life, it can mask mine in death. Predators track heat. I have no heat left to give.'
'It's not a weapon. It's a corpse blanket. And right now that's the only exit strategy I have.'
'Abyssal Hound Pelt. Come on. Work. Please just...'
[VELOCITY CHECK: 06. ASSET WITHDRAWAL RATE: 00M 44s]
[MANIFESTING...]
42...40...38...
Ding!
The pelt materialized directly over his body, a heavy shroud of midnight-black hair that smelled of wet earth and old blood. It settled over him like a blanket, tucking him into the shadows.
It was a gamble. But for Val, this was the only exit strategy left.
The air didn't just turn cold; it vanished.
Val felt the System reach into his bones. The world blinked out.
The restructuring was a slow-motion process.
Even unconscious, Val’s mind felt the sting. Every minute of the first two hours was a fever dream.
His body temperature fluctuating so wildly that the frost on the nearby silt turned to steam, then back to ice.
The Abyssal Hound Pelt proved its worth. To any passing predator, the thermal spike of Val’s "Recalibration Fever" was dampened by the pelt’s tainted fur.
He was nothing but a cold shadow tucked beneath a heap of dead meat.
When the red timer in his mind finally ticked down to [03H 30M], the violent shaking stopped, replaced by a heavy, leaden silence.
Awareness returned with a sharp, stabbing pain.
Val lay half-covered with Abyssal Hound Pelt, staring up at the foreign violet sky.
His arm still burned.
No protection.
No mobility.
No system safeguards.
Only ragged and dirty pelts.
Footsteps came.
Slow. Heavy. Closer.
He reached for a weapon, anything to protect himself. Nothing.
‘Abyssal? It didn’t work?’ his mind snapped.
A shadow fell over his face. Val was on the brink of mental collapse.
‘That’s it. Just finish me already…’
Val squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the end that didn’t come.
“Hmm.”
The sound wasn’t predatory.
It was… curious.
Val forced his eyes to focus.
Instead of another Abyssal, stood Happy Dan.
He was holding a bag of "Ortho-Rations" he bought at the Vending Beacon.
“You look dead,” he said, tilting the bag.
“Want a cracker?”
