The goblin’s corpse gave one final twitch before going still.
Its skin was scorched, blistered black and red where Arcflash had struck deepest. A thin thread of smoke rose from the split in its chest, curling through the wet air like incense. The smell that followed—burnt flesh, singed hair, blood—hit Luin all at once.
He staggered back from the body, one clawed hand pressed to his chest. Sparks still danced along his forelimbs, dim now, like fireflies in retreat. His breathing was ragged. Each exhale rasped against a throat that didn’t quite belong to him.
He had survived.
But it didn’t feel like victory.
From the far side of the burrow, something shifted.
The carrion nymph moved first, legs chittering softly as it adjusted its position in the dark. Its long, hunched body didn’t creep closer—only steadied itself, like a spider weighing a web’s tremble.
The flame imp, crouched low in the green-lit corner, straightened slightly. Its fingers still glowed faintly, wisps of heat coiling up into the air. One ember hovered lazily above its palm, flickering.
Neither creature made a sound.
Neither fled.
They just watched.
[Predator Ranking Adjusted]
[Nearby Entities: Flame Imp Larva – Neutral | Carrion Nymph – Cautious]
Luin didn’t look at the notification. His eyes were locked on the floor.
His legs gave out. He sat hard, breathing fast, tail dragging behind him like a wet rope. His muscles ached. His mana felt like a cup he’d upended in a single burst—drained to the last drop.
His body twitched once.
Then the chime echoed behind his eyes.
[Warning: Core Instability Detected]
[MP: 4 / 20] – Critical Threshold]
[Mana Regeneration: Halted]
[Draconic Core Unstable – Feral Override Risk Rising]
Recommended Action: Restore Through Consumption or Absorption
“Consumption?” Luin murmured, breath catching in his throat.
A low pulse throbbed in his chest. Not pain—pressure. The same tight humming he’d felt when the storm inside him cracked open.
He pressed a claw against his ribs. Beneath the bone, something flickered. Not a heartbeat. A charge.
Mana.
Low.
His instincts weren’t quiet anymore. They were... guiding. Every breath was heavier. His vision swam at the edges. The room tilted slightly. But the worst part wasn’t weakness.
It was hunger.
Not the slow ache of an empty stomach.
A dragging, needling pull behind his eyes. In his throat. It wasn't asking. It was demanding.
His jaw shifted. His tongue pressed up against sharp ridges near his back teeth. He swallowed—thick and bitter. Something inside him knew the taste.
Not saliva.
Venom.
He tried not to look at the body.
Tried harder not to smell it.
But the scent was impossible to ignore. Still-warm blood. Singed meat. More than just rot and ruin—it was mana-rich. Something his core recognized. Desired.
He turned away, squeezed his eyes shut.
Don’t you dare.
Across the chamber, the imp hadn’t moved.
But its ember dimmed slightly, then flared again. Like a heartbeat. Or a warning.
The carrion nymph remained still, half-sunken into the moldy wall. Watching without blinking.
They weren’t looking at a hatchling anymore.
They were watching a choice.
He crawled away from the corpse, back pressing against the dirt wall. Claws splayed out, twitching.
The pulse in his chest skipped again. A system prompt flickered through his mind like a whisper through static.
[Core Starvation Detected]
[Predator Protocol: Dormant → Flickering]
[Instinct Threshold Approaching]
Luin pressed his forehead to the wall and exhaled slowly. The air left his lungs in a hiss.
"I’m not a monster," he whispered.
His stomach growled. Loud. Wet.
And the worst part was—it wasn’t his voice that whispered next.
It was the quiet voice behind his thoughts.
Then why do you know how to bite?
He turned.
The goblin's cracked skin along the ribcage was split wide from the Arcflash burst, exposing dark, seared meat. The smell was stronger now. The blood had begun to pool. Steam rose faintly from the wound, still warm in the nest’s chill.
He could feel his claws flex again.
Not consciously.
Not willingly.
From across the room, the imp tilted its head just slightly.
The ember faded.
They were still watching.
Still waiting.
He hadn’t earned anything yet.
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Not a place.
Not a victory.
Only a choice.
His breath stilled. His vision sharpened.
The corpse in front of him wasn’t just a body anymore.
It was resource.
And his time to resist it... was running out.
Luin didn’t remember moving.
One moment, he was crouched against the far wall, claws dug into the dirt. The next, he was back in front of the goblin’s corpse—close enough to see where its skin had split, close enough to smell every detail he was trying to forget.
His body wasn’t his.
Not fully.
He could still think. Still feel the disgust curdling in the back of his throat.
But his claws had already reached out.
They pressed against the goblin’s ribcage—warm, slick, firm. His muscles tensed. Pulled.
The skin tore with a wet crack.
Luin flinched, but his hands didn’t stop. They dug deeper, forcing a jagged line down the goblin’s side. Blood oozed from the cavity, steaming faintly in the damp air.
“No. Stop—” he choked.
But his body wasn’t listening.
It knew what it wanted.
His jaw opened before he realized it had moved.
Fangs sank into scorched meat. Flesh tore loose. The taste—if it was taste—wasn’t flavor, not exactly. It was sensation. Mana-infused tissue, dense and humming. Like swallowing lightning in raw form. His throat convulsed, and he swallowed instinctively.
Heat bloomed in his chest.
Then the system clicked in.
[Consumption Confirmed]
[MP Restored: +4]
[Core Instability: Suppressed]
[Draconic Status: Stabilizing]
[Stat Increase – STR +1]
Luin stumbled back as if struck. He coughed—thick and violent. The taste of iron and smoke lingered in his mouth. His claws trembled.
The pressure in his chest was gone.
The hunger… dampened. Not gone. But satisfied. For now.
He looked down at the corpse. At the hollowed space in its side, ragged and dark. At the blood on his claws, drying sticky across his knuckles.
He hadn’t thought. He hadn’t chosen.
He’d acted.
Acted like something that had been here before thought. Before choice.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It smeared more than it cleaned.
Across the chamber, movement broke the silence.
The flame imp stood fully now, arms at its sides. No embers. No flicker of heat. It tilted its head once, eyes narrowing—not in fear. In assessment.
Then it stepped back.
Not far.
Just enough.
[Entity Status Updated – Flame Imp Larva: Neutral → Unaligned Observing]
From the other side, the carrion nymph crept deeper into its corner, mandibles folding inward. It didn’t vanish. Just... yielded. The sound of its legs clicking slowed. Its posture shifted—less tension, more patience.
Luin watched them both, still panting.
They hadn’t challenged him.
But they weren’t ignoring him either.
He had changed something.
Earned something.
Not dominance. Not alliance.
Space.
The right to exist.
He backed away from the goblin’s body and slumped into the dirt again. His limbs were stiff. His jaw ached.
And yet—his core was calm.
That constant hum behind his ribs was steadier now. Like the storm inside had found a place to rest.
The system had fallen quiet.
For now.
His breath fogged in the chill of the burrow.
The imp crouched again and resumed watching.
The nymph returned to stillness.
Luin sat with his back pressed to the wall, tail curled tight against his side. The blood on his claws had dried to a flaking crust, cracked from his uneven breathing. He hadn't moved in minutes. Not since the feeding. Not since the others had retreated.
But inside him, something was still moving.
The hum beneath his ribs had smoothed out into something steady. A rhythmic thrum that pulsed with each breath, low and faint, like a distant thundercloud rolling through his bones. His limbs still felt foreign, but less so than before. His heartbeat was quieter. More in sync with his body than it had ever been.
And still—he didn’t feel better.
He felt... changed.
System, he thought, eyes half-lidded.
The interface flickered to life. Not broken this time. Not glitching. Just... quiet. Stable.
[STATUS]
Name: Luin Mori
Species: Stormdrake Hatchling
Level: 1
HP: 32 / 32??MP: 8 / 20
STR: 6 (+1)?DEX: 7?VIT: 6?INT: 8?INSTINCT: 11
Core Status: Stabilizing...
[Traits]
? Storm Core (Dormant) – [Locked]
? Appraisal Eye (Lv 1) – [Active]
? Predator Protocol – [Awakened]
[Skills]
? Arcflash (Lv 1) – [Cooldown: 01:41]
? [???] – [Corrupted]
[Assimilation Log]
Consumed: Goblin Whelp
Stat Growth: STR +1
Mutation Potential Detected
----------------------------
He stared at that last line.
A small pulse behind his eyes drew his attention toward it—almost like being nudged.
[Mutation Detected – Draconic Evolution Sequence Initializing...]
Open Evolution Tracker?
Luin hesitated. Just for a moment.
Then: Yes.
The status screen folded away and reshaped itself. What came next didn’t look like a menu.
It looked like a process.
[EVOLUTION PROGRESS – Stormdrake Hatchling]
Form Stability: 74%
Core Bond: Weak
Mutation Thresholds (Pending):
? Tier I Instinct Milestone – [Locked]
? Mana Capacity Milestone – [Locked]
? Trait Assimilation Milestone – [In Progress: 24%]
Warning:
Evolution will forcibly alter biological structure.
Change is irreversible.
Continue?
Luin’s throat tightened.
He reread the word again and again.
Irreversible.
This wasn’t a passive stat boost. Not a level-up. Not XP and loot.
This was something else. Something deeper.
The system wasn’t just rewarding him for surviving.
It was remaking him.
Piece by piece.
Every bite he took didn’t just fill his stomach—it added to a silent countdown. A crawl toward something stronger. Something not even he understood yet.
24%.
From just one meal.
What happens when it hits 100?
What happens when he isn’t Luin anymore?
He closed the window. The silence of the chamber rushed in to fill the void it left.
Across the room, the imp hadn’t moved. Neither had the nymph. But Luin no longer felt like part of their nest.
He felt like a seed.
A thing that would soon grow into something too large to belong here.
The static under his skin pulsed once—briefly—and faded.
He leaned his head against the burrow wall and let his eyes slip closed. Just for a moment.
The taste of blood still lingered on his tongue.
He didn't know how long he sat there.
Maybe a minute. Maybe more. The system’s menu had closed, but its weight remained—like static clinging to the inside of his skull. The words irreversible and mutation kept echoing with a quiet, sinking finality.
I fed once, he thought.
And it’s already changing me.
A ripple passed through his limbs, like his body wanted to remind him: Yes. Still here. Still yours. For now.
He flexed his claws against the dirt. They responded fine. But something in the joints felt… looser. Like the shape underneath was still settling. Like his bones were listening for instructions.
He wasn’t sure who would be giving them.
Luin glanced at his reflection in a shallow puddle near the corpse. The light was dim, warped by ripples, but he still saw the glint of his own yellow eyes. Slitted. Reptilian. They didn’t look surprised anymore.
They looked… patient.
Stormdrake Hatchling.
Level One.
He tried to laugh, but it came out as a rasp.
“Some first day.”
From across the nest, the imp shifted again—just a little. Its gaze hadn't left him since the feeding. That wasn’t surprise in its eyes now. That was memory. It had seen this happen before. Or something like it.
Luin stared back.
Neither of them moved.
Neither blinked.
Finally, the imp turned its head. Not away—just... onward. Like it had seen enough. Like it had accepted the new shape of things.
The nymph, half-blended into the far wall, resumed its eerie stillness. Camouflaged but present. Quiet, but not gone.
Luin swallowed. The ache in his throat had faded. So had the nausea. His stomach was still tight, but it wasn't the sharp, gnawing kind of hunger anymore. It was just tension now. Waiting for the next thing.
His next decision.
He glanced again at the dried blood along his claws, cracked and flaking at the edges.
The first kill had changed the chamber.
But the first bite?
That had changed him.
[Instinct Milestone Progress: 11%]
Instinct is a measure of primal comprehension.
Your body is beginning to understand what it is.
The message blinked once and vanished.
No prompt this time. No follow-up.
Just information. Cold and quiet.
He had a sudden, sick realization:
This system doesn’t care what I think.
It wasn’t built for a person. It was built for something else—something that didn’t need to ask questions.
It only needed to feed, grow, and adapt.
He wasn't evolving into a higher being.
He was sinking into a deeper one.
Somewhere, behind the hum of the system, behind the cool efficiency of the menus and stat boosts, was a logic he didn’t yet understand.
A design that had nothing to do with Luin Mori, the overworked MMORPG junkie from Manila.
This was a body preparing for something bigger.
Something ancient.
He stared at the bones scattered across the nest—the ones he hadn’t noticed before.
Some were cracked. Some gnawed. Some melted along the edges, as if scorched from the inside out.
Dragons, the old myths said, didn’t just eat to live.
They ate to become.
And he was beginning to suspect that Stormdrakes hadn’t gone extinct.
They’d just gone quiet.
Waiting for a system like this one to wake back up.
Waiting for a hatchling stupid enough—or desperate enough—to follow it.
Luin closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. A low crackle of electricity jumped between two scales on his shoulder. Barely a twitch. More instinct now than flare.
His thoughts drifted again—not to food, or power, or survival.
But to what he might look like… a few more kills from now.
Not what he wanted.
But what the system needed.
