Crack.

  The Core of Protection is engaged.

  “Gah!” Tyler shouted, flinching back as a transparent, ten-foot-wide bubble popped into existence around him.

  The cave looked so much more ominous in the dark, giant carvings of some sort scarring the walls around him in jagged shapes. He felt a pressure release from his senses that must have coincided with Savadiere leaving the island, and he still smelled the mild saltiness of the sea permeating the air.

  The bubble stopped behind him as it melded against the cave’s existing walls. There were piles of fruit to his back, and the remains of a couple of broken workstations scattered around him. One of them was aflame with smokeless green dragonfire, and its soft glow was the only thing illuminating the large cave.

  Then he caught sight of his attacker as the beige-carapaced thing lunged towards him once more.

  System Boon Engaged: Analysis

  Juvenile Duneclaw

  Duneclaws are the foremost pests of the world of Korshaan, fast-reproducing scavengers that collect sources of magic in their pouches and infest them with their eggs.

  Their tail-claws are reinforced with layers of chitin and strong enough to crack bone, but the moisture of this juvenile’s environment has weakened the rest of its armor, making it vulnerable to crushing strikes. It has not developed the pheromones that cause its siblings to swarm upon its death, but the scent of its wounds will still attract its brethren should they draw close.

  Lit by the flickering verdant light, it looked like a scorpion mixed with a lobster, with two fat pincers on its forelimbs and a series of whiskers around its fanged mouth. But instead of a stinger, another claw — thinner and even more wicked-looking — emerged from its long upraised tail.

  And instead of the tiny scorpions or arm-sized lobsters of Earth, this one was larger than most dogs.

  Time sped back up, and Tyler watched it swipe down with its right pincer, creating a horrible shrieking noise as its strike bounced off the transparent barrier.

  He trembled as the events of the past day flew by, his brain working overtime to process it all as the creature slowly put crack after crack into the barrier around him.

  I’m undergoing a trial to Awaken something. And the Curse is taking hold of my body. And this all happened because a giant purple storm took me and put me on an island full of monsters in the middle of a vat of cosmic soup.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  The duneclaw threw itself at the shield again and again, and though his entire body trembled, Tyler forced himself to focus.

  He had to get up. He had to —

  “Woah!”

  He stumbled, his body generating far more force than he should have been capable of. He careened over to the floor, and newly-awakened instinct brought his hands out in front of him, catching him in a roll and landing him back on his feet in a crouch.

  The banana.

  Like a sixth sense, he felt energy coursing through him, seeping into his limbs like water onto dry sand. It felt amazing. It dampened the pain, made it bearable to move behind all the adrenaline and stress. And as he moved…

  It was like all his life he’d been burning gasoline, and now he was loaded with jet fuel.

  His next attempt to stand worked, but then the first step took him too far, and as he tried to catch himself as he had earlier —

  “Fuck.”

  He seethed as the enhancement faded, and he landed hard against the cave wall, his legs knocking over a large sack of coconuts. The inflammation raged through his body now, whatever the Curse had done to him clearly aggravating his condition just as much as the day’s exertion.

  After that brief respite, the pain only felt that much worse.

  He grimaced, wanting nothing but to curl up into a ball and cry as his body took vengeance on him for daring to have hope.

  But he saw the spiderweb of cracks spreading through the shield around him. He didn’t have time. He pushed against the smooth, cracked stone, the action ten times harder than it would have been with whatever energy had been helping him earlier. He still felt something welling up within him, but somehow it wasn’t connecting properly. If he could just —

  The shield shattered.

  The duneclaw instantly lunged at him, and Tyler threw himself to the side, just barely dodging the thing’s leaping strike as it lashed out with its massive tail.

  He caught himself in a roll and shot to his feet, the energy surging through him once more. The monster had crashed into the wall, its chitters turning into a shriek, but it was only the barest moment before it was running at him again.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  There was a leg of a table two steps away. If he could reach it —

  Too late.

  “Fuck!” he screamed as the energy failed him halfway through his dodge, allowing the insectoid creature to score a gash down his arm. The thing hadn’t even grabbed him with its claw — it had been the outside of the pincer that had lacerated his skin as the true attack just barely missed.

  His instinct was to grab the wound, to curl up, to run away. But even as a new pain joined the symphony of agony singing through his body, he fought against it and grabbed the table leg.

  He needed to fight back. He needed to think.

  That message said it was vulnerable to crushing strikes.

  He weakly swung at the thing as it lunged, missing and catching another gash along his wrist. He almost tripped on one of the stray coconuts that now dotted the cave floor. His knees screamed with the effort. The energy still wasn’t back.

  Fuck.

  It had almost caught his hand that time. It was being more cautious now, slowly circling him as it hissed wildly with its alien mouth.

  Strategy. He needed strategy.

  As he looked closer, he could see that the chitin in the thing’s front pincers had cracked from its strikes against the Core’s projection. It hadn’t used them a single time against him — it was attacking exclusively with its tail.

  And though it was far bigger than it had any right to be, Tyler still had the size advantage. With anything hard enough, he was sure he could break through that armor. A well-placed rock to the brain would surely do it in, if he could time it with those bursts he got from the energy.

  The only rocks he saw were too far away, but he did have those coconuts.

  As a new rush of energy flooded his body, Tyler reached under him and hurled a coconut at the duneclaw. The fruit passed straight over the creature as it scuttled to chase him, but then another one caught it flat in the face.

  Though the boost had faded halfway through the awkward throw, he still imparted more force into the projectile than he’d mustered in years. The monster reeled back, and when it drew itself upright again, he could see a new crack in its chitin.

  It screeched, and whether it was in pain or in rage, Tyler couldn’t tell.

  The creature dashed forwards, completely ignoring a far-too-weak coconut hurl, and leaped at him, giant pincer coming down to close around his neck.

  He barely got his stick up in time to block.

  The thing’s tail crushed the damaged wood, and he felt an instinctual terror rise up within him as it collided with him, its two front limbs snapping at the fabric of his pajama shirt.

  Agony sprouted from his chest as his back collided against the wall.

  Blood. Leaking.

  I’m going to die. I’m going to die.

  The broken half of his table leg that he still held on to was pressed uselessly against the thing, and his arms trembled with the effort of just keeping it up. This thing was completely overpowering him, its claws digging gashes in his chest with a primal fury. What the fuck was he doing? What kind of insanity had possessed him, thinking he could survive anything?

  The thing’s tail reared back for another strike.

  No. I’m sick of being trampled.

  With a guttural scream, Tyler slammed its body into the ground with all the force his cramping arms could muster.

  No enhancement. Just every ounce of power he could wrench out of this frail form.

  Slap.

  His follow-up strike with the broken wood barely stunned it. A pincer had closed around his leg, but it was one of the weaker front limbs.

  Fuck.

  He gritted his teeth and raised his other leg, energy streaming through him once more. And as the thing’s tail rose up for another strike, he stomped on it.

  Tyler wasn’t that heavy, all things considered. He was of decidedly below-average height, and his inflammation had dashed all his hopes of ever gaining some muscle on his frame. When he’d looked himself in the mirror these past few years, he’d seen barely anything more than skin and bones.

  But he was still a full-grown human being, and this thing weighed maybe fifty pounds at best.

  As his bare foot hit the chitin plate connecting the tail to the rest of the creature’s body, the joint caved in with a spray of insectoid blood. Its tail went limp, and the claw gripping his calf tightened as its entire body convulsed.

  And though his knees felt like they would snap, he stomped down again. And again. And again.

  With all the rage and hate and defiance that came from being whisked from his home and trapped in a cave with a horrid monster, he slammed his foot into the thing, screaming as its chitinous body cracked underneath his blows. He demolished every section of its body, from its head to its tail, and then back up again as he felt a cloud of determination rush over his mind. He was fucking tired of getting run over like roadkill. He would not die to something like this. He would…

  As the enhancement gave out one final time, he noticed the small splotches of red dripping onto the duneclaw’s now-immobile form. The thing’s head had been utterly caved in, and bits of slimy flesh clung to his foot. He’d killed it.

  For a moment he stood there, chest heaving as he looked down at the dead monster.

  The blood was cold against his skin.

  He took a shaky breath, feeling the tearing pain in his flesh — the red-hot pressure pooling in his joints. He managed one last stomp.

  Then his legs gave out from underneath him.

  — – —

  But though he couldn’t see it, as Tyler Thorn was knocked unconscious on the cold cave floor, a series of notifications dotted that strange, new area of his mind. Within his soul, the crackling, chaotic energy of the Curse finally dissipated, and every corner of his being was transformed as something Awakened within him.

  You have consumed a Storm-Cursed Treasure. Curse Class: Primordial Infinity.

  Those Cursed with Primordial Infinity are bound in paradox, just as the Primordials of old. Their souls are limitlessly large, infinite in potential, and yet forever bound to the confines of the body. One’s meridians remain eternally locked, their mana unable to affect the outside world despite its unending volume.

  For most, this Curse represents a fate of eternal torment — of boundless potential but the inability to wield it. The majority of those who are cursed with Primordial Infinity die powerless and pitiful, full of anger and regret. But for a select few… they may rise far beyond the realm of imagination.

  Congratulations! You have Awakened a Novice Resonance with the Aspect of Resilience.