Rise Of The Monster Slayer

Chapter 6: Metamorphosis

The wet click of mandibles echoed off the damp walls of the subterranean cavern.

Through half-open, paralyzed eyes, Aren could barely make out the shapes emerging from the darkness. They were Corpse Crawlers. Blind, subterranean scavengers the size of large hunting hounds. Pale chitin encased their bodies. They had no eyes. They relied on the glowing, blood-red bioluminescent sacs throbbing on their foreheads to communicate with the pack.

They had smelled his blood.

Aren's mind screamed at his body to move. To stand. To do anything but lie there. But the system's neuromuscular paralysis held. He was a prisoner inside his own flesh. He was forced to watch as the first Crawler stepped into his narrow field of vision. Its jaws opened wide. Green acid dripped from its fangs. It hissed as it hit the wet gravel. The jaws reached for his throat.

Move! Aren's consciousness shrieked.

Move!

[External Threat Detected during Metamorphosis Phase 1.]

[Engaging Emergency Override Protocol.]

A jolt of electricity arced down Aren's spine. The paralysis held. His body moved on its own.

Biological instinct drove him. Programmed by the system. Aren's right arm shot upward. His pale hand clamped around the Corpse Crawler's segmented throat.

Aren felt the power surge through his muscles. He was not controlling them. He was a passenger. He did not use a weapon. His body simply squeezed. A crunch echoed through the cavern. The thick chitin of the monster's neck shattered under his grip. Hot, green blood sprayed across his forearm. He did not feel the burning pain. His hijacked body hurled the carcass into the center of the advancing pack.

The remaining Crawlers shrieked. A high, piercing sound of static. They swarmed him at once.

Aren's body thrashed on the gravel. A vessel built for slaughter. Piloted by something else. He punched. He kicked. He tore at the monsters with mechanical efficiency. He crushed armored skulls beneath his boots. He snapped spiked limbs with his bare hands.

At the same time, the metamorphosis reached its peak. Inside him, the histology of his tissues was torn apart and rewoven by the monster blood the system had absorbed. His epithelial cells densified to resist the acid splashing across his skin. The tissues anchoring his joints felt like iron cables. His striated muscle fibers packed together with a density that was not human.

The exertion of the fight, combined with the restructuring at the microscopic level, was too much for his human brain to process.

The pain reached a blinding crescendo. The world went dark.

When Aren opened his eyes, the cavern was silent.

He gasped. He sat up. He expected a wave of crippling agony. There was nothing. The damp temperature of the underground river no longer bothered him. His breathing was slow. Even. Deep.

He looked at his hands in the faint light of the dead Crawlers' fading sacs. The blisters, scars, and callouses from years of digging in the muddy slums were gone. His skin was pale and smooth. It felt like cured leather. He clenched his right fist. His knuckles popped. The power resting quietly in his hand was intoxicating.

He was not a weak, malnourished gravekeeper anymore.

Scattered on the gravel around him lay the crushed, broken, dismembered bodies of a dozen Corpse Crawlers. He had slaughtered the entire pack with his bare hands while unconscious.

"What did you do to me?" Aren whispered to the dark cavern. His voice sounded deeper. It carried weight.

A translucent purple screen appeared before his eyes.

[Metamorphosis Phase 1 Complete. Host baseline has been elevated beyond mortal limits.]

[Welcome to the Beast Core System.]

Aren stared at the words. His breath caught. He reached a hand out to touch the screen. His fingers passed through the purple light. It was an interface projected into his vision.

"Status," Aren muttered. He recalled the drunken tales of magical artifacts and noble bloodlines he had heard elite hunters boast about in the taverns.

The screen flickered and expanded. A readout scrolled across it.

[Status]

Name: Aren

Level: 1

Evolution Stage: None

Title Earned: None

[Attributes]

Strength: 15 (Average Human: 5)

Agility: 18 (Average Human: 5)

Vitality: 20 (Average Human: 5)

Perception: 12 (Average Human: 5)

[Skills]

Shadow Burst (Novice)

Shadow Vision (Passive)

[Evolution Path]

Next Milestone: 10 Cores

Beast Cores Absorbed: 0/10

Next Evolution: Rookie Slayer (10 Cores Required)

Aren read the screen three times. He wanted to be sure he was not hallucinating from blood loss.

His strength, agility, and vitality had tripled. He was three times stronger, faster, and tougher than a healthy man. He was likely on par with the physically conditioned Bronze-Rank hunters of the Vanguard Guild. But the most important piece of information was at the very bottom of the screen.

Beast Cores Absorbed.

Hunters risked their lives in the wasteland to hunt monsters for their valuable parts. Claws for forging. Hides for armor. And their Beast Cores. Cores were the crystallized, magical hearts of the monsters. The Holy Church used them to power the city's barriers, light the wealthy inner streets, and forge enchanted weapons. To a normal human, absorbing a Beast Core meant instant, agonizing death by magical radiation.

The system was telling him to absorb them. Implying it was a requirement for his growth.

He thought about the market stalls in the outer ring. He remembered watching a Bronze-Rank hunter slap a pouch of silver on a merchant's counter for three low-tier cores. The hunter had worn polished leather and a silver cloak. His boots had been clean. Aren had stood ten feet away in muddy rags, holding a shovel, and the hunter had not looked at him once. Cores were worth more than a slum family earned in a year. And the system wanted him to eat them.

"Is this it?" Aren whispered. His voice trembled. Awe. Vindication. "Is this my dream now come true?"

He had not been born with a wealthy family name. He had not been blessed with a magical affinity by the God of Light. He had been given a power born from the blood, mud, and desperation of the wasteland. By hunting monsters and absorbing their toxic cores, there was no limit to how strong he could become.

He stood. His body felt light. Balanced. Thrumming with energy.

He walked over to the largest Corpse Crawler. Using the jagged edge of a broken piece of its own chitin, he carved into the acidic chest cavity. His densified skin repelled the acid as he plunged his hands through the thick muscle.

Deep inside the ruined chest, pulsing with a faint green light, was a stone the size of a golf ball. A Beast Core.

He pulled it free from the gore.

[Beast Core Detected. Absorb?]

Aren did not hesitate. "Yes."

The stone dissolved into a stream of green energy. It seeped into the pores of his palm. A rush of warmth flooded his veins. It swept away the last remnants of his fatigue. It satisfied a deep hunger in his stomach.

[Absorption Complete. Evolution Progress: 1/10 Cores.]

A resolve settled in his chest. He thought of Lily, shivering in the muddy slums under the weight of the Enforcer's new tax. He thought of Captain Darius, riding safely back to the white walls of Asteria, believing his cowardly secret was buried under thousands of tons of rock.

Darius had left him in the dark to die. The dark had only made him stronger.

Aren turned from the river. He approached the sheer, jagged walls of the cavern. He began the long climb back toward the surface of the wasteland. His enhanced muscles made the ascent feel effortless. His fingers found purchase in the smallest cracks. His strength pulled his body weight upward as if gravity were a suggestion.

He climbed for what felt like hours. The rock face was slick in places where groundwater seeped through the stone. His palms found every hold. His feet found every ledge. The muscles in his back and shoulders worked without complaint. Halfway up, he paused on a narrow outcropping and looked down. The river was a black thread far below him. The bodies of the Crawlers were small pale shapes on the gravel shore.

He had died down there. Or close enough. The boy who had walked into the gorge with a rusted sword and a dented buckler was not the same boy climbing out.

He kept climbing.

He reached the top of the chasm. He pulled himself out of a narrow fissure in the earth. The sky above was a bruised, swirling purple. The air smelled of blood.

He took a steadying breath and stepped onto the mossy ground. He needed nine more cores.

A sharp snap of a heavy branch echoed behind him.

Aren spun. His newly acquired perception registered the threat before his eyes focused.

Standing less than ten feet away was a Razor-Boar the size of a transport wagon. Massive, razor-sharp tusks dripped with boiling saliva. Small, beady black eyes locked onto his chest.

The beast dug its split hooves into the dirt. It let out an ear-shattering squeal. It charged at him with terrifying speed.