THEY THREW ME INTO THE ABYSS, SO I DEVOURED EVERYTHING

THE FIRST TASTE

The razor-crawler thrashed wildly in midair, its six spiny legs kicking at the empty darkness. Acidic green saliva dripped from its snapping mandibles, sizzled against Felix’s cheek, and burned his skin.

Felix couldn't move his neck. The black tendrils anchored to his ribs held the three-hundred-pound monster pinned six inches above his chest, vibrating with unnatural tension.

"Do not flinch," the Void Sovereign hissed inside his ears, its voice sounding like grinding stone. "Hold still and open your throat."

"It's burning me!" Felix choked out, squinting as the hot, acrid fluid dripped into his eye.

"Pain is just energy leaving your useless skin," the entity laughed. "Now drink!"

The tendrils pulsed. Long, hollow spikes buried inside the beast’s tough shell began to contract, pulling backward like massive syringes. A wet, sickening slurping sound filled the narrow cavern as a bright green glow surged along the length of the shadowy tendrils, traveling straight into the mark on Felix’s chest.

The beast let out a shrill, vibrating scream that rattled the loose rocks around them. Its round, armored body shriveled like a dry leaf in a campfire. Its hard chitin turned dull, cracked, and caved in on itself until there was nothing left but a pile of coarse gray powder.

The ash rained down onto Felix's face.

Instant, blinding heat exploded inside his chest. It felt as if someone had poured molten iron directly into his veins. Felix screamed into the dark, his back arching off the pile of old bones.

His broken collarbone popped loudly, snapping back into its socket with a sickening crunch. The sharp, agonizing pain in his ribs dissolved in a wave of dark, soothing numbness. Felix gasped, sitting up straight as his lungs expanded without a trace of blood or tension.

He looked down at his arm in the pitch black. He didn't need a torch anymore. His eyes picked up faint, pale purple outlines across the stone floor, outlining every crack and pebble in the cavern.

On his right forearm, his pale skin was gone. In its place grew smooth, overlapping scales of jet-black chitin, warm to the touch and hard as forged iron.

"What did you do to me?" Felix whispered, running his left thumb over the rough edge of the new scales.

"I repaired your pathetic frame," the Sovereign rasped, its voice sounding fuller, stronger than before. "And I took what was useful. You walk faster now. You see in the dark. Be grateful."

Around them, the dry clicking sounds suddenly stopped.

The rest of the pack had gone dead silent. Through his new purple vision, Felix could see four more razor-crawlers crouched on the high granite ledges fifty feet away. Their long, multi-jointed legs were trembling against the stone. They were no longer looking at a wounded human. They were looking at an apex predator.

"They are afraid," Felix said, a cold, slow smile spreading across his lips.

"They should be," the entity replied. "Do not let them run. Their cores are small, but their blood is sweet."

One of the crawlers turned to scurry up a narrow wall crack, its claws scraping frantically against the rock.

Felix didn't think; he just moved. He pushed off his heels with a sudden, explosive burst of speed that surprised even him. He crossed twenty feet of bone-littered ground in a single stride, jumping straight up into the air and catching the fleeing beast by its rear leg.

"Get down here," Felix growled.

He slammed the massive creature into the cavern floor, shattering its outer shell against the flat granite. Before the monster could strike back with its sharp head-spikes, Felix thrust his right arm forward. Three black tendrils shot out from beneath his scaly knuckles, driving deep into the creature's exposed neck.

The beast shuddered once and turned to dust.

The remaining three crawlers scattered in total panic, screeching as they scrambled toward the dark tunnels higher up the cavern wall. Felix hunted them down one by one, feeling lighter, sharper, and colder with every core he consumed. The dark energy settled in his gut like a heavy stone, driving away the cold draft of the pit.

When the last monster crumbled into ash, Felix stood alone in the center of the subterranean hall. He wiped a streak of monster blood from his jaw, staring at his hands. The black scales now covered his entire right arm up to the shoulder, stopping just short of his collarbone.

"Satisfied?" Felix asked, his breath coming in clean, quiet cycles.

"Hardly," the Sovereign murmured. "That was merely water for a dying man. We need real meat. Human magic cores. Royal bloodlines."

"We will get to them," Felix said. He turned his head, his ears catching a faint, rhythmic thumping sound echoing down from a high ledge at the back of the cavern.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

It was the sound of heavy iron boots walking a set beat.

Felix scrambled up a steep stack of boulders, clinging to the wet rock with his sharp chitinous fingers. At the top of the pile, half-hidden behind a curtain of hanging black moss, sat an ancient stone archway. A broad flight of carved stairs stretched upward into the mountain, lit by the faint, yellow glow of oil lamps attached to the distant stone walls.

At the top of the landing stood two heavily armed wardens wearing the silver crest of the kingdom border guard, iron pikes held loosely in their gloved hands.

"Did you hear something down in the pit?" one guard asked, leaning over the low stone wall to spit into the dark.

"Just the crawlers fighting over trash," the second guard grunted, shuffling his feet to keep warm. "The High Priest dumped another dead noble down there twenty minutes ago. The beasts are probably chewing on his boots."

Felix crouched in the shadow of the archway, his purple eyes locking onto the bright, glowing blue mana cores resting inside the two guards' chests.

"They think I am trash," Felix whispered, his black scales rippling as dark tendrils coiled tightly around his ribs, ready to strike.

Felix stepped quietly onto the first stone stair, his shadow stretching long and thin up the lit wall behind the two unsuspecting guards.