The silence after a battle is worse than the noise during it.
I knelt in the dark, hands trembling, claws already retracted but the phantom ache still burned in my bones. The spot where she had fallen was still seared into the stone. Not even ash remained, just that scorched imprint and the faint metallic tang of her blood—if you could call it that.
[HP: 72%][Stamina: 48%][Corruption: 61% – Warning Level]
The HUD didn't let me look away from the truth. I'd crossed a line. Sixty-one percent. Every time I blinked, I swore I could see faint veins of black threading across my skin. Not scars. Not dirt. Corruption.
And worse—part of me liked it.
I could still feel the rush of strength from that moment when I'd stopped holding back, when I let the hunger off its leash. The Bound One had fallen like all the rest. And I… I had survived.
Survival was all that mattered. Right?
The cavern shuddered. Dust rained from above. At first I thought it was just settling from the fight, but then the ground split beneath me, jagged cracks snaking outward from the mark where she'd died.
The dungeon was shifting again.
A section of the far wall tore open, jagged stone folding inward like teeth. A new passage stretched into blackness.
I laughed weakly, though it sounded more like a cough. "Yeah. Of course. No rest for the damned."
I pushed myself up, retrieving my dagger. The metal felt pitiful in my grip after what I had just unleashed. Still, I needed it. A reminder that I was human, at least in shape, if nothing else.
The passage swallowed me whole.
It sloped downward, tighter, the walls pulsing faintly with that same sick rhythm. My hand brushed the stone and it was warm—like skin over fever.
The air grew heavier with each step. My lungs strained. Then the whispers started again.
Feed.You're close.We're waiting.
I clenched my jaw, but the words pressed against the inside of my skull like nails scraping bone.
I wasn't alone.
At the tunnel's end, the chamber opened into something impossible.
It wasn't stone walls anymore. It was flesh.
Veins the size of ropes coiled across surfaces that dripped with ichor. The floor pulsed under my boots, each step sinking slightly into slick muscle. A colossal heart throbbed at the far end of the chamber, suspended by tendons thicker than tree trunks. Every beat rattled the air.
[Zone Identified: The Heart of the First Descent]
My knees weakened. It wasn't fear. It was awe. And hunger. God, the hunger hit me like a tidal wave. My veins screamed with need. My claws itched to rip. My mouth watered with a taste I'd never known.
The heart called to me.
But something else moved first.
Figures peeled out of the walls—five of them. At first they looked human, but their bodies were twisted, fused with chunks of stone and metal. Their eyes glowed faintly blue, same as the girl. Same as me.
One stepped forward, face half-melted into a permanent leer. His voice was wet gravel. "Another stray."
The others hissed in chorus. "Another thief."
I raised my dagger. My voice came out raw. "What the hell are you?"
"Predecessors," the first one gurgled. "Failures. Left behind when the dungeon rejected us."
My stomach lurched. Failures. That meant… they were what happened when Corruption won.
And looking at them was like staring into a broken mirror.
They attacked without warning.
One lunged, arm splitting open into a jagged blade. I barely ducked under it, rolling across the slick floor. Another's chest burst open mid-charge, sending barbed tendrils whipping through the air.
[Enemy Group Detected: Corrupted Echoes – Tier Variable]
My HUD flared warnings. My Stamina was already low, and I couldn't fight five of them without—
The hunger surged.
I let it.
[Consume Overdrive: Active][Corruption +12%]
Claws tore from my hands again, longer this time, hooked like scythes. I ripped into the nearest Echo, tearing half its torso free in a spray of steaming ichor. It didn't scream. It laughed.
"You're one of us."
The words cut deeper than its claws ever could.
Another slammed me from behind, knocking me face-first into the pulsing floor. Flesh writhed beneath me, veins tightening like they wanted to drag me under. I roared, twisting, claws shredding its throat. Black liquid spattered across my face.
[HP: 54%][Stamina: 22%]
Too fast. Too relentless. My HUD bled red with warnings.
"Shut up," I hissed. I didn't know if I was talking to the monsters or myself.
I lunged again, ripping, tearing, feeding. Each one I struck fell into twitching pieces—but every bite of strength came with a price.
[Consume Successful: Power Absorbed][Corruption: 73%][Corruption: 78%][Corruption: 82% – Critical]
The last Echo fell, its skull crushed in my claws. I was drenched in their ichor, chest heaving. My vision split into fragments, reality bending at the edges.
My HUD screamed across my eyes.
[Warning: Corruption Threshold Approaching Critical State]
I staggered, clutching my head. My skin crawled with black veins pulsing beneath it. My heartbeat wasn't mine anymore—it was the dungeon's, beating in time with that massive heart looming ahead.
And then I heard her voice again.
You're like me.
The girl. The Bound One. Except she was dead. Gone. Wasn't she?
No. Not gone. Inside you now.
I collapsed to my knees, claws digging into the pulsing floor. My reflection shimmered faintly in a pool of ichor nearby—and I almost screamed.
It wasn't my face.
My jaw was elongated, teeth jagged. My eyes glowed faintly blue, same as theirs. My veins spread black across my cheeks like ink under glass.
I wasn't Jin anymore.
I was becoming something else.
The heart beat louder, rattling the chamber. Veins along the walls thrashed like snakes. A voice boomed, deeper than thunder, inside my head.
Feed. Become. Return to me.
I staggered to my feet. Every part of me wanted to obey. To throw myself into that beating core, tear it apart, devour it until nothing was left.
But one part of me—the smallest, weakest part—remembered.
My mother's face. My sister's laugh. The sound of rain on the old roof back home. The ordinary, human things that mattered.
I clenched my claws so tight they cut my palms. Black ichor dripped down, sizzling where it hit the floor.
"I'm not yours," I spat. My voice was a growl. Not quite human. Not yet monster.
The heart shuddered. The chamber convulsed like the dungeon itself was laughing.
[Boss Encounter: The Heart of the First Descent]
The HUD blazed bright red.
And then the chamber collapsed into chaos.
Tendrils exploded from the walls, thick as tree trunks, lashing wildly. One smashed into the floor where I'd been standing, sending chunks of flesh-rock flying. I sprinted, lungs burning, dodging, weaving. My claws tore into the nearest tendril, black ichor spraying across my chest.
But for every one I cut, three more grew.
The hunger screamed inside me. Give in. End it. Tear it apart.
For once—I didn't resist.
I dove straight into the storm, claws ripping, body twisting with inhuman speed. Every strike landed with unnatural precision, every movement fluid, perfect.
I wasn't Jin the survivor anymore. I was the predator.
And the heart knew it.
Its beats grew erratic, faster, desperate.
I roared, slashing through the tendons that anchored it to the ceiling. The whole chamber shook, veins rupturing, ichor raining down in black waves.
The heart screamed. A soundless, psychic wail that tore through my skull.
[HP: 28%][Stamina: 9%][Corruption: 89% – CRITICAL]
My vision blurred. My legs gave out. I collapsed onto the twitching floor, staring up at the colossal organ as it thrashed in its death throes.
Then—silence.
The heart stilled.
The chamber fell quiet, pulsing slowing into nothing.
A notification blinked in my fading vision.
[Boss Defeated: The Heart of the First Descent][Path Unlocked: ???][Corruption: 92%]
My breath rattled in my throat. My claws wouldn't retract. My veins burned black. My reflection in the ichor pool wasn't human anymore.
But I had survived.
For now.
I whispered into the silence, my voice breaking:
"How much of me is left?"
The dungeon didn't answer. Only the HUD did—its letters glowing brighter, hungrier, as the chamber around me began to shift once again.