The cavern floor was a graveyard of fragments.
Shards of bone, fractured skulls, splintered ribs, dust coating every stone. Vel stood in the middle of it all, blade trembling in his grip. Not from exhaustion—his body knew no fatigue—but from something deeper, something crawling through his marrow.
The System pulsed within him.
[Evolution Threshold Reached.][50 EP accumulated.][Would you like to apply Full Body Enhancement?]
Y/N
The text seared itself across Vel's mind, cold and undeniable. He could almost hear the voice, a mechanical judge whispering into the void of his skull.
Fifty kills. Fifty bones broken. Fifty lights extinguished. He had earned this.
Vel stared down at his hands. His right arm still glimmered faintly with reinforced density, the first gift the System had given him. The rest of his form remained pale, brittle ivory, a fragile mockery of life.
Half of him was strong. Half was weak.
"…No," Vel whispered to himself, sockets narrowing, the pale fire within burning brighter. "Not half. Not broken. If I am to exist in this form… then I will exist whole."
He willed the System to proceed.
[Evolution Confirmed.][Full Body Enhancement Beginning.]Warning: Process irreversible.]
The cavern shuddered.
Vel collapsed onto his knees as the transformation began. His bones ignited from within, pale fire coursing through every joint, every fragment of marrow that should not exist in a hollow shell. The sound came next—a hideous, grinding screech, as if a forge had been lit within his ribcage.
His femurs groaned, cracking under invisible pressure. His spine arched, vertebrae popping one by one, reshaping. His skull split with fine fractures, thin fissures racing across the ivory like veins of lightning.
Vel clawed at the stone floor, gouging grooves into it with his fingers as the System remade him.
The ivory bone turned darker, denser. A metallic sheen spread across him like infection, consuming his frame piece by piece. His arm—the one already enhanced—was reforged again, the glow deepening, strengthening. But now the transformation spread further.
His ribs hardened, twisting into blackened iron-like arcs that gleamed even in the cavern's faint gloom. His spine fused, every joint locking with unnatural precision, each vertebra snapping into place with the sound of hammered steel.
Vel screamed—silently. No flesh, no throat, no voice. But his sockets blazed with agony, light flaring like a furnace as his skeleton was destroyed and remade.
The cracking intensified. His femurs shattered apart in bursts of dust, only to re-form, knitting together not as brittle bone but as iron-hard limbs. His pelvis crumbled, reassembling into sharpened ridges that interlocked with unyielding strength.
His skull cracked fully apart. For a moment, Vel thought he would collapse into fragments, another nameless corpse in this pit of death. But the pieces re-forged, snapping together, reshaped. His jaw clenched shut, now lined with sharper, denser teeth-like ridges. His sockets glowed like molten ore within a steel mask.
The agony was endless. The sound was unbearable. Metal grinding against bone, bone breaking and fusing, a living forge trapped in a hollow body.
And then—silence.
Vel staggered upright.
The cavern around him had grown still. Even the echoes of distant skeletons seemed to falter, as if the graveyard itself recognized something unnatural had emerged.
Vel looked down at himself.
His entire form glimmered faintly in the dimness. No longer pale ivory, no longer brittle. His frame had darkened to a deep, iron sheen. His bones were no longer mere remnants of a corpse, but weapons in their own right. Metal-boned. Hardened. Evolved.
He flexed his hand. The sound was different now—a faint metallic rasp, not the brittle clatter of bone. His grip tightened around his sword, and the hilt groaned as though crushed by a vice.
"…This is not a skeleton's body anymore."
Vel's voice echoed in his mind, hollow and filled with awe. His sockets flared brighter, the pale fire burning hotter than ever. He moved his limbs, testing them. The awkward jerks, the marionette stumbles—gone. His motions flowed with unnatural precision, smoother, faster, stronger.
Infinite stamina. Reinforced density. A body of metal bones.
He lifted his sword and slashed. The air cracked with the force. The battered blade could barely keep up with his new strength; it shuddered, groaned, but held.
Vel turned toward the corridor. The rattling had returned. More skeletons. Drawn by the sound of his transformation, they came like moths to flame.
Perfect.
Vel stepped forward, the cavern floor crunching beneath his metal frame.
The first skeleton rounded the corner. Vel didn't even raise his sword. He swung his fist instead.
The impact shattered the enemy's skull instantly, fragments flying in a spray of dust. The rest of its body toppled, lifeless. Vel stared at his hand, clenched into a fist.
"…One strike."
Another came, shrieking, weapon raised. Vel's foot lashed out. His kick tore through the enemy's ribcage, exploding it into fragments. The skeleton's spine snapped apart like brittle twigs.
Vel advanced, a storm of destruction. His metal form was unstoppable. Blades clashed against him, but where once he had been forced to parry or dodge, now he simply absorbed the strikes. Steel scraped across his body, sparks flying, but his metal bones did not crack.
The enemies' weapons shattered before he did.
Vel's sockets flared as he fought. Not with desperation anymore, not with fear. With exhilaration. Each strike was a test. Each kill, confirmation. He was beyond them now. No longer prey. No longer one of them.
The System whispered again:
[+2 EP. +1 AP.][+2 EP. +1 AP.][+2 EP. +1 AP.]
Total EP: 62Total AP: 23
The notifications rolled endlessly, numbers climbing as the fragments of his kin piled around him. Vel fought not for survival, but for fuel. For evolution.
His blade split through skulls, his fists shattered spines, his kicks crumbled ribcages. Dust coated him, layer upon layer, until he looked like a revenant born of ash.
And yet, it was not enough.
Each kill fed him, but the hunger only grew sharper. His sockets burned with it. His frame thrummed with it. Power was intoxicating, but incomplete. The System dangled endless evolution before him, and he would seize it all.
Vel paused in the silence after his latest slaughter. He looked down at his metallic hands, flexing the fingers, admiring the strength.
"…I am becoming something else."
The words echoed, hollow yet triumphant.
Not a man.Not a skeleton.Not even undead in the way these puppets were.
A monster, forged by the System.
Vel tightened his grip on his blade, sockets burning brighter. His path was clear now. Every enemy was prey. Every kill was fuel. Every fragment brought him closer to perfection.
He turned deeper into the cavern, where the echoes of more enemies stirred. Where more bones rattled. Where the promise of evolution awaited.
The cavern of the dead would not consume him.
He would consume it.
And with every fragment of bone ground to dust beneath his feet, with every kill that fed his evolution, he would carve his way into something greater.
Something eternal.
Something beyond life, beyond death, beyond humanity.
Vel stepped into the darkness. His metallic frame gleamed like a weapon forged in hell. His sockets flared like lanterns of hunger. His sword trembled with anticipation.
And in his hollow mind, one truth repeated itself like a mantra.
"I am not man. I am not skeleton. I am evolution itself."
The hunt continued.