I heard It below I saw it.
Skreeee... Chchch...
A low clicking noise echoed through the cavern.
My body froze.
My wings stiffened.
My instincts, moth instinc5s, not human ones-screamed danger.
Something crawled across the rocks. Something big. Something fast. Then I saw it.
A gaint rat.
Not a normal rat
Not a cute one.
A dungeon rat, with red eyes and sharp teeth, its fur patchy and its body almost three times my size.
It sniffed the air. Then its eyes locked onto me.
"Oh no."
The rat screeched and charged. I panicked and flapped my wings wildly.
"FLY, FLY, FLY-!"
I shot upward, barely missing its snapping jaws. The rat jumped, hitting the wall where i had been.
I darted left, then rightm then upward. My wings strained. My body trembled. The rat kept chasing.
"Why am I being chased this early in life?!!!"
I wasn't even an hour old.
I flew erratically, doing zig-zags like a drunk mosquito. The rat leaped again, its claws gouging the wall.
I felt wind brush my wings, too close. Then my mana sense tingled.
A faint blue glow came from crystal stuck in the wall above me.
A Mana Shard.
My instinct whispered: Eat.
"Huh? Eat that? Now?!" Another screech, another snap of teeth.
"No time-Fine!"
I dove for the crystal and bit it. My tiny mouth couldn't chew like a human, but my unique skill activated on its own.
[Eclipse Gluttony Activated]
-Mana Shard (low Grade) consumed
+2 Essence
+5 Mana
-Absorption Complete
A warm energy flowed into my wings.
"A-ah! I feel... Stronger?"
Just a tiny bit
But enough.
I shot upward as the rat lunged again.
This time i dodged smoothly.
Flutter-vmmm-
Wait that movement felt different.
[Skill Leveled Up]
-Flutter step Lvl.2
The rat screeched in furstration. I didn't wait for round three. I flew into a narrow crack in the ceiling, too small for the rat to enter. It snapped its jaws several times before giving up and scurrying away.
I didn't relax until I heard the fading footsteps.
"Haah.. haah... Ofh right, i don;t have lungs."
But the feeling remained.
I survived, barely,
I landed on a small stone inside the crack. My wings trembled from fear and exhaustion. "I almost died.. in my second life.. as a moth."
What cruel comdey was this? But then I remembered something.
The system.
The skills.
The evolution.
Maybe... Maybe this reincarnation wasns't a mistake. Maybe this was a chance.
A chance to grow.
To evolve.
To survive.
To climb the food chain.
To someday leave this cave... And see the world of solaris myself.
I looked at my tny wings in the shimmering blue light.
"I won't stay weak."
A moth could evolve.
A moth could grow stronger.
A moth could become something impossible.
If I had the system, then I had hope.
Small hope.
But hope.
I opened my HUD again.
[Status Window]
Name: Ryo
Race: Lunar Moth (Infant)
Level: 1
Essence: 2
Mana: 5/10
Strenght: 1
Agility: 3
Endurance: 1
Magic: 2
Unique Skill:
-Eclipse Gluttony (lvl.1)
Skills:
-Flutter step (lvl2)
-Mana Sense (lvl1)
-Night Vision (lvl1)
Weak.
Very weak.
But it was a start.
"Waht now...?"
My stomach if moths even had one felt empaty. The system said I needed essence to evolve, and essence came from eating mana, life force, or matter.
So, to grow stronger-
I needed to eat.
I looked at the glowing moss.
The mana water.
The scattered crystals
Maybe I could survive here.
Maybe I could become more than a moth.
I spread my wings again, ready to explore the cavern.
"Alright... Second life, day one. Lets not die horribly again."
I fluttered out of the crack.
Into the maze.
Into the danger.
Into my new fate.
And somewhere in the dark....
Something else watched me.
Something far larger than that rat.
Something hungry.
The crack in the ceiling felt safe for now, but I knew I couldn't stay there forever.
I peeked outm my antennae twitching, the cave outside was quiet, too quiet. The gaint rat was gone, but that didn't mean the danger left with it. This place, the Undercity Maze, was built to kill anything weak.
And I was the definition of weak.
Still, I took a deep breath-more like a mental breath since moth bodies didn't work the same, and fluttered out of the crack.
My wings felt steadier than before. The mana shard I ate earlier gave me a bit more strength.
But only a bit. I hovered low over the ground, following the soft, glowing moss. It lit the cve just enough for me to see where I was going.
"This cave... Really looks like a place where newbies die."
The Undercity Maze wasn't made by humans. It was formed naturally inside the tower of Night, an ancient structure older than any kingdom. People believed the tower was alive, constanlt shifting, changing, and creating new tunnels.
That meant the cave I was in the might not look the same tomorrow.
What great news for someone like me, who could get lost just by turning around too fast.
As I flew forward, my mana sense tickled faintly, small particles of mana drifted in the air like dust, slowly sinking toward the moss.
"Maybe the moss feeds on mana..."
It made sense, everything here felt connected. The moss, the water, the crystal... Even the monsters.
Everything inside the Tower of Night lived iff mana in ine form or another.
Including me.
After a few minutes of exploring, something hit me.
I was starving.
Not human starving.
Moth starving.
An instintive hunger gnawed at me. It felt like my body was telling me: Eat something now or die soon.
Like I needed essence or mana to keep myself alive.
To be continued...