Chapter 31 — The Taste of Power
Alex woke choking.
The rift did not welcome consciousness. It punished it.
Air tore into his lungs like splintered glass, cold and sharp, carrying a pressure that crushed his chest inward. He rolled violently onto his side, coughing until his throat burned, until his vision swam with black veins. The ground beneath him was damp and uneven, soil mixed with something fibrous that pulsed faintly under his palm—as if the land itself had a pulse and resented being touched.
He retched.
Nothing came up.
His body shook, not from weakness alone, but from the lingering echo of something that should not have happened.
Darkness pressed close on all sides, thick enough to feel. The warped trees loomed like skeletal witnesses, their twisted branches bent inward, watching. Somewhere far away, something screamed—a long, hollow sound that carried neither pain nor anger, but hunger.
Alex dragged air into his lungs, one breath at a time.
Slowly, memory returned.
The elf.
The moment his hand had moved.
The pull.
His fingers curled into the soil as realization hit him fully, brutally.
"…No," he whispered.
He forced himself upright.
His body obeyed instantly.
Too instantly.
Alex froze.
There was no familiar lag, no trembling weakness in his arms, no dizzy sway as he shifted his weight. His muscles responded cleanly, smoothly, like a blade sliding from its sheath. His balance centered naturally, breath stabilizing far faster than it should have.
He stared down at his hands.
They looked the same.
But they didn't feel the same.
His heart began to pound, panic rising sharp and fast. He flexed his fingers. Strength answered—not explosive, not overwhelming, but present. Real. Solid.
He turned.
The elf lay several meters away.
Its body was intact. No gore. No visible trauma.
Yet it looked wrong.
The skin clung too tightly to bone, the chest sunken inward, the eyes dull and empty as cracked glass. It was as though something essential had been carved out from inside, leaving only the shell behind.
Alex staggered back.
His stomach twisted violently. He dropped to one knee, gagging, bile burning his throat as the memory surged in full force.
The sensation had not been physical.
It had been absolute.
The moment he chose—truly chose—something inside him had opened. Not instinct. Not hunger.
Authority.
Invisible jaws had locked onto the elf's existence itself. Not flesh. Not blood.
Being.
The elf had resisted.
Alex remembered that now—the terror, the defiance, the sudden clarity in its eyes when it realized what was happening. He had felt fragments pour into him in a chaotic flood: alien thoughts, fractured emotions, the echo of a language twisted by the rift.
Then silence.
Alex pressed his forehead to the ground.
"I didn't mean to…" His voice cracked. "I didn't even know how to stop."
The rift answered with a low groan, the sound vibrating through the earth like a warning.
Then the system manifested.
========== [System Notification]
[Experience Gained]
[Current EXP: 107 / 200]
Alex stared.
"…Seven," he whispered hoarsely.
That was all.
One intelligent life—one thinking being—and it had barely moved the bar.
A hollow, broken laugh escaped him before he could stop it. "So that's the price," he murmured. "Is that supposed to make this feel less disgusting?"
The laugh died quickly.
His gaze drifted back to the corpse.
Path to strength.
This was what the system meant.
Not cultivation.
Not training.
Not blessings granted by distant gods to chosen bloodlines.
This.
Alex clenched his teeth until his jaw ached.
"So this is how you want me to survive," he said softly, to the system, to the rift, to himself. "By crossing lines I can never walk back from."
No answer came.
Only pressure.
The rift was tightening.
Alex forced himself to stand.
Disgust still churned in his gut, but beneath it—buried deep, unwanted yet undeniable—was something else.
Awareness.
The world felt sharper.
He could hear movement now—soft disturbances in the air far beyond his previous range, the subtle shifting of bodies through warped undergrowth. His vision pierced deeper into the gloom, outlines clearer, shadows thinner.
He was stronger.
Not enough to feel safe.
But enough to feel the danger sooner.
Alex turned away from the elf and moved forward.
The deeper he went, the more distorted the land became. Trees bent unnaturally, bark etched with jagged runes that made his eyes ache if he focused too long. The ground sloped unevenly, reality itself warped as though pulled toward some unseen center.
This was land even the elves avoided.
Which meant it was land that would not forgive weakness.
The first rift beast attacked without warning.
It burst from the shadows in a blur of bone and muscle, a quadrupedal horror plated in jagged armor, its split jaw dripping luminous saliva. Its screech tore through the air as it lunged, claws aimed straight for Alex's throat.
Alex barely reacted in time.
He twisted aside, the beast's talons grazing his shoulder. Pain flared hot and sharp as skin tore, blood spraying against the bark of a nearby tree. He stumbled, boots slipping on uneven ground, heart hammering violently.
Move.
The word wasn't a thought—it was survival.
Alex rolled as the beast struck again, claws ripping through the space where his chest had been. He scrambled to his feet, breath ragged, vision blurring at the edges.
"Not like this," he gasped.
The creature charged.
Alex raised his hand instinctively.
Nothing happened.
Panic surged.
Then something answered.
A pressure coiled in his chest, unfamiliar and violent. The air around his palm twisted, darkening, condensing into a thin, unstable current.
Black wind.
It ignited without light.
Not the gentle blue shimmer he had seen others use—this was darker, sharper, its edges flickering like serrated glass. The air screamed as it compressed, slicing forward in an uneven arc.
The wind blade struck the beast's shoulder.
Not cleanly.
It tore.
Bone plates cracked with a shriek like breaking metal. The creature was flung sideways, slamming into a tree hard enough to splinter bark and shake the ground.
Alex stared at his hand, shock flooding him.
Then the pain hit.
The backlash ripped through his arm, nerves screaming as the wind dispersed violently. He cried out, dropping to one knee as burning agony shot up his shoulder and into his spine.
"Too much—" he gasped. "It's too unstable!"
The beast wasn't dead.
It rose again, blood hissing as it hit the ground, eyes blazing with feral rage.
Alex forced himself upright, teeth clenched.
"I don't have a choice," he whispered.
The creature lunged again.
This time, Alex didn't hesitate.
He ran toward it.
At the last second, he twisted, letting the beast overshoot him. He slammed his palm into the ground, forcing the black wind outward instead of forward.
The ground exploded.
Compressed air detonated beneath the beast, ripping soil and stone upward. The creature was thrown skyward, limbs flailing as its body twisted unnaturally.
Alex didn't stop.
He grabbed a shard of crystalized stone and hurled it with everything he had.
The shard pierced the beast's skull.
It collapsed in a heap, twitching violently before going still.
Alex fell to his knees beside it, gasping, sweat pouring down his face.
His arm burned. His chest felt like it was collapsing inward. The black wind flickered weakly around him before fading entirely.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
No pull.
No devour.
The system remained silent.
========== [Current EXP: 107 / 200]
Alex laughed weakly, slumping against a tree.
"So you don't count," he murmured, staring at the corpse. "Alive… but not enough."
The realization was worse than he expected.
Only intelligent beings fed his growth.
Only those who could fear.
Something shifted.
The pressure changed.
Alex's breath hitched as the air thickened, reality bending subtly as though something massive had turned its attention toward him. The rift seemed to hush, even the distant screams fading into uneasy silence.
Footsteps echoed.
Measured.
Deliberate.
From the shadows stepped an elf.
No—something greater.
It stood taller than the others, armor grown directly from riftwood and crystal layered over its body. A glowing sigil pulsed faintly on its chest, synchronized with the rift itself. Its eyes burned with cold, ancient intelligence.
A Rift Lord.
Its gaze locked onto Alex.
Alex's blood ran cold.
Devourer.
The word echoed directly inside his skull.
Alex swallowed, forcing his trembling legs to steady.
"So," he whispered, black wind stirring weakly around his feet, "you felt it too."
The Rift Lord's lips curved into something like a smile.
The land screamed as it stepped forward.
Alex raised his shaking hand.
This time, there would be no misunderstanding.
Only survival.
And power that would cost him everything.
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