Chapter Ten – Serpent of the First Age
The roar dragged him deeper into the ruins.
The streets narrowed into fractured corridors, stone swallowing steel as if the forest itself had grown downward. Moss crept over every surface, swallowing torch brackets and broken tiles. Each step carried him lower, until the air grew damp, metallic, and heavy enough to stick in his lungs.
The AI chip whispered static against his thoughts. Its scan struggled to cohere, like a candle guttering in a gale.
[Warning: Biomass signature exceeds all recorded thresholds. Interference detected. Sensor stability: 12%.]
Leylin's lips curled into something between a smile and a snarl. "Then it's worth my time."
The final chamber yawned without ceremony ..no doors, no gates. Just an opening carved wider than any man's hand could manage, the stone walls warped smooth, as if scoured by centuries of scales.
And there it lay.
The serpent filled the pit like a wound in the earth. Black scales dulled and scarred, coils vanishing into shadow. Each breath rose and fell like the tide, the sound of meat and stone grinding together. Chains as thick as trees bit into its flesh, forged of Essence-metal that hummed with faint suppression runes. Each link glowed dull red, like embers that refused to die.
Its head rose slowly, pale sightless eyes staring directly at him.
The chains screamed. One after another, they tore free of stone.
The serpent struck.
Stone shattered where Leylin had stood a heartbeat before, the impact shaking the chamber. Dust and stale wind rushed through, carrying with it the sweet-stink of blood so old it was almost honeyed.
The serpent was hunger given shape. It slammed its body like falling towers, walls collapsing as its tail lashed. The air itself seemed to rupture under the force of its movements.
Leylin flowed through the storm. Each step was a thread pulled taut between survival and violence. He struck when the openings came .. claws raking softer flesh between scales, blood spraying hot across his arms. Every impact rattled him to the core.
[Gluttony parameter: 45% → 57%]
The serpent roared, sound so vast it shook marrow. Dust rained from above, fractures webbing across the ceiling. It adapted without thought, every new strike closing the spaces he had used to slip past. Its coils narrowed his arena, turning the chamber into a cage.
[Gluttony parameter: 57% → 69%]
He dove beneath a crashing coil, claws cutting deep. Flesh split, steaming blood pouring in torrents. The serpent thrashed, walls splintering like bones. The AI chip's stream blurred, bleeding into instinct until Leylin could no longer tell which voice was his own.
He moved faster, sharper, every motion already solved before the serpent committed.
[Gluttony parameter: 69% → 84%]
The serpent lunged, jaws wide enough to swallow him whole. Teeth like black pikes framed a darkness that smelled of rot and iron.
He didn't retreat.
He went forward.
The world became heat, muscle, and blood. Teeth raked his back, flesh squeezed from all sides. He tore upward in a frenzy .. through sinew, bone, and brain. He ripped free between its eyes in a spray of gore.
The serpent convulsed, body slamming into stone, chains snapping like threads.
[Gluttony parameter: 84% → 97%]
It crashed but still coiled, dragging itself upright. Its broken head turned, ready for one final strike.
Leylin met it head-on. Both claws plunged deep into its skull. He dragged its head low, jaws opening wide.
And he fed.
[Gluttony parameter: 97% → 100%]
[Core status: Saturation. Evolution threshold unlocked.]
The flood nearly tore him apart. Essence older than mankind surged into his veins. His vision burned white.
In the void that followed, voices came.
World Devourer – grow vast, consume lands and seas, take the serpent's endless body.
Soul Devourer – strip essence from the ethereal, unmake even ghosts and gods.
Ancient Primarch – awaken as the progenitor of all beasts, king of all bloodlines.
Monarch of Gluttony – rule hunger itself, devour everything… mind, soul, world, and law.
The words were not spoken, nor written. They pressed against his mind like brands, searing themselves into thought.
The AI chip flickered into the silence.
[Advisory: Optimal evolution path analysis in progress.]
[Probability-weighted outcome: World Devourer = 41%. Soul Devourer = 28%. Ancient Primarch = 22%. Monarch of Gluttony = 9%.]
[Recommendation: Pursue stability—]
The voice faltered, static swallowing its certainty.
Beneath it, deeper, another rhythm pulsed. Hunger. Instinct. Something vast, neither human nor machine, whispering that there was no choice at all. Only appetite.
Images spilled through him — not his own, but the serpent's.
Chains. Glass pods. Screams muffled by liquid. White coats leaning over with instruments. Needles sinking into flesh. And before all that a sky split with auroras, mountains crawling with beasts that bent the world with every step. Eternals, crowned in fire and shadow. And him — the serpent — a fragment of that first age, broken and caged, gnawed hollow by centuries.
Leylin staggered under the weight. His claws dug into stone, breath ragged as the power tore through his marrow.
Above, the chamber groaned. Pillars toppled one by one. Stone rained from the ceiling in slow echoes. The world was collapsing, but he remained frozen, caught between voices: the AI's cool logic, the serpent's bleeding memories, and the roar of his own hunger demanding to choose.
Darkness pressed closer, thicker than shadow, until it seemed the ruins themselves were breathing.
His eyes opened ..bright with something not entirely his own.
The choice still hung before him, raw and waiting.
And the chamber gave way.