The ground shook again, louder this time. Small stones fell from the ceiling, slamming into his gelatinous body with searing impacts. He had no skin, but each vibration sent a clear message:
Run away or die.
He clung to a protrusion in the wall, twisting to climb toward a higher fissure. His new ability to sense heat showed him blurry silhouettes in the darkness: the Crawlers that had once pursued him were now running in the opposite direction, their bodies glistening with fear.
Something frightened them.
Something that must frighten him too.
Then he saw it.
A mass of muscle and scales, as wide as the tunnel itself, was advancing toward him. It didn't walk—it snaked. Its body was a chain of armored segments, each bristling with twisting spikes. It had no eyes, but its flat, triangular head was raised, sniffing the air. A Gulping Worm. Instinct screamed inside him: Freeze! He flattened himself against the rock, stilling any movement. The corrosive liquid it used to digest its prey now burned inside him, but he didn't dare release it. Not even breathe, if something like him breathed. The worm brushed past him. The air it displaced was warm and fetid, like the breath of a rotten swamp. For a moment, he thought he'd avoided it. Then it stopped. The creature turned slowly, its concave head pointing straight at him. "It feels you." There was no time to think. With a desperate surge, he launched himself forward, through the worm's spikes. Its gelatinous body stretched, warping to squeeze between the gaps in the beast's natural armor. It was like swimming through acid. Every inch of contact burned, dissolving parts of himself. But there was no choice. If he stopped, he would be crushed. If he retreated, he would be devoured.
The worm bellowed, writhing to reach him, but it was too late.
He fell on the other side, his mass reduced to almost half, consumed by the creature's venom.
But he was alive.
And now, he understood.
The pain wasn't just suffering.
It was information.
His body, by touching the worm, had learned.
And inside him, something was beginning to change...
The change was slow, agonizing.
For what might have been days, his body twisted in a narrow fissure, convulsing as it tried to assimilate what it had stolen. The remnants of the Devouring Worm's venom still burned inside him, but now they didn't just destroy—they rebuilt. Each wave of pain brought with it a transformation. Its gelatinous surface developed an opaque, tough layer, like a second skin that mitigated the acidity of the environment. It wasn't immunity, but resistance.
And with it, came hunger.
Not the simple instinct to consume, but a specific need. His body no longer wanted mushrooms or rotten meat.
—It wanted poison.
The revelation horrified him. Was he doomed to depend on the torment of others to survive? Was this the price of evolving?
He had no time to philosophize.
A new sound cut through the darkness: metallic, rhythmic.
Footsteps.
But not those of a beast.
He clung to the ceiling of a wider gallery, camouflaged in the shadows. From there, he saw three figures pass by.
Two wore dark armor, wielding spears whose tips glowed with blue runes. The third, smaller one, wore tattered robes and dragged a rusty chain around its neck.
Humanoids.
But not like the humans he remembered.
Their faces were too pale, their eyes completely black, without whites or pupils. They spoke in a guttural language, but among their words, one emerged he recognized:
"Abysswalker."
The chained man moaned, resisting, until one of the armored men plunged his spear into his shoulder. A jet of black blood spurted out, thick as tar.
"They're not hunters," he suddenly realized. "They're guards. And that's what a prisoner is."
The group stopped less than ten paces from where he was hiding. One of the armored men pulled a flask from his belt and threw it to the ground. The glass shattered, releasing a tiny, translucent scorpion-like creature.
"Tracker," the other growled.
The scorpion reared up, moving its pincers toward... "him."
The tracker scorpion advanced toward him, its pincers clicking with a sound like breaking glass. The black-eyed humanoids whirled, their rune spears glowing with a menacing light.
He watched, curiously.
He remained motionless, holding back even the involuntary twitching of his body. The crawler stopped just a foot away, its hind legs vibrating as if analyzing the air. For three eternal seconds, nothing happened.
Then the prisoner coughed.
A gag of that same black liquid oozing from his wound splashed onto the floor, and the scorpion whirled toward the sound, distracted.
"Idiot," one of the guards growled, kicking the chained man.
The tension broke. The humanoids followed the crawler in another direction, dragging the now limping prisoner along.
He followed.
He learned more in that hour than in all his previous days in the Abyss:
1. Subterranean humanoids feared light: When they passed under a clump of bioluminescent fungi, they covered their eyes with their cloaks.
2. The prisoner was different: As the guards drank from a canteen filled with a viscous liquid, the prisoner was denied even a drop. His skin, beneath the grime, had a warmer, almost human tone.
3. They were searching for something specific: The tracker wasn't drifting; it followed a clear path, stopping at points where the air smelled of rusty metal.
It all ended when they came to a wall covered in carved runes.
The prisoner groaned at the sight.
"No... not again..." Their words were in the same guttural language, but now he understood them. Somehow, he understood them.
The guards struggled with a stone in the wall until it gave way, revealing a hidden chamber. Inside, floating on a pedestal, was an egg.
It wasn't from any animal. It was made of a semi-transparent substance, and inside it writhed something that seemed made of shadow and teeth.
One of the guards raised his spear ceremonially.
"The last egg of the Eater of Aeons. Today, the ritual is complete."
The prisoner struggled with renewed strength.
"You don't know what you're doing! That thing isn't a god, it's a parasite!"
The guard ignored him, bringing the spear tip closer to the egg.
And then, he acted...
Before the rune spear touched the egg, it launched itself from the shadows. Its gelatinous body stretched like a projectile, enveloping the cursed object completely.
The effect was immediate.
A darkness deeper than the Abyss itself spread from within. Voices that were not voices echoed in its mind:
"Son of Nothingness! Unworthy vessel!"
The egg beat like a heart, burning it from within with a cold that made it bleed. The humanoids screamed, not in anger, but in true terror.
"The Devourer awakens within him! RUN!"
One of the guards impaled the prisoner with his spear before fleeing, leaving him pinned to the ground as a distraction. Within seconds, the chamber was empty... except for him, the egg, and the dying man.
The prisoner raised a trembling hand.
"Break it... before it possesses you." He coughed up black blood. "It's not an egg... it's a soul parasite."
He tried to regurgitate it, but it was too late. The egg fused with his core.
The pain was beyond physical.
Visions assailed him:
— A city of white bone built in the bowels of the world.
— A being made of a thousand mouths that devoured mountains.
— A group of humans with glowing eyes opening portals where none should be.
And then, the truth:
The Abyss was not a natural place.
It was a wound.
And he had just infected it even further.
When he awoke, the prisoner lay dead, but something gleamed in his wound: a fragment of the rune spear. Touching it, he understood:
"This isn't metal... it's Devourer bone."
The knowledge came like a flash. The runes weren't language, but bite marks. Humanoids didn't worship monsters... they imitated them.
And now, some of that power was within him.
His body began to change without permission. Spines sprouted from its surface, similar to the Worm's, but sharper. When he tried to move, he left scars in the stone.
The prisoner had said one word before dying:
"Hatch."
And then, from somewhere in the depths, something responded.