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Chapter 43 - Chapter 42: Ruined Bloom

Chapter 42: Ruined Bloom

He didn't need Soul Sense to feel it. Presence alone soured the air.

Still crouched at the lip of the hole, eyes down, Azakh-Tur slowly raised his head... a yellow glow stared back.

A pox faced, hunched man stood inches away. No warning. Just there. One eye bloated larger than the other, leaking violet light as it tracked the imp's every twitch.

"How interesting. Since when could an imp evo—?"

Azakh-Tur lunged.

[Savage Feed // Active]

[-1SM]

[SM // 1/16]

[!! WARNING !! // Soulmass Critical]

The man didn't finish his sentence. Half his body vanished in a single bite. The other half followed. Ripped, chewed, swallowed.

Warmth surged. Bone and sinew began to seal.

[+25 Exp]

[+5SM]

[SM // 6/16]

[Feed // Active // +5% Health Regen / 5 sec]

[Cooldown // 25 sec]

[Feed // +15HP]

No time to savor. No time to gloat.

Ignoring the prompts, the imp dropped into the darkness.

[Savage Feed // Deactivate]

His limbs hit wet stone. Jaw realigned. Flesh hardened. Then he ran.

[User could have used that humans Soul. Why waste it by activating Savage Feed?]

"He was ugly!"

[...Noted.]

"Stop talking!"

He didn't have time to answer questions. All of him, teeth, tendons, instinct, worked in concert. His grip tore into the sewer wall as he moved. He ran with purpose. Ate with precision. Doing his best to run in the direction his Soul Sense guided.

[Feed // +15HP]

Eighteen seconds. That's how long he had before the soul vanished.

Dark Vision carved the path. Wall Crawler pulled him forward. Stealth kept him shadowed. Every few bounds, he dropped low, biting into the corpse like a starving animal clinging to life.

[Feed // +15HP]

Bone knit. Muscles bound tight. Blood stopped leaking.

He could feel the shift. With evolution, Feed had ranked up, growing sharper. Efficient. Not only boasting a higher regen percentage, but it now accepted more than flesh. It took from things. Objects. Non biological matter.

Anything with a trace of soul.

He didn't yet understand what that really meant. He'd ask later. If later came.

The final bite was the head. The brain. He'd saved it. Hoped it would be the best tasting. It was.

Few crunches, a couple moist...and it was done.

[Feed // +15HP]

'There!'

Passing a side shaft, he spotted a collapse. Narrow, just wide enough to squeeze through. Safe and concealed.

He struggled to get inside, his breath ragged, limbs grinding through. Bloodlight faint behind his eyes.

[+15HP]

[Feed // Deactivated]

He needed to hurry, because the system wasn't waiting.

[Finalizing Evolution in 5... 4... 3...]

"Wait—!"

He yanked himself halfway through—

[2... 1...]

—and dropped, landing in a twisted sprawl.

[Conditions Met // Initializing Soul Integrity Foundation Protocols]

"Made it..."

He braced against the wall, ribs tight, prepared for fire. The pressure in his chest warned of another surge of torture, but the pain never came. Just stillness. A held breath.

He blinked.

"Huh?"

That's when he noticed. Fingers shifted. Breath leveled. The sensation came slowly, not through nerves but something deeper.

His aura was rising.

It didn't drift. Didn't cast off in threads. It thickened around him like fluid smoke, drawn from inside. The bloodlight pulsed. It didn't recede. Each wave built on the last. The rhythm of it quickened, and the space around him narrowed.

From the surface of his skin, something began to form.

Spectral hands.

They dragged themselves into the world, limbs shaped from red light and shadow, reaching from his chest, his shoulders, the arch of his back. The edges flickered like flame, but the movement was purposeful, crawling, bracing, steadying.

They didn't waver.

And he didn't recoil.

There was no confusion, no fear. Only sensation. A tide swelling beneath the surface of thought. The weight of it pushed into him from every angle. Breath slowed. Focus narrowed. The hands kept rising.

And he felt it...pleasure. Quiet at first, but growing. It sank into him, filled the marrow. His eyes dropped half-lidded, lips parted in silence. He let it take hold. Let it run its course.

Then the air shifted.

The light failed.

And then...something arrived.

No warning. No rumble. No distortion of space. Just impact. It fell through the ceiling like a ghost. It wasn't stone or flesh. A veil of green light tore downward in a smooth, silent collapse. It consumed the chamber, swallowed air and sound alike, casting every surface in a pale, pulsing colors.

[Warning. Recommendation: Remove Soul Stone from inventory immediately. Think about holding it.]

He didn't speak. He didn't question. The thought alone brought it forth.

The stone appeared before him.

Large. Dense. Its surface fractured in spirals of black. Crimson glowed from within like breath caught in glass. It hovered in place, silent.

The imp couldn't move. The Soul Stone hovered before him, pulsing. The system didn't speak. Whatever was happening...it hadn't been anticipated by either of them.

He looked up. Watched as green light sealed itself across the ceiling, enclosing the space like a lid dropped on a jar. The air thickened. Pressure tightened. Stone creaked. The tunnel around him shivered.

Something soft cracked beneath his body. When he glanced down, the concrete floor was gone. Vines had pushed through it, split it into ribs. Pale blue moss pulsed in the seams. The scent of wet bark and something sweeter like blood rot, filled his nose.

He opened his mouth. Tried to speak. But nothing.

Tried to move. Nothing.

His limbs remained frozen, trapped between evolution and whatever had bled into this place. Roots spiraled down from the ceiling. Some brushed his horns. Others wound around the broken arch behind him, anchoring into the stone like veins.

Only then did he notice.

The spectral hands, born from his rising bloodlight, had buried themselves deep inside the Soul Stone. No command. No thought. As if drawn by instinct.

Color began to break. Vision smeared. The glow from the stone spread, merging the room in streaks of searing light. Shadows twisted. Along the walls, strange plants bloomed in fast-forward. Mushrooms unfurled like eyes. Petals glistened with clear liquid that hissed when it touched the ground.

Then the system panel opened.

And the pain arrived with it.

[Initializing Soulmass Expansion Protocols…]

[Soulmass Pool Increasing…16 → 17 → 18 → 19 → 20 → 21 → 22 → 23 → 24 → 25 → 26]

[New Racial Trait Synergy Detected // Upgrading // Soul Sense → Soul Sight]

[Bonus Effect Unlocked // Inspect // Limited to Items and/or Entities Possessing Soul Signature]

He couldn't move, but he could feel it.

The spectral hands didn't just reach...they tore. Gripping shards of light from within the Soul Stone, they ripped and fed. Fragmented souls. Ragged pieces. Each one removed and shoved deep into his center, packed tighter than anything flesh should hold.

A scream clawed at his throat, but his lungs had no command.

Only the pressure climbed.

Above him, vines thickened. Glowed faint green from within. Something spored, white mist curling around his jaw. Thorned branches pressed against the back of his head, like fingers trying to cup a skull.

[New Curse Unlocked // Soul Anchor]

He couldn't tell if the new curse brought pain or if it simply arrived with it. His spine arched under the weight. It felt like something in his chest snapped again, he wasn't sure if it was new or just hadn't healed yet.

[Soul Integrity Fusion Now Beginning…Setting Foundation…Calculating Core Structure…Assessing Stability Threshold…]

Then the prompt broke.

[!! ERROR !! // Alignment Drift Detected]

The hands began to blur. Not dozens now, hundreds. They clawed through the stone, scraped its core down to nothing, stuffed what they could into the gaps inside him. Not even memories. Just weight. Color. Pressure.

His chest ballooned. Skin cracked along the old scars. Bone ridges split and hissed. Blood sprayed in dark arcs, but no room was made.

The world had gone humid. Leaves pressed against the side of his neck. Something chirped in the tunnel. The air was no longer air.

[Fuel Source Absorption: 100%...]

[Fuel Source Absorption: 101%...]

[!! WARNING !! // Capacity Exceeded]

[Fuel Source Absorption: 102%...]

[!! WARNING !! // Structural Saturation Breached]

[Fuel Source Absorption: 103%...]

[!! ALERT !! // Soul Foundation Collapse Possible]

He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Every part of him rebelled. His body swelled like it was about to burst. His thoughts began to thin.

Somewhere, he barely heard it, something moving in the vines. He didn't look. Couldn't.

Every cell shrieked. Every nerve curled as one word rose like an inferno in his skull.

Hold. 

Focus only on keeping the rising pressure contained.

[Fuel Source Absorption: 104%]

[Fuel Source Absorption: 105%]

While the numbers climbed.

And the dungeon took root.

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