The teleporter circle pulsed with a soft, ethereal blue light. It was a beacon of hope in the crushing darkness, a promise of escape that was so close Keiz could almost taste the fresh air of the world above. His fingers, raw and trembling, stretched forward, mere inches from the glowing runes. Freedom was a single touch away.
Thud.
The heavy sound echoed from the ruins behind him, shaking the loose rubble. Keiz froze, his breath catching in his throat. The hope that had just filled his chest turned to ice. He wasn't alone.
He turned his head slowly, every muscle screaming in protest. His vision was still a hazy blur of exhaustion, but he could make out the shape that had emerged from the shadows. It was tall, impossibly thin, a silhouette of fused bone and darkness. It stood on two long, digitigrade legs that ended in hooked claws, and its arms were like scythes of sharpened, blackened bone. It had no face, only a smooth expanse of skeletal plate where a skull should be, yet Keiz felt its hollow gaze lock onto him.
"…No…" The word was a dry rasp, lost in the cavernous chamber. "…Not again…"
The last of his strength left him. He had crawled so far, endured so much. He had survived the betrayal, the loss of his arm, the Minotaur, and the dungeon's collapse, only to be stopped here, at the very threshold of his escape. A bitter, broken laugh escaped his lips. It was a pathetic sound.
"…So this is it," he whispered to the uncaring stones. "Even when I'm this close…"
He closed his eyes, surrendering to the inevitable. The teleporter's light was a cruel mockery. There was no point in struggling. No point in begging for a life that was never meant to be his.
"…I'm sorry, Father… I couldn't prove myself after all…"
The creature took a step, its claws scraping against the floor with a sound like grinding stone. It raised one of its scythe-like arms, the bone glowing faintly with a sickly, necrotic energy. Keiz waited for the blow, for the pain, for the final darkness.
And then— Something inside him moved.
His body was yanked sideways with impossible force, dragging his face through the dirt and rubble. A split second later, the monster's clawed arm slammed down where his head had been, shattering the stone floor and carving deep gouges into the ground.
BOOM!
Keiz's eyes snapped open. Shock, cold and absolute, jolted through him. "…What… what was that!?"
He hadn't moved. He had given up. Something else had forced him. Something… familiar. The violent, uncontrolled motion was the same as in the Minotaur's chamber.
The creature let out a low hiss, turning its faceless head toward him. The sudden movement, the scent of dust and death, the sheer, violent wrongness of being puppeted—it all slammed together in his mind.
A memory, suppressed and buried under layers of pain and trauma, exploded in his thoughts.
White-hot agony. The crunch of his own bones. The world spinning, fading to black. His right hand, still his, still whole, rising weakly. Not in defense. In desperation. A flicker of his blessing, his worthless Taming skill, lashing out with the last spark of his will. A single, primal command screamed not from his lips, but from his very soul as the mimic's fangs tore him apart.
…Tame! Submit! Live!…
The flashback ended as quickly as it began, leaving Keiz gasping on the floor, his mind reeling. He stared at the black substance coiling protectively around his right arm, then looked at the sealed, unnatural stump where his left arm had been.
It wasn't a curse. It wasn't a parasite. It wasn't some random dungeon horror that had attached itself to him.
"The mimic…" His voice cracked with dawning, horrified realization. "The mimic that ate my arm… is the thing protecting me."
He had tamed it. In his dying moments, his skill had forged an impossible contract with the very monster that was devouring him.
The skeletal creature hissed again and lunged forward, its other arm swinging in a deadly arc.
Keiz was still terrified, but the terror was no longer one of cluelessness. It was the terror of understanding. He was not just a passenger in his own body. This power was his. He had claimed it.
He focused his will, a lifetime of swordsmanship training he thought was useless flashing through his mind. He didn't just hope for protection. He pictured a weapon. A tool. An extension of his will.
"Blade!" he screamed, the word tearing from his raw throat.
The black substance responded. It surged down his right arm, not as a jagged, chaotic shard, but as something more. It elongated, sharpened, solidified. The form was still crude, the edges uneven, but it was undeniably a sword—a long, black, vicious-looking blade that felt unnervingly natural in his grip.
The creature's bone-scythe came down. Keiz, moved by the Mimic's inhuman speed, brought his new blade up to parry.
CLANG!
Sparks flew. The impact sent a shockwave up his arm that rattled his teeth, but the blade held. For the first time, he wasn't just being saved. He was fighting back.
The creature recoiled, surprised by the resistance. It attacked again, a flurry of strikes from both its arms. The Mimic moved his body for him, a desperate, chaotic dance of survival. It ducked, it weaved, it rolled—but now, with every dodge, Keiz's blade was there to meet the enemy. He blocked, he parried, he thrust. His movements were clumsy, a horrifying fusion of his own half-remembered skill and the Mimic's alien instincts, but it was working.
He was no longer just a victim being dragged around. He was a partner in the violence.
The creature lunged one last time. Keiz saw the opening. He didn't wait for the Mimic to react. He forced his own will into the attack, driving the black blade forward with all his might. The sword pierced through the monster's skeletal chest with a sickening crunch.
The creature froze. It let out a sound like shattering glass, and its entire body began to dissolve into black dust, crumbling to the floor until nothing remained.
Except for one thing.
Where the monster's heart would have been, a small, crystalline shard lay on the ground. It pulsed with a cold, faint light, humming with a chilling energy.
Keiz collapsed to his knees, the black blade melting away from his arm. He was gasping, his body trembling with adrenaline and exhaustion. The fight was over. He had survived. He had won.
He stared at the crystal, the Gravechill Shard, as it lay in the dust. A spoil of war. His first.
Before he could even think about what to do with it, the Mimic acted. A tendril of black substance extended from the back of his right hand, crawling across the floor. It stopped before the shard and changed shape, the tip of it splitting open to form a small, dark maw. It quivered with a silent, expectant hunger.
It wanted to be fed.
A wave of revulsion washed over Keiz. This was the creature that had maimed him. The thought of nurturing it, of feeding it like a pet, was grotesque.
But as he stared at the waiting maw, he understood. This was the nature of their bond. His Taming skill hadn't just saved his life; it had intertwined his fate with this monster. He was the master, and it was his beast. And it was starving.
With a shaking hand, he picked up the cold shard. He hesitated for only a second before pushing it into the dark opening.
The maw snapped shut.
Keiz felt a searing cold jolt through his entire body, a sensation that started in his right hand and spread through every vein. It felt like being plunged into a frozen river. Information—raw, instinctual, not made of words—flowed into his mind.
[Essence Absorption Complete]
[New Trait Acquired: Minor Frost Affinity]
His eyes widened. He slowly raised his right hand and focused, commanding the blade to form once more.
The black sword materialized, but this time it was different. A faint, cold mist now clung to its edges, and the air around it grew noticeably colder. The blade itself seemed to glitter with a thin layer of frost.
It was stronger.
Keiz looked from the frost-rimmed blade to the teleporter circle, its blue light still pulsing patiently. He could leave. He could escape right now.
But as he stared into the darkness of the deeper dungeon, a new feeling began to smolder in his chest, overriding his fear. It was a cold, grim resolve. He had survived. He had a weapon. He had a power he was finally beginning to understand.
He was no longer a lost boy hoping to escape.
To get stronger, to truly live, he had to hunt. He had to feed the monster that was now a part of him.
He was a predator.