Year 2 Start: Eternal Feast
The refuge was no cradle; a yawning maw, altar of flesh and stone where shadows oozed walls like primordial pus. Time's ellipses—infernal loops of mist and hunger—carved my features into bone-masks, skin tattooed with throbbing scars pulsing cracked quartz rhythm. Voracious, that ravenous entity burrowed in me like marrow-worm, hungered constant: each absorption no gain, but erosion, fusion twisting humanity into nascent abomination. Traps, once clever, became living horrors—Basalt-Rumor mandibles animated by Shadow-Larva veins, snapping intruders in dismemberment ballet: legs torn in granular blood jets, torsos gutted unleashing steaming entrails cascading sticky floor-tapestries, ground bones mosaics crunching under bare feet.
Year 2 hunt: Mutated Veil-Scratched swarm, membranous wings oozing acrid vapors eroding air. Stalked through mist, Echo-Scan inner howl mapping throbbing hearts as damned flesh charts. First fell to blackened quartz blade: thorax pierce hilt-deep in soft resistance, then obscene *pop* piercing main sac—acid geyser eroding shoulder, flesh dissolving dangling shreds, exposed muscles twitching dying serpents, cooked meat and sulfur stench clouding nostrils in toxic haze choking black phlegm coughs. Retaliated, savage wing-rip: membrane tearing sticky fibers clinging fingers like soul-rags, wing-bones cracking shards slashing palm, blood mingling venom in bubbling slurry.
Feast ritual black: Devoured still-hot heart, rubbery flesh pulsing teeth-against, alkaline bile and cosmic regret nectar convulsing Voracious in inner spasm, veins swelling temporary blackness.
[Voracious – Level 8 Unlocked]
Absorption: +40% Perception (Venom Echo – Toxic Scan, 20m). Whispers poison, secrets bleed.
Back, smeared walls with guts: macabre unguent hardening protective crusts, air steeped sacred rot reek. Courage? No spark; visceral rage, guttural void-refusal gnawing bones. Emma echo grazed—fleeting, accusatory, mocking ghost—but crushed it, trampling under butchery weight. No vows. Blade and blood only.
The pus from the Veil-Scratched's sacs had hardened overnight into a crusty varnish on the refuge walls, a grotesque fresco that gleamed dully in the quartz's blue pulse, its surface veined with trapped bubbles of venom that popped sporadically, releasing faint hisses and curls of acrid smoke that stung the eyes and coated the tongue with a metallic aftertaste. I traced a finger along one seam, the crust flaking under my nail like dried scab, revealing the stone beneath scarred and pitted, as if the Realm itself recoiled from the intrusion. The air in the chamber hung heavy with the sacred rot's reek—damp earth mingled with alkaline decay, a perfume that seeped into my pores, marking me as part of this place, this maw that had swallowed my humanity one feast at a time.
Year 2's dawn broke with no light, only the mist's eternal bruise lightening to a bruised plum hue beyond the fissure, the chitter of opportunistic scavengers filtering in like distant laughter. The traps had worked overtime: three Sand-Claws lay pulverized in the entry, their shells cracked open like eggshells, innards a pulpy mess that I'd absorbed in passing, the mechanical pull of Voracious drawing their essence without ceremony—+2% STR temp, a pittance that swelled my arms with fleeting vigor but left my stomach churning with the aftertaste of ash and regret. No more the wide-eyed wonder of early kills; this was routine, a liturgy of dismemberment where each snap of the mandibles echoed the Realm's indifferent crunch.
The ellipses of those early weeks hardened me further, days bleeding into a vortex of shadow and slaughter. Mornings began with patrols into the adjacent ruins, Echo-Scan now laced with the Venom Echo's toxic edge, its waves not just mapping but tainting the air with a faint, acrid hum that warned of venom pockets before they burst. One stalk led to a cluster of Rampant Fissuré, their translucent skins weeping ichor in deliberate drops that sizzled on the stone, mandibles micro-fissuring the air with sonic lures that pulled at my edges like gravitational tugs. The lead one lunged from a dune-mutated crevice, skin splitting to reveal obsidian veins rupture-ready, but agility ghost-slipped me through, quartz blade carving its abdomen in a gran-pus-quartz gush, corrosive fluid eroding my forearm in suppurating blisters, flesh peeling translucent shreds dangling funeral veils, tendons twitching ich-impregnated, dripping acid droplets floor-sizzle.
The swarm fused temp in hunt-mass, a writhing knot of crawlers linking in chitinous embrace, but I danced through, blade slurping through the collective, petrified muscle filaments snapping resounding *cracks* that trembled the ground, corr fluid arc-torching my torso, skin dissolving dangling threads, crack-rib exp liv skel. Cent "heart" coll puls mum-heart ven-sac fus tear flesh symb gush hyd visc expl ven-pulv quartz slur, taste cosm bile crush-bone gel-marr pal sens delir, Vor gorg spasm mut vein lum net net abys claim trade. No unlock, but spd weave deeper, the hunt yielding routine: day 20 ambushed Stone-Jaw crevice, mand vise snap arm near—cara hold crack not shatt, rip under-flesh min-pus gush thick-gran stick-skin curse-res, pull pet-musc strip tend-fib snap dry crack guit-str break black-blood flood soak-arm hot-visc mine-mingl scarl-soup, stench-suff damp-earth alk-rot death-kiss cough, hold bit open-wound grit-flesh salt-ash taste pulv-bone crunch molar jaw-echo. Abs res +5% wave red, quakes dull to rumble.
Month end ref vibr sick ener—trap anim mum-heart snap vit air, wall smear gut macab un hard prot-crust air steep sacr-rot reek. Cour no spark visc rag gutt void-ref gnaw bone. Emma echo graze fleet accus mock-ghost crush tram butch weight. No vow. Blade blood only.
The sacred rot's reek had seeped so deep by month's end that it coated my dreams, a miasma of damp-earth and alkaline bile that turned sleep into suffocation. The walls, smeared with gut unguent, hardened into protective crusts that wept occasional beads of congealed ichor, dripping like slow tears from the ceiling to pool at my feet, where they etched faint, vein-like patterns into the quartz floor. Traps evolved crueler: mummified hearts from lesser kills strung as anim-bait, pulsing faint in the blue glow, their snap vit-air chitter drawing twisted in whispers, only to clamp in bone-crunch symphonies that fed Vor in passive drip, strength swelling in incremental swells that made my limbs feel like coiled springs under too-tight skin.
Courage no spark; visceral rag, gutt void-ref gnawing bone deeper. Emma echo grazed fleeting, accusatory mock-ghost, her green eyes now shadowed with disappointment in the parasite flashes—"Idiot, shadows rush"—crushed under tram butch weight. No vow. Blade blood only. The ellipses hardened, months coiling like venom vines, each hunt a sacrament of erosion: agility dance through swarm, blade-quartz sing air in traque typ Veil-Scrat lur sac bloat enrag-heart, approach shad-shad strike sink bloat-abd tear memb acid-spurt scorch fore skin-blister pink-black bubb flesh-melt dang thread torn-veil, claw-rake tors deep-fur exp raw-meat bile-stream hot-riv rag-shirt soak, hold bite nape fang-sink rubb-flesh ven-bile expl mouth cerv-bone crack dry kindl ooze-marr gulp-burn retch bile-thread mix vom.
Abs Lv.6 spd +30% remnant-venom regen +20% toxic poison hone wound-knit fast blister scab hour back ref band spec-algae goo-wrap cling force-kiss shift-felt no just pow cour root scar-each vow Emma *back come strong us-for* but echo fade, bile-alcal drown. Batt 85.9% hold wit grow glitch-map sharpen surface-path branch clear peril-mark symbi-bleed.
Mid-month swarm Rampant Fissuré crawl-evo Sand-Echo skin transl ich-weep acid-drop mand micro-sonic fiss weep lure scan ping 15m approach dune-mut strike lead tear abd gran-pus-quartz gush corr fluid erod fore sup blist flesh peel transl shred dang fun-veil tend twitch ich-impreg drip acid drop floor sizz lead conv swarm fuse temp hunt mass dod agility ghost-slip blade carve thro mass fil pet-musc snap resound crack ground-trem corr fluid arc torch tors skin diss dang thread crack-rib exp liv skel bite cent "heart" coll puls mum-heart ven-sac fus tear flesh symb gush hyd visc expl ven-pulv quartz slur taste cosm bile crush-bone gel-marr pal sens delir Vor gorg spasm mut vein lum net net abys claim trade.
Routine hunts yield: day 20 Stone-Jaw amb crevice mand vise snap arm near cara hold crack not shatt rip under-flesh min-pus gush thick-gran stick-skin curse-res pull pet-musc strip tend-fib snap dry crack guit-str break black-blood flood soak-arm hot-visc mine-mingl scarl-soup stench-suff damp-earth alk-rot death-kiss cough hold bit open-wound grit-flesh salt-ash taste pulv-bone crunch molar jaw-echo abs res +5% wave red quakes dull.
Month end ref vibr sick ener trap anim mum-heart snap vit air wall smear gut macab un hard prot-crust air steep sacr-rot reek cour no spark visc rag gutt void-ref gnaw bone Emma echo graze fleet accus mock-ghost crush tram butch weight no vow blade blood only.
Year 1 End: Persistent Echo
Seas abs cycle mist-thick twist-mut fast form-warp vic hybr best length bone-polish Stone-Jaw tab etch lore frag matrix bleed ascend. Night-one new-rumble shake ref no seim pers twisted evo mid-shad size fus seen-trait echo-wing sand-claw basalt-rumble throat lurk draw scent surv dare-hope.
Fight blood-dance fluid-dodge counter-flay flesh float-tatt blood-arc wall-mur scarl land pois-claw gouge thigh shred-musc dang-fib scrap-bone vib pain shatt-tun fork scream Vor rav dev puls-heart warm-flesh throb tongue bite cosm bile crush-bone gel-marr pal sens delir Vor gorg spasm mut vein lum net net abys claim trade.
[Voracious Lv. 7 Unlocked]
Absorption: +35% END (Remnant Hybrid – 15% Mut Resist). Fusion calls. Essence defies.
Exh coll blue-quartz van twist mac troph cour no fil blade Emma sharp-flash laugh no echo prom oath draw escape this you-for epic write rumb ling deep jun grow me-with.
The persistent echo of Year 1's end lingered like a bruise on the soul, evo-twisted chitter fading into blue-glow hush, macabre troph slumped corner flesh twitch faint. Cour blade-sharp rag sole beac black epic slau chal cosm ref melt void mut scream oth. Ref fort mac troph skull-lant orb ooze lum ich vib sick ener but hold. Cycles coil tight mist-thick mut-fast form-warp vic hybr best length bone-polish Stone-Jaw tab etch lore frag matrix bleed ascend.