The silence after the battle always felt heavier than the fight itself. The cavern walls were alive with the echoes of chittering mandibles and death cries. But now they stood in eerie stillness.
The bodies of the Maw Crawlers lag strewn across the rocky ground, their thick Balck ichor seeping into the cracks. And a deep scent of iron and decay clung to the air and mixed with the lingering traces of something else.
The last surviving Maw Crawler remained crouched before him, its head lowered in reluctant submission. The Abyssal Resonance within his pulsed, tendrils of unseen energy curling around the creature's mind, binding it to his will.
He could feel it.. the raw, primal instinct that once drove it to kill now twisted into obedience. It was not loyalty. Not yet.
It was just the simple truth of the Abyss. This is the place where the strong ruled and the weak served.
He flexed his claws fingers, the dark ichor which has coated them cracked as it dried. His body is still full of energy from the battle, his muscles increased in density, and his strength has increased.
But beneath that, the hunger remained. It has become an endless pit now. Always demanding more and never fully satisfied.
The hunger had grown worse since he had absorbed the remnants of forgotten. It was no longer, a hunger for sustenance. But more, it wants something more. More bloodshed.
His gaze drifted across the battlefield scanning the corpses of his fallen enemies. He had already devoured, many of them, yet the void within him still refuses to be filled.
His instincts urged him to consume again. To rip into the still-warm flesh of them. Devourer them, and take everything they had to offer. But even as the thought crossed his mind, he felt something else pulling his senses.
A presence. Faint, but attractive. It is coming from the largest of the fallen creatures.
A massive maw Crawler which is twice the size of the rest. It is the one which led the others into battle.
Its body was different from the rest. Its carapace is thicker, and its limbs are more defined. As if it had been on the cusp of something greater.
But it was not the corpse that had drawn him in. It was what lay inside its body.
He stepped forward, boots pressing into the slick ichor as he approached the fallen beast.
He turned its body over. His claws twitched, a. Unexplainable anticipation coiling in his chest.
He knew without needing to be told, that whatever was buried within this creature must be valuable.
The voice of the Abyss spoke.
[Warning: Anomaly detected. Unknown essence present within target remains.]
His grin was sharp, his heart quickening with excitement. "Show me."
He drove his hand into the Maw Crawler's chest, piercing through layers of hardened chitin with sickening ease.
The resistance was minimal as if the creature's flesh had already begun to weaken from the inside.
A cold sensation crawled up his arms as his fingers wrapped around something solid.
It was not bones. But something else. It was something that pulsed with an unnatural rhythm. As though it were still alive.
With a sharp pull, he tore it free. It was core.
But unlike the cores he had seen before, the dim, flickering orbs of lesser creatures, this one was different.
It was larger, darker. It pulsed in his grip, veins of crimson light threading through its black surface, shifting like liquid fire.
The very air around it vibrated with an unseen force, sending shivers through his spine.
The voice of the Abyss spoke again.
[Fragment of the Forgotten King acquired.]
He looked confused. The Forgotten King?
The words meant nothing to him, yet they stirred something deep in the recesses of his mind.
A memory he did not have. A story he had never heard. And yet, it felt like a part of him knew. Knew that this fragment was more than just another source of power.
It was a piece of something greater. The Abyssal Resonance pulsed again stronger this time as if reacting to the core in his grasp.
A flood of memories suddenly rushed through his mind. Whispers in a language he didn't understand, images of shadows moving across endless halls, and a magnificent throne standing in the dark, empty and waiting for its king.
The sudden rush of memories, made him feel like his head was going to burst. His grip tightened. This core wanted something.
It wants to be consumed. The hunger inside him roared in agreement.
For a moment, he hesitated. This was different from before. The essence within this fragment was not just raw power.
It contains knowledge, memory, and history. To consume it would mean taking in more than just strength. It would mean taking in something else. Something that had once ruled
With a slow, deliberate movement, he raised the core to his lips. His fangs sank into its surface.
And the moment his mouth touched it, the world around him shattered.
Darkness.
It was not the suffocating blackness of the Abyss, nor it was a mind-numbing void of unconsciousness.
This was something deeper. It is a space where the concept of time did not exist. Where even the concept of form was meaningless.
And in that darkness, a pair of eyes were watching him.
It was vast. Endless. Not the being, but just the mere presence of it. Not alive, at the same time not dead. A will that had been broken for a long time still refuses to fade.
And now, it saw him. At this time, a voice was ancient and hollow. That shook the shape. Echoed through the void.
"Who dared to take what was mine?"
Just hearing its voice felt like his soul would tear apart. He could not speak. Not could he move. The presence bore down upon him, pressing against his mind with the weight of something far beyond mortal comprehension.