The aftertaste of fish guts clung stubbornly to the roof of his mouth, giving him a bitter, salty texture on his tongue, but he didn't mind that much. Maybe in another life, he would have, but in his current predicament, he really couldn't afford to be picky or squeamish. That could wait for when he was a handsome monster who didn't have to hunt for his food anymore. He licked his teeth absentmindedly, coiling his tongue back like a retractable whip and pulling it behind the rows of teeth that were far too sharp and numerous for a human mouth.
He shifted again, this time moving his body sideways along the rock like a slug attempting to masquerade as a snake, and while sure, it was a bit gross, at the very least it was an efficient way of moving, at least until he figured out a better way of movement. Function over form, that sort of thing.
He looked gross now, but one day he would be the most majestic thing there ever was. That was the plan, anyway.
He might just decide to become evil and build an empire of the undead if he ever figured out how to control the undead and pick up some hot chicks along the way, if he had the opportunity.
Did that even exist here, though? Not the women, obviously, since he was pretty sure there was a universal rule that women had to exist no matter what, but necromancy. He didn't know, but he'd look into it if it did.
It might be useful.
But that was for another time.
He reached a flatter section of the cave wall and settled there, folding himself in a way that felt natural, despite the physics-defying squish and pop of bones that didn't belong in a normal skeletal structure.
He hadn't found a mirror, but what little reflection he'd caught in the water of himself suggested that he was something vaguely mimicking an amphibian animal with an eel-like body.
He had huge eyes, one of which was bigger than the other, but also the most distinctive part about his whole entire appearance was that they were glowing. Beyond that, he was at a loss as to what he truly looked like.
He had hands, though.
He confirmed that on the tenth day he was here. While they looked a little… okay, they appeared very unhuman, with some of the fingers looking eerily malnourished and twisted, they were… handy? By all means, they were inferior to an actual human hand, but they worked very similarly, allowing him to perform some complex movements that he otherwise wouldn't be able to do without them.
Nevertheless, they serve more as legs than anything else, and while he couldn't pick up his entire body with them, it made slithering around the ground much easier and less painful.
The reason he wasn't going around massacring everything he wanted was mainly because, well, he couldn't move very well. Secondly, moving was very painful. Swimming was a little bit easier, but the fish in there, being so eager to kill him and all, made him not want to tread into the water lest he be ripped apart by its inhabitants.
So, because he had the unique ability to breathe outside of water, he opted to hunt his opps from a distance where they couldn't reach him, using his only 'cheat' to catch them, which was very successful.
And the best part was the fact that the little Gremlins never learned, which was to be expected considering their brains were the size of a peanut, or close to it.
In the water, he could never hope to challenge the creatures, but on land, where he could cheat all he wanted, it was all but a simple matter.
And he was getting good at it, too. If this place had a fishing guild, he'd have qualified for at least a silver badge by now. Maybe even a gold if the fish counted as monsters, which they probably did, considering how one had tried to tear his eye out when he grabbed it from the water and nearly missed sliding the thing into his mouth.
It was strong and aggressive, but he eventually managed to gulp down the gremlin, making sure to take his sweet time enjoying its flavor before he burned it with the acid in his stomach and went for his next victim.
But besides all that, he thought a lot while he waited for prey.
It was mostly nonsense, but sometimes something useful would stick, and he would just go along with the stray thoughts, sometimes even having entire conversations in his mind when he did so. How else could one remain sane, when they are all alone in a dark cave?
On those occasions, though, when his luck didn't flare to fill his stomach, he would occasionally glance at the side of the cave.
Contrary to popular belief, besides himself and the fish, there were flies (which he really needed to figure out where they were coming from), and besides them, there was another creature here.
If one had legs to move around and also managed to have the basic skills to know how to swim and cross the river, they would quickly come across a dark spot near the cave's entrance that was tucked between two stalactites, where they would quickly encounter a hole that was home to a bear.
It wasn't an ordinary bear, either. It was big and had a relatively short face with a muscular appearance and glowing eyes. It was menacing and powerful, and each time it came out of its hiding hole, just like the fish it had to hide.
He never had a real look at it, but from a distance, he could tell that it was big. It might have even towered above most humans if it stood at its full height, but it was big.
The water and the fish were what really protected him since it was too deep for it to merely walk across and kill him, and the fish in there were too aggressive for it to just swim across and kill him. From the way it looked at him, though, it clearly wanted to, but it knew it couldn't, so it didn't.
Bears were opportunistic hunters, and if something looked too hard to kill, they just wouldn't do it. So not only did their instincts save him but the fish were inadvertently protecting him as well.
And good Lord, was he thankful for that.
Bears, no matter which world he was in, were scary as hell. They were the only animals he was afraid of, not just because of their monstrous strength, but because they were the only animals, besides hyenas, that he knew of that would eat an animal alive.
If he ever planned to leave this cave, and he wasn't entirely sure he did, not yet anyway, he'd have to deal with the bear. That, or outgrow it in size and strength, which was preferable but currently very theoretical.
Bears weren't active hunters and mostly gained their weight from eating plants and other vegetation, but among the creatures of the earth that he knew of, they were one of the most dangerous. A bear, although a scavenger, fit the build of a perfect predator, whereas he didn't.
He blinked slowly, each eyelid moving in a different rhythm as he fixed his gaze on the location of the bear, activating his clairvoyance.
He allowed his left eye to show him the potential possibilities of what could occur while shifting his right eye to something else. The inverted crossed slit in his eyes shifted and turned color, glowing a dull bright red hue as he focused on the vibrations in the air.
The world turned into pulses and thrums, vibrating against his skin and the tips of his fingers while his echolocation-like sight painted the bear's position, its body shifting positions ever so slightly in his left eye, but he knew it was just the potential way it could move, so he didn't focus on it much. It was asleep, judging by its deep breathing and the subtle twitches of its body, which was a relief.
While he couldn't directly see the monster due to the dark spot in the cave where it was located, he could see the vibrations coming off its body, and based on those vibrations, he could accurately pinpoint where it was and in which position it was.
His left eye was even able to glimpse its possible future because of the mental image he had created in his mind, which was great, since he didn't even think it would work, at least at first.
He breathed out slowly, a soundless exhale that made no real difference in the air around him but helped settle the rising itch in his nerves.
Clairvoyance took effort, and even though it was a small amount of energy he spent in seeing things, it still took energy out of him.
After a while of not obsessively observing the only being in this cave that could and would kill him if it had the opportunity, he turned off the ability.
The world dulled again, and he once again became just as blind as everything else in the world.
But it was time to sleep anyway and he needed to conserve his energy to build up biomass.
Moving his body further atop the tiny cliff he was on, he curled himself into a ball-like position. He even felt his tail and curled it with the rest of his body, trying to build warmth.
He had an idea for tomorrow.