For someone who refuses to fall, I sure keep waking up flat on the damn floor.
Stone against my cheek. Cold, rough, probably blood-stained. Again.
I groaned and rolled over, or tried to. Everything hurt. Like I'd been curb-stomped by a bear. Which, honestly, wasn't far off. Except I was the bear. And the curb...
My ribs clicked. My shoulder crunched. My jaw felt like I'd tried to chew a brick. Still, no open wounds. No torn flesh. Skin intact, even if my shirt was basically a scarf now. I ran a hand down my chest. No blood. No pus. No obvious bones poking out.
Just deep, muscular ache, the kind you earn.
Then the hunger hit.
Not a polite kind of hunger. Not a "maybe I should eat something soon" kind of hunger. This was the kind that made you want to bite your own fingers off just to feel full for a second.
My hand was already moving before the thought finished. Pack. Ration bar. Rip. No ceremony. Just chewing like a starved animal. I barely even tasted it, and that was probably a good thing, because these things had the consistency of sun-dried protein brick.
Gone in five seconds.
One more down. Three gone now.
[Inventory: 2/5 Ration Bars Remaining]
I stared at the wrapper like it had betrayed me.
"One encounter," I said aloud, the words gritty and dry. "One. And I'm already down past half."
No response, of course. Just the faint hum of the System lights. I hated how clean the arena looked again. Like the blood and fire and screaming from earlier had been wiped away by some unseen janitor. Just a memory now.
I leaned back against the nearest wall, letting my head hit the cold stone with a thud.
Finally, finally, my brain started working again.
The worst of the fog lifted. The heartbeat pounding in my ears slowed. Thoughts lined up. Shapes made sense. I wasn't just a raging sack of instincts anymore. I was me again.
The silence stretched.
I thought about trying to rest longer, maybe squeeze out a bit more recovery, but the idea tasted wrong. Like mold.
The alert chimed first.
Clean. Trimmed. Sanitized.
🎉 CHALLENGE COMPLETE – Formation Encounter [5.1] Cleared! 🎉
Your performance has been logged and verified under nonstandard solo conditions.
Thank you for participating in this multi-role coordination exercise! 😊
📊 Merit Award Calculated: 500 merits
🔍 User Type Detected: LEGACY (Classless, Path-Based – Unsupported)
📑 Merit Tax Applied: Clause 7.3.4.e "Non-Standard Integration Adjustment"
💰 Final Reward Issued: 350 merits
🧾 Updated Merit Balance: 430 merits
Reminder: Legacy Users may experience reduced reward scaling due to systemic classification mismatch.
💡Tip: Consider class realignment to access full merit payout in future encounters!
"Sure," I muttered. "Do all the work, get thirty percent stolen. Just like back home..."
The message vanished like it hadn't just kicked me in the wallet.
Then came the real update, flat and sterile, but different. It felt older. Like it had roots.
[ROOT RESONANCE: BERSARKR – NORSE LINE: 4% → 7%]
Combat Behavior Evaluated: Sustained apex aggression.
Then the system chimed in and took credit for the roots work.
Root Resonance event detected, Bersarkr deepened, ongoing mutation... yeah, yeah.
Strength up 3. I did most of the smashing.
Vitality up 2. They did plenty back.
Presence up 3. Guess I scared the training bots?
"Continued deviation may result in annotation."?
The word hit harder than the numbers. Not a fix. Not a punishment. Just a note in the ledger while I turned into some Goldilocks bear freak.
It faded.
And for a moment, I just sat there, breathing through the quiet like it might undo what I'd just read. The Root resonance message lingered in my mind, sharp and sterile like fresh ink still drying on a verdict I hadn't agreed to.
Ongoing physical mutation.
Biological structure is being shaped.
Stable / Progressive.
The kind of words you hear right before someone in a lab coat wheels in a mirror and says, "Now don't be alarmed."
Too late for that.
I looked down at my hands.
At first it just seemed like the usual aftermath, the kind of trembling ache that came after pushing too far. My muscles were still humming from overuse. My shoulders burned. My jaw ached like I'd gone ten rounds with a wall and lost. That much was expected.
But then I really saw them.
My hands weren't just shaking. They were... heavier. The fingers thicker, the joints subtly swollen, like they were packing on mass for something my DNA hadn't approved. My fingernails looked wrong, not claws, not yet, but curved differently now. Blunter. Harder. Darker at the edges. Like tools instead of decoration. Like they were evolving into something meant to grip, tear, hold.
The hair on my arms had thickened too, coarser, denser, standing up in matted patches from dried sweat. I brushed at it, instinctively, like that might clean the wrongness off. It didn't.
Tylen probably gets stat boosts from smiling at his reflection. I get mutation warnings...
I pushed myself upright, slow and steady, wincing as I moved, not just from pain this time, but from the pull. My spine crackled faintly as I stood, and the sound wasn't right. Not the clean pop of joints realigning. This was deeper. A low, grinding shift from somewhere beneath the muscle. Like my bones had rearranged themselves while I slept.
I turned my arm, watching the way the muscle moved beneath the skin. It was mine. Still mine. But something about the way it flexed felt... wrong. Like I was wearing a version of myself built slightly too large. Too dense. Too ready.
I ran a hand over my chest and felt it there too. The muscle bulk had increased, I'd earned that, but the shape was off. My ribs didn't sit the same. My lats flared wider. Even my breathing sounded wrong. Deeper. Less like lungs, more like bellows.
I touched my teeth next, hesitant. And yeah, there it was.
Not full beast. Not yet. But my teeth were sharper. The edges too clean, too angled. Like something in me had decided prey was back on the menu. My molars were still blunt, but something was creeping forward in the lineup. Something eager. Something designed.
I had an intrusive thought, maybe those squirrels from Level 3 would be easier to eat now.
And then the worst part.
This wasn't damage.
This wasn't trauma swelling or recovery bloat or scar tissue.
This was change. On purpose.
The System warning replayed behind my eyes, cold and clinical.
I swallowed hard.
"Annotation," I muttered. "Yeah. That sounds perfectly fucking normal."
The System didn't say correction. Didn't say punishment. Just annotation. Like I was a note in the margin of some forgotten biology textbook. Not worth fixing, just worth flagging. A deviation. A flaw.
I took a slow, shuddering breath. My chest expanded wider than I expected, and even that startled me.
I didn't feel like I was falling apart.
I felt alive. Strong. Feral. Grounded in some primitive, brutal way. Like I could crush steel or tear through stone if I stopped pretending to care about control.
And that's what scared me.
Because if I felt good like this...
If I felt right...
How long before I stopped wanting to be human at all?
I looked down at my hands again.
[UNSANCTIONED ROOT INTERACTION DETECTED]
Attempted Identifier: R_T_T_S_K_R
Commentary (Unfiltered):
Oh, look at you. One brawl and already panting like a stray dog that thinks it's king of the alley.
Swollen flesh, broken teeth, bones cracking just to keep you upright. That's not strength, meatbag. That's rot in motion.
The Root isn't carrying you, it's chewing you. Every step you take, it's digging deeper.
Keep pretending you're in control. I'll enjoy the front row seat when your tail comes in...
Action Taken: None. Logged for compliance with Galactic Law §11.9.47 – Mythic Entity Interaction Disclosure Protocol
I read the message twice, jaw clenched tight.
Then a sound escaped me. Low. Rough. Wrong.
Not a word. Not a breath.
A growl.
My ears caught it a moment too late, that quiet, primal hum in my chest, barely above breath. Like something inside me was testing its voice.
Barely audible, but it came from me. From somewhere deep.
I swallowed it down, forced my mouth shut like I was locking a cage.
"Fuck off," I rasped, more to myself than to him. Or it. Or whatever the hell R_T_T_S_K_R was.
I wasn't going to let a disembodied "Unverified Mythic Construct" narrate my descent into beasthood like it was his personal reality show.
I closed my eyes, counted to three, didn't help, never did. My heart was still hammering like it wanted out. My nails still itched like they wanted something in.
My limbs stopped twitching. The fevered buzz in my nerves faded. Breathing came easier. The weight in my bones? Normal.
It didn't feel wrong anymore.
My shoulders didn't ache from carrying too much mass, they just were. My hands, heavier and callused, flexed without complaint. The curve of my spine fit the stance. Even the teeth in my mouth... they felt like mine. Like they'd always been there.
I rolled my neck. No resistance. No creak.
"Great," I muttered. "Goldilocks got railed by a bear, and now I'm what crawled out of the woods nine months later."
I rubbed at my face with one hand, rougher skin, thicker fingers, and sighed.
The hunger hadn't come back yet. But I didn't need a growling stomach to do the math.
Two ration bars left.
One fight had burned through more than half my supply. Not counting the sweat, the skin, the blood, the sanity.
And I had no idea how many more levels there were.
"Can't stop now," I said softly. "Not unless I plan on chewing the walls."
The System heard me. Of course it did.
With a soft chime, the archway reformed at the far wall, smooth lines glowing pale blue, pulsing like a heartbeat I didn't trust. A new pop-up appeared.
[Challenge Encounter – Level 2 Available]
Type: Extended Endurance Trial
Warning: Environmental attrition may result in exhaustion, starvation, or permanent injury.
Note: Proceeding will lock user entry. Emergency withdrawal unavailable until checkpoint reached.
Would you like to proceed to Challenge 2?
→ YES
→ NO
I read it.
Then read it again.
Because fuck me, right? "Extended Endurance Trial"...
And I'd already burned through more than half my food just surviving one glorified group project.
I looked down at my hands. Still too thick. Still too heavy.
The bulk, the weight, the grind in my spine, it fit now.
Like my body had stopped asking for permission.
"Fucking bear," I muttered. "Should've known Goldilocks was the real monster in that story..."
My stomach growled again.
Echoed by something lower in my chest that wasn't quite mine.
Jaw popped, shoulder burned, lungs still ragged. Didn't matter.
"Root wants me wild? Fine. Let's see what it thinks of a starving bear with nothing left to lose."
The arch throbbed brighter, like it was daring me.
I grinned, sharp and ugly.
→ YES