The crack I squeezed through sealed itself with dust, muting the Blind Feeler's furious screech on the other side. Pebbles rolled down my back as the debris settled. I waited, low and perfectly still, until the echoes faded.
Not calm.
Just aware that movement meant death.
My new body trembled—not with fear but with something far more troubling: too much energy.
The Slumberer's essence was still roaring through me like an overfed furnace. Every limb felt tight, sharp, ready to burst. My claws kept extending and retracting on their own, scraping faint furrows into the stone.
I hated that lack of control.
Or… did I?
A thin thought surfaced: Control is human. Hunger is truth.
I shook the feeling away and moved on.
The tunnel beyond the collapsed stones was narrow—walls close enough for my whiskers to brush both sides. My shadow fur rippled with each exhale of mana drifting from deeper cracks. Night Sense painted the world in heat lines and faint vibrations.
Behind me, the Blind Feeler screeched again, frustrated.
It couldn't reach this tunnel.
For now.
I padded forward, letting Silent Step carry me like a whisper.
Soon the tunnel widened into a low-ceilinged cavern. Stalactites hung overhead like stone fangs. Water dripped in steady intervals, each drop echoing loudly in my sharpened hearing.
Something stirred behind a cluster of rocks.
A faint, cold tremor.
Not essence.
Not heat.
Movement.
My fur bristled.
A creature crawled out—slowly, deliberately. Its body was flat and long, like a carpet of interlocking black scales. Too many legs. Its head was a blunt wedge with mandibles that clicked rhythmically.
A Crawlspine Centipede.
Analyze slid into place:
[Crawlspine Centipede]
[Threat: Medium]
[Behavior: Territorial, venomous]
[Weak spots: Soft ridge under head]
[Note: Venom ineffective on shadow-based species]
Good.
Venom didn't frighten me anymore.
But its size did—longer than I was tall, and twice as heavy.
It turned toward me.
Not sensing heat.
Not scent.
Movement.
It started clicking its mandibles faster.
I froze.
The centipede surged.
A black blur.
Too fast.
Its mandibles snapped inches from my throat. I leapt backward, claws scraping sparks off the rock. It barreled forward again, massive body coiling like a whip. If it pinned me, I'd be crushed. Shadow or not.
My instincts screamed one word: Bite.
I obeyed.
I darted low, slipped under the first segment as Silent Step erased the sound of my feet. The centipede twisted, trying to track me—but I was already beneath its head.
My fangs flashed.
Not solid bone, but dense shadow hardened into physical edge—the new Minor Fang Upgrade.
I sank them into the soft ridge under its throat.
The creature spasmed violently.
Essence gushed out, hot and metallic, flooding my tongue. My claws dug into the stone as I held on, its entire body thrashing overhead. Segments slammed into the walls, shaking dust loose.
It tried to curl around me.
I tore harder.
Devour ignited like a storm, pulling its essence directly through my bite. The centipede screeched once—an ugly, grinding sound—then collapsed in segments like falling dominoes.
[Devour Successful.]
[Predation Level: 3.1 → 3.5]
[New Trait: Barbed Bite (Minor)]
[Instinct Rise Detected]
[Next Evolution Approaches]
My breath shook.
Not from exhaustion.
From the pleasure of the hunt.
It was starting to feel… natural.
I stepped back from the dissolving corpse, its essence fading into my fur in small electric arcs. My limbs felt stronger again. Too strong. My form vibrated with restless tension, like my body wanted something my mind hadn't allowed yet.
Evolve, instinct whispered.
Soon.
I swallowed that voice and turned deeper into the cavern. The air changed—cooling, thickening. Mana currents swirled here in lazy spirals. A deeper beat echoed faintly from below:
Thump.
Then again:
Thump.
Something alive.
Something large.
Something asleep—or pretending to be.
I moved slowly, tail low, ears high.
The cavern sloped downward into a basin littered with bones. Old kills, broken horns, cracked shells. The remains of creatures far larger than anything I'd fought so far.
Night Sense lit the basin in heat silhouettes.
Nothing moved.
But the thumping continued—subtle, steady, like a slow heartbeat resonating through stone. Deeper than the Burrower Warden. Older.
The cavern felt wrong.
Heavy.
Occupied.
A faint warning flickered in my mind:
[Zone Hazard: High]
[Unknown Apex Signature Detected]
[Recommendation: Withdraw]
My paws froze.
Even my instincts—aggressive as they'd grown—hesitated.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Some predators didn't hunt.
They waited.
I backed away slowly, never turning my back on the bone-filled basin.
One step.
Two.
The heartbeat paused.
The entire cavern held its breath.
Then—
A deep inhale rolled out of the basin, pulling dust toward the darkness. Bones rattled gently.
Something was waking up.
Something that had noticed me.
I didn't think.
I ran.
Silent Step carried me like a whisper, but the cavern walls shook with a low growl that followed from behind. Something massive stirred among the bones.
Not now.
Not now.
Not now.
I sprinted up the tunnel, claws digging into stone. Shadows streamed behind me like trailing smoke.
The cavern quaked again—something rising.
Then a roar—low, cavernous, ancient—echoed through the tunnels like a storm trapped underground.
I didn't look back.
Not out of fear.
Out of instinctual respect.
Some predators were meant for later.
Some prey—like me—knew when to leave.
Only when the roar faded did I slow to a stop, chest heaving. My fur bristled in sparks of mana. The instinct voice inside me murmured, frustrated but not reckless:
Not yet. Evolve first. Grow. Then return.
I swallowed the hunger and padded into a narrow side corridor, safe for now.
But the echo of that roar stayed lodged in the back of my mind.
A promise.
A challenge.
A future fight written into my bones.
And I knew, with cold certainty:
I will devour that thing one day.
But not as a Shadowling.
Not even as a Tier 2.
Something more.
Something worthy of the dark.
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