The first remora hit Kuro's mantle with the speed of a thrown dagger.
CRACK.
Its needle-fangs sank into his flesh—not deep, but precise, piercing between muscle fibers, injecting something cold and corrosive.
Then the second hit.
Then ten.
Then fifty.
The swarm swallowed him like a living storm of teeth and motion.
Kuro's body spasmed as dozens of micro-bites tore through him. The pain wasn't clean—it was jagged, frantic, frantic, like being chewed by a hundred rusted saws all at once. Blue-black blood spilled into the water in ribbons, drifting upward like ink trails from a dying god.
But pain was something he could devour.
Pain grounded him.
He roared—not with sound, but with force, a psychic bellow that ruptured some of the smallest remoras instantly.
He spun.
He twisted.
He let instinct and hatred guide him.
Then—he changed.
Something inside Kuro's arms clicked, a hidden muscle group he had never activated before. His tentacles flattened, sharpened, flexing like whips.
He became a blender of flesh.
Tentacles slashed through the water with demonic precision, slicing remoras cleanly in half. Bits of chitin and meat drifted like snow.
Three clung to his mantle, burrowing deeper.
Kuro slammed himself against a rock wall, crushing them instantly. Another pair clung to his eyes—he tore them free, ripping out part of his eyelid with them.
He didn't care.
He could grow it back.
If he survived.
But the swarm wasn't thinning.
It was multiplying.
Every time he crushed one, two more seemed to replace it—tiny larvae bursting from their corpses, swarming toward him, drawn by the scent of his blood.
A voice rang through the water:
> [Adaptation detected. Increasing consumption speed.]
The remoras accelerated.
Suddenly their bites began tearing chunks instead of fibers.
One ripped a small hole near his mantle cavity.
Another almost severed a tentacle tip.
Kuro felt something primal slip loose inside him.
Not fear.
Not rage.
Hunger.
He lunged forward and ate the nearest remora whole.
It squirmed in his beak, its carapace cracking between serrated plates. The taste was metallic, bitter, but the effect hit instantly—
A burst of energy.
A spike in mana.
Nerves repairing faster.
Kuro's chromatophores flickered, turning his entire body blood-red.
"Oh… I see," he thought.
He ate another.
Then three more.
Their adaptive functions were not immune to being consumed.
Every remora he devoured made him faster, sharper, more attuned to the Abyss's rhythms.
The swarm noticed.
> [Consumption protocol breach. Executing emergency reaction.]
The remoras linked together, forming a single organism — a rotating, spiraling drill of teeth and chitin aimed straight at Kuro's core.
A suicide weapon.
It struck.
GRAAAAASHHH—
Kuro was thrown back as the drill carved a spiraling wound across his entire mantle, slicing muscle layers open. A spray of ink and blood erupted behind him. His vision blurred as the trench walls spun.
The drill burrowed into him, inch by inch.
Gnawing.
Grinding.
Crawling toward his vital sac.
Kuro's beak clenched.
His tentacles twitched.
His mind went empty…
…and then a thought whispered through the void:
"If the Abyss eats me—
—I'll eat it first."
Kuro's entire body contracted.
Chromatophores blackened.
Blood boiled.
Muscles coiled.
He unleashed a chemical surge so violent it felt like his skin was detonating—an instinctive abyssal reaction, something buried deep in his reincarnated biology.
A pheromonal scream.
A predator's command.
The water vibrated.
The swarm faltered.
And for the first time—
The remoras hesitated.
Kuro wrapped all ten tentacles around the drill-organism and bit down.
His beak tore into the mass like cracking a skull.
Teeth shattered.
Carapace exploded.
Flesh dissolved under his venom.
The drill died in seconds.
The swarm broke formation.
And the Abyss went silent.
Blood poured from Kuro in clouds.
Chunks of his mantle hung loose.
One tentacle was limp, half-chewed.
His body stung with a thousand punctures.
But he was still alive.
Barely.
And for the first time…
The Abyss seemed unsure what to do with him.