Silence returned to the trench—
but it wasn't peace.
It was anticipation.
The Abyss watched him bleed.
Kuro drifted downward, his body a patchwork of bite wounds. Some seeped slow trails of dark fluid. Others pulsed faintly as they tried—and failed—to close.
Every movement sent a sting through his nerves, but he forced himself on.
He had felt death's mouth on him.
He refused to slow down now.
> [Vitality at 28%. Reconstruction stalled. Searching…]
[Potential Mutation Path identified.]
[Trigger: Critical Trauma + Swarm Adaptation.]
[Proposed Evolution—
Abyssal Shell: Forbidden Variant.
Do you consent?]
Kuro's mind sharpened.
A shell?
Squid didn't normally have one.
But he wasn't a normal squid anymore.
He floated still, sensing the vast water around him, bruised by pressure, scarred by battle. The remoras had been nothing more than scouts—adaptive parasites, deployed to test his limits.
So the Abyss was raising the stakes.
He whispered mentally:
"Do it."
The trench reacted first.
A pulse.
A deep, infrasonic tremor that rippled across stone and sediment. Loose rock cracked. Plumes of sand rose from depressions. The water around Kuro tightened—like a hand closing around him.
Then it began.
His skin hardened.
Not like armor—
more like something ancient stirring inside, remembering a shape from a lineage he'd never lived.
Bands of dark material surfaced beneath his flesh, sliding upward like scales being pushed from below. They weren't metal. Not bone.
Something in-between.
Something forbidden.
Every emerging plate locked into another, forming a subtle but unmistakable exoskeletal pattern across his mantle and down several tentacles.
Not bulky.
Not heavy.
Elegant. Predatory.
And still growing.
It hurt.
Not sharp pain—
a pressurized ache, like his body was trying to outgrow itself in seconds.
He curled inwards, trembling as the mutation spread along the seams of his muscles. The air of the Abyss throbbed. The trench walls shook again—faint dust raining down like the ocean was shedding tears for him.
When it finally stopped…
Kuro felt different.
He flexed a tentacle—and the new plates shifted seamlessly, following his movements like a second skin. The wound-riddled flesh beneath felt reinforced, stabilized.
He should've felt heavier.
Instead, he felt—
Fast.
Quiet.
Deadly.
The System chimed:
> [Evolution Complete.]
[You have unlocked: Forbidden Shell — Phase I]
Effect: Minor damage negation. Pressure resistance. Instinctive deflection.
Warning: Higher phases require extreme conditions to unlock.]
Kuro didn't get time to admire it.
Something screamed in the distance.
Not a remora.
Not a predator he knew.
A colossal, warping shriek, echoing through the trench like metal being torn apart.
The water vibrated against his shell.
Little stones jumped across the seafloor.
Kuro turned sharply, newly reinforced tentacles fanning out in a defensive arc.
Then he felt it.
A presence.
Huge.
Ancient.
Approaching fast.
And starving.
The Abyss whispered to him—not from outside, but from inside the new shell plates themselves:
"The next trial comes."
"Do not hide. It smells your blood."
"Rise."
Kuro inhaled.
He lowered his stance.
His shell plates clicked together with a soft, lethal sound.
The darkness ahead split open as the creature entered the trench.