Three more creatures ambushed him from rooftops. Their frames were jagged and malnourished, yet unnaturally swift. He cut them down one by one, breath shallow and clothes stained with their smoke. Each time they died, the air grew more suffocating, as if the city was mourning them.
The doll bound their movements with the fear of death, while Aaron slipped between them, poisoning one after another with Blight.
The combination was lethal.
For the first time, Aaron was genuinely grateful he was a rat. His smaller frame let him dodge easily, and the enemies missed him far more often than they hit.
Slowly, his fear faded. And as it faded, they stopped detecting him.Their greatest advantage over him, his fear, was becoming useless as the battle went on.
In a collapsed building far from Aaron, something moved.
A massive jaw worked violently, crunching through flesh and bone. Its face was buried inside a carcass, chewing with wet, tearing sounds. Blood sprayed across the floor and dripped from its chin, painting the ruined walls in red streaks.
Then, it stopped.
The creature lifted its head slowly, as if savoring the moment. Empty eyes stared into nothing, but its lips peeled back anyway.
A wide, unnatural smile stretched across its face, too calm, too human, too pleased.
Its deformed face and bent legs, paired with short arms, resembled a human more than the other deformed mist villagers, yet something about it was even more uncanny.
Aaron walked toward the plaza, the doll already picked up and shoved back inside.
He hadn't needed to use its upgraded ability, the base effect was strong enough. Thanks to that, he had saved its charge.
But he had noticed something unsettling. Each time he used the doll, the fear of death it induced became slightly weaker. If the monsters weren't finished quickly, some of them began breaking out of its influence. Just like him, they were slowly overcoming fear, a human trait they still retained despite their deformation.
"Bravery is a foolish desire to battle for and against death," Aaron muttered to himself.
He had also noticed something else about the doll, it didn't possess a class.
He checked it through the system, but the class description was missing entirely. That alone felt unnatural.
'Classes were always imposed on items inside the Karmic Catacombs. Yet somehow the Nightmare God had freed the doll from the class system enforced by the dungeon. That's might be the reason it doesn't possess one.
The blackened heart carried divine properties as well, so that made sense, for it to have no class as well.
But the mask was different. It seemed like it came from someone close to godhood, or someone powerful but not a god. That was likely why it was still bound by a class imposed by the Catacombs.' He thought.
He was now more curious about the gods.
For now, he only knew they resided in other realms, and one of them was dead. Killed by someone who had blessed him and given him mercy from his domain.
For that, he was grateful. He prayed to the god of nightmares once more inside his heart.
He trotted toward the central plaza, surrounded by huge ruined buildings. Broken slabs lay scattered across the ground, and the insides of the old taverns were exposed to the outside world as if the walls had been peeled away.
Tables, shattered chairs, and rust-coloured stains still decorated the hollow interiors, frozen in time. The wind passed through the broken windows, making a low, mournful whistle.
Even though he knew he wasn't alone, he felt lonely for some reason.
"Abandoned places sure have an eerie feeling…"
Suddenly, his instincts screamed at him, calling him.
He bent down as his head was in excruciating pain. Something was causing terror in him.
He quickly reached into the inventory to pull out the salve, but before he could, a giant jaw tore through the ground and fully engulfed him whole. Inside, he was surrounded by darkness.
The smell of iron infiltrated his nostrils, and his eyes shot open in shock.
"Blood!"
He turned toward the doll and manifested it inside the darkness. The moment he did, the surface split open again, and light pierced through the jagged gap. Surrounding him were broken bones and mutilated flesh.
He lunged out with all his strength before the monster could close its jaws again.
The moment Aaron burst out of the monster's jaws, he hit the stone floor and rolled, coughing out blood and bile. His ribs felt cracked, and his whole body shook.
He forced himself up. He didn't even get a full breath before the creature slammed down beside him, its giant jaw snapping shut, missing him by an inch.
Its deformed body crawled toward him on short arms and twisted legs. Human… yet not. Its stretched skin trembled with each movement, and its eyes, too many—glared with hunger, pure hunger.
Aaron clicked his tongue.
The doll was still lodged inside the monster's jaw.
The creature vomited it out, and it dropped onto the ground with a light thud. The effect was still in place.
The monster froze.
Its whole frame locked, shaking as if remembering what death felt like. A primal, choking horror seeped into the ruin.
The beast terror was in action too, it was much more intense than the monsters Aaron fought before.
He could feel the tension, too, like a rope tightening around both of them, but he forced himself to move. He dashed forward, climbing onto the creature's back and bit directly into its neck, fangs sinking deep.
Blight Bite.
A sickening yellow spread beneath the skin, but the monster didn't fall.
It howled, shrieking from a mouth that split open all the way to its skull. The fear of death was already weakening. It fought through it, just like he did.
"Damn it… break… break already!"
He bit again. And again. Poison spread, skin smoking, muscle collapsing.
But the creature threw itself backward, crushing him under its weight. His ribs screamed. His vision blurred.
He reached for the doll again, forcing another wave of terror.
The creature stopped mid-movement. Its whole body trembled. Tears, yes, tears dripped from its many eyes. It remembered dying. It remembered pain. The fear was not of danger, but of ending.
Aaron tore himself free from under its bulk and sank his fangs into its throat one last time long, deep, refusing to let go until the smoking rot spread across its whole chest.
The monster collapsed.
But it didn't fade like the others.
"nnNoo Smmoke.." Aaron wheezed.
Its flesh, bone, and muscle, twisting due to blight but was still warm—still present on the cracked plaza floor.
Aaron stood over it, trembling and panting, his legs barely holding.
"B****!"
His eyes darkened.
He bowed down on the corpse.
Corpse Memory Activate.
The yellow venom in its blood shivered. Its muscles convulsed. The whole body twitched as if refusing to die a second time. And then it began to sink, no, merge into Aaron.
Munching sound covered the plaza and the blood spattered across the floor. Seeping inside the dried and thirsty concrete.
All those instincts, movements, patterns, pain, habits… flooded into Aaron.
The corpse memory was flooding his tiny rodent brain.
It hurt. It terrified him. But he didn't stop.
When it was over, the body was gone. Only the cracked stones of the plaza remained slick with blood.
Aaron dropped to his knees, shivering.
"…it was a monster.... Alright..." he whispered to no one.
"I didn't hesitated!!"
Deep inside, he could feel it, the monster's movement, its reflexes, its way of killing, its terror.
His deep sorrow...
His love...
His anger...
His regret..
All of its memory whether muscle or painful belonged to him now...