The monstrosity filled the entrance, and Ray's breath hitched in his throat, his body going rigid with instinctive terror.
It wasn't a bear but a walking nightmare.
It stood a full six meters tall on its hind legs, its broad shoulders brushing the top of the cave entrance. Its fur was a deep, royal purple, matted and streaked with darker, wet patches of what could only be old and new blood.
But its most terrifying features were its eyes—solid, glowing orbs of crimson red, with no iris, no pupil, just two pools of intelligent light that scanned its domain with a predator's calm ownership.
In its powerful, bone-crushing jaws, it casually carried the carcass of a giant wolf, pitch black and at least three meters long, with multiple rows of needle-like teeth visible in its slack, dead jaw.
'Just what is that thing?!' Ray thought, a primal, bone-deep chill seizing him, freezing the blood in his veins. It was like a living mountain of muscle and primal fury.
"A Gorger Titan. A juvenile, from the size of it. It's in the early stages of Shardspawn, the second level on the Path of Profanity" Ashborn identified, his tone chillingly clinical and cold, a sharp contrast to the storm of fear in Ray's mind.
"The wolf is a Spinehowler. Nasty creatures. They can unhinge their ribs to form a second, larger mouth to devour their prey whole. That one was a late-stage Ashborn. If you are very lucky, and very precise, you could kill the Gorger. Its skin is as hard as forged iron, but your claws are one of the few things that can pierce it. If you have enough strength and time to claw through to its spine. Let it fall into a deep sleep first, or its senses will detect your slightest movement. Stay put and wait until I say so. Your life depends on your patience now."
Ray agreed silently, his mind reeling from the information. '
Shardspawn . Second level'.
He watched, his heart hammering against his ribs like a frantic drum trying to escape its cage, as the Gorger lumbered to the center of the cave with a ground-shaking gait.
It dropped the wolf carcass with a wet, heavy thud that echoed in the cavern and began to feed.
It was a brutal, efficient, and horrifying process.
It didn't just eat the meat; it devoured the wolf limb from limb, the sound of cracking bones and rending flesh a gruesome symphony in the silence.
Finally, with a strip of the wolf's black, glossy pelt held in its teeth, it added the skin to the large pile in its nest, a macabre collection of its trophies.
Then, with a deep, rumbling sigh that sounded like two mountains grinding together, it settled its massive, weary bulk onto the nest and, within minutes, its breathing deepened into the slow, rhythmic, earth-shaking rumble of a deep and powerful sleep.
Ray waited.
He waited until the breathing became a steady, predictable drone, until the faint, dreaming twitches of its immense muscles ceased completely.
He waited until Ashborn finally gave the command, his voice a soft but firm whisper in Ray's mind.
"Now. Slowly. No sudden movements. Your life is on a razor's edge."
Slowly, carefully, moving with a caution and grace he didn't know he possessed, Ray squeezed out of the cramped, confining crack in the wall.
He moved like a ghost, his bare feet making no sound on the uneven stone floor.
He approached the colossal, sleeping beast, his own heart sounding deafeningly loud in his ears, certain the monster must hear it.
He climbed the treacherous pile of skins and bones that formed the nest, his claws lightly extended for grip, until he was standing on the Gorger's own broad, muscular back, positioned right at the base of its thick, powerful neck—the kill zone.
He extended his hands, palms down. The black, goopy liquid manifested instantly, coating his fingers and solidifying into ten, two-inch-long, wickedly sharp black blades.
He willed his scales to cover every possible part of his body, his skin tightening and becoming as tough as leather across his limbs and torso. Only his face, the upper half of his neck, and his genitals remained unprotected, soft and vulnerable.
He took a final, mental breath, mustering every ounce of courage from his human life and his new, demonic body, thinking of Lucas's smirk, of his own broken body on the asphalt.
This was his first step away from being the victim.
'You're gonna be the first victim on my list Buddy!!'
'Here it goes.'Ray muttered inwardly.
He jumped, landing with both knees digging into the beast's shoulders and plunging all ten claws into the thick, leathery hide of its neck with all his might, every ounce of his newly found strength behind the thrust.
The effect was instantaneous and violently explosive.
The Gorger jolted awake with a roar that was less a sound and more a physical force, a pressure wave that stunned Ray's enhanced hearing and rattled his teeth.
Its solid crimson eyes flew open, blazing with pure, undiluted fury. It surged to its feet with shocking speed, Ray clinging on for dear life, his claws his only anchors deep in the muscle.
It tried to twist its enormous head to bite him, but its neck was too thick and short.
It tried to reach back with its own massive, clawed paws, but they scraped harmlessly against its own broad back, unable to dislodge the pest digging into its flesh.
Ray held on, his claws embedded deep in the muscle, and began to slash and stab frantically, a whirlwind of desperate violence.
At first, he only managed to shave away the thick purple fur, revealing the black, iron-tough leathery skin beneath.
He focused his attacks on one spot, plunging his claws in again and again, but they couldn't dig deep enough to reach the vital spine.
They were stuck in the dense, incredibly tough flesh, and his strength, while great, was insufficient to tear through it completely.
He was like a man trying to chop down a redwood with a pocketknife.
The Gorger, enraged and in blinding pain, resorted to a more direct, brutal method. It turned and slammed its back, with Ray attached, directly into the solid, unyielding cave wall.
SMASH!!.
The impact was devastating.
Ray's world exploded into a supernova of white-hot agony.
He felt his ribs crack, his collarbone snap like a dry twig.
The force was so great that several of his scales were torn loose, clattering to the floor like pieces of broken pottery.
But he did not let go. His claws were his only lifeline.
The bear slammed him into the wall a second time, with even greater force.
SMASH!!
More bones broke in his legs and back. A sharp, stabbing pain in his thigh suggested a fractured femur.
His vision swam, grey spots dancing at the edges, the cave spinning around him.
He was losing consciousness, the darkness beckoning.
This is it, he thought, the despair familiar. 'I die again. Pointlessly. I'm still a victim'
But then, as the Gorger reared back for a third, final, killing smash, a cold, ancient voice cut through the haze of pain in his mind. "The spine is just inches deeper! The force… use the force of the impact! Brace for it!"
Understanding dawned in a flash.
This wasn't just an attack; it was a tool.
As the Gorger drove its neck forward into the unyielding stone with all its might, Ray braced, not against the impact, but for it.
He focused all his will, all his remaining, fading strength, into his wrists and the claws buried in the beast's flesh and tilted his hands just enough for his elbows to be perpendicular to the cave wall when he collided.
SMASH!!.
CRUNCH!!.
The collision was brutal, but this time, a wet, sickening, final crunch echoed louder than the impact.
The force traveled up the Gorger's neck and into Ray's body, shattering more bone, but it also drove his already-embedded claws downward like a hydraulic press.
The ten black talons punched through the remaining flesh and sinew and severed the spinal column completely.
Ray wasn't completely unaffected either, both his arms had snapped from his wrists dangling like a limp noodles.
The Gorger's roar was cut off into a strangled, wet gurgle. Its forward momentum ceased instantly.
Its massive body went rigid for a second, then completely limp, collapsing forward onto the cave floor with a ground-shaking thud, dead before it even realized what had happened.
Ray, still lodged in its neck, his claws embedded deep in the spine, was thrown forward by the momentum.
He landed in a broken, bleeding heap beside the beast's massive head, his body a tapestry of agony.
He was fading fast, the darkness pulling at him, sweet and inviting, promising an end to the pain.
"Drink its blood", Ashborn's voice was a faint, desperate whisper in the encroaching void. "Drink, boy! Now! It is rich with Nyrr and life force. It will sustain you! DRINK!"
With the last shred of his will, Ray dragged his broken, screaming body an inch, then another, towards the gory hole his claws had made in the beast's neck. Burying his face in the warm, flowing wound, he drank.
The blood was thick, metallic, and potent, a fire that burned down his throat and into his core, a torrent of raw power.
He drank greedily, desperately, until his stomach was full and the world finally dissolved into a red, pain-filled darkness, and then into nothing at all.