Ray-Azearth- kept muttering his name, each time he spoke it, it felt as natural as his own name, like he had been born with it.
He was Azearth now.
He opened and closed his eyes multiple times. The world was different. Sharper. The faint, phosphorescent glow from the cave fungi wasn't just a dim light anymore; it was a cascade of intricate, pulsing patterns. He could see the small individual mushroom caps, the slow, lazy drift of spores in the air. He pushed himself up from the cold stone, his movements fluid and powerful, and looked down at himself.
His body had changed again. The form of a twelve-year-old was gone, replaced by the lean, hardened physique of a young man. He stood taller, his muscles defined and coiled with a latent strength that felt endless. He ran a hand through his hair, which now flowed to his waist, black and lustrous.
A cool breeze brushed against his bare skin, and he looked down. He was completely naked. His gaze drifted lower, and a small smirk tugged at his lips. He was… impressively equipped. A surge of pride warmed his chest.
"Oh, I'm definitely gifted," he murmured, the voice deeper, more resonant than Ray's had ever been.
A wave of pure disgust radiated from the corner of his mind he shared with Ashborn. "Have some decency and cover yourself, you ungrateful brat. You are a Trueborn, not a beast in a mating display."
Azearth was brought out of his fantasies, but the smirk didn't quite leave his face.
Growll!!
His stomach started roaring like he was starving for a whole week.
"I'm so hungry, I could eat a bear," Azearth said sarcastically.
"Then eat," Ashborn's voice was flat, pragmatic. "The Gorger is right there."
"How am I supposed to make a fire now??"
"You can eat it sashimi style. Getting sick from raw meat is the least of your worries. With your body, it is almost… impossible."
He approached the colossal corpse of the Gorger Titan, the creature that had nearly ended him. Using his talons, which slid from his knuckles with a thought, he began the messy work of dismantling one of its massive hind legs, just as Ashborn directed.
The black, goopy liquid solidified into ten two-inch blades that sliced through the tough muscle and sinew with grisly efficiency.
Once a sizable chunk of dark, red meat was in his hand, he hesitated for only a second. Then, driven by the roaring in his gut, he bit down. His teeth, sharper than they should be, tore through the flesh easily. He expected to gag, to be repulsed.
His eyes widened in shock.
It was… delicious. An explosion of rich, savory flavor filled his mouth, followed by a wave of warmth and vitality that seeped into his very bones. The meat wasn't just food; it was fuel. He could feel the Nyrr within it being absorbed, adding to the swirling storm of ash in his core.
"Why is it soo good", Azearth said in delight.
"It's because you're now a full-fledged demon, you bastard," Ashborn muttered, a note of disbelief in his own tone as he watched his partner devour the entire leg in minutes, leaving only a clean bone.
"Why exactly is your name Ashborn and the first stage of profanity Ashborn too?" Azearth said connecting the dots.
Ashborn said with a proud tone, " It's because I was the first on to reach that stage ,you brat!! You should start worshipping me"
Azearth rolled his eyes and kept devouring the giant leg-piece.
Finally full, a profound sense of satisfaction settled over him. His first task was to cover himself. He used his talons to expertly skin a large section of the Gorger's purple hide. The fur was thick and warm. He fashioned it into a crude but effective skirt that wrapped around his waist, covering his genitals. It was primitive, but it was a start.
Now, it was time to leave.
He walked towards the cave entrance, the same one he had almost foolishly charged out of a day ago. He stepped out of the gloom and into the twilight of the forest.
The breath caught in his throat.
The cave was situated on a hill, giving him a panoramic view. This was nowhere close to the meager, tame forests of Earth. It was a primordial jungle of impossible scale. Everywhere he looked, there were trees the size of skyscrapers, their canopies so high they seemed to scrape the bruised purple sky. The air thrummed with alien life.
In the distance, he saw giant, crow-like birds, each the size of a truck, diving and hunting through the canopy. Their prey was a swarm of giant blue beetles, each as large as a motorbike, their iridescent shells glinting in the faint light.
Reality crashed down on him, cold and heavy. He was trapped here. In the depths of a world where the bottom of the food chain was a freaking lion.
"You're in the far depths of the forest, likely close to the center," Ashborn confirmed, his voice a steady guide. "Most monsters here will be peak-stage Ashborn to starting-stage Shardspawn. Those beetles are starting stage-one prey. The bottom of the food chain here."
Azearth's eyes, without his conscious command, began to change. The world shifted again. His pupils widened, the green in them brightening until his vision was tinted in hues of emerald. He could see farther, his sight piercing through the dense foliage. The lifeforms around him—the trees, the insects, the distant birds—all glowed with a soft, internal light of verdant green.
When he tried to look closer, he could see inside the trees. He saw the vein-like capillaries pumping water and minerals, saw the ambient Nyrr being drawn in and absorbed. It was a hidden world of flowing energy and life, laid bare before him.
"What is this?" he whispered, his head swimming as his vision switched from the microscopic details of a leaf's structure to the macro view of a glowing bird a kilometer away.
"It is another quirk of your Trueborn body. The Eyes of Life. You are perfectly in tune with living things, especially plants, as they have no powerful consciousness to block you. You can gaze inside monsters and other demons, look at their cores, their bones, their muscles. It is a very handy ability."
"How do I turn it off?" Azearth asked, feeling overwhelmed as his sight flickered from x-ray vision to life-form detection.
"You will get used to it after an hour or two. For now, just look far ahead and avoid any monsters you see on your path. The ones glowing brightest with green life force are the strongest. Go where the glow is faint."
Swearing inwardly, Azearth did as he was told. He focused his new sight ahead, mapping a path through the titanic roots and undergrowth where the green glows were weakest. He started walking, his new body moving with an easy, powerful grace that ate up the distance.
He walked for an hour, then two, his senses on high alert. He avoided a pack of dog-like creatures whose cores burned with a fierce green light and skirted a clearing where a giant, flower-like plant pulsed with a deceptive, beautiful magenta.
After what felt like four hours, the landscape began to change. The trees grew less tall, the variety of plants increased, and the lifeforms he saw were all a soft, steady green. The strongest was a peak stage-one, the weakest barely a flicker.
He was now in a part of the forest where he was, for the moment, the apex predator.
A restless energy filled him. He had survived, he had powered up, but he hadn't truly fought. Not on his own terms. He wanted to test himself.
His Eyes of Life caught a cluster of three bright green lights about five hundred meters away, perched high in a tree. Focusing, he saw they were monkey-like creatures with yellow fur and pitch-black eyes, fighting over the carcass of a giant squirrel. They were stage one.
"Prey"
A thrill shot through him. This was his chance.
He started to run, his body a blur of motion. He extended his palms, and the black talons flowed out, gleaming wickedly. His speed was incredible, rivaling a cheetah's.
He covered the five hundred meters in a mere fifteen seconds. As he reached the base of the tree, he didn't break stride. He jumped with all the power in his legs.
The monkeys were about five meters above. He shot past them, his head slamming directly into the butt of one and sending it tumbling from the branch with a startled shriek.
After he lost his momentum, he grabbed the branch they were on and pulled himself up in one smooth motion.
The two remaining monkeys, startled and enraged, attacked. They were fast, but to Azearth's new senses, they seemed to move ….slower.
As the first one lunged, he swung his left hand in a wide, powerful arc. His talons smashed into its head, and it burst apart in a shower of blood and gore.
The second monkey used the distraction. It swiped at him with its own claws, knocking him off balance. The hit landed on his scaled shoulder, and he felt a sharp impact, a couple of his scales cracking and falling away. The force was enough to knock him clean off the branch.
Thud!!